“That went well,” I said. “Jo, you want to chase her down, or should I?”
“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Jo said. “I’m just getting warmed up. I’ll stick around and spar with Avi here.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” he said, and charged at her. The two of them were locked in some sort of grappling situation when I left.
Chloe was furious, I knew, and I’d never seen her that pissed off before. She’d gotten pretty far ahead of me, and I wasn’t sure whether I should run after her to catch up or just walk behind and give her a chance to calm down. We could always talk once we got to her room.
But she wasn’t going to her room. It took me a while to realize where she was headed, because I never went to the boys’ dorms. We were only allowed in the common rooms that connected the boys’ and girls’ dorms together.
Getting in was hardly challenging, though; the main doors were unlocked, the dorm parents went to bed early, and Gardner wasn’t a school of snitches. I stayed far enough behind Chloe that she didn’t notice me, and I kept my steps light. I wasn’t trying to talk to her now; I was spying on her.
When Chloe reached Hunter’s room she knocked three times, gently. I hid around the corner, where I saw Hunter’s roommate open the door. He barely had time to say “Hey, Chloe” before she told him to get out. Thankfully he left the other way so he didn’t see me. She’d been here before, then.
Hunter came to the door next, wearing boxers and nothing else. My dream of seeing him shirtless was coming true, but this wasn’t how I’d wanted it to go. “I came to check on you,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m over it. Mostly. Still haven’t heard from Amina, though.”
He wanted to hear from me? This was news.
“I’ll talk to her,” Chloe said.
“How’d the Krav Maga go?” he asked. She’d told him what we were doing, then. Now I was confused. I’d only just started thinking that maybe Chloe wanted Jo, but here she was, in Hunter’s room, at night, and not for the first time.
“Not bad,” she said. “Here, I’ll show you. How would you resist me, if I were attacking you?” She gave him a shove, and they moved back into the room.
I crept out of the hallway, staying far enough away that they couldn’t see. Besides, they’d probably shut the door, and then I could turn around and go back to my own dorm.
But they didn’t.
Chloe pushed Hunter a couple of times, harder and harder, but he still didn’t figure out what was going on. “Come on,” she said. “How would you resist me?”
Then he got it. “I wouldn’t,” he said.
“Good boy.” She pushed him down on the bed, and only then did she kick the door closed behind her.
9.
I’d once heard someone describe themselves as being incandescent with rage and I remember thinking that it was somehow both a great description and an obvious exaggeration. But on the walk back from Hunter’s room to my dorm I felt like I finally understood. I was having so many feelings all at once: I’d already been mad at Hunter for lying about his father, and now I had to face the fact that he really did want Chloe and not me. Not to mention that Chloe was supposedly my best friend, and yet here she was, getting together with the guy I wanted. Except she didn’t know I wanted him, which meant that in some backward way this was all my fault. Incandescent was a good word: I felt like my rage could light a fire.
I walked all over campus trying to calm myself down, sticking to paths I knew by heart once curfew kicked in so I wouldn’t get caught. By the time I got back to my room I had a plan: I’d do my best to fake it around Chloe and Hunter for the time being, I’d beg off my study sessions with Hunter and claim I was working on my game, and I’d vent to Tamara after services Friday. It was becoming increasingly clear I couldn’t deal with all this anger by myself.
Wednesday was Hunter’s first day back after the article came out, and he saved me the trouble of worrying how to interact with him by giving me a brief nod and then sitting at his desk, not talking to me or anyone else. He was equally silent in our other classes, not speaking until we were walking out of European History. “Skipping lunch to go study,” he said. “I’m going to cram on my own tonight, too. Hope that’s okay.”
He walked off before I had a chance to say anything, and I was grateful. He’d done the hard work for me. But then I wondered whether he was still avoiding people because of the article or whether he now wanted to avoid me because of Chloe, because he’d somehow known I was into him, and I started to feel panicky. It wasn’t until I relayed Hunter’s plans to Chloe at lunch that I began to figure things out. “He’s not eating with us today. He said he has to study.”
