The End Is Now

“And every time,” I continue, “I’ve been inviting you. I guess you don’t like music, or you don’t like it anymore, but goddamn it, we wanted you to have fun. Have a good time. But no, you say you don’t have friends anymore. Wonder why that is.”

She actually flinches.

A warm hand touches my wrist, Cloud’s hand, but I brush him off with my fingertips. My eyes are stinging, liner running. I’m not done. “Your friend Morgan,” I say. “I didn’t believe her when she said she knew you. Didn’t trust her, and do you know why? Because she was a lot like me. A lot like us. I didn’t think you’d have anything to do with a person like that. And I guess that’s right.”

Cloud grabs me again, and this time I yank my wrist away. Stand, pull my hood up, head toward the door. Rain and Vanessa both be damned.

“Wait.” Cloud’s voice, not Vanessa’s. “Wait, Friday.”

I turn on my heel, stand there with my arms folded. Face in shadow, and I hope they can’t see the mess I’m making of my eyeliner.

Cloud turns to Vanessa, who’s staring down at her hands again. He scootches to the edge of the couch cushion, touches the tips of his fingers to hers, and she lets him. “Will you come, please? Tonight? You’ll be in a crowd. You can see her from a distance first. You won’t have to come any closer if you change your mind.”

Oh, Cloud, I think. This is why I brought you with me, this gentleness. This is why I love you.

And I’ve never thought those words before, never said them even to myself. I love an addict at the end of the world, a bridge about to buckle, a building on the verge of collapse. A disaster waiting to happen, Felicity says, and who wants to admit a thing like that? The stupid tears spill over, hot and sticky. I bend down, grab the stained towel, dab at my cheeks. Stupid, but neither of them is looking at me. Vanessa, pressing her hand to Cloud’s, is nodding her head.

“Okay. Okay, great.” Cloud beams—a big, stupid, relieved smile. “They’ll be setting up by the time we get back. It’s in a church, abandoned from the flooding. No one’ll bother us. We can find a ride down there, meet some people on the way—”

“Cloud,” I interrupt. My voice sounds normal again, thank God. Thank the patron saint of living precariously, who for whatever reason seems to be smiling on us. “Gray City is still at Felicity’s. We have their van.”

Track 6. Love from Hell

Vanessa steps out of the van like she’s wading into deep water. One foot, then the other, flat white sneakers on rain-spotted concrete already drying in the afternoon sun. Felicity stands on her front porch in a satin robe the color of chocolate ice cream, smoking a cigarette. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says to Vanessa, not batting an eyelash.

By the time Cloud and I are climbing the steps, Vanessa is in the foyer and Morgan, or whatever she’s calling herself now, stands in the doorway from the family room. In a different vest and the same leather pants, her hair down and face made-up. Smiling and crying at the same time. Her eyeliner runs, too.

“Let’s get out of the way,” Cloud whispers in my ear. I give him a nudge toward my room, surreptitiously slipping the key to Gray City’s van back into the shoebox.

There’s a note on the top of my pillow, green pen on lined paper:

I wanted you to know I’m not upset if she doesn’t want to see me. Just let her know I came looking. That someone was still thinking about her. Thanks for looking out for her, Friday.

Love from Hel.

I read it twice. “She can’t be serious.”

I hand the note to Cloud, who seems to take it in with one glance. “Norse goddess of the underworld?” He shrugs. “Hel’s half-black, half-white, so I guess it’s kind of clever, with the arm tats. Or maybe she’s trying to justify drawing Naglfar over half the city.”

“Not that,” I say. “Well, not just that. I mean she seems to be surprised that someone was looking out for Vanessa.”

“You don’t think that’s surprising?” He raises his eyebrows as he sets the note down on the window seat. It’s only afternoon, but the sky has started to turn red. Autumn is coming, or maybe the end of everything. “Vanessa seemed a little—”

“Batshit?”

“Difficult, I was going to say.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I sit on the edge of my bed. Cloud sits next to me, long legs folded under him. “It’s just, I guess I expect that things will work out okay. Or no, not that things will be okay, but that people will be. Call me crazy.”

“Join the club,” Cloud says. He leans back on the mattress, resting his weight on his forearms. Looking up at me, grinning. “The way I see it, we’re all going different kinds of crazy. Vanessa is, I don’t know, maybe paranoid, or maybe she really knows something the rest of us don’t. Felicity’s delusional about Mia, and I guess I have the pills, and whatever’s up with Morgan and Hel and fucking Ragnarok, that’s pretty damn nuts.”