He squints at his watch. “Twelve fifteen. Almost.”
“Happy birthday, Micah Carter,” I say. “This is my present, by the way. I hope you like it.” I put my face in his side and smile. “We’re eighteen, mostly.”
He pushes me away, and for a second I wonder if this isn’t enough, if he’s still angry, before I open my eyes and see him shifting so he can pull an envelope out of his pocket.
“What’s that?” I ask, already reaching.
“Happy birthday, Janie Vivian,” he says, shy.
I open it and begin to cry.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, Micah. What did you do? Did you really?”
They’re tickets, and brochures, and phone numbers and emails and a map to Nepal.
“This is the trip.” I still can’t get my voice louder than a whisper. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, Micah. Did you really? You can’t do this, it’s too much—I mean, I’m going to take it, obviously. But Micah. Micah. I can’t believe you. How did you know?”
He laughs. “Are you kidding? You’ve been looking at that page for months and closing it if you thought anyone was looking. You even didn’t start your college applications, did you.”
It’s not a question because he already knows the answer. I can’t stop sniveling. His smile is everything.
“You have to pay me back,” he says, but he still can’t stop smiling for long enough for either of us to take him seriously. “I only got it because I knew you’d never go unless someone told you it’s a good idea.”
“Oh, shut up, Micah,” I say. I love him more than anything. I grab him and drag him against me, full-on sobbing into his bony shoulder. The boat wobbles and Micah shouts a warning and his head bumps mine and we collide. We are whole again, we are us.
“So there,” he says, “now you know what you’re doing next year. Good Samaritan Janie Vivian. I still have no idea where I’m going to be—”
I slap my hand over his mouth, because I’m not done admiring my tickets, and none of that matters right now anyway. Tonight. This moment is all that matters.
“We have this,” I tell him, and drop my hand from his soft, soft lips. “This is ours.”
“This,” he says, and the word is so quiet that it seems to stretch on forever.
Later, as we paddle back, I ask him, “Did you get it? The treasure hunt?”
“Um, I guess. Was it your way of saying you’re sorry you were a total bi—”
“It was the elements,” I say. I tick them off on my fingers, starting with the middle one. “First was the tree, and climbing, and into the sky, the air. And then the cemetery, for earth. And the fire, and the water. And the last one.”
“Ununoctium?”
“Us,” I say. “You and me. We’re the last element, you idiot. I love you more than anything.”
“I love you more than everything.”
Janie and Micah. Micah and Janie.
after
DECEMBER 5
Dewey is reaching for me and he is missing, his voice in my ear. He spits fuck shit goddamn at me, and the moment splits: us, here now, and also not us, not here.
Dewey’s fist is slamming into my jaw, his voice in my ear telling me to never fucking talk to him again.
His eyes are all pupil and the fire is burning higher in them.
I am falling but also already on the ground, and the smoke is thick and my glasses are shattering and Dewey is on top of me. His spit is flying and splattering on my face.
“You asshole.” He says it like he means it. “You asshole, you little fucking asshole. You piece of shit, you actual fucking piece of shit—”
And me on the ground. I look up at him through smoke, so much goddamn smoke, and seeing my blood on his knuckles, his hair in his eyes, blue eyes eclipsed by his pupils.
A memory within a memory: I shouldn’t have said that.
I should have kept my fucking mouth shut.
And then—pain, searing but dull. Focused but everywhere.
Here, now, my head hits the ground.
The impact shakes the memories loose, and they come back in floods.
Helium on her breath. Her voice rising higher as I wondered if it was okay that it turned me on.
Janie climbing the Metaphor. Arms spread wide as I squint and try to find where her hair ends and the trees begin.
The sky and fireworks. The secrets and elements.
She climbs into my bed. We huddle under the covers. The air is humid with her sobbing.
Wings. I remember the wings, I remember them burning. A fire, a different one.
Janie pulling on my sweatshirt and transfering her rocks, her markers, her matches into its pockets.
They come, they fall, faster and faster.
Anything, everything: they’re almost equal, but not quite.
I have always needed her more than she needs me.
“Goddamn,” Dewey gasps in my ear. We’re on the ground and the night is dark and I’m cold, I’m freezing. “Goddamn it, Micah, goddamn, we’re getting out of here.”
He drags me to my feet, and I sway.
“She declared an apocalypse here,” I tell him.
“Good for her. Can we go?”