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“I think this will work.” I handed Howie a sheet of tin foil as I rummaged through the drawer for glue.
“I’m not gluing this stuff to my head!” Howie tossed the foil to the kitchen counter and walked away.
“You don’t have to,” I called after him. “But if you let me, I might miss and glue your mouth shut.”
“Good thing I’m not letting you!” His response came from upstairs.
Grabbing the pile of supplies; foil, tape, make-up, etc. I chased him, taking the steps two at a time. “I really think it will work, Howie.”
His door slammed.
I grabbed the handle and tried to barge in, but it wouldn’t turn. “Seriously?” I used the glue bottle to tap on the door repeatedly until he let me in.
“This is a waste of time. We’re not leaving. I thought we established that last night.” Howie slinked down on the bed.
“We,” I motioned with my full hands at the space between us, “didn’t establish anything.” Everything toppled over and onto the floor at his feet. “Except that you’re a... let’s say it rhymes with Howard,” I said, bending to pick it all back up again.
He harrumphed and didn’t lift a finger to help, or even move his giant smelly foot out of my way so I could reach Mrs. Stepp’s tube of concealer that had rolled under the bed.
“I was thinking,” I said, ignoring the immature noise that came out of him in response. “I... was... thinking... about President Sturn’s message.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Howie turned his head. A little brain matter on a wall and suddenly someone’s iron stomach flops like a fish.
“Before that. When he said that stuff about First Lady Sturn. She found a way to hide her chip from him. So...” I waved my hands at the collection of odds and ends I’d gathered. “Science experiment time.” My hands clapped together, as excited as I was to get started.
“I’m not magically gonna change my mind and leave just because you hide our chips, Syn.” Howie scooched back on the bed and crossed his arms.
“Like I said... rhymes with Howard.” I tried to smile brightly so he would lighten up, but it felt like my face turned into that creepy emoji that smiles straight across but still shows all its teeth.
“A coward wouldn’t have brought home that rabbit,” Howie’s full lips had dried, and split when he attempted his own peacekeeping smile.
I let him win that one. “Come here.” His skin flared beneath my fingertips as I pulled him to me. For a moment, I let myself think it was the shrinking space between us that set him aflame. As I painted metallic flecks onto the sagging flesh behind his ear, realization landed with a thud in the pit of my stomach. The brush hung in the air.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he lied. I had seen the muscles in his jaw, his shredded stubbled jaw, clench when the cold tip of the paintbrush whispered over his neck.
I let the brush fall with a clink into the jar of melted gold and steel flecks. “I... I have a better idea.” Pushing him aside, I raised my hair and exposed my grimy neck to him. A whiff of my underarm blasted me, making me want to shrivel into a ball, but I had no choice. My last hair tie had died long ago. “We’ll practice on me.”
By the fourth trial and error, my arms ached from holding my hair above my head. Thankfully, the reek had subsided enough that I didn’t need to put my mask over my mouth and nose. “What’s next?” Howie asked, eyeing the discarded experiments pile dubiously.
“Probably the one we shoulda tried first.” I lowered my screaming arms and stretched for a moment, before fishing a roll of tin foil from under the bed.
When Howie’s eyes twinkled and his mouth opened to lay some stupid retort on me, I smacked him with the hollow tube. He said nothing, but bit his lips in an overdramatic display of restraint.
“Just glue a piece on and shut up,” I ordered, gathering my hair up over my head with extra care. My arms shook with the effort.
The glue was cold against my skin, a welcome respite to the angry square that had been painted and scrubbed and slathered and scrubbed again so many times I was surprised the chip hadn’t fallen out on its own.
“Alright,” Howie said as he finished his work. “Got that part done. Now, you want me to do your whole head? Make you a... hat perhaps?” He just had to.
“That depends.” I smiled with just one corner of my mouth. I hurled a string of silent insults at him, not changing my expression in the least.
“On what?” Howie asked.
The other side of my mouth curled up, along with an eyebrow.
He looked at me. “Did you really say something? I didn’t hear it. Do it again.” His ears perked up like a dog at the neighbor’s fence. The disbelief in his voice made my grin do a victory lap. “I don’t hear anything!”
“Good,” I said, and popped up off the bed and toward the hallway. “Probably for the best.” My most innocent voice danced over my shoulder as I left him there to clean up the mess.
That night, we ate the last of the rabbit stew, which I’d padded with some flaky herbs from the Stepp’s garden. I was pretty sure I’d tossed wilted weeds into the pot, but I told the boys it was herbs and they wanted to believe me.
