Like I said, the world isn’t always fair, and sometimes we have to help it along. Bad things should happen to bad people, but I leave out the details with Micah. I love him more than anything, but our soul is so strained right now that it doesn’t make sense to pull it even tauter with unnecessary detail.
It’s easier like this, just to be us. It’s easier like this to see how beautiful the earth and life and we are. We are stars and the purple-red-blue sky is the background. We are streamers and ribbons tied to trees and balloons that dance in the wind. We are shadows, the too-sharp angle of his nose and the frizzy strands of hair falling into my face. We breathe in the helium and sing show tunes to each other in unrecognizable voices.
“Janie,” he says as we finish up, “I missed you too.”
after
NOVEMBER 16
There is nothing special about Waldo. It is a shitty town in the middle of a shitty state. There’s snow for most of the year and corn when there’s not. No one ever comes. No one ever leaves.
It is known for having the deepest quarry in Iowa.
It is known for having a nationally ranked wrestling team.
It is known for Janie Vivian.
They take turns telling me. Dewey, the nurses, the doctor, even my dad when he visits for a few minutes between his shifts.
My brain is liquid. They press and press information, but my brain is liquid. They touch the surface and it ripples and then it goes blank again. This is the most frustrating part. I feel it when my brain goes blank, until I forget that too.
What I remember, what they tell me enough times, is this: There was a party.
There was a bonfire, and it got out of control.
Janie’s house burned down.
There were a lot of people at her house when it burned down, because there was a party.
But Janie wasn’t one of them.
They don’t tell me where she was, though, or where she is.
Or maybe they do.
I don’t know.
I sleep a lot. Dewey is usually there when I wake up. He’s the one who tells me that my dad is working another shift to pay for the hospital. He’s the one who tells me the most about the fire. He must be. He’s always there. For a characteristically shitty friend, he’s suddenly very dependable. It must be because of the Xbox.
“What happened to Janie?” I ask him. It’s a Saturday. I think. I’ve been in the hospital for a week. My head has stopped hurting enough that I can eat solid food again.
Dewey was leaning forward to shoot, but he flinches and misses. “What?”
“I said, what happened—”
“I heard you,” he says, and pauses the game. “You asked what happened.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“You’ve never asked that before.”
I reply to the ceiling. It is almost white, almost smooth, almost more interesting than the video game Dewey has been playing on repeat because he beat all the levels two days ago. “So answer the goddamn question.”
He stares at me. I don’t think Dewey has ever really looked at me before. “Usually you just ask where she is.”
Where. Where is Janie Vivian. The world tilts; I might fall off the bed. I’ve stopped puking, but I might start again. I might. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
Dewey doesn’t say anything.
“So what happened? Where’d she go?”
For a moment it seems like he might tell me the truth; I look at him and he looks at me. His eyes are almost black. Then he looks away and says, “She went away.”
“But where?”
“She—she’s doing a volunteer trip. In Nepal.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“But why? Why Nepal?”
He shrugs. “She just couldn’t be in Waldo anymore, I guess.”
“But why didn’t she stay and tell me?” The pain is growing. The pain is growing larger.
Dewey meets my eyes again. His eyes are almost black, but not quite. But no, Dewey’s eyes are blue. They’ve always been blue.
But for a moment I thought they were black, the pupils so big that they eclipsed the iris.
The world is nearly sideways.
Dewey presses play again.
The doctor comes later to ask if I’m ready to go.
“Where?” I ask him.
He’s balding; his chest hair puffs out from the top of his coat. I don’t remember his name yet. He always keeps one hand in his pocket and never stops clicking his pen.
“Home, Micah,” he says. His smile is wide and false. “You get to go home.”
He checks my head and asks me about my new glasses. I remember that these glasses are new, but not what happened to the old ones. He tells me that I’m doing just fine, and leaves.
Dewey watches the door close. “He’s told you that every time.”
“Told me what?”
He sighs. “That you’re leaving tomorrow, dumbass.”
“Oh,” I say, and try to remember that. “Okay. But I don’t remember how many times he’s come.”
Dewey snorts and goes back to Metatron. “That’s what he said.”
On Sunday, Dewey packs up the Xbox.
On Sunday, I am finally allowed to wear normal clothes again. My dad brought them last night, but I was asleep, or I forgot he was here.
On Sunday, the police come.