The End of the World (5 page)

The woman in front of me—Wanda, according to her name tag—hands me my papers and gestures toward the door.

“The bell rings in ten minutes, so you have plenty of time if you want to go to your locker, the restroom, whatever you might need.” She folds her hands in front of her and smiles up at me. “You should be all set.”

I nod once and mumble a thank you, then reach for my papers and head for the door. I’m mad and it didn’t take much to get me this way. I’m tired of this routine and it’s only the first day.

They must think I’m out of earshot or that I just don’t care, because they start talking again before the door shuts behind me.

“Shaye McCormick was in here again last Friday afternoon. The principal’s making her come in later to discuss the incident. Did you hear about it?”

I glance back to see the woman named Caroline shake her head. “No, but that girl is nothing but trouble, and I’ve said it from day one. Disrespectful, a string of boyfriends no girl her age should have. What she needs is a…”

The door latches closed, and I’m on the other side of it, standing there with nothing but a stack of four papers and a pile of new questions. Questions I don’t know what to do with. Questions that I don’t think anyone will answer, including Shaye. With a churning in my gut that makes me think my breakfast might make a second appearance, I glance at my schedule and start looking for my first class.

I spot Shaye on what I hope is my last turn, standing at her open locker, staring with the door open. Her long hair falls in front of her face, creating a barrier of sorts. From me, from the ladies in the office, from classmates…I can’t be sure. All I know is I want it to move so that I can see her face for myself.

“Hey, why are you still standing here? Shouldn’t you be in class already?”

Judging by the way her head snaps up and her hair whips backward, it might have been the wrong thing to say. But I’ve been on the receiving end of a bad conversation plenty of times; I can take whatever she dishes out. She scans my face and I prepare for battle, but her shoulders fall on a deep sigh and she turns back toward her locker.

I try my best to shake off an uneasy feeling. Shaye was ready to fight—seemed to almost expect it. The relief on her face when she saw it was me…it breaks my heart a little.

“If I needed a second father I would ask for it, Cameron. What are you doing still in the hallway? You need to get to class.”

I just look at her profile. “And if I needed a mother…”

I glance inside the parts of her locker I can see. It’s a mess of wrinkled papers and new-looking textbooks and discarded erasers and a few wadded up dollar bills piled in a corner. Someone told me once that if you wanted to see inside someone’s soul, you should look inside their car. Tidiness represents a person well put-together; dirt and disorder represents chaos.

I’m not sure if the same saying holds true to a locker, but Shaye doesn’t have a car. And Shaye is definitely chaos. I didn’t need to see the locker to know that.

“When is your lunch?” I say, scanning my schedule. “Mine is third. If you have the same one, want to eat together?”

She looks over at me again and slowly shuts the locker door. “Mine’s third too. You sure you don’t want to wait and see if you make friends? You might want to eat with them.”

Her tone is laced with self-doubt and a whole lot of insecurity. There’s no reason for it. Shaye is beautiful and confident, if a little sarcastic. At least the version of her I’ve seen so far at home. The women in the office are catty and spiteful and probably more than a little jealous. Old age and ugliness and can do that to some in the female set. Trust me, I had a social worker just like them once before she up and retired. Meanest lady I was ever around, and I’ve known some winners.

A paper falls from Shaye’s hand and I lean over to pick it up. I make out a single word written in angry red ink before looking up from the paper:
Die
. I try not to show how much it bothers me and instead look her straight in the eye.

“If I make friends, then all of us can eat together. Deal?” She takes the paper from my outstretched hand and tucks it inside a notebook. I can’t read the look on her face.

“Deal, Cameron.” She smiles a very sad smile and looks at her shoes. “But I won’t hold you to it.”

With that, she turns on her heel and walks away, leaving me to wonder what those last seven words even mean.

*

Shaye

The bell rang,
and I am finally free. Free from the persistent stares of my classmates. Free from the bits of paper thrown in my direction when the teacher isn’t looking that never fail to bounce so flawlessly off my forehead or cheekbone, some sticking in my hair. Free from the whispers behind cupped hands that aren’t really whispers at all but purposely sharp-tongued jabs meant to put me in my place.

Slut.

Unwanted.

Liar.

Whore.

The harsh words used to cut and bleed, piercing through flesh and bone, sharp gashes so deep that hardly anyone noticed the lacerations. Now I’m left with hardened scars that barely register pain anymore when pressure is applied. I’ve been at this school for three years now. Aside from a single month at the very beginning, it’s been bad from the start.

Since then, bad has become worse.

Worse has become awful.

Awful has become unbearable.

And now I have Cameron asking me to sit with him at lunch. The request would have been laughable if he hadn’t been so sincere. He’s young. He doesn’t know. It won’t take him long to find out.

Someone walks past me and slaps a book out of my hand. It’s three inches thick and lands on my sandaled foot, but I don’t flinch. I never flinch anymore. To flinch is to show weakness, and I save that for nighttime.

Nighttime. When no one’s around.

Nighttime. When the only beings who can hear me are the silent demons floating around the black air that fills up our home. Even though it can often be suffocating, the night is when I feel most comfortable; late at night, when no one calls for me anymore.

I jump when a hand lands on my shoulder.

“It’s about time you showed up. Ready to eat? I’ve got to say, I want a peanut butter sandwich about as much as I want to take a big bite out of my own arm, but I’m starving. What did you pack? Anything I might want to trade for?”

Against my better judgment and in spite of my racing heart, I find myself smiling. Cameron’s a talker. I haven’t been talked to this much in…I can’t even remember.