Brooks refused to sleep in the bed with me for some reason. My first thought was the armpit situation, but quickly ruled that out. He didn’t smell like a rose himself, lately. Reluctantly, and with some prodding from Howie, I allowed him to sleep in the Stepp’s house while I held down the fort at home.
Brooks even wanted Howie to secure the room, instead of me. We stopped calling it ‘tucking him in’ a long time ago, but we both still needed the ceremony of it. Each night we would walk the perimeter of the bedroom, fling open closet doors and jiggle window locks multiple times, until completely satisfied. Then he would climb in bed, pull the covers to his chin himself, and say ‘goodnight.’ I would demand a kiss – the only one I was allowed all day – stomping my feet and refusing to leave until my demands were met.
This night, however, Howie was the one to march him upstairs to secure Diodra’s room. A sharp pain of abandonment tore through my heart as Brooks asked Howie to check the closet one more time. I wasn’t eavesdropping, or anything. I just happened to be passing by on the way to the boardwalk, to my own room, when I noticed a pesky ball off lint on my new socks... right outside his door.
I lingered, listening to the familiar sounds of socks rustling across carpet, quick short steps alongside long lumbering ones. When the mattress squeaked, I nearly took off for the boardwalk, until Brooks’s whispering voice held me in place.
“When did you know you were a grown-up?”
Howie chuckled, and I nearly did. Howie, a grown-up? Ha!
“I became a grown up a long time before I wanted to.” Howie whispered back. “And I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to. You leave the grown-upping to me.”
A sob rose in my throat. I pressed my ear to the door.
Brooks was saying, “...want to be a grown-up. I’m not a little kid. I’m short is all.”
“I know, buddy. But, you gotta see it from your sister’s point of view. When all this happened... you were a baby. And she’s spent all this time keeping you safe. She probably forgot to realize that you’re big now.” There was another creak of the mattress. I imagined him sitting on the bed, comforting Brooks in a way I was ill-equipped to do. “I think moving in here was a good first step. Let her see you as the man you are now.”
“Can you see it?” Brooks asked, his voice full of hope.
“Of course. Just look at you. When I first came back after all that time away... I was jealous! You were so big and strong, I thought Synta had a boyfriend!” The machismo in Howie’s voice was unmistakable.
Brooks giggled and made a gagging noise at the prospect of either Howie being jealous, or a boy actually liking me. I didn’t know which. Then, in his deepest, most serious voice he said, “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let anybody come near her. It’s not part of the plan.”
“What plan?” Howie whispered, drawing the words out like he was being let in on a most treasured secret.
“You and Syn would get married and then Marcus and I could be bro—” Brooks gasped as Marcus’s name fell out of his mouth.
“It’s OK, you can talk about him. I like talking about him, all of them. And thinking about them. It makes it feel like they’re still here.”
“Synta never wants to talk about Mommy and Daddy.” A rough choking crack muffled the next sentence.
“I know, buddy. But...” Howie’s voice brightened a bit, “Synta just isn’t as grown-up like us.”
I almost charged into the room at that one, despite the tears pouring down my face. The next thing he said made me glad I hadn’t.
“I do miss them. A lot. But I’m glad I have you and your sister.” His deep voice heavy with grief. “I’m lucky that I still get to watch you grow up and become a man.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. My weary legs carried me to my room, my parents’ room. I laid in bed that night, their bed, thinking back to all the conversations I’d had with Brooks since the Glitch, since Mom died. How many of those times had he wanted to talk about them, but felt like he couldn’t? Did I shut him down? Wall off any mention of them?
At some point Howie came to his room and I heard the familiar thunk of the phone basket hitting the window. I rolled over and forced sleep to surround me. Periodically, I’d hear the basket thump against the outside of the house, begging to be read. When the blackness finally came, my imagination had exhausted every possible version of ‘we need to talk’ that I expected to see on the screen.
###
THE NEXT MORNING, A throbbing behind my eyes woke me up. It was dark outside, which told me nothing. It was dark at noon in those days.
I threw open the window and acrid fog strangled me.
The phone basket was gone.
It was just as well, my plan for the day was to avoid Howie as much as possible and only the strictest amount of eye contact with Brooks. I couldn’t afford any attempts at a ‘heart to heart’ by either of them.
The boys had their own agenda for the day, as it turned out. Against my better judgment, I allowed Brooks to go on a hunt with Howie. I worried myself into a knot for five hours, pacing and dusting, pacing and dusting.
I had to dust all day by that point or Brooks couldn’t breathe. His cough had gotten so much worse since the long walk to Lutz. Granny’s pills worked for a while. Then I started cutting them in half, then cutting those halves in half. By the time we ran out, he was swallowing white powder and gagging at the medicine taste of it.
