Jo got up and left the table before I could say anything, taking my empty cup with her. I felt like someone had physically extracted the air from my lungs. All I could do was focus on breathing in and out until my heart rate came down. What was I supposed to say? Should I tell her I had nightmares too, though they’d gotten better? Should I tell her I was glad she’d gotten away from her family? I couldn’t think of a single thing that seemed right.
She came back with a steaming cup of black coffee for herself and more tea for me, with exactly as much milk and sugar as I liked. She’d paid attention to how I’d taken my first cup, and I found it more touching than I could have imagined. Maybe we really were friends, or maybe I was the closest thing to a real friend she had. I hoped that didn’t mean things had gone south with Chloe, but now didn’t seem the time to ask.
“I’m sorry all that happened to you,” I said. It was basic and not nearly enough, but anything more felt wrong.
“Thanks,” she said. “You don’t need to feel bad for me—I’m okay. Or I will be. I do need more help than I’ve been letting myself get, but I’m going to fix that. I want to put all this behind me.”
“What about the person who did this?” I asked the question before I could stop myself. “Don’t you want to find out who it is?”
Jo’s expression was hard for me to read, but I recognized it. Pity. What was going on here? “Don’t you know?”
“Of course I don’t know! I wouldn’t ask you if I knew!”
She shook her head. “We should go back. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Now I was getting upset, but I wasn’t about to start a fight with someone who’d just shared her worst experiences with me. Fine. I’d try to stop worrying about who was responsible. Jo apparently knew and didn’t think it was worth doing anything, and she’d been through far worse in her life than I had, so maybe it was time to drop it. I had Wyatt back, it seemed like Jo and I were friends, I was done with finals, and it was time to go home. I looked forward to seeing my family, even if I had no intention of filling them in on every last detail of what was going on around here.
My plan was to spend the rest of the day packing and then go see Wyatt. We were taking the same bus as many other students who were headed to Boston, whether because they lived there or because that was where they were picking up the train or taking a flight. I thought the mindlessness of putting my room in order would be a useful distraction from all the swirling thoughts in my brain, but no such luck; the rhythm of folding clothes and putting them back in my suitcase quickly allowed me to forget what my hands were doing and lose myself in thought. I could not stop thinking about everything that had happened, how close I’d come to losing Wyatt, how much pain my friends had been put through.
I had to do something.
I got out my phone and sent a group text. Meeting. Bunker. One hour. Then I emailed Wyatt to make sure he knew as well and I headed underground. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to everyone, or what I was proposing, but I couldn’t go home with this burning question on my mind.
Wyatt was the first to arrive. He got there a few minutes before I did; I loved that he knew me well enough to know I’d come right away, even if I’d given everyone else some time. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Is this about what happened last night?”
“Kind of,” I said, answering both questions at once without meaning to. “I think we all need to talk.”
We sat quietly together, waiting for everyone else to arrive. I’d set up the chairs in a circle, and we sat next to one another, holding hands. I looked around the bunker and tried to memorize it, as if I’d somehow forget it when I went home, as if I weren’t coming back in just a few weeks. We’d made a fair number of changes over the past months, and the space had come to feel more like a home than a place designed for bare-bones survival. There were Chloe’s throw pillows, plus the area rug she’d brought; Hunter routinely snagged extra energy drinks from soccer practice, so many that they now had their own shelf next to the bottled water; Jo had covered the wall space with posters of old catastrophe movies; I’d made a little reading nook in the corner with some of my favorite books; and Wyatt had taken care of adding to the variety of snacks by making off with bags of chips and cookies from the dining hall. I felt more at peace in this bunker than I did in my own dorm room.
Hunter showed up next, sweaty and out of breath in track pants, an old T-shirt, and sneakers. “Pickup basketball,” he said, still panting a little. “Ran over here as soon as I could. Everything all right?”
I hadn’t realized how much I’d freak everyone out calling a meeting the way I had. “Yeah, I’m okay. But last night was pretty awful, and I don’t think we should go home without seeing each other one last time.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Hunter said.
Just for a minute I wondered what Wyatt was thinking. He’d had a chance to read my whole journal; he knew the history of my crush on Hunter, along with everything I’d ever thought about Wyatt up until a few days ago. I couldn’t imagine having that much access into someone’s brain. I wasn’t sure I’d want it.
I was surprised when the next person to open the bunker door was Jo. She’d cleaned up from this morning; she was back in her usual uniform, and her face showed no signs of tears. It hadn’t even been an hour, so I hadn’t expected everyone to be here already, but if anyone were going to be early, I’d have thought it would be Chloe. She hadn’t responded to any of my texts, which was also strange.
“Guess we’re just waiting for one more,” I said.
“Sure, boss,” Jo said. If she was back to nicknames, she must be okay. “Might be a while, though.”
“What do you mean?” Wyatt asked.
She shrugged. “Just saying. Have any of you heard from her?”
We shook our heads. “That doesn’t mean she’s not coming,” I said. “She’ll be here. I’m sure she will.”