“That’s what he said?” Chloe didn’t notice how much trouble I was having making eye contact with her. “He’s such a liar. He’s avoiding me because we’ve been hooking up and last night he wanted to talk about what it means and I wasn’t up for it.” She deepened her voice at the word “talk,” as if mocking Hunter for liking her. I felt a wash of relief that I’d never talked about my crush, and I almost started feeling bad for Hunter. Almost.
I reminded myself that I was supposed to be surprised. “You’ve been what?”
“Oh, it’s no big deal.” Chloe waved her hand in what was becoming her signature move, the gesture conveying dismissiveness with a hint of disdain. “I was pissed off Jo pulled a fast one on us last night, and I decided it was my turn to blow off some steam. I figured Hunter would be up for some fun, but he got all intense about it. Given everything that’s coming out about his dad I would have thought he could use the distraction, you know?”
Suddenly, somehow, I did. I could see it all, both sides: I’d been right that Hunter was falling for Chloe, and I’d been right that she had no idea, that she’d gone and treated him like a fling and might have broken his heart in the process. Now I did feel bad for him, and I was tempted to try and track him down to see if he was okay. But that was only going to make me feel worse, and I wasn’t quite over learning about his family. I could take some comfort in knowing that Chloe wasn’t trying to hurt me, that she’d been just as oblivious to my feelings as she’d been to Hunter’s—at least there was one person among the three of us I could try not to be mad at. What did that say about her, though? What did it say about me, to have a friend who, best-case scenario, didn’t notice my feelings? I couldn’t even begin to wrap my brain around the answer.
With everything else going on I’d put the thought of the elections out of my head, though I’d hardly forgotten about them, especially not with the “Hunter and Amina for a Better Future” posters covering just about every surface on campus. We’d outdone our opponents in getting our names out there; now we had to wait and see how much damage the article had done, and to whom.
Voting was Thursday after classes, with the votes tallied that night. I could barely sleep wondering what I would discover Friday morning, in what ways my life at Gardner might change, if at all. But nothing could have prepared me for what the students ultimately decided: Friday morning rolled around to reveal that the two new class reps were me and Ken Zhang.
“Apparently the student body decided they wanted one rep for serious stuff and one rep for fun,” Chloe announced at lunch. Hunter was nowhere to be found, and now I wondered which of the latest embarrassments was keeping him away. “It’s going to mean a ton of work for you—Ken won’t do anything. But at least we got you in there.”
She hadn’t mentioned Hunter at all. “Is he okay?” I asked, knowing I didn’t have to specify who. “Did you check on him?”
This got me a sigh. “I tried, but he’s still sulking. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t quite as sure. Maybe it was time for me to check in with him. I needed some advice, though, so I decided to wait until after I’d talked to Tamara. I cornered her at dinner and made her stay and talk to me in the chapel afterward. “You wouldn’t believe everything that’s been going on,” I began, and f
illed her in on all the details, both hookup- and election-related. Of course she jumped on the hookup stuff.
“You actually saw them?” Tamara’s eyes widened in horror, and she put her hand over her mouth. She’d painted her nails with a beehive pattern, with tiny bees scattered on each one. How did she even find the time?
“I mean, not the actual thing, but yeah, it was very clear what was going to happen. I’m over it, though. Totally.”
“Uh-huh.” Tamara didn’t even try to be convincing. “Which part are you over, exactly? The part where you’re super into him? The part where your best friend went after him? The part where he lied about his background?”
“Okay, I get it.” She was saying the same things I’d been thinking, but it sounded so much worse coming from her. “I’m over having a thing for him. I never told Chloe, so it’s not her fault for going after him.”
“Sure.” Another failed poker face from Tamara. “As if it wasn’t completely obvious how you felt. I haven’t even been in the same room with both of you in any real way, and I’m pretty sure I’d be able to tell. What about the other kids in your group—what’s it called again?”
