by Jeff Giles
During breakfast on Friday, Zoe’s mom gave them all a sign that she was warming to X. It was a tiny thing but unmistakable. Everyone at the table stopped speaking when she did it: she put a handful of vitamins on X’s napkin.
A B12, a D3, and a C.
She had to care about him at least a little.
“Holy crap,” said Jonah.
X had never taken a pill before. Everybody shrieked, then laughed, when he put them all in his mouth and started chewing.
That night, there was an even bigger turning point.
X finally met Dallas and Val.
Zoe had postponed it all week. Val was still livid about her going to the Lowlands, and Zoe needed her to calm down enough so that she wasn’t levitating off the floor with rage when she met X. In the end, Dallas suggested he cook them all dinner at House of Huns after closing. It was a nice offer, especially if Dallas still had unsimple feelings for her. Zoe said yes to the dinner immediately, even though “Hun” food creeped her out. She’d once had a nightmare about drowning in a bathtub full of brown glop.
House of Huns was empty except for Dallas, who banged the gong and chanted “Furg! Mrgh! Furg!” when Zoe and X entered. He was still wearing his work uniform and holding a rubber-tipped spear. The pointy fur hat sat just above his eyebrows. The leather straps crisscrossed his naked chest. Zoe wondered if Dallas had engineered this whole dinner just so that X could see how ripped he was. Rather than annoying her, she thought it was sweet. Dallas was never, ever going to stop being himself. She didn’t want him to.
X stepped forward to shake Dallas’s hand, not knowing that Dallas considered the grill a sacred place and never broke character when he was anywhere near it.
Dallas grunted. He poked X’s hand lightly with the spear.
“Krot!” he said.
“Okay, now you’re being weird,” said Zoe.
“No, no,” said X. “Dallas, you are the very embodiment of a Hun. I was acquainted with one in the Lowlands—he’d lived on the Sea of Azov—and I feel as if he stands before me now.”
Hearing this, Dallas broke into an unabashed grin, and all but lunged to shake X’s hand.
“Thanks, dawg!” he said. “People don’t realize how much thought goes into the character. The guy I play? Mundzuc? He’s complicated.”
“Your work has borne fruit,” said X.
“Boom!” said Dallas. “That is so cool to hear.” He paused. “This may come out wrong, but I’m glad you’re not in hell anymore. That shit was unfair.”
“Thank you,” said X. “I owe my freedom, and everything else, to Zoe.”
“Zoe’s the best, right?” said Dallas. “She crushes stuff.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Zoe. “What’s happening with you and Mingyu? Did she agree to go out with you?”
“She’s still going over the lists I gave her,” said Dallas.
“The All-Time Favorites thing?” said Zoe.
“Yeah,” said Dallas. “I put stuff on there that she’d never heard of—which I’m kind of proud of, honestly. She knew all the music because she literally knows all music. But now she’s reading the books, and watching the TV shows and stuff. She won’t give me a yes or no until she’s finished. She calls it ‘the research phase.’ She says a lot of people skip the research phase before they hook up with somebody, and then they regret it.”
“You don’t think all this is kind of annoying?” said Zoe.
“Are you kidding? I think it’s awesome!” said Dallas. He adjusted a leather strap that had apparently been chafing a nipple. “I think it’s badass. This girl is not playing.”
“Then I’m happy for you, Mundzuc,” said Zoe. “I mean it. X and I are gonna grab a table, okay?”
Dallas gripped his spear, and disappeared back into character.
“Furg zot zot!” he said. “Oh, wait, sorry—I forgot to ask what you wanted to drink.”
As they drifted to a booth by the window, Zoe thanked X for being kind to Dallas about his costume.
“I can’t believe you’ve met a Hun,” she said.
“I haven’t,” he said quietly. “It’s just that I liked Dallas immediately, and he seemed to be trying hard.”
“What about the Sea of Azov?” said Zoe.
“There is no Sea of Azov, so far as I know,” said X. “We’ll have to check the shower curtain.”
At the table, X set his backpack carefully on the chair next to him. Zoe smiled to herself. She was pretty sure it was empty. Shortly afterward, Dallas brought them their drinks (“Furg ice water! Furg Mountain Dew!”), then stomped Hun-like back to the grill.
