Even If We Break

by Marieke Nijkamp

  We keep going, because despair will catch up with us if we don’t.

  It turns out despair is fast on its feet.

  “If we’re sharing secrets anyway…” Ever draws in a breath. “I’m dropping out.”

  I turn so hard, I nearly lose my balance. “You what?”

  Ever twirls the branch they picked up, and then they toss it off the cliff. “I’m not going back to school once you’ve graduated.”

  “Why? We only have a year to go, and I’ll be there,” Maddy says softly.

  “We made college plans,” I add. A pit opens up in my stomach. This is the last thing I should worry about now, but I do, because it’s tangible, and everything else is too big and complicated to touch.

  Ever grimaces. “You made plans,” they say. “I have to drop out. Your plan wasn’t going to work, anyway. I know how much this means to you, Finn, but…I don’t see it happening.” They sigh. “Even if I could afford it…I’ve failed half my classes. It doesn’t matter.”

  Of course it matters. Of course it matters.

  “How is that possible?” I ask. But before they answer, I know. It’s a foolish question. Ever ran our games, they juggled everything their dad couldn’t handle, they prioritized everything for Elle. Something had to give. We just hadn’t noticed it. During our games, they didn’t want to talk about it, and outside of it, they put on a brave face. We missed so much. “What will you do, then?”

  “Work. I’ll stay at the bookstore for as long as they’ll have me, but I’ll keep an eye open for other things. The comics store, perhaps, or the game store.” They look down, dragging their foot through the dirt. “Or maybe I can find something that allows me more hours than any of those. They’re the ideal options, but in reality, I’ll settle for almost anything that allows me to earn enough money to help support my family. Up until a few hours ago, I thought I’d apply to work for Liva’s father’s company.”

  I hesitate, hovering from Maddy’s side to Ever and back. “Will you at least try to get your GED?”

  Ever places their good hand on my shoulder, and it’s such a comforting gesture, it hurts. To my right, Maddy looks away.

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe someday, but for now I’m going to focus on doing what I can, which isn’t school. Taking care of Elle is more important.”

  “I know. But.” I don’t have the right words to say more. I shouldn’t judge them. So I clamp my mouth shut.

  We slowly start to walk again, and I pace. I don’t even notice how hard the ground is. Three steps forward. Wait. One step back. Three steps forward. Deep in thought.

  The tension turns into physical discomfort, and Ever touches my shoulder. “But?”

  The words stumble out. “I’m not saying your worth depends on going to college either. It doesn’t. It would never, and I’m sorry if it sounded like that. You are not worthless. You deserve the universe. Truth is, I’d love you regardless of whether you never set a foot inside a school again or finish a PhD, but I want you to have the best chances in life.”

  “I’m alive,” Ever says softly. They stare at me quizzically, and somehow their gaze centers me and pushes me off balance all at the same time. “That alone is a pretty good chance.”

  I launch a pebble off the path with my crutch. We can see it fly through the air and land in the grass, and it’s the first thing that makes me realize the sky is brightening. “All our concerns sound so paltry now, don’t they? In the face of actual death?”

  Ever reaches out and slowly turns me to face them. “Do you know what Damien would say to that? Worries always sound paltry in the face of hatred. Failing a class sounds paltry in the face of a disaster. Breaking a leg, breaking a promise, breaking a heart all sound paltry in the face of a dying planet. It doesn’t make any of them any less meaningful. Now…” They reach for my hand. “Can you please repeat what you said a moment ago?”

  Maddy laughs softly.

  What last thing? Truth is, I’d love you regardless of whether you never set a foot inside a school again or finish a PhD, but I want you to have the best chances in life.

  I…

  Oh. That.

  I must blush or pale or perhaps a combination of both, because Ever winces. But before they can do or say anything, I take their hand and hold it. “Hey.”

  The corner of their mouth quirks. “Hey you.”

  We’re all disasters, now more than ever. We’re all falling apart. I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know how we can go home and explain to our families that two of our friends are dead. I don’t know how we can explain to their families that they won’t be coming back. I don’t know anything, except this:

  Both Ever and Damien were right. This world is a messed up and scary place. Life is too short and too hard not to embrace happiness and joy, courage and possibility, and sometimes fear and grief and sorrow too. We have to find our family. We are stronger when we stand against the darkness together, and if our brief moment of happiness is nothing more than a flare, it lights up the path for others too.

  I’ll keep repeating that. For Maddy. For myself. For everyone who needs to hear.

  We lost our friends. I nearly lost Ever, and I never want to lose them again.

  “So yeah,” they say. “Let’s do something fun together.” A hint of panic flashes through them. “If you still want to… I’m sorry I made you wait. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Not after this night.”

  “I thought we didn’t do despair,” I say softly.

  “Turns out I do,” they admit.

  “Me too.” I grimace. “Yes. Please yes. Once everything that comes next is done, we deserve something good. We deserve something hopeful. I didn’t think it was true anymore, but maybe we still have worlds to create together. Better ones.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “It won’t be easy,” I say.

