The First Year
Page 26
The Last Person on Earth
The house is claustrophobic. Even with Julie asleep on the second floor, I feel the walls closing in. The house has never felt like my home, but now I feel like an intruder.
I can do it again.
The thought pops into my head like a whisper in my ear. Yeah, I can. Pack up my truck or even find another one. Pick up as many of my supplies from the orchard shop as I can fit, and then just drive away. Find another beach. Find another house. Start over again. And then I’ll be what I’ve been from the beginning. The last person on earth.
I stoke the fire. Nights are still chilly. Soon it’ll be summer. No more fires. I’ll miss that.
I could head north, find an empty beach in Virginia or Delaware or New Jersey. Or south, down into Florida. Maybe even find a boat and sail off to some Caribbean island. Become a pirate.
Or I can stay. Figure out how to figure it out with Julie. Make it work. Because Julie means I’m not alone. Even if I run off into the night, I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. If Julie and I have survived, that means there are others. They’ll find me, eventually. And I’ll have to decide all over again.
I’m not alone. For a long time, I was. Or at least that’s what I believed. But we believe what we want to believe. We believe what makes us feel better. And believing I was all alone, thatdid make me feel better. It’s a powerful anesthetic. And no matter what I do, where I go, how hard I try to believe, being alone has been taken away from me.
It had to be everyone, didn’t it? Everybody had to be dead because otherwise why had my family died? If it wasn’t just me who survived, that means other people are alive and that means there is no reason why. It’s all totally random and there’s no rhyme or reason. Why is Julie alive and not Grace? Not Gabe, Mom, Dad? Not Oliver?
I wipe away a rush of hot tears. Shouldn’t I be happy? I’ve finally found another person. Who cares who it is? It’s someone else. And that’s supposed to mean something. For the life of me, though, I can’t care any less.
North or south or west, I can go. And then I can go again, and again, and I can keep going and never have to see another living soul. When they come, when they finally find me, I’ll just slip away. I can still be the last person on earth. I’ll have my reason again, no matter how contrived it is, and I can remain what I’ve fought and struggled so hard to be.
I slip quietly up the stairs. Julie’s sleeping in the master bedroom, the big one that looks out over the beach. The windows are open. Julie’s snoring.
“All change is good, kiddo,” Dad says through the tunnel of my memory. “Not always positive, but always necessary.”
Change. That’s what this was all about, has been from the very first day. Change has blown me apart with both barrels, and then it just kept firing, again and again. It hasn’t stopped. And it never will. It’s the only constant force of nature.
I stand at the end of Julie’s bed. The sound of the ocean rolls through the open windows. Cool blue moonlight outlines the shape of Julie’s thin body under the heavy covers.
Maybe surviving isn’t the hard part. Wouldn’t that be a kicker? All the blood, sweat and tears I’ve poured into staying alive and the real struggle happens the moment I find another person.
Stay or go. Let Julie wake up tomorrow morning to emptiness or a fresh start. The choice belongs to me. Run or remain. No matter how many ways I say it, it all comes down to me. It’s up to me.
And maybe that’s good enough. Not forever, but for now. Because now, it won’t last. Now never does. Everything changes. It always will. Those were the rules. Maybe the time will come for me to go, start over, to be the last person once again. Or maybe, in time, I’ll forget all about it. That’s a whole basket full of maybes. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t know for sure. Until I do, if I do, I’ll wait it out. Time is something I have in abundance. Whether I still believe in it or not.
San Jose, California, August 23, 2017
San Mateo, California, February 4, 2018