“Well, we don’t need to sit here in total silence, even if you don’t want to start the actual meeting without her,” Hunter said. “Remind me: Who’s doing what over break?”
“I saw my dad at Thanksgiving, so I’m going to see my mom,” Wyatt said. “Berkeley in winter is way better than Utah. We get enough snow here in Vermont. You?”
“Home,” Hunter said. “But this time I got out of the family trip, so I get to hang in Houston by myself. Well, my grandparents are staying at the house, but they let me do my own thing. I’ll get to see my friends, and I’ll have time to try and track down my brother.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I said. “I’m just going home. I miss my family.” I hadn’t said that out loud to anyone here before, but it seemed like the right time.
“I’m here,” Jo said. “As usual.” She didn’t sound bummed, just matter-of-fact, but the thought of Jo here in the dorms all by herself, surrounded by no one but kids who had nowhere else to go or who weren’t wanted at home, along with dorm parents who were seriously the least parental people I’d ever encountered, made me so sad.
“Why don’t you come home with me for a bit?” I asked.
Jo blinked a few times. “What?”
“I mean it,” I said. “Come for a week or two. My parents won’t mind. You can stay in my room with me, or if you want your own space, my sister can stay with me and you can have her room. We don’t celebrate Christmas, but we have a Hanukkah party every year and we make really good food.” I felt like I was selling it too hard, but I didn’t know what it would take to make Jo agree. I just knew she had to.
“I hate Christmas,” she said. “It would be great to get away from it. Thanks, Amina.”
“No problem. It’ll be fun.” I meant it, too. “Now seriously, where’s Chloe?” I got out my phone to see if she’d texted, but I’d forgotten that we had no service this far underground. But Chloe was rarely late, and never when she thought there’d be drama. If everyone else came running when I said we should meet, why wouldn’t Chloe do the same?
“Maybe we should just start without her?” Wyatt asked.
I didn’t want to; Chloe was so smart, and maybe she’d see connections the rest of us didn’t. But I also didn’t want to keep everyone underground all day; they had their own packing to do. “Okay,” I said. “I called everyone here because I know some of us, Chloe included, have been talking about the random bad stuff that’s been going on and whether it’s really random.”
“I don’t remember anyone talking to me,” Jo said.
I immediately felt awful, though she didn’t sound angry. “I know, and I’m sorry. Nothing had happened to you, and I just wasn’t sure . . .”
“You thought maybe I was the one doing it.” She laughed. “And last night cured you of that delusion.”
How was she so calm? I’d be furious. “I really am sorry. I should have known better.”
She waved me off. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
No nickname. Somehow it made me feel worse. “Anyway, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about everything that’s happened, and after last night I felt like maybe we should talk about it. See if we can put our heads together and find a connection so we can put a stop to it. I don’t want to be worrying about this when we get back.”
No one said anything for a long while. There was a lot of looking around, then looking at the floor, and then looking away. “Tell me this, Amina,” Jo said finally, and more gently than I’d ever heard her speak. “Is this a question you really want answered?”
“Of course!” How could anyone not want to know?
She turned to Hunter and Wyatt. “How about you guys?”
They exchanged glances. “I thought I did,” Hunter said. “But now that it’s all starting to make sense, I’m not sure I want to say it out loud.”
What was he talking about? I turned to Wyatt, who also looked confused. Help, I mouthed.
“I’m starting to think maybe not all of us in this room are on the same page?” Wyatt said. I hated that the tentativeness was back in his voice. It felt like my fault.
“I’m happy to bring us all there, if that’s what everyone wants,” Jo said. “I just think we should make sure first. We can’t come back from this.”
It sounded like she was saying it was one of us, but the only one of us I’d ever considered was her, and it didn’t feel like she was about to confess. “Come on already,” I said. “Just tell us what you know.”
“All right, but don’t shoot the messenger.” She planted both feet on the floor and put her hands on her knees. “Let’s be methodical here. Who do we know who has shown a willingness to hurt some people in support of others”—and here she started ticking off items on her fingers—“who is smart enough to know how to be stealthy, knows us all well enough to know how best to hurt us, has the tech and media savvy to pull off all these stunts, and isn’t here right now?”
When she laid it all out like that it was obvious, and I instantly felt stupid. But I didn’t want her to be right. Chloe would never do that to us. Though she was the only one of the group who spent time in my room. She knew about my journal, how important it was to me. Where I kept it. “What about the pictures of her?” I asked.
“They kept us from ever considering her,” Hunter said. “Which might have been the point.”
“She was so upset,” I said, but I knew I didn’t sound all that convincing. “What about the profile stuff? She didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“You don’t think?” Jo said. “One of her little fan club members is the editor. Those interviews got you in and Hunter out, which I’m sure was exactly what she wanted.”
I’d forgotten about the editor—Chloe had even mentioned that to me when I did the interview. “But why?” It came out almost more as a sob than a question, though I resolved I was not going to cry. “She’s my best friend here. Why would she try to break Wyatt and me up? Why would she want to hurt you and Hunter?”
