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It’s also obvious that I don’t belong here at all.
Rain
“Dude, this place hasn’t had power in, like, forever, right? How in the hell did they make the TVs come on?” Lamar asks from his perch on the counter, his heels banging into the cabinets below with every swing of his restless legs.
Wes shrugs. “I dunno, man. Maybe they flipped the entire power grid on just for the broadcast?”
I’m only half-listening to their conversation. The rest of me is busy staring at the unconscious boy behind the counter. The one with the glass shard sticking out of a bloody bandage on the side of his neck. The one I’m supposed to fix somehow.
The one I’m going to fix somehow.
“Rain?” Wes asks.
“Huh?” I reply without taking my eyes off of Quint.
“You okay? You haven’t said a word since the announcement.”
“The announcement,” I mutter, turning to face Wes. “Is that what we’re gonna call it from now on? Like the way everybody called the apocalypse April 23 ’cause it sounded nicer?”
Wes chews on his bottom lip like he does when he’s trying to figure something out.
When he’s trying to figure me out.
“I know that was a lot to process, okay? I know. But I need you to stay focused. Don’t freak out on me.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
Wes tosses a doubtful glance at Lamar.
“I’m not. Maybe I just don’t feel like talking about the fact that the government just publicly patted themselves on the back for makin’ my dad try to kill his whole family.”
Wes exhales hard through his nose and nods. “Yeah, I get that.”
“I know he was nonproductive. He was depressed … unemployed, paranoid, mean as a snake, addicted to everything he could get his hands on … but what about her?” The prickly heat of anger in my flushed face fades as my throat tightens with emotion. “She was so good, Wes.” I picture my mama’s beautiful, frazzled, selfless face, and I want to cry. She was the most productive member of society I’d ever met. There are so many things I want to say, so many feelings I haven’t expressed yet, but they’re all too damn painful, so I cover my mouth with the sleeves of my sweatshirt and hold them all in.
I stare at Wes’s lips, hoping the words coming out of his mouth will help take my mind off the ones lodged in my throat.
“I know. But we can’t change what happened. All we can do is say fuck ’em and survive anyway, right? So, how are we gonna survive today? Do you remember your list?”
I swallow down all the things left unsaid and force myself to answer him.
“I … I was supposed to find soap, water, and shelter.” I take a deep breath and straighten my back. “I already found soap, and Mrs. Renshaw said that Q has water barrels, so that only leaves shelter.”
The lips I’m staring at widen and part, revealing Wes’s dazzling smile. I don’t get to see it often, but when I do, it warms my skin like the sun, seeping into my pores and filling me with pride.
I feel my own lips curve upward, mirroring his. I did something right.
“That’s my girl,” Wes says with that grinning mouth, but the moment the words pass over his upturned lips, his smile deflates like a popped balloon. He didn’t like the way they tasted. This new, detached Wes didn’t like calling me his girl.
So my lips fall flat too.
We stand there for a minute—me staring at his serious mouth and him staring at mine—until Wes finally takes a step back and gestures with his hand toward the door. “Let’s go find you some shelter.”
You.
“Let’s go find you some shelter.”
I want to take his arm as I make the short trip across the store, but I’m afraid I’ll prick my finger on the barbed-wire fence he’s building between us.
