By the time lunch rolled around, the fear had faded. It faded in the same way it did when Benji came early for the first time, when his classmates saw him with grass on his socks and two new friends. The fear, the shock, the confusion, it faded with a meager dose of time.
Benji left Mr. Trenton’s class to find Alex and Ray waiting at the door. They were seventh-graders on the school soccer team, about the same height, and looked similar, although not a speck related. Nearly identical shades of dusty blond hair, matching basketball shorts, and a freckle on each of their left cheeks. A resemblance striking enough to notice, but not worth mentioning.
Ray threw a soccer ball at Benji, and he caught it.
Alex and Ray’s eyes widened in unison, but when the shock dissipated, they laughed.
“You’re crazy.” That was Ray, the one wearing the bold blue shirt Benji hadn’t noticed before. The colors seeped into his brain, and when Benji turned to Alex, who was now twisting the length of his own hair, all he focused on was his orange and green striped polo.
“Almost makes me wanna do the same,” Alex said. “Almost.”
Benji tossed the soccer ball gently between his hands, watching the black pentagons spin in hypnotizing patterns. He’d been wishing to join the soccer team for years. Sure, he hadn’t done it. Rebecca would never allow him to. But she never said he couldn’t toss a soccer ball around with a couple of seventh-graders in his free time.
Unlike how Benji pictured himself playing soccer, he had absolutely no coordination. He not only struggled with foot tricks, but simple dynamics too, like judging what strength and angle to kick the ball at for it to reach someone else. Either he lacked natural talent or these seventh-graders had supernatural abilities. They could do anything they wanted with their feet. They were free. Meanwhile, Benji had gone to school extra early this morning to learn how to pop the ball into the air and catch it. He was unsuccessful.
Alex and Ray had always known Benji, but not well. They’d gone to the same school for the majority of their educational lives, being only a year apart, and yet they hardly spoke to each other. Benji remembered giving Alex advice on how to do well on Mr. Miller’s pop quizzes back in fifth grade. He once asked Ray when soccer season started, although he didn’t remember when or why he asked. So the idea of surprising these two kids had thrilled him.
At first the two had been skeptical. Eighth-grade Benji Marino? The boy who never joined a sport? The boy with the overprotective mom, who showed up almost late to every class, who lost his dad ten years ago? What was Benji Marino doing at school early, standing in the field, asking for them to teach him how to play soccer?
He stopped tossing the soccer ball in his hands. There was no time for reminiscing about yesterday. He had work to do.
Audrey stepped out of class, heading toward the music room.
Ray adjusted the collar of his polo. “You’re coming, right?”
Alex, somehow sensing Benji had other plans, held out his hands. “Stop by if you have time.”
“Sure thing.” Benji tossed the soccer ball into Alex’s arms, his focus locked on Audrey. As soon as the two boys left, he rushed after her.
“Hey.” Benji reached Audrey’s side. “Can we talk?”
She stopped in the middle of the hall, so he did, too. Her eyes traced Benji’s hair. “It looks nice.” There was a hint of skepticism in her voice, but Benji didn’t acknowledge it. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Benji crossed his arms to relax them. “There’s been a lot on my mind lately. I’ve actually been meaning to tell you something for a while.”
“Okay?”
“I like you.” His arms stiffened again, and he bit his lip to keep from walking away.
Audrey was a sculpture. Her black hair rested over her shoulders as if they had been melted onto her, motionless. When she finally moved, it was only to face the ground.
Benji couldn’t handle the silence anymore, so he continued. “Since fourth grade, actually.”
“I see.” That was all she said.
Five years. He had spent the last five years waiting for Audrey’s smile. The smile that lit the classroom, filled it with colors he could hardly imagine. There was no denying the fact that she was beautiful. Everyone could see that. But had he really known her?