“I was thinking about something Timothy said,” said Zoe.
“Yes?” said X.
“He said he met your mother in September,” said Zoe, “and that he only knew her for a month.”
“I remember,” said X. “But what does that signify?”
“What it signifies,” said Zoe, “is that we’re going to throw you a birthday party this summer. You were a July baby.”
X seemed not to know what to say.
“A July baby,” he said eventually. “I like the sound of that.”
“I’m going to buy you a ton of presents,” said Zoe.
“And I am going to carry them in my backpack,” said X.
Zoe got nervous waiting for Val to show up. She was much more worried about Val meeting X than she’d been about Dallas meeting him. By the time she saw her friend’s blue head approaching through the parking lot, Zoe’s nerves were jangling like silverware loose in a drawer. She needed the people she loved most to love each other.
Zoe went outside to intercept Val, and gauge her mood. Val was with Gloria, which she hadn’t expected.
“It’s you!” Zoe shouted to Gloria, happily. “It’s you! It’s you! It’s you!”
Zoe knew how hard it was for Gloria to be around people because of the anxiety and depression. Now that she thought about it, maybe shouting at her hadn’t been the best idea. But Zoe couldn’t help herself: Val and Gloria looked so lovely arm in arm.
“It’s me,” said Gloria, waving back shyly. “It’s me. It’s me. It’s me.”
“Sorry we’re late,” said Val. “We were making out in the car.”
“I assumed,” said Zoe.
She hugged Gloria first.
“I love that you’re here,” she said. “I love it. Thank you.”
“I wanted to meet X,” said Gloria. “And I have kind of a thing for Dallas. Don’t tell my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend knows,” said Val. “Your girlfriend is appalled.”
Zoe hugged Val now.
“You’ll be nice, right?” said Zoe.
“That kind of thing is so hard to predict,” said Val.
“She’ll be nice,” said Gloria. “We had a long talk about manners in the car. I think she understands the basic idea now.”
The three of them entered House of Huns together, and once again the gong clanged and shivered. Dallas was so surprised to see Gloria that he broke character, and let her hold his spear.
“I’m so stoked to see you guys!” he said.
X stood up from the table and came to shake their hands. He always shook hands, Zoe thought, with an adorable seriousness.
“I am stoked to see you as well,” X told Val and Gloria, “though I do not know what ‘stoked’ means.”
“It means pumped or jacked,” said Dallas.
“I am pumped or jacked,” said X.
There was a silence where no one knew what to say, Zoe included.
“Val, you are a legend to me,” said X. “And, Gloria, I have wanted to meet you especially.”
Zoe had a twinge of panic. She’d told X virtually nothing about Gloria. He had no idea how fragile she was, how guarded.
“Me?” said Gloria. She took a half a step backward. “Why?”
Everyone looked at X questioningly, and he seemed to falter.
“Because—well, because you are a foster child,” he said.
Gloria dropped her head. Zoe felt her stomach lurch. She should have warned X not to bring it up.
“That is not a thing Gloria wants to talk about,” said Val.
“Yeah,” said Gloria. “I’m not … I don’t … I’m not embarrassed about it. But it’s hard to talk about because—honestly?—some of it sucked, and it’s just kind of impossible to make anybody understand.”
“I am truly sorry to have mentioned it,” said X. “All I intended to say was—”
“Let it go, X,” said Zoe.
“I will in a moment,” he said. “All I intended to say was—”
“I mean it, X,” said Zoe. “Let it go.”
“It’s okay,” said Gloria, her head still low. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” said X. “I only wanted to say that I think I do understand a little.” He paused. “Because I was a foster child, too.”
Gloria looked up finally.
“What’d you mean?” she said.
“There was a woman named Ripper and a man named Regent,” said X. “When I was little and scared and had no one at all, they took me in.”
Gloria nodded, smiled, seemed to open again.
“Can we sit?” she asked X. “And will you tell us everything?”
While X was sharing his story, Zoe’s phone made its little bug-zapping sound. It was a text from her mom.
