I’d give anything to be there now.
Instead of with C. Smith.
Who has disappeared.
Is he even alive? Did he duck when I warned him?
He was so close to the window. He could’ve been shredded apart by shards of glass. I scream. I don’t know if it’s for him or for me. My voice isn’t loud enough. And my head isn’t clear enough to know.
Heavy things drop. Shift. Move.
Walls and windows blow out.
The building rains down around me.
A boom.
A screech.
A bump.
A roll.
And just as quickly as it had started moving, the earth takes a final gasp. Its waves slow like it is out of breath.
Until finally, stillness.
CHAPTER TWO
4:40 P.M.
I cough through the dust.
Wiggle my body.
Flick my toes.
Roll my neck.
I’ve ended up sort of on my right side, sort of on my back, with my forearms crisscrossed over my face. I’ve got one fist on top of my head and another one trying desperately to keep a grip on the leg of the table above me. There’s solid floor underneath me, but the walls of the building have buckled, surrounding me in rubble. Air strains in from a tiny slice in the debris, bringing a gift of light. The heat of my exhale presses back against my mouth. There’s no room for my breath to move. It’s trapped like me. I try to squirm. Scramble. Twist. But I barely budge.
There’s nowhere to go.
No way out.
My heart beats so wildly I half expect it to stop.
A person’s heart isn’t meant to beat this fast.
I scream and scratch at the sliver of light, desperate to make it bigger. Dirt and dust and rocky bits of building drop down around me. I have to slow down. The rubble is unstable. Digging is dangerous. I know this. I’ve been taught this.
But I need air.
I’m suffocating.
I swipe my face clean and cinch the hood of my sweatshirt over my eyes to protect them. I claw at the hole in a panic. Drywall dust lodges underneath my fingernails but I manage to make a big enough space for real air to enter. I inhale deeply, my lungs expanding with the relief of oxygen even though I need to cough out the grime and dirt that comes with it. I’m probably choking on asbestos.
Then I feel the pain. A searing ache along the left side of my head above my ear. Surely I’m dying.
I reach for the wound. Press against it. Will the ache to stop. And then someone is wailing and I’m not alone. The cry is primal. It is fear. It is agony. It is close. But muffled. Buried, too.
“C. Smith?!” I yell. “Are you there? Is that you?”
He grunts. “There’s something—on me. It’s heavy.” Another grunt. “Can’t—breathe.”
There’s the scrape of metal against metal. A groan. I picture toppled triple-load washing machines crushing his small frame.
“What are you doing?!” I shout.
“I’m just—I need to get this off me.”
“What is it? Can you move? Can you crawl out from under it?” I hear the rise in my voice. The frantic sound of it. The plead. The beg. “You have to move. You have to find air.”
“I’m—trying.”
Another push. Another screech of metal. Another grunt. And then silence. I wait in it. I wade in it. Tentatively whispering his name.
“C. Smith?”
I’m scared to ask because I’m scared of no answer. When I finally hear him suck in a breath, I flood my own lungs with air. With relief. I’m so grateful to know I’m not here alone. Even though I shouldn’t wish this nightmare on anybody else.
“Where are you?” he says.
“I don’t know. Trapped. Where are you?”
“I went under the table across from yours but I didn’t get all the way under it.”
“But you have air?”
“I do now.” He moans. “Barely.”
“Are you okay? How bad are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
“There was something on me. On my chest. I moved it but I don’t know. I just—I don’t know.”
“You’re going to be okay.” I say this firmly. With conviction. He has to believe me so I can believe me.
I remember having the stomach flu for the first time as a kid. I felt like leftovers gone bad in the fridge. I told my mom I was dying.
“You’re not,” she said, gently dabbing a cold wet washcloth across my sweaty forehead. “Your body knows how to recover. You just have to get through this.”
“We just have to get through this,” I tell him. I tell myself. I hear my mom’s voice: Ruby Babcock, you just have to get through this.
Outside, sirens wail. Car alarms. Fire alarms. And then a cough from C. Smith right here and now. He’s only a few feet from me. The place got tossed, but he’s close. I spread my fingers out above my head, trying to make contact. Like feeling the physical skin-and-bones presence of him will make me feel less alone. He coughs again and I pull my hand back. What if he’s dying?
“Do you have air? Can you breathe?” he says.
“I can.” But for how long? And is this table teetering? What is that creaking sound? Is it only a matter of time before the legs break and the unstable walls of this tiny safe space collapse on top of me? Panic spirals to my fingers and toes. It shortens my breath. I focus on anything else.
“What’s your name?” I can’t keep calling him C. Smith.
A push. A hiss. “Charleston.”
“Like the dance?”
“Like the city. When your last name’s Smith, your parents are pretty much obligated to give you a bold first name.” A grunt. “My friends call me Charlie, though. Because Charleston makes me sound like an asshole.”
“Are you from Charleston?”
“Conceived there.”
“That’s . . . graphic.”
“No kidding. I can’t even think of Charleston without imagining my parents boning.”
He actually manages a laugh. It’s pained but legitimate. His laugh makes me laugh.
“I shouldn’t be laughing,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re laughing. It’s making me laugh and—” A groan. “I’d rather die laughing.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“Okay.” A grunt. “Do you have a name?”
“Ruby.”
“Ruby? Were you conceived at a fifties-themed restaurant made famous for its cheeseburgers?”
Another laugh escapes. “Ruby’s Diner? No.”
“Ruby’s the name of my dog. Is that weird?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“I guess not.”
I can feel the stiffness settling. In my shoulders. In my legs. Reminding me how stuck I am. I want to spread out but I can’t. My hands are over my head with only a couple inches of space all around me. I pat the ground under my head, and the cracked, teetering table above it. There are shards of glass and things split in half. I sense how tight things are. How small. I have no room. My heart races.
This is a coffin.
I suck in air.
Flap my hands as much as I can.