When they finally came slumping through the door, just as the meager sun was setting, I had worked myself into a frenzy. I ran to Brooks, checking him up and down, even poking my fingers inside his mouth to count his teeth. He pushed my hands away and stormed upstairs. They had arrived... unscathed and empty handed. I considered that a ‘win’ but neither of them shared my opinion.
“What’s that?” Howie asked as he removed several layers of tattered clothing.
I whipped the shirt behind my back and shrugged. “Nothing.”
The vacant darkness in his eyes flickered, igniting into mischief. “What is it?” The words danced off his tongue, luring me in.
I bolted for the stairs, but he caught me in two quick gazelle leaps across the living room. He tackled me on the bottom step and proceeded to tickle a confession out of me. His firm hands knew just where to go. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I screeched in exasperation, and held out the evidence.
“I knew it!” Howie snatched the formerly white fabric and waved it in the air. “Oh, Dayne!” he swooned, rubbing the old t-shirt to his cheek. Howie batted his wild eyes. They looked deranged, like those crazy fangirls who waited outside Dayne’s gate on the MeVids I’d forced him to watch a million times. When he caught his breath he tossed the shirt in my face. “Were we uh... interrupting something?”
“Gross,” I said, rearranging my own shirt which had gotten twisted in the chaos. “Dayne’s not like that. He was a good boy.” My hands stopped their fussing. That was the first time I’d used ‘was’ when referring to Dayne. Howie caught it too, and the smile faded from his lips.
“Why don’t you go finish your date with Dayne while I fix us some of my famous lentil soup?” His hand was warm and soft with pity as it caressed my shoulder.
“You were gone a long time, you know.” I defended myself.
“Obviously not long enough.” He dodged the fist that almost connected with his arm.
“Guys!” Brooks tumbled down the stairs like a drunk elephant. “Listen!” My PodMate jiggled in his hand, garbling the transmission that he wanted us to hear. He ran to the coffee table and set it down, frantically motioning for us to join him. We knelt beside him, staring at the Pod. If there was anyone left on Earth to pass by our window, we’d have looked like we were praying to this small egg-shaped idol.
“We have a sister planet. It is time to evacuate. All legal Citizens report to your nearest launch station for boarding procedures. A list of participating stations will be read after this broadcast. Space is very limited. No chips allowed.” The same message played on a loop, followed by a listing of ten cities across the Continent.
I tossed the ragged Dayne t-shirt to the ground and took the stairs two by two. “Brooks, pack your bag!” I yelled.
His little feet padded up the stairs right behind me, followed by harder angry stomps from Howie.
“I don’t want to hear it.” I said to him as he followed me across the boardwalk, trying to grab my arm.
“Synta, leaving is still more dangerous than staying. We don’t know anything about this new planet.” Howie wrestled for the backpack in my hand, but I wouldn’t let go.
“No, but we do know that there are only a few ships. And Brooks will be on one!” My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head. The pounding headache that I’d tried to ignore all day mixed with my rage at Howie’s cowardice and exploded with every heartbeat.
“No chips allowed!” Howie mimicked the robot announcer’s voice, but he was screaming the words, his voice shaking.
“We know how to fix that, Howie. There’s no reason to stay here. We’re going!” I resisted the urge to stomp my foot. “Cape Canaveral isn’t far from here, a week or so at the worst.” I forced my panting chest to slow. “How many more signs do you need?”
“That’s not a sign, Synta. That’s coincidence. A sign would be that I, the person who promised to take care of you, thinks this is a dangerous and stupid idea!”
“Then pack a bag and take care of us. On the road.” I stuffed the same items from our earlier fight into the backpack, as Howie ripped them back out. “There’s no food left. Brooks will starve. At least on the new planet —”
“There is food! I just brought you a rabbit!”
“That was a cat!” I screamed right in his face.
Howie opened his mouth to speak then closed it, smart enough not to ask how I knew. We glared at each other for a long tense moment, chests heaving in unison. He looked at the floor, at our bare toes threatening to touch each other on my parents’ moldy carpet. His hand went to his hair. His voice trembled when he spoke again. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect you out there.”
I inched closer, removing any breadth of fading light between us. “You don’t have to always be the protector. I can handle myself. So can Brooks.” I took his hand and said the worst possible thing I could’ve said at that moment, when I almost had him. “Your dad will save us.”
Howie pushed me away, much harder than I think he intended to. I stumbled back and landed with a thud on the floor. I saw his inner struggle, to come to me or not. In the end, pride won out and he spat, “My father is dead to me, and I will not beg for his help. For no one!”
With that, he was gone; across the boