This Is Where the World Ends

by Amy Zhang

  He laughs.

  Mr. Markus has an amazing laugh—it’s a full-body experience. He throws back his head and you see the air move through him, and for a moment, I thought, That’s it. That’s the key to happiness.

  “I finished business school, and I was getting ready to move to New York. I had a job lined up, and the van was packed. I was ready to catch my plane when the mover stopped me.”

  “Why?”

  “He told me not to tip him,” Mr. Markus said. “He told me that money probably couldn’t buy happiness, but I’d need all I could get to try, because I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life. Then he drove off with the van, and I drove in the direction of the airport, but I didn’t take the exit. I kept driving.”

  We sat there in silence for a solid minute.

  “I don’t get it,” I finally said. “And what happened to all your furniture?”

  “I have no idea,” Mr. Markus says. “But happiness is a choice. That’s the key. A choice.”

  Is it, though? Is it really? Maybe.

  Maybe, for the lucky ones.

  I am not one of the lucky ones. I can fill my pockets with stones and mark myself everywhere and set the entire universe on fire, but it’s not going to change anything. I am not one of the lucky ones.

  So here is what the unlucky ones choose between: prude or slut. Angel or devil. Maybe choice isn’t the right word—you’re always one or the other.

  Damsel or villainess. That’s what it comes down to.

  I guess the question that really matters is: which one gets the real happy ending?

  after

  DECEMBER 16

  The journal I start is not like hers. There are no magazine cutouts and collages and sketches, there are no plans, there are no promises. There are lists. Words. Sounds. Anything I can remember. Anything that might be real.

  Most of them make no sense, or not enough of it. Dewey, punching me. Water, rising. Fire, fire, fire.

  I’m failing online school. I spend all day sitting at my desk staring at the journal and trying, trying to put it all back in place.

  I write everything down, but most of it doesn’t help much.

  Rumor is they’re just waiting on the arson analysis to arrest me. No one tells me anything.

  I would say that I wish I cared more, but that is false.

  In my journal, I write.

  Carrie Lang’s yard. Balloons. Caleb Matthers not in school next day—hives. Allergic to latex.

  Janie and Ander flirting across the room. Him looking at her journal and her face going cold.

  The apocalypse. Music.

  Wrestling. Ander pummeled.

  The note on my bed that smelled like coffee. Adults in a tiny-ass boat.

  Metaphor disappearing.

  Janie in my sweatshirt.

  Piper running and crying.

  The bonfire. More than one?

  Janie’s wings.

  I had a match.

  Why did I have a match?

  Water, fire.

  What happened to Janie Vivian?

  Why.

  THE JOURNAL OF JANIE VIVIAN

  Once upon a time, a princess was playing with a key near the water. She threw it in the air, caught it, and threw it again, and caught it again, until . . . she didn’t.

  It fell into the water, down and down and down, and the princess supposed she would never see it again.

  But then—miracle! A frog leaped out of the water and landed in her lap. He made her dress dirty, but he had her key in his mouth.

  “Here you go, beautiful,” said the frog. “I’ve done you a favor. Now you owe me.”

  “Well, all right,” said the princess. “What do you want?”

  “To sleep in your bed,” said the frog.

  The princess said no. She held her breath and pushed him away and ran and locked the palace doors tight behind her. But you’ll notice that the frog ended up in her bed anyway.

  before

  OCTOBER 16

  Please direct your attention to phase ten, step thirteen: candygrams. Ander was supposed to ask me (again—he should have asked me already, but I would have made it very clear to him that I wanted a confirmation) with one of the candygrams that the student council sells to raise money for the dance. It was supposed to be delivered during seventh hour, and the whole class was supposed to watch as I said yes.

  Can you imagine?

  Yes.

  I don’t get a candygram from Ander.