“Eucalyptus,” I said.
“Where are they in all this? Do any of them know what’s been happening?”
“Good question.” I really didn’t know the answer. I’d felt a vibe between Chloe and Jo but I didn’t know what it was about or what direction it went in, and Wyatt tended to be clueless about interpersonal stuff. None of us had talked about Hunter’s family situation, and I was pretty sure Jo and Wyatt didn’t know about the hookup. “I guess I’ll find out at our next meeting.”
“When’s that?” she asked.
Another good question. Our next meeting would be the one where we started my game. That wasn’t going to happen until after finals. I didn’t think I’d make it through two weeks of avoiding Hunter, not when he was in almost all my classes. Besides, I really did need to study. I was sure he did too.
Bummer about the election, I texted on my way back from services. I’m behind on studying—want to catch up this weekend?
I could see him start to type a response practically as soon as mine went out, and I felt bad all over again. He really was waiting to hear from me. Soccer away game tomorrow but Sunday yes plz!
We arranged a time, and I decided I was going to try to get over being upset about his dad. He couldn’t help who his family was, and he’d taken so many steps to separate himself it didn’t seem fair for me to judge him for wanting to pretend the connection didn’t exist. I was lucky I had a family that not only cared about me but cared about the same things I did, even if we didn’t always agree about everything. For once, I found myself looking forward to our weekly call. I’d talk to everyone this time, not just my sister.
Before I knew it, two weeks had passed. We’d made it through finals, I’d gone to my first student council meeting (with the other class rep, Ken Zhang, who to my surprise wasn’t as bad a guy as I’d expected), I’d skipped the big Halloween party, and it was time for my game to begin. We assembled in the bunker, with me sitting in a chair and everyone gathered around me in a circle on the floor as if it were story time, which, given how I’d set up the game, it was.
“My game’s going to be a little different than the first two,” I told them. “My big fear is that the United States is going to turn out to be a failed experiment in democracy, that we’re now two separate countries living under one roof, and we can’t go on as we are. So in the world of my game, my worst fears have come to pass. I’ll tell you the story of how it happened and then give you a character to play and tell you the rules.” I’d written up a narrative explaining the world we’d all be living in, just to make sure I didn’t leave anything out. “It all started with the reelection of a certain president.”
I explained how the Republican Party had managed to unify itself around an unpopular leader, allowing him to pack the courts and sign off on laws that took away many of the progressive gains of years past. No more constitutional right to abortion, or even birth control; no more gay marriage; no more Voting Rights Act; no more laws against gerrymandering. Electoral districts became so skewed that Republicans took over more than three-quarters of state governments as well, which opened the door for constitutional amendments. That’s when things got complicated.
First came the repeal of the Twenty-Second Amendment and its term limits on the presidency, leading to a third and fourth term for the unpopular president. The next amendment to fall was the Fourteenth, along with its guarantee of equal rights. Repealing the Fourth Amendment, against unlawful search and seizure, opened the door to a police state. If the Democrats weren’t able to do something to stop it through the political process, there would soon be a military coup, and the president would officially become a dictator.
That’s how the Second Civil War started.
“And we lost,” I told them.
The bunker was silent. I’d managed to hold everyone’s attention, so that was a good start.
“What happened next?” Hunter finally asked.
“Suspension of the Constitution and enactment of martial law,” I said. “The president retreated to his vacation home and left running the country to his evangelical vice president. Women, people of color, disabled people, LGBTQ plus—no one had any protection under the law anymore, so cis white men were free to do whatever they wanted. Immigrants were either sent home or put in camps, children were separated from their parents indefinitely, naturalized citizens were denaturalized and sent back to countries where some of them had never been. And the war itself meant a smaller population, since so many people died. The economy collapsed, and we lost pretty much all relationships with other countries. We’re now short on just about every resource you can imagine, but there’s still some hope for a revolution.”
“Sign me up for the revolution!” Wyatt yelled.
