“No,” she says. “It’s never going to be you and me again. The girl you were with . . . she doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe she never did.”
I snort. “What does that even mean?”
“That you have to give up.”
Now I’m sure it’s pity I see in her eyes.
The room starts to spin. The taste of moonshine rises in my throat.
“You have to understand,” Tilda says. “Is this really how you want to spend your final days?”
Suddenly, I just want her to leave. Having her so close when she’s so far away hurts too much.
“You’ll be sorry it when it comes,” I say. “But you know what? Afterward, you can’t take it back, because there won’t be an afterward.”
The doll’s eyes blink.
Someone calls her name, and we both look up at the same time. Elin and Amanda. I don’t know how long they’ve been standing there. Don’t know how much they’ve heard.
“We have to get out of here,” Amanda says.
The changing-room door opens again. Voices from the showers. Someone lets out a disgusted shriek. Boots against the floor. Two police officers approach between the rows of lockers: a man with a beard and a short-haired woman who looks vaguely familiar.
“Right, kids,” the bearded one says. “Time to wrap it up.”
I get to my feet too quickly. The floor comes rushing up to meet me. Tilda catches me before I fall.
“We’ll have to give this one a ride home,” the female officer says, and I try to protest.
“You can’t walk all the way,” Tilda says.
“It’s fine.”
The officers grab me by the arms. I try to pull free, but their grip tightens.
“Where are your clothes, Simon?” the woman asks.
“How do you know my name?”
“Let’s discuss that later.”
She looks at the badge on my wrist and marches me toward the locker.
I lose sight of Tilda as people pour into the changing room. Another police officer is ushering them in, shouting at them to hurry up. No one’s paying attention to him. Not like they would have before.
And there won’t be any consequences. There’s no time for that. The world is ending. All the police can do is make sure we don’t kill ourselves in the meantime.
4 WEEKS, 4 DAYS LEFT
SIMON
Iwake up to panting in my ear. A wet nose is pressed against my cheek.
“Go away. I want to sleep,” I say, and reach out a hand, trying to shove away the wall of warm fur.
Boomer licks his lips. I reluctantly look up into a pair of large brown eyes. Boomer’s head obscures most of my field of vision. His tongue darts out, rough against my wrist.
Four weeks, four days left.
The panic comes crawling back. My thoughts spin in their endless circles.
I’m wide awake. I have to get up, have to move. It’s the only way to stay sane.
When I sit up, it feels like my head’s exploded. As if the comet has already smashed into my skull. Boomer barks excitedly and spins around on the spot. His tail sweeps my glass of water off the table; I manage to scoop my phone off the floor right before the water can hit it.
“Take it easy,” I say and unlock the phone to read what I wrote to Tilda when I got home last night.
I apologized for being pathetic and, of course, only managed to sound even more pathetic. It’s ok, she replied. But it doesn’t feel all that fucking okay right now, and I can’t help but wonder if she sent me that message from Sait’s bed. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars.
“Judette and I want to talk to you.”
I lower my hands. Stina’s in the doorway, dressed for work. Her strawberry-blonde hair is pulled back, and her priest’s collar is around her neck.
“Hurry up,” she says, and leaves.
I catch a whiff of smoke and chlorine from my jeans as I shove aside the covers. I fell asleep with my clothes on. Stars hover at the edge of my vision as I roll out of bed and push Boomer with my knee to get him to move.
They’re sitting, waiting for me on one of the living room sofas. I can really tell that Stina’s psyched herself up for this. We’re about to have a serious talk. Judette only watches me coldly. She can communicate more with a look than Stina can in one of her lengthy lectures.
We were supposed to have a video call with Judette’s friends in Dominica yesterday. I get that the moms are disappointed. But it’s not as simple as me wanting to be out partying. I didn’t want to stay home. I didn’t want to sit here with them, thinking about the end of the world and about death. I didn’t want to think at all.
“How are you feeling?” Stina asks.
“Like shit,” I say.
“You’ve made your bed,” Stina replies, turning to Judette for support.
Judette crosses one leg over the other. “Do you realize how humiliating it was for me to see Maria drive you home in a police car?”
Stina looks annoyed. “That was hardly the worst part.”
My brain is still sluggish, but I’m starting to piece things together. The short-haired police officer—that’s how I recognized her. I’ve met her a couple of times. She was on Judette’s hockey team.
“I had a little too much to drink,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Stina snorts loudly—gesturing exasperatedly at Judette—but I can tell that she’s loving the chance to present a united front. I’m doing her a favor by being a difficult teen.
They’ve been divorced for six months now. Stina finally took off her wedding ring this past spring, but I know she still carries it around in her wallet. She’s told me that I have to let Tilda go, but she’s just as pathetic as I am.
“You can’t keep staying out every night,” Judette says.
“What does it even matter?”
“It matters a whole goddamn lot,” Stina roars, slamming her palm down on the sofa’s arm.
Dust whirls into the air, shimmering in the light coming through the window.
“Why?” I say. “It’s not like I have a future to ruin.”
“You know all about how dangerous the city is nowadays.”
“I’m being careful.”
Stina’s face goes red. “You could try empathizing with us,” she says. “You know we moved back in together because we wanted to see you as much as possible in the days we have left. Now we’re seeing less of you than ever.”
“I didn’t ask you to move back in together for me.”
I regret it as soon as the words cross my lips. Because I get them. But they don’t get me.
They don’t get that I really do miss them, but I can’t stand it here, in this artificial atmosphere they’ve created. We can’t have normal conversations anymore, because everything has to be so profound. We have to savor every memory, ask earnest questions, say important things before we die. Every word has to convey so much. Too much. What they’re asking of me is impossible.
“Enough,” Stina says in an unexpectedly calm voice. “Emma’s coming in a few days.”
Emma. My sister, who hasn’t been thinking straight since she found out about the comet.