“Of course I’d miss you. But that’s not it. Our plan was to go north, make sure Henri got on the boat, then go back to the cabin. I wasn’t going to leave you here. And, yes, I would miss you, but ‘where I’m at’ in our lives is I don’t want to be away from you. I left my home because I didn’t want to be alone again. But now I don’t care where I am. I just want to be with you.”
“This is our home now,yourhome and mine.” He motions to the gym around us. “These people are our family.”
That gives me pause. I don’t agree—the only person I would consider close enough to be family is Cara. Everyone else is just neighbors and friends. If Fort Caroline comes after me, these people aren’t going to protect us. They want this place to stay safe, and that means giving us up if they have to.
“I understand what you mean,” I say. “But I don’t think you’re right. You’re my family. I trust you with my life, but—”
Frank returns and I cut myself off. He looks between us—as if he senses something isn’t right—and Andrew takes the moment to steal the ball and throw it, this time aiming for the doors out to the hallway. It bounces out of sight and Frank runs after it.
“And you trust Cara, too,” Andrew says.
“Of course.” Without her, we wouldn’t have escaped from Fort Caroline. Twice.
“So what makes these people different? What makes Rocky Horror or Daphne different?”
“They haven’t lived through what we have.”
“Everyonehas lived through what we have!” Andrew says, his voice rising. I glance around to see if anyone is watching, but they all seempreoccupied, except for Cara, who looks up from the book she’s reading across the room. “We all lost people we loved. There’s a handful who still have the families they had before the bug, and then there’s the rest of us, who are stuck trying to piece together new ones.”
“Like you and me.”
“And Henri and Amy. And RH and Daphne and Cara. There are plenty of peopleherewho are becoming a family. At least to me.”
I open my mouth to again say that, yes, they are our friends, but they aren’t our family if we’re planning to go back north anyway, when it hits me.
“You don’t want to go back to the cabin.”
He looks like he’s surprised I’d say it out loud. But I’m a little pissed that I was the one who had to say it. If this was on his mind, why wouldn’t he tell me? Why would we talk about our plans to leave for so long if he was having doubts? And these past two weeks of awkwardness, he was really going to let me go north without him.
“I...” He’s looking at me, but Frank returns, ball in hand and a smile on his face.
A loud clap of thunder shakes the building and No-Filter Frank startles, dropping the dodgeball. Some of the adults go on with what they were doing, but all the kids have stopped, staring up at the gymnasium ceiling as though it’s about to collapse. The wind whistles through the air vents, but the next roll of thunder sounds farther away.
I look to Andrew. He doesn’t seem like he’s planning to pick up our conversation where we left it.
I nod. “Guess it’s going to be a long night.”
Andrew
THE THUNDER CRACK THAT WAKES ME FROMa twilight nap is sharp and quick. I sit up on the cot and rub at my aching leg. It doesn’t ease the pain, since it most likely healed wrong after I broke it stepping in a bear trap near Jamie’s cabin, but I can’t help it. I glance around the gym, which is lit by small battery-powered lanterns. The kids are sleeping through it, but on the other side of the room, Daphne, Kelly, and Liz—the other members of Team Orphan—are all awake.
A few other people around the gym are as well. But not Jamie.
He sleeps through the storm, lying on his side facing me with his mouth hanging slightly open and his fists curled under his chin. The all-nighter he spent moving food into the cafeteria probably did a lot to help him pass out, because I haven’t been able to sleep well since we talked.
I really didn’t think we were on such different pages. Yes, I want to stay here, with this new family we’re making, but I had no idea he wasn’t torn the way I was. When we talked about the cabin, it felt like one of those fantasies we like to pretend are realistic. Like moving toSpain randomly. How are you planning to do that? Do you have any idea how much it costs to immigrate to another country legally? What are you going to do for work? Where are you going to live? And do you even speak Spanish?
We knew where we’d be living, but getting there was a whole other nightmare we never discussed. Because the plan was the boat. We’d take the boat up to Bethesda and then keep on walking, knowing everyone else would return to Florida without us for their happily ever afters and we’d go back to the cabin for ours. We’d completely avoid Fort Caroline’s authoritarian white supremacist colony in Georgia and we’d never run into the settlement near the cabin who stole most of our food and we’d be happy.
But that wasn’t the fantasy for me anymore. And when they kicked me off the boat, I realized we could still make it here. Jamie could go up and we would miss each other. And when he got back, I’d be waiting by the dock in a flowy caftan and floppy sun hat I could borrow from Daphne, and slo-mo run to the end of the dock as he hopped down off the boat and scooped me into his arms as a classic 80s-sounding slow ballad blared in the afterlife movie theater where I’d rewatch this scene over and over. The other Best Original Song nominees at the Afterlife Oscars don’t stand a chance, because there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house as Jamie returned home. Toourhome.
But to him, this isn’t our home.
Thunder rumbles again as I stare at him. Seriously, he can sleep through anything. He even almost sleeps through his nightmares.
I’ll hear him at night. Sometimes it’s just a quiet “nuh!” But othertimes it’s low, mumbled screams that progressively get louder and clearer until I have to shake him awake. I ask him what the nightmare was, and it’s usually about his mom or the guy he shot to protect me—Harvey Rosewood. Sometimes it’s Harvey’s dad, Danny, or someone else from Fort Caroline. Other times he’ll mumble that he doesn’t remember, but I’ll hear him tossing and turning the rest of the night. That’s how I know he’s lying.
But he seems to do fine with hurricanes.