“Calm down, there, Paul Revere,” Jo said. “Is that the game? To figure out the revolution?”
“That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “But no, we don’t get to be the heroes here. I don’t think that’s what surviving the apocalypse would really be like, do you? Everyone thinks they have to save the world, but they have to save themselves first.”
“How do we do that?” Hunter asked.
“The goal is simple,” I said. “Survival for one week under the current regime. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. We’ve got food shortages and rationing, along with all the legal restrictions that weren’t in place before. Your task is to do the best job possible using your limited resources, given the circumstances I’ve placed each of you in. You won’t all start out on equal footing because the world we’re living in isn’t fair, so the rules don’t have to be fair either. I’ve made a bio for each of you and given you a list of sample expenses and ration coupons, and I’ve given you a spreadsheet template you can use to track your spending. Whoever does the best job making it through the week wins.”
I gave each of them a manila folder with their biographical info and watched them start reading. I’d given a lot of thought to their characters, and I was pleased with what I’d put together.
Wyatt, I knew, hadn’t grown up with much, but the people on the commune had shared what they had, so he was used to getting by and thinking collectively. This meant he was going to have to learn to be selfish, and he would need to fight for resources. I gave his character a limited number of ration coupons; to get more, he’d have to come up with a way to convince other people to give him food or coupons, and it had to be for valuable services. I knew he didn’t think he had much to offer, but I bet he’d be surprised at what he could do, especially if he was hungry.
Chloe was cagey about her upbringing, but I got the sense she’d grown up under financial constraints and had managed to survive on her own terms through her social media enterprise. On the one hand, that made her one of the most fiercely self-sufficient people I’d ever met, which made challeng
ing her difficult. On the other hand, she didn’t have much taste for deprivation these days, so perhaps even making her go without some of the luxuries she’d grown accustomed to would be hard enough. I made her character extremely poor and gave her a debilitating illness that kept her from working full time and that required medication, so she didn’t have enough money and coupons for both food and drugs.
I’d expected Hunter’s character to be easy, now that I knew just how much privilege he’d had growing up. But while giving him a shock to the system was nearly guaranteed, I really wanted to wake him up to how hard the world was for some people, and how much worse it could get. He was so congenial that a week of living on a weird food budget might be fun for him. He’d always know safety was a few days away, and I didn’t know how to remove that feeling of security, if only for a little while.
So his game had different rules. I knew it might not work; he could cry foul, and he’d be right. First, his game had a failure trigger: if he didn’t follow all the rules the first week he had to keep going, and he had to live with any financial deficits he’d created for himself. Second, I made his character female. As luck would have it, she’d have her period the week of the experiment, and supplies were now catastrophically expensive. Finally, his character had a food allergy. I knew Hunter loved his carbs, and those were often the cheapest source of nutrients, so I made his character allergic to gluten. Not just insensitive, but really, truly allergic, so he—she—couldn’t eat it at all. No bread, no pasta, none of the foods he liked. I figured if he followed the latter two rules, his week would be brutal. The group might not hold him to the first rule, but perhaps he’d learn that sometimes the rules of the game were rigged against you from the start, and there was nothing you could do about it. He needed to know it not just intellectually but in his bones, especially if he was going to do the kind of work he wanted to do.
Jo was the real challenge. She was still a cipher to me; I knew she’d grown up in Chicago and that her parents were dead, but that was pretty much it. I’d finally put together that her mother was Korean and her father was white because she’d made a joke about storing homemade kimchi in the bunker and had reluctantly explained it when Chloe asked. I suspected she wasn’t straight, but really that was just a combination of her shoelaces and the vibe between her and Chloe, neither of which was enough for me to draw a real conclusion. I knew we’d all assumed Jo was a scholarship student because she wore the same clothes all the time and didn’t act like someone with money, but I couldn’t be sure. Then there was the fact that she was scary and competitive, but I’d never seen her lose her composure. How was I supposed to make her life hard?
How to Pack for the End of the World Page 12