About to call u. Texting first so u will pick up. It’s important and involves u, X, everybody. Calling in 3 … 2 … 1 …
The phone trilled. Zoe slipped outside to answer. The night was clear and warm. Across the parking lot, a movie was letting out. It must have been good because everybody looked dazed, and nobody seemed to remember where they’d parked their cars.
“Hey, Mom,” said Zoe. “Why are you being weird?”
“Hey, beautiful girl,” said her mother. “I’ve got a question for you, and I want you to take all the time you need before you answer, okay? You like Rufus, right?”
“Yeah,” said Zoe. “A lot.”
“You didn’t take all the time you needed,” said her mother.
“I took twice as much as I needed,” said Zoe. “It wasn’t a hard question. You had to call to ask me that?”
Up in the sky, Zoe could see both Dippers, as well as a third constellation she’d forgotten the name of. She decided to call it Ripper’s Dress, because of the way it glowed.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Did Rufus ask you to marry him?!”
“No, no, no,” said her mother. “Stop jumping ahead.”
“Did you ask him to marry you?”
“No! Stop jumping! I need you to take this seriously.”
“Take what seriously?”
Her mother took so long to answer that Zoe wondered if she was still there.
“Rufus doesn’t want us to move out,” her mom said finally. “I know I’ve always denied this, but he likes me. You were right about that. He likes all of us, obviously. He’s asking us to stay. He was really sweet about it. That secret project he was doing with X turned out to be a sign for the door that says, The Bissells Plus Rufus.”
“He put our name first?” said Zoe. “That’s kind of awesome.”
“It kind of is,” said her mom.
“Do you like him like he likes you?” said Zoe.
“Promise you won’t tease me?” said her mother.
“You know I can’t promise that,” said Zoe.
“Yes, I like him a lot,” said her mother.
“Then let’s stay,” said Zoe. “Done.”
“But you hate that little room,” said her mother.
“I don’t care about the room, Mom,” said Zoe. “I care about you. And Jonah will be bat-shit happy. Let’s go for it. Let’s see what happens. Let’s be the Bissells Plus Rufus.”
“Thank you, Zo,” said her mother. “You’re a good person. You always have been.”
Zoe peered into the restaurant. Dallas was ferrying plates to the table. X was telling his story to Val and Gloria. He was talking excitedly, waving his hands around, which she’d never seen him do before. Even Val had bent forward.
“But what about X?” said Zoe. “What happens to him? Are you still going to make him leave?”
“Yes, but—”
“You’re just gonna kick him out?”
“Yes, but—”
“He’s got nothing, Mom. He’s got nowhere to go.”
Zoe looked back into House of Huns. X had stood, and was walking toward the window with a steaming plate in hand. He was asking, with his eyes, if Zoe was okay. Zoe nodded, even though she wasn’t.
“Would you listen a second?” said her mother. “I had an idea. What if X lived at Bert and Betty’s place instead of us? It could be cute with some work, and it’s right there on the lake, and you could see him but also take some time to remember that you’re still seventeen. I think Bert and Betty would have really liked X. I mean, look, he avenged their deaths, for one thing.”
“Yes,” said Zoe. “I love that idea. Yes, yes, yes.”
X came up to the window. His plate was piled with Hun “delicacies”: pork, shrimp, beef, and something that was pretending to be crab, all of it swimming in brown sauce. He smiled, and pointed his fork at the plate enthusiastically. He liked it. Zoe laughed, and shook her head at him: You are a dork.
She said good-bye to her mom, and hung up.
She put a palm against the window, so X would do the same, but his hands were full. He leaned toward her. From the other side of the window, he rested his forehead against her palm. She’d have sworn she could feel the heat of his face through the glass.
Zoe felt something in her chest—it was like everything that had ever hurt was being swept with feathers. It took her a moment to realize that it was happiness.
She trusted it this time.
She put her hand on her heart to hold it in.
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to everyone who had a part in this series, from the copy-shop manager who printed thousands of pages of drafts (Hannah) to the book lover in Moaning Myrtle cosplay who asked me to sign the toilet seat around her neck (Zoey).
