“Alright, I’ll drive.” He hops up on the bike and sits perched ready to go. “How fast do I go? What do I do?”
Apparently this is happening. I’m torn. I feel a little (or a lot) suffocated by his presence. He’s so here. So actively in the world, in my world, and it’s a little overwhelming for me.
I take a step back.
“I think I, um,” I begin, looking anywhere but at him.
“Joss, are you okay?”
My name. Hearing him speak my name is the last straw. It’s too much.
“It’s going to rain and I need water. I have to go the roof for a bit. I’ll be back.”
I’m already backing out of the room toward the roof hatch. I can’t get out of here fast enough.
“I’ll help you.”
I hold up my hands to stop him. To ward him off like a dangerous animal. “No, stay. Please stay. I don’t want help. Or company.”
“Oh.” He sits back on the bike slowly, looking surprised.
“Yeah, so stay here. Watch the movie. Just pedal at a regular pace, a steady rhythm you can keep up. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I’m gone for an hour.
I empty the contents of the bucket into a canister I can seal and easily bring downstairs with me, then I position the bucket in the center of the roof just as fat raindrops start to fall. I wish I had more containers here. It rained a couple days ago and I’m sure my rain catchers on the other roofs are doing well, if only I could get to them. I stand outside in the fresh, open air breathing deeply and enjoying the silence but for the rhythm of the rain. It’s calming, something I definitely need right now. I listen to the sound of the drops pinging off the bucket, the building, the rest of the world. It fills the gaping, empty spaces left behind by so many dead and if I close my eyes I can pretend they’re all still here. Still out there in the rain with their umbrellas and galoshes, hurrying to and from cars carrying groceries, briefcases and babies, going in and out of buildings that aren’t decaying or wreaking of rot and ruin.
I drink it in until I can’t stand the cold anymore. Until I can’t stand my own lies.
When I get back inside I hear the sound of the bike moving. It’s sort of surreal, almost a little spooky. Like seeing a ghost. I can also hear the movie, the one I love the most and know by heart. He hasn’t noticed me come back in, or else he isn’t letting on that he notices, so I sit in the dark as far away from him as I can and I listen.
“When you don’t have anything, you don’t have anything to lose, right?”
“That’s a cheerful thought.”
I glance around the dark loft asking myself why I’m courting disaster by having anything that’s mine. Anything even vaguely worth defending. Worth fighting for. I also wonder what I’ll do with it all now. Now that he knows where I live and I have to leave. Should I try and move it to another building? Should I leave it all behind and start over? I’m exhausted and sad just thinking about it. And angry. At him.
“I’m sorry, but Jake Ryan? He’s a senior and he’s taken, I mean really taken.”
“I know. He’s supposed to be my ideal.”
“He’s ideal for sure but forget about it.”
“God, I hope whoever got the note doesn’t know it was me who wrote it. I’d shit twice and die.”
Ryan laughs, startling me. The sound fills the large space, drowning out the movie and his pedaling. It reaches me in my far, dark corner, wrapping around me until I feel myself smiling as well. It’s stiff, unused for so long, but it’s there. For the next half hour I sit on the hard floor with a butt going numb, listening to Ryan chuckle, laugh and snort at the dialogue. It’s a great movie, one about a world we’ll never know. Like a fairy tale we’ve heard a million times about kings, knights and dragons, only this one is about parties and driver’s licenses. Things we’ll never know, never see, but want to believe in.
“That’s just so my friends won’t think, you know, I’m a jerk.”
“But they’re all pretty much jerks, though, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but the thing is, I’m kinda like the leader, you know? Kinda like the King of the Dipshits.”
“How are you not laughing?” Ryan asks, addressing me but not turning away from the small screen.
“I am.”
“I haven’t heard you laugh once.”
It’s because I don’t. I didn’t realize it until just now, but I don’t laugh, not even at this movie that I love and find so funny. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s always been just me and it feels weird to laugh alone. Or maybe I don’t find things as funny as I think I do.
“I’m stealthy.” I say softly.
He snorts and glances at me, or at least at the dark corner where I’m sitting.
“You don’t like having me here, do you?”
I take a deep breath then let it out slow. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m not used to it.”
“To what?”
“People.”
“You’ve lived alone for a long time?”
“The last six years.”
“Whoa.” he says, sounding genuinely surprised.
“Yeah.”
“Why? Why didn’t you join the Colony or a gang?”
I hesitate, hating my answer but knowing it’s true. “I got tired of watching people die.”
He pedals in silence watching the movie but I don’t think he’s really paying attention.
“I get that.” he finally says, his voice low. Immediately I remember that his brother just died. Yeah, he gets it for sure.
“I can’t believe I gave my underpants to a geek.”
“I heard that.” Ryan says.
“Heard what?”
“You chuckled.”
I grin in the darkness. He’s right.
“Come sit up here.” he calls. “You’re making me nervous being over there.”
I slink out of the shadows. I go as quiet as I can but I know Ryan knows I’m moving. We’re both too hyperaware of the world for him not to know. I don’t sit close to him. I don’t even sit close enough to see the screen because I simply don’t need to. By the time the movie is coming to an end I have my eyes closed and I’m mouthing the words silently.
“Thanks for getting my undies back.”
“Thanks for coming over.”
“Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Happy birthday, Samantha. Make a wish.”
“It already came true.”
Cue the 80’s music and the kiss over the cake. Cue the candles and the table and the glowing world inside a warm, happy home. Cue the boy and the girl and the love. Cue the silence and the darkness and the guy on the bike watching me.
Chapter Three
An hour later we hear the groaning. It’s a sure sign that his blood on the road has been working like a dinner bell, calling in the dead to chow. We both hurry quietly to the windows and look down. The rain is still falling lightly, something I had hoped would wash away his blood and keep the zombies away. No such luck. Through the very thin amount of light peeking through the clouds we can see a small horde gathering outside. I wait for the wolves to take notice, but they never do. They’re already gone.
“They probably left when the rain started.” Ryan whispers.
I nod in agreement. “That sucks.”
“They know there’s blood down there. They’ll never leave. Not unless another target comes along.”
“We could try to lead them away.”
“You mean use ourselves as bait?”
“I was specifically thinking of you as bait, but yes.”