Jo shrugged. “Beats me. Though she flipped out when I asked her about it last night.”
“You what?” Now Hunter was the one asking questions.
“She’s the only person at this school who knew about my background,” Jo said. “I told Amina about it today. That runaway crap was for me. As if I wouldn’t know it was her. And she had the nerve to act surprised when I confronted her with it.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I ever thought things might work between us.”
“That’s why you were so sure she wouldn’t come,” I said.
“She’s probably in her room sulking because I won the game,” Jo said. “Sometimes I think games are all she cares about, and not just of the Eucalyptus variety.”
“Well, she can’t just get away with this,” Hunter said. “We have to do something.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Wyatt asked. “Except tell her we know and hope she stops?”
“We can kick her out of Eucalyptus, to start,” I said. “And then we can make her tell us why she did all this.”
“If you really want to know,” Jo said. “At this point, I’m not sure I care.”
I couldn’t stop now. Not when we were so close. “I care, and I’m going to get answers,” I said. “Who’s coming with me?”
16.
I didn’t look behind me as I stomped my way out of the bunker and back toward the dorm, though from the sound of footsteps everyone had decided to join me. By now I knew the underground tunnels well enough that I could pop up right near my own dorm room gopher-style; I wasn’t quite knowledgeable enough to locate Chloe’s room underground, but Hunter and Jo both were. We giggled awkwardly when we realized why, and that broke the tension.
“Do you even know what you want to say to her?” Wyatt asked as we speed walked our way up the stairs.
“I’ll think of something.” I was filled with righteous rage and hoped that would be enough.
We continued our march down the hallway and stopped in front of Chloe’s room. The light was on, throwing a ray of light through the crack at the bottom of the door. “You want to do the honors?” Jo asked.
I knocked, three firm raps I intended to signal that this was an important visit. I’d barely moved my hand from the door when it opened.
Lauren. “What is it? Did you find her?” Her eyes were so wide they looked round, like a cartoon character’s, and she radiated a frenetic energy.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “We’re looking for Chloe.”
“Well, duh,” she said. “So is everyone.”
I pushed past her into the room. Chloe’s bed was its usual rumpled mess; Lauren’s was neat and tidy, almost in rebuke, except that Lauren would never do anything to risk her friendship with Chloe. She’d turned into the queen of the followers these past few months, imitating Chloe’s outfits with a rigor previously only matched by #fleabagfail Stacie. I’d checked Chloe’s Instagram this morning, as I always did, and she’d put up her usual photo. “Winter is being friendly!” she’d written, along with the usual pile of hashtags I didn’t care to decipher. She wore all white: white jeans, white boots with a puff of fake white fur at the top, a long white puffer coat with matching fake white fur, silvery makeup. We’d had a storm during finals that coated the ground with a thick layer of snow and the trees with glittering ice. Lauren, too, was dressed all in white, but the effect was less ethereal snow princess and more hospital staff—she clearly didn’t have many winter-white clothes to work with, and white wasn’t her color anyway. Her pale skin looked washed out, though it might have been from lack of sleep more than the clothes.
“You’re telling me she’s not here?” I asked, though it was obvious. “When did you last see her?”
“Last night, like everyone else,” Lauren said. “She didn’t come back, and I haven’t seen her all day. I’ve asked everyone and no one’s seen her since the party.”
“I saw her,” Jo said.
“Then you were the last one.” A tear escaped from Lauren’s eye. “Did
she tell you anything? Was she planning on going somewhere? I’ve been freaking out but I thought maybe there was a chance she was with you guys, but if she isn’t . . .”
This was unexpected. “She must have been here at some point,” I said. “She posted on Instagram this morning.”
Lauren snorted. “She schedules those. She could have made that post a month ago. Doesn’t mean anything.”
I’d forgotten about that. That didn’t help, then. I turned to Jo. “When you talked to her last night, what did she say?”
Jo frowned. “I confronted her about the party, and at first she lied about it, said it had nothing to do with her. She’s so convinced she can make people believe whatever she wants. But I pushed, and she started getting upset. Panicky. I don’t think anyone’s ever called her out for anything. She started crying, and then she split.” She paused, then added, “She did say one thing before she left that I thought was bizarre, but now I’m wondering whether it was a clue.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“She said, ‘I’m better at survival than all of you,’” Jo said.
That gave me pause, and then it gave me an idea. “Lauren, did you come back here right after the party broke up?” I asked.
“No, a bunch of us moved the party to one of the lounges for a while,” she said. “No one was ready to go to bed yet.”
That meant Chloe could have come back to the room. I went to her closet and started rifling through her clothes, trying to see whether she’d packed a bag and left or whether she’d just wandered off somewhere to be alone. It was winter, after all; if she was going to go outside, she’d have to take a coat with her. But Chloe had so much stuff it was impossible to tell whether anything was gone.
How to Pack for the End of the World Page 21