Five years. Five years of intoxication, that’s what it was. He wasn’t thinking of Audrey when he tried to leave earlier this month. He wasn’t thinking of her when he imagined his future. She brought a dash of color to a town as desaturated as Wishville, and Benji clung to all the colors he knew to survive. Every speck of it he gripped with his soul. But now that he had finally said it, now that the words came loose, these bottled feelings washed away.
The truth was, he never liked Audrey.
He liked the colors she showed. The colors gave him hope that someday, life could change. She was a distraction from searching for the truth, searching for the true colors, the permanent ones.
“I liked you, Audrey.” Their eyes met. “But I felt like I should still tell you.”
“Well, thanks.” When she smiled this time, the colors were gone. “For telling me.”
Benji smiled back, and his arms relaxed at his sides. He was lighter. Weightless.
Floating.
CHAPTER 16
pages
His last day at Blueberry.
James sat cross-legged on the rug, Sharpner’s Peak in hand. He wasn’t particularly sure what had brought him to the old shed. It wasn’t the silence. Wasn’t the nostalgic buzz of his childhood second-home. It was unidentifiable, but necessary.
Today was Blueberry’s funeral. He would pay one final visit. Think back on bittersweet memories. Pay his respects. And when he finished, the place would be erased from his life forever, only a memory associated with the most beautiful and morbid part of his life.
He stared at the rotting door, the rusty storage shelf where they stashed their secret junk food, the black specks sprinkled across the ceiling like stars in the sky, accumulating in the corners. He ran his hand along the dusty carpet beneath him, smelled the salty air of the nearby ocean, tasted blood from the cheek he realized he’d been biting.
He thought back on the time he spent with his friends. Benji, Chloe, Sam, all three of them pulling him into their silly games. They convinced him to waste his time. Accepted him with all of his faults. They embraced his love of books and puzzles and everything that destroyed his integrity, and in doing so, didn’t give him a reason to change.
All the time he buried himself inside of Blueberry with three kids who had the time to waste. They were stuffed with it, boundless loads of it, almost too much of it to bear. And yet there he was, tagging along the eternal children while his own sister’s clock ticked with threatening alarm.
He stood, leaving his book abandoned on the rug, and leaned against the wall. With a clear view of the room, the memories appeared clearly in front of him. Sam ranted about something while Benji tuned her out. Chloe walked in behind them and shut the door. She looked at James.
How many times had he been here in this room, wasting his life away while his sister fought to keep hers?
“Didn’t think you’d be here.” Chloe kicked a floorboard, Benji and Sam vanishing.
“You’re real,” James said.
“Yep, alive and breathing.” She inhaled a gust of wind into her mouth and coughed. “At least, I hope so. Why’d you come here, anyway?”
He tapped his head.
“Me too. Just wanted a chance to think someplace new. The house gets old sometimes.” She jumped to the door. “Let’s go on a walk.”
James unglued his back from the wall, but his feet didn’t budge.
“Oh, come on.” She walked down the steps, her voice echoing behind her. “It’s not like we don’t have time to kill.”
James grabbed his book and followed her through the forest. The crunching of twigs under their feet diminished as they reached the ocean, meeting a floor that flashed between blue, white, and gray.
The shore on this side of Wishville was not only rockier than the other, but also layered with fallen pine needles. Chloe took her shoes off anyway.
James planted his feet and shook his head, establishing his stance on the matter.
“What a nerd.” She rolled off her socks into wads, tossed them onto the prickly sand, and jumped toward the shore, giggling as the rocks poked into her feet. She leaned over to roll her leggings up, and James cleared his throat.
“Calm down, I’m not planning to go in.” She straightened her back and stepped forward.
“You could drown.”
“I said, I’m not planning to go.” She kicked at the sand, watching the splashes ripple through the waves. “Have Benji and Sam been acting weird to you lately?”
James tapped his foot unsuccessfully. His shoes sunk into the ground.