“Of course I don’t have anything else, and for the love of god, do you ever shut up?” Part of me wants him to. To be quiet and leave me alone and let me live out my normal isolated routine where I walk the halls with both teachers and students trying to avoid me. The other part of me likes this change of pace…the idea of eating without being surrounded by empty tables and a barren, whitewashed walls. This is different. Different might not be all bad.

“Sometimes. Like, when I’m asleep. Why, am I bothering you? It didn’t seem like I bothered you last night when I helped you with the dishes.” The low buzz of conversation greets us as he leads us into the cafeteria. Cameron looks over his shoulder. “Besides, I don’t see anyone else lining up to talk to either one of us. So do you want to sit with me or not?”

There’s really nothing to think about. Soon enough he’ll decide I’m not worth the drama. Everyone does. “Sure, let’s eat. Pick where you want to sit.”

I follow him to a table at the back, each step I take growing more and more impressed. Either Cameron doesn’t notice the stares and whispers that trail behind us like billowing plumes of smoke that grow taller with the passing minutes, or he’s really good at acting unaffected.

I don’t understand it. But when he plunks his bag down and smiles at me over a bite of his sandwich…

I smile back.

Cameron

“P
lease explain his
weird fascination with peanut butter. It’s out of control.”

She’s made that kid two more sandwiches since the one I made this afternoon, and I swear peanuts are either stuck up my nose or coming out of my pores. It’s all I can smell. And now he’s asking for another even as he splashes in the grimy bathtub tonight. I’d ask why it’s so dirty, but it’s clear Shaye does the cleaning around here, and I don’t want to pile on the insults. After all the ones I heard and ignored at school this week and last, she doesn’t need any from me. I don’t know what’s happened to make her the target of so many vile comments. All I know is it won’t take much for me to punch the next person who makes one.

“If I knew the answer to that question,” Shaye says, “all my problems would be solved.” She picks up a plastic cup and pours a stream of soapy water over Pete’s head, then scoops up another and dumps it over Maria’s. Both gasp from the surprise even though it’s the third time she’s doused them. “He gets fixated on things. Before peanut butter it was applesauce. Before that, yogurt. Before that…”

“Animal crackers?” No idea why I blurt that out, but it seems to be the next logical choice.

She smiles into the water. “Raisins.”

“Raisins? Who eats raisins?”

She reaches for the drain plug and both kids stand up, rivulets of water streaming from their wet skin. I can’t decide whether to avert my eyes or pretend the site of their naked bodies doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but the only other place to look is at the toilet or at Shaye’s face, so I aim for Maria’s nose and keep my eyes trained on it. For some reason, her nose seems to be the safest choice.

“A kid with major OCD issues.” She whispers the last two words, and if Pete hears them he gives no indication. Then again, the kid is five. I didn’t even know what tornados were when I was five. The likelihood of him understanding that particular medical term is pretty small.

“Has he been diagnosed?”

It surprises me when she laughs. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s laced with cynicism. “We don’t do doctors around here unless absolutely necessary. But it’s pretty obvious his issues involve a lot more than peanut butter sandwiches.” She wraps first Pete and then Maria in a towel, taking a minute to rub their heads to remove any excess water. My mother used to do that to me. I remember hating it because it hurt, yet right now I want to go back and let her squeeze my hair again just to recall what it felt like.

“Can’t wait to see what those issues are,” I mutter under my breath, standing up from my spot and taking a step back to give her room. This bathroom is surprisingly large considering the size of the bedrooms, although part of me thinks we’ve been given the smallest in the house and the better, more impressive rooms have been saved for company or something. It seems weird to think of guests coming to stay here, though, so maybe they’ve been reserved for another reason entirely. Like a home gym. Or a torture chamber.

I nearly laugh at my little internal joke and open my mouth to share it with Shaye, but quickly close it when it hits me that she might not find it funny.

It takes a minute for it to register that I miss Todd. I miss Shelly. I miss that every time I would tell a joke or recall a story from school they would laugh. I miss their tiny bathroom and my old walk-in closet connected to the bedroom that belonged only to me. I miss the way he hugged her and the way she hugged me, even if it wasn’t that often. When you come from a place of no affection at all, even the occasional touch makes you appreciate the contact and anticipate the next one.

But more than anything, I miss the feeling of thinking I belonged.

Now, I belong nowhere. Except for Shaye, everyone in this house is a stranger, even if I’ve already seen two of them naked. And as for Shaye, she keeps acting like she’s waiting for me to ditch her—at home, at school, in the lunchroom—so I’m not even sure I know her all that well either.

I step over a puddle of bath water and open the door just in time to nearly collide with Mr. Bowden. Again, he’s shirtless. Again, a feeling I can’t name but don’t like travels like a shiver through me. He looks past me and into the room.

“Shaye, come downstairs when you’re done with the kids, okay? I need to talk to you about something.” I don’t miss the way she stiffens at the words, nor the way the towel she’s holding suddenly tumbles to the floor. I pick it up and hand it back to her.

“Okay, just give me a few minutes.” Her voice shakes. So do her hands. I turn to study the man behind me, watching the way he watches her. It takes only a second for him to notice. His expression grows blank and he gives a single nod.

“Five, tops. It’s important.” With that, he walks away.

She nods to herself and turns toward Maria, her shaking hands struggling with the effort to get the towel draped around the girl’s shoulders. Her face is three shades paler than it was before, though it could be the poor lighting in this room. Or the scenarios playing in my mind. Either way, Shaye is ghostly white.

“Want me to take care of the kids so you can go see what he wants?” I hold my hand out for the towel, pretending like I really care about doing this particular chore while also pretending that I don’t notice the rest of the blood draining from her face.