“Here, I already made the pattern. It’s not that difficult.”
He glances at me, and then down again. I don’t look at him. I cut a little harder than I have to and snip off the edge of a nail by accident. I chew on the inside of my lip, and Micah sighs, really sighs this time, and his breath makes the feather I’m cutting flutter. He gives in. “Oh, fine. Tell me about the wings.”
“Okay,” I say, and he laughs because it comes out so quickly. “You know Leo da Vinci’s flying machine?”
“The one that didn’t work?”
“Yeah, that one,” I say. I reach across the fairy tales and start sketching on Micah’s calc review. “See,” I say. “I’m using wire and bamboo for the main frame, and these”—I draw the wing fingers—“these here are going to be just wire. You remember the pantyhose and wire sculpture I did? Freshman year? With the spray paint? It’s going to be like that, but bigger, a hundred times, with feathers instead of spray paint. I think I might call it Icarus.”
“Why?” he asks. “Icarus’s wings didn’t work either. And that’s not really a fairy tale.”
Why is he stomping all over my dreams?
“They did work,” I say. Keep calm. “They totally worked. Daedalus made it across the sea fine. You know what Icarus’s problem was? He loved the sun too much. He loved fire, like me. He saw the light and he loved it more than anyone. There are things worth dying for.”
Micah leans back against the Metaphor and raises his hand to block the sun from his face. “Oh, come on, Janie. What happened to hating clichés and all that?”
“Huh?”
“Dying for love?” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head at the same time, so it just looks like his eyeballs are loose. “You’re such a romantic, Janie. Is that part of your whatever-step plan with Ander? Fall in love, die for him to prove your devotion?”
“You’re such an asshole, Micah.”
I didn’t mean to say it. But I don’t take it back.
I want to take his condescension and shove it up his nose.
Instead I take a breath. I push the feathers and calculus aside and scoot until I’m sitting in front of him, our legs crossed and knees touching. He doesn’t look up, but it takes effort now. He wants to; I want him to too, and our soul is so tired of straining.
“You know Mr. Markus’s key to happiness?” I ask him.
Every year, on the last day of classes, Mr. Markus tells the seniors the key to happiness. That’s it, really—no one knows anything else, because the seniors have never spilled, ever. No one has ever teased the secret out of Mr. Markus before he was willing to tell it, and the suspense has been driving me crazy since we were freshmen.
Micah snorts. He’s a disbeliever. He still won’t look at me, either, so that’s annoying. He’s doing it on purpose.
“I’ve decided that I’m going to get it early,” I tell him. “I don’t care what it takes.”
“I’m sure you will.” It’s not a compliment.
I leap to my feet. I give up. I don’t want to leave and I don’t want him to leave, but right now the friction on our soul is making me itchy. I glare at the Metaphor.
You and me, I think, and begin to climb again.
The stones do the same sliding thing, and there’s nothing to hold on to. The whole thing is crumbling as I climb, so I climb faster. I use our soul as an anchor and a rope—friction is useful that way. The Metaphor crumbles, and I climb faster. The rocks fly all over, but I keep going, and—
“Janie? What the hell are you—holy shit.”
And that makes it all worth it. I’m not at the top—not yet—but I’m higher than either of us has been before, and I beam down at Micah before I spread my arms and shout, “Right here.”
“Right here what?” asks Micah.
I drop my arms and blow him a kiss. “Don’t you feel it? Just listen. Don’t you feel it, Micah? This is where the world is going to end. I’m giving you a front-row seat to the apocalypse. So what do you think? Music, Micah. Everything needs a good soundtrack. The apocalypse most of all.”
He thinks for a long time. That’s one of my favorite things about Micah—he always takes these kinds of questions seriously. He always thinks that I deserve an answer. “Rachmaninoff, maybe? ‘Prelude in G Minor.’”
“Really?” I say. I can almost touch the sky. I’m stretching so hard that I feel the tension in every cell, every atom. “I would have gone with the Beatles. ‘Let It Be.’”
He watches me and I watch the sky, and I smile because it doesn’t feel like the world is ending at all.
after
NOVEMBER 24
I’ve been thinking a lot about being a suspect. Some about how I’ve never been one before. Some about how it could be true.