“Benji has to be up to something. I heard he’s been coming to school early to play soccer with Alex and Ray. Then Peyton told me about Audrey today. I’ve been trying to get him to tell her for years, and he does it out of nowhere?” The waves reached for her toes, but she stepped back before they could touch her. “Then there’s Sam. She’s been distracting herself with all that boring music stuff, I can tell. Either I’m missing something or there’s maggots in my brain.”
“Or maybe it’s time to move on.” A breeze rushed between them, creating a wall of chilling air.
“Are you kidding?” Chloe spun around so fast it was practically a hop. “You guys are my family. I’m not letting this get any worse.”
She crossed from damp sand to dry, past James, and threw herself at the ground where she’d placed her shoes. “You’d be fine if we all fell apart?” She pulled her socks back over her muddy feet and slipped her boots on. “We’ve been friends forever.”
James glanced at the book in his hands. It’s bloody red cover.
Chloe stood. “Moving on is different from pushing people away.”
When he raised his chin, Chloe was still for once. Not jumping around or fidgeting with her hair. Her feet were planted to the ground, her arms crossed, and her hair lying flat against her face, held still by the surrounding trees which blocked the windy air. All that moved were her eyes, quivering as they searched James’s face for recognition. “Maybe you really do need some time to yourself.” After a slow blink, her eyes stopped shifting.
“Bye, Chloe.” He won this battle.
As Chloe retreated into the forest, he stepped toward the shore again, the grip on his favorite book tightening. He couldn’t count the amount of hours he had spent forcing his nose deep into the book, watching the world wash away around him. How many hours he had spent next to his sister, but a whole universe away. How many times he must have blocked out those talking to him, prioritizing the dialogue of the novel’s more intriguing characters than the mundane ones encountered in his ordinary life. How much time he spent with imaginary people instead of his sister, the sister he knew was dying, but chose to believe would live forever for the sake of his own desires.
The waves squirted mists across his face, and he welcomed them. His fingers gripped to a random page. With a slow, painful drag of his wrist, he ripped it from the spine. The paper dangled between his index finger and thumb, the hazy light making it appear thinner than it really was. He dropped the page, watched it twist and twirl like waves before becoming a part of the real ones, pulled into rotation. James ripped another paper. Dropped it. Another. Dropped.
With each paper he let go, a part of himself deteriorated. He developed a hunger for the ocean to devour every part of himself he hated. Every last word that made him the boy he despised. Soon he was ripping in clumps. His arm was sore, his fingers beaten with paper cuts, but he kept tearing.
The pages of his prized book were gone. All that was left was an unrecognizable book cover with a dented corner. He ran his hands along the cover one last time, ripped it in half by the spine, and chucked it into the water as if tossing bread at seagulls. He watched a piece of the cover float across a peaceful patch before the water drew it into discourse. The cover tossed around, trying to stay afloat, trying to breathe, but was eventually drowned by the current, carried away forever.
Something inside him had shifted. Changed, even. And he couldn’t have been more pleased.
CHAPTER 17
cereal
The day had been great. Benji’s strange encounter with Audrey had supposedly sparked some color in Wishville Junior High. A few kids even ran into the field at lunch to compliment his hair. But although his plan was progressing seamlessly, the sensation of satisfaction was lacking, replaced by worry as reality seeped in. Benji had been sitting in a tub, a tub filled with the cold-hard fact that his death day was soon to greet him. The news didn’t hit him at first. But now, the 23rd was only five days away, and according to his plan, tomorrow would be his last day at school.
Benji had spent too long at Eudora after school. He told Oliver about everything he’d done so far. He lost track of time, barely managing to arrive home before Rebecca returned from work, thanks to his effort to run instead of walk. He rushed to his room, threw his legs under the bed sheets, and shut his eyes. Some would argue it would be wise to never sleep again until his final moment, but what good would that be? More time to do what, exactly? Worry?
The sun shined at his face through open blinds. His eyes locked shut like the door to a prison cell, blocking all sense of light.
At exactly 3:46 in the afternoon, he fell into a dream.