  They nod. “I know. But that’s okay. I know I said it would be complicated, but the truth is, I don’t care about complicated, as long as it means we have a chance. I care about giving us a chance.”

  They pull me closer, and the cloak rustles.

  “Kiss already,” Maddy mutters.

  I raise an eyebrow and let go of Ever’s hand. I’m careful not to touch the wounded hand they hold cradled to their chest. Instead, I let my fingers follow their jawline while I look at them. They’re smaller now than they were before. Less flamboyant, no flourish. The remains of the smudged and torn green cloak hang from one shoulder. Their thick, black hair has long since escaped its ponytail and there’s blood and sand and sweat all over them.

  “Were you going to tell me before I moved away?”

  “I wasn’t sure yet. I didn’t want to…get in the way. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  A thousand things go through my mind all at once. Anger. Disappointment. Love. Frustration. I can hardly blame them, when all that time, I did the exact same thing. We’re both such fools.

  I trace a mixture of mud and tears on their cheek.

  We really should talk more, after tonight. This needs to be the start.

  When I’m off to college, in some kind of future that is coming up quickly but feels so distant, we’re going to have to figure something out. Long-distance relationships can work; we would’ve figured out our friendship like that too. And maybe friendships are considered easier and less fraught with expectations, but they’re not any less work. We owe it to each other to try, one way or another.

  Something soft and fast shoots past my legs, and I yelp. We both jump apart right in time to see a rabbit run across the path. It’s light enough now that we can at least make out its shape, but right there and then it’s as scary as any dragon.

  “I hate the outdoors,” Ever says with passion.

  I can only agree, and I love how fierce
they look, their eyes blazing.

  I could kiss Ever, looking the way they do now.

  Kiss already. Maddy’s voice in the back of my mind, or perhaps she simply said it again.

  And perhaps my intent is clear on my face, because when Ever looks back at me, the fierce annoyance has made way for vulnerable trust—and a desperate hunger.

  I bring my hands up to their face again. I don’t understand how I can count myself this lucky.

  Hands along their jawline.

  Eyes locking eyes.

  The mountain smells of dew and early morning and the faint sulfur of lava. Ever smells of home.

  I pull them close and wait for the almost imperceptible nod.

  Then I press my lips to their forehead.

  “I love you too much to steal that first kiss here,” I whisper low enough that Maddy probably can’t hear it. “So, not today. We still have tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Three more rabbits cross our path as we make our way. Some kind of bird of prey calls loudly and sends all of us huddling closer together. It seems the mountain isn’t quite done with us yet, or at least wants to give us a memorable exit. As if we could forget any part of it.

  We have one another, at least.

  “Next time we go adventuring, let’s skip the outdoors and stick to well-populated urban areas, please,” Maddy says, her voice soft and worn. She’s sweating, and she keeps clamping her arm closer to her chest and then realizing that only makes it worse. She sways. We take turns supporting her, but she’s supporting Ever and me as much.

  Ever tenses at those words. They stop dead in their tracks, and I have to swerve to avoid colliding with them. The sky around us has lit up to a pale blue, but Ever is paler. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to play again. Not after all this.”

  “Do you think our game is responsible for this?” I ask.

  “Don’t you?” Ever hasn’t quite turned to face us, and now, they look away entirely. They’re all angles and tension. “I wouldn’t blame either of you for thinking that.”

  “I don’t even know how to blame Liva for this yet, no matter how much I want to,” Maddy replies. She draws breath and then falls silent, Ever’s question heavy between us. Do we blame the game? Does that make sense?

  Eventually, Maddy finds the right words after all: “If it weren’t for us, for our game, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Ever flinches, but before they can say anything, she pushes on. “I don’t mean everything with Liva or Carter. I mean surviving. Finding you. Finding ourselves. I wouldn’t be here. Not without this place we built and without having you all by my side. Before, when nothing else was good enough, I had sports. After, at least I had Myrre. She kept me going. She kept me from falling too far. But she never turned me into a thief, simply because I play one. That’s not how that works. I can’t stealth properly, and believe me, I’ve tried.

  “I honestly don’t know if I want to play again. Not immediately. Or any time soon. Maybe not ever. But the world matters to me. The game matters to me. At the very least, if nothing else…the memories matter.” Her face falls.

  “What Maddy said,” I agree softly. Gonfalon taught me to survive. Here. Tonight.

  And it also taught me to survive in life. To find a place where I could be fully me, without anyone denying it. To start fights when necessary and not back down. To always keep asking questions. And to come back to the people who are your home, no matter how hard it sometimes is.

  It’s why I came back for it this weekend. And maybe that was the worst decision in my life—in many ways, it feels like it. But knowing that my friends were here, even if I’d had the choice, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.

  “Gonfalon is still ours, Ev,” I say. “It saved us. It’ll always be a part of us and a part of our journey. Maybe we’ll never play again, but I hope we do. I hope we play again, even if it’s ten or fifteen years from now. Even if it’s just us, sitting in an imaginary tavern, drinking imaginary mead, remembering the friends we lost and the friends who betrayed us. Remembering our shared adventures. I hope we do.”