  I do get thirty or so from his friends. They come in a pile during calc. It’s enough candy to make all of my teeth fall out, lollipop after heart-shaped lollipop. I unwrap one and sweep the rest into my backpack while everyone watches. I bite the heart in half and look them each in the eye. They all look away, one by one. All because I shouted rape. Funny, right? Because I didn’t. I didn’t, but Wes and Ander tell everyone I did. I decided not to shout anything at all but everyone in school still knows I had sex with Ander, and who the hell would ever believe that I didn’t want to, right?

  The note that accompanies the lollipop I unwrap says Janie Vivian is a whore, Janie Vivian is a bore, Janie Vivian has no friends, Janie Vivian needs to end.

  Isn’t that cute?

  I think it’s adorable.

  Senior homecoming. My dress is covered in sequins and incredibly short. My shoes are five-inch stilettos and I was going to paint my nails red. I was going to be beautiful—devastatingly, truly, madly. I’m returning all of it tomorrow morning.

  Micah is going with Maggie Morgenstern, who isn’t even close to good enough for him even though he won’t believe me. She’s a sophomore and I guess she’s cute enough. He asked if I wanted to go with them, but he doesn’t really want me there. Still, I guess it’s sweet. He comes by my locker to make sure I’ll be okay working on the wings here alone. Stupid, silly, lovely Micah, who is still oblivious. The rumors are out there, if he’d care to listen. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he says sometimes, so quietly that it’s almost not out loud at all. He doesn’t really want to know. That’s the truth. If he really wanted to know he would press a little, ask again when I said I didn’t want to talk about it. But he doesn’t.

  So after he and everyone else leaves, I swing my backpack full of lollipops over my shoulder and head to the art studio. I’d already put twelve dozen eggs in Mr. Markus’s minifridge and told him it was for my project. He didn’t even blink twice.

  Originally, I had wanted to smash one in every single locker in the senior hallway, but I guess that isn’t fair. The ninjas are nothing if not fair. Egging Waldo High’s seniors isn’t exactly an effective fuck you to society. So instead I go straight to Ander’s locker, where I used to wait for him every day after French. I know his combination by heart.

  I don’t light a match because luck isn’t real and I’m not one of the lucky ones, anyway. I just twist the lock and open the door and dump all twelve dozen eggs inside.

  I start out one by one, holding them high and dropping them on his textbooks and reveling a little in the way the eggs break in layers—shell, white, yolk. But it’s an awful lot of eggs, and by the third dozen, I’m just opening the cartons and pouring them in, waterfalling, everywhere.

  I blow it all a kiss, and I’m about to walk away when I see that he still has my picture taped to his locker door. It’s the classic senior portrait pose: hair twirl, bright bright smile, oversaturated eyes. At the bottom, in my handwriting, it says, I’ll like you forever, I’ll love you for always, xoxo <3.

  Well. That just isn’t true.

  I rip it off and set it on the eggs. I slam the door. I go back down the hall and close myself in the art room. The janitors cleaned up after I left on Monday. My mess is gone, but there’s lots of dust left. It’s everywhere.

  I sit on the ground and pull the candygrams out of my backpack, along with my journal. I copy them down in Journal Twelve, one per page, to investigate further and figure out a ninja hit list. The Skarpie bleeds everywhere.


  Roses are red, violets are blue, Janie’s a whore, and a little bitch too.

  Slut.

  Whore.

  Bitch.

  Just wanted to get laid. Nice ass, though. I’d be down. You can dump me right afterward and I won’t say a word. Not even to Cameron. HMU.

  Liar.

  Liar.

  Liar.

  I guess I can’t really argue with that.

  Once everything is copied down, I smooth out the candygrams. I pull the wings closer and find my scissors and glue, and I start making feathers again. And for a little while, it’s okay. It’s okay again. It’s just me in my closet of a studio with wings that just barely fit, and feathers.

  I glue these new ones at the very top of the unfinished left wing, in all directions. They stick up, ugly and messy and uneven, with glue oozing out of the sides, and they don’t really cover the bamboo and wire frame, which is already loose.

  One wing is perfect, covered with fairy tales. The other unravels. It collapses.

  It’s dark when I finally leave. Not dark enough to mean that the football game is starting soon, but dark enough that little girls really shouldn’t be wandering around alone. Why, that’s just asking for it. Duh.

  “Janie?”

  I think we’ve established by now that Ander Cameron is a very good wrestler. But on that night, I don’t think it mattered so much. I don’t think it was that he was strong. I think it was that I was completely paralyzed. I can’t breathe. I can’t, I can’t do it.

  I thought it was the vodka, but I’m sober right now, and my bones and blood and marrow are still too heavy to react. My lungs are still broken.

  Run? Hide? Fight? What do I do what do I do what do I do? I can’t run, because I can’t move. There’s nothing to hide behind in this hall. Fight? Ha ha. I could curl up and tie myself in knots until he leaves. Turn and kick his balls off his body. Walk, keep walking, and maybe he’ll think he’s wrong, that it’s not me at all, and why not? Who is Janie Vivian?

  “Aw, Janie, come on. Wait. Wait, let’s talk, okay? Can we please talk?”

  His hand. It’s on my shoulder. He’s touching me.

  He pulls me around so we can look at each other. So I can see his pretty, pretty face.

  “Hey,” says Ander.

  Hey, he says.

  He bites his lip when I don’t say anything, perfect lip and perfect teeth, his eyelashes fluttering like he’s worried. And my eyes—

  No, don’t, eyes. Look. Look at him.

  “Listen,” he says. He clears his throat, and then he does it again. A big, manly throat clear. “Look, Janie. I just—I just wanted to say . . . um. Look. I’m sorry, okay?”

  He’s just standing there. Look at that, legs. He’s just standing there. If you would just do your freaking job, you could kick him sofuckinghard in the balls that he would never stand up again. If you’d just walk that distance, get a little closer, you could make it so he doesn’t hurt anyone again, ever.

  But I’m pretty useless, honestly. Someone stole my spine.

  “Get away from me,” I finally whisper. Getawaygetawaygetaway.

  “Oh, come on, Janie. I’m trying to apologize here, okay? I just—Janie, look, I get it, I was kind of an asshole. But let’s face it, you’ve been a bitch. So let’s just call it even? I mean. Look, I already talked to Piper, she won’t say anything. We can pretend like it never happened if you want. Janie, come on. I miss you, okay?”

  Oh, that’s nice. That’s—

  That’s when I kick him in the crotch. As hard as I can, and it’s still not enough.

  He’s on the ground, his hands cupped around his balls, panting, but he’s still looking at me, and he—

  He grins.

  “Fuck,” he groans. “Aw, Janie. Okay, I guess I deserve that. We good now?”

  I stare at him. Really, that was what I needed. I just needed to know what I was worth. A kick to the crotch, and he thinks we’re even.

  We fall asleep to fairy tales, and the world rotates and revolves and time passes and we grow up and we understand that they are false. There are not heroes and princesses and villains. It’s not that easy.

  But I think I unlearned that too well. There are no wicked queens or vengeful sorcerers, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad people. There are. There are some truly, truly shitty people out there.

  And in here. Right in front of me.

  That’s when I figure it out.

  No one is going to believe me.

  No one is going to help because no one is going to listen, because Ander told his story first and he told it better.

  No one is going to save me or screw him over.

  I get it. That’s the important part. I understand, so I can go forward.

  “I was really drunk that night,” I hear myself say.

  He’s still grinning. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice is like it used to be when he talks to me: patient, teasing, playful, like I’m made of bird bones except when he’s on top of me. “You really are a lightweight.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “So we’re good?”

  He almost looks sweet as he pushes himself upright, wincing. Almost hopeful.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  Walk, I order myself. I walk to him and slide down against the wall, slowly, next to him, leaving just enough space between our hands so that he knows I’m hesitant but here. Staying.

  There is just one thing. “The notes,” I say.