Benji stood on the bridge. The waves rushed below, threatening him. The tree branches shook rhythmically, calling him. The wind pressed against his back, encouraging him. Past this bridge was a world no one knew.
“What am I doing here?”
His voice was an echo in his brain, fighting to speak, but failing. He could not control his lips, his limbs, or even where to look. The actions took place on their own, and Benji was the observer. He noticed his foot raising, stepping toward the LEAVING WISHVILLE sign. He couldn’t restrain himself.
“Stop!” Benji yelled into the sky, but there was nothing to carry the sound. The wind was gone now. So his voice sat there, resonating in his ears. He stepped past the sign. And rather painfully, the other foot jumped and landed ahead of the last.
His heart raced a thousand miles an hour. Although he could see the moon in the foggy sky and hear the icy waves below, he wasn’t cold. He was burning, but his sweat evaporated instantly, lifting off into the night sky, stripping him of the last fluids in his body. His tongue was dry.
He turned around, watching Wishville from outside of town.
Benji wasn’t sure how, but he could see everything. Chloe arranging her outfit for the following day, Sam practicing the violin, and James lying empty in his bed. Lauren enjoyed her evening coffee, Rebecca flipped through old photographs, and Jett rubbed his forehead as he powered through math homework like a snail.
He could see past Wishville, too. Much further. There were colors in the air he had never seen before, and the mere glance of them broke him from a sweat to a shiver. He turned around to escape the mess, but the colors in this direction were even stronger. Motion were everywhere. Colors were everything.
Benji watched the whole world at once. Everything was moving too fast for him to wrap his mind around, yet tumbling perpetually faster. In almost an instant, Chloe had chosen her outfit, Sam had packed away her violin, James had fallen asleep, and Jett had tossed his incomplete homework into the trash bin.
The world spun beneath his feet. Too fast. “Go back.” Time was rushing out of control. “Go back! It’s too fast!”
Time did not obey him. He stood frozen, sweating in the middle of the forest, watc
hing the world pivot around him with incredible speed. Every inch of his body ached, and each attempt to move only intensified the soreness. He had been tied with an invisible rope. Couldn’t move, couldn’t run, couldn’t blink. So he stood in pain, watching the world move faster toward the end as if time itself were a bomb.
His mere existence was fading away.
Benji held his shaky hands in front of him. His fingers moved according to his will, and he leaned forward, finding himself back in his room, gripping the bed sheets. He exhaled all of his accumulated worry.
“What happened?” Benji’s shoulder burned from Rebecca’s tight grip.
He was about to tell her that he was feeling well. That he was fine. But when he opened his mouth, all he knew was that he couldn’t breathe.
“Benji.” Rebecca shook him. “Did you have a nightmare? Are you okay?”
He caught a single breath. “What—what was I doing?”
“You were shouting in your sleep.” Rebecca straightened her back and loosened her grip. “You had me panicked.”
Benji leaned to the side, letting Rebecca’s hand slip off his shoulder. “I’m going back to sleep.” He flopped his head onto his pillow and forced his eyes shut.
“Did something happen? You can tell me, you know.”
Benji rolled onto his side, letting sleep take over. It didn’t want to, but Rebecca wasn’t able to tell. Her soft footsteps tapped against the carpet as she made her way to the door.
The night progressed, but slowly. Every time Benji peeked out the window, the moon was in the same spot as last time. The stars didn’t move.
Although Benji reached a point where he didn’t think of his death anymore, the bubbling ache in his stomach refused to settle. His forehead was sore to the touch, and when he sat, he realized his nose was runny. He wiped it on his sleeve, sniffled a bit, and rubbed his eyes until they were bone dry.
After a while of staring at the wall, he slipped out of bed and into the hallway.
Benji remembered being younger and walking through the same hallway, afraid something might jump at him. Tonight, there was nothing to be afraid of. he walked with a dull mind, knowing nothing terrible would happen to him. Nothing terrible would happen for five more days, on the night of May 23rd at 11:59.
Leaving Wishville Page 10