  “And maybe we’ll discover other worlds down the road, because who we are hasn’t changed,” Maddy adds. “Maybe we’ll find others like us, because the two of us are going to be hanging out in Stardust for a while longer. But let’s keep the door open.”

  Ever stares at both of us. For once, I can’t read their emotions, but it seems like an impossible combination of hope and guilt. “Really? Are you sure?”

  “I’m not sure about much of anything right now,” I admit. “But I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose you. We’ve lost too much already today. It turns out, the world we built doesn’t have to be perfect. The people don’t have to be perfect. It matters far more that they’re here.”

  Maddy reaches for Ever. “You can trust us. This time, we’re not lying.”

  I nod. And though I may not know how to go from here, I know where to go. Home. To my mothers. To Damien. With Ever, wherever we want. Wherever home is for us together, no matter how long. To the observatory, or ghost hunting in the Monte Vista, or hanging out somewhere in the city.

  I told them I was still leaving after the summer, no matter what happens next, and that’s true. I’ve got a taste for adventure. I want new worlds to discover and new worlds to invent. I don’t feel safe here anymore, and that hasn’t changed.

  But I want to find a place or build a place where I do.

  I’m here, I’m breathing, and somehow that matters. I don’t know if we deserved to survive or whether we were just lucky, but we’re here and I want to make the best of it.

  Thirty-Three

  Ever

  We keep walking, because that’s all we can do. Slower. In silence. In pain. We walk across a knife’s edge ridge, arm in arm, together. We walk until the stars fade into the night and streaks of light blues and oranges crest through the sky from the east, though it feels like the shadows still cling to us. Until the lights from the city below blink into existence, like fireflies on the horizon.

  It’s so close and suddenly so far. It’s as if time followed a different pattern at the foot of this mountain. Elle is home, hopefully asleep in our bed, and blissfully unaware. I don’t want her world to be tarred by worry or fear yet. Dad must be awake by now, getting ready for work, and he won’t be the only one.

  In the city, life goes on as normal. It’s a strange thought. Most likely, no one knows there was anything out of the ordinary. No one is aware yet that the city lost two people overnight, and some of them will probably never find out.

  What was our center of the universe is irrelevant to other people.

  I can’t wrap my mind around that. I can’t help but wonder what goes on around me that I’ve never noticed. I don’t want to know everything, necessarily; I don’t know if anyone is meant to know everything. But I’d like to know more.

  In the bleak light of dawn, Flagstaff looks comfortingly familiar—and utterly foreign at the same time. Maybe that’s why we create worlds, to make sense of this one.

  The closer we get to the city, the more the exhaustion sinks in, the more that feeling of being out of place sinks in.

  I reach out and touch Finn’s hand, knuckles to knuckles. Soft enough for him to feel I’m there, not hard enough to impede him using his crutches. He steps a little closer, and we fall into step, our bodies molding around each other. Walking together with crutches can be a challenge—the first few months he accidentally tripped me more than a dozen times, and I tripped over my own feet twice as often. These days, we’re so in tune, we both take them into account without consciously thinking about it.

  I sneak a glance at Finn from the corner of my eye.

  His long hair falls in strands across his face and he’s pale. The fight took a lot out of him, and he’s intensely focused on the treacherous grav
el beneath our feet. As if he notices I’m watching, he leans into me for a shared heartbeat, as synchronized as our breathing and our walking.

  “You know I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “For what?” he whispers back.

  “I don’t know. Everything?”

  He narrows his eyes. “You’d better not be feeling responsible.”

  “Have you met me?” I try and obviously fail to make light of it.

  “Ever.”

  I push both my hands into the deep pockets of my cloak and let the pain wash over me. I’m shaking all over. When I look up at Finn, his anger has flared. His jaw is set. His eyes are blazing. I try not to be on the receiving end of that look too often.

  He shakes his head. “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to feel responsible for something you could not do anything about. This is Liva’s doing. These were the choices she made. You did everything you could to make everyone feel welcome. You aren’t to blame.” He grimaces. “None of us are.”

  That feels like an easy escape from my inner turmoil. I’m not sure I deserve that. I’m not sure I want that. Because the truth is that I made mistakes too. I may not be responsible, but that doesn’t mean I’m not accountable. “But maybe we could’ve helped her. Maybe I could’ve helped her.”

  “Maybe we could have,” Finn says. He moves his weight from one crutch to the other and winces. “Maybe we could have. We’re both going to struggle with the fact that we’ll never know. Maybe we failed her and Carter too. But if that’s the case, we’re to blame for not recognizing what she was going through. Nothing more.”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  He pulls me close, and I know he feels me trembling. As quickly as it came, his anger fades again. “Oh, Ev. I don’t want to be ignorant to my friends’ pain. I would like to make sure it never happens again. But it’s not a capital offense. I didn’t know how much you were struggling, and you’re as close to me as breathing. I didn’t share everything either. The most we can do is try and be kind—to ourselves too. That’s where we find our worth. That’s how we stop from breaking.”