  He laughs. No, but really. He actually fucking laughs. “Yeah,” he says, awkward, aiming for adorable, bashful. “Sorry. I was—you know, frustrated. I missed you. Wes and I were talking, he told the guys . . . it got out of control. I’ll talk to them. Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry. Wouldn’t that be so easy? Wouldn’t that be so much nicer?

  His fingers find mine.

  His hands begin to roam.

  “Are we still going to the dance?” he murmurs, leaning in. His breath is hot against my neck, and I really can smell him now. Everywhere.

  “I can’t,” I say, and clear my throat a few times to get my voice back to normal. “I can’t, my parents, it’s just bad timing.” Vague, vague. Lies don’t have detail. “But they’re leaving right after the dance.” Dad’s had this conference planned for months—he goes every year, and of course Mom will go with him this time. “Maybe you could come over?”

  “Yes,” he says, almost before I’m done asking.

  “I was thinking of having a bonfire,” I say. “Everyone could come over after the dance tomorrow. It’ll be fun.”

  “Oh,” he says. “I thought it’d just be us.”

  His hand is roaming, roaming, roaming.

  I make myself stay. I make myself talk. “Well, they’ll have to leave eventually.”

  His face is against mine now and I can feel it when he laughs. “Sounds great,” he says, his voice low, and then he’s kissing me.

  He turns so that I’m cornered against the floor and the wall and he’s on top of me, my face in his hands, my lips in his mouth. I let him.

  And when I finally break away, when he finally comes up for air and I can make excuses—parents, homework, I don’t know what I say to get out of there, but I’m out of there. I smile and promise and apologize, and then I run like Cinderella from Prince Charming with Ander’s wallet tucked into the front of my jeans.

  Life is messy and the universe has an awful lot of people to keep track of. Sometimes things get screwed up. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good things happen to bad people.

  That isn’t fair.

  Bad things should happen to bad people.

  And they will. They will.

  after

  DECEMBER 19

  Friday morning, Dewey comes over with pot brownies and shit wine. At that point, I would have chugged piss if it would get my head to stop pounding. It’s easier to get blind drunk and forget everything all over aga
in.

  We play Metatron: Sands of Time for a while. We eat a brownie each and Dewey decides that we’re going to walk to the quarry when I tell him that I don’t remember the last time I went outside. We pour the wine into a water bottle and put on our coats.

  “I miss her,” I say as we trudge along the road. The wind makes our teeth chatter.

  “No shit,” says Dewey. He throws back the wine and stumbles onto the shoulder. The rocks are slippery and he comes up choking. “God. This really is horrible. Here.”

  I tilt the bottle and swish it in my mouth. It is too sharp and not strong enough, sweet enough to numb my mouth but not my head.

  “No,” I say, “but I don’t usually. Usually I know she’s dead, but not dead enough for me to actually miss her, you know?”

  “Not really,” he says, grabbing the bottle. I protest, and he just switches hands so the bottle’s out of reach. “Dude, you’re on the brink of losing your shit again, and I need to be drunk to deal with it.” He waves a hand for me to continue. “You were spilling your heart or something?”

  “Fuck off, dude.”

  “Touchy.”

  “I didn’t ever think it’d feel like this,” I say. My breath hangs in the air, and there are brief pockets of warmth where I walk through the words. “Her dying, I mean. I always figured that I’d die before her. I figured we’d all die before her. Like, she would have been the only one at our hundred-year reunion or whatever.”

  “Don’t be a shithead. No one’s going to be at our hundred-year reunion. Hell, no one’s coming back for the five-year reunion.”

  That was probably true.

  “Look, dude,” Dewey says when the quarry comes into view. “You just gotta, you know. Live like she’s still here or whatever.”

  I laugh. “I didn’t live while she was here. I played Metatron and got drunk with you on Friday nights.”

  “And you’re very fucking welcome,” he says, and passes me the bottle again. We get to the quarry and keep walking along the edge. The sun hurts my eyes, and so does the ice, and Janie is still absent. I imagine her, though. If everything had gone right, we might be here anyway, tonight. She might have climbed through my window, and we might have driven to the quarry with stolen ice skates.