Thank you to my sensational agent, Jodi Reamer, and my force-of-nature editor and publisher at Bloomsbury, Cindy Loh. I just reread the praise I heaped on the two of you in the acknowledgments of the first book, The Edge of Everything—and it all sounds like an understatement now. I couldn’t do this without you and will definitely cry if you ever make me.
Thank you a thousand times over to Kami Garcia, Danielle Paige, Kerry Kletter, Kathleen Glasgow, Bridget Hodder, and Haven Kimmel. Your friendship, and your books, have meant the world to me.
Thank you, Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer Niven, and Susan Dennard, for your extraordinary generosity and support.
Thank you to Darin Strauss, Susannah Meadows, Jess Huang, and Abby West for weighing in on early drafts of The Brink of Darkness. A bit of trivia: Susannah begged me to never use the word tunic in these books (she hates that word like other people hate moist). I tried not to, but failed at the last second. I’m sorry, Susannah. You’ll have to avert your eyes.
I’m grateful to Hans Bodenhamer for once again advising me on the fine art of caving.
I also benefited from the wisdom of three wildlife biologists: John Waller at Glacier National Park, Jim Williams (author of The Path of the Puma), and Douglas Chadwick (Tracking Gobi Grizzlies). Thank you all for your good cheer in the face of such questions as, “Well, what if the cougar was, like, supernatural?”
Thank you to my inspired friends at Bloomsbury, especially Cristina Gilbert and her tireless marketing and publicity team: Elizabeth Mason, Erica Barmash, Courtney Griffin, Anna Bernard, Emily Ritter, Phoebe Dyer, Beth Eller, Brittany Mitchell, Alexis Castellanos, and Alona Fryman. (Lizzy Mason: Congrats on selling your own YA novel, The Art of Losing. I know a great publicist.)
Thank you to Diane Aronson and Melissa Kavonic in managing editorial and to Katharine Weincke and Pat McHugh for
being such sharp, thoughtful readers. Thank you to Bloomsbury’s art director, Donna Mark; designer Jeanette Levy; and illustrator Shane Rebenschied. I love what you’ve done for Zoe and X.
As for the phenomenal sales team: Because of you, I’ve gotten to see my novels not only in amazing indie bookstores and Barnes & Noble, but also in places you can buy lawn furniture and 56 boxes of Kleenex at a time. It’s all been thrilling.
Bloomsbury Publishing has been a wonderful home. I bow deeply to Emma Hopkin, the managing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books worldwide; to my UK publisher, Rebecca McNally; and to Australia’s managing director, Kate Cubitt. I’m also indebted to Lucy Mackay-Sim, Emma Bradshaw, and Charlotte Armstrong in the UK, and Sonia Palmisano and Adiba Oemar in Australia.
Thank you to Hali Baumstein (Bloomsbury) and Alec Shane (Writers House) for all the things, all the time.
Thank you to Mary Pender at UTA for her vision and all-around coolness and to Cecilia de la Campa at Writers House for negotiating such beautiful foreign editions.
I’m grateful to the welcoming folks at YALLfest, Booksplosion, LitJoy Crate, and the Quarterly Literary Box. Thank you to Betsi Morrison and Luke Walrath at the Alpine Theater Project, and to everyone at the Whitefish Review. Thank you to Ursula Uriarte. Thank you to Melissa Albert, Cathy Berner at Blue Willow Books in Houston, and Cristin Stickles at McNally Jackson in New York for being early supporters.
Thank you to the friends who are always there when I’m insecure, exhausted, and hungry (usually all at the same time): Radhika Jones, Tina Jordan, Jessica Shaw, Laura Brounstein, Anthony Breznican, Erin Berger, Peternelle Van Arsdale, Robin Roe, Meeta Agrawal, Bonnie Siegler, Gita Trelease, Adriana Mather, Jeff Zentner, Missy Schwartz, Jill Bernstein, Sara Vilkomerson, Devin Gordon, Janet McNally, Susie Davis, Heidi Heilig, Marc and Francine Roston, Annie Anderson, Sabine Brigette, Diane Smith, David Pickeral, Mike Eldred, Brian and Lyndsay Schott, and Kate Ward.
Finally, thank you to my daughter, Lily, and my son, Theo: I love you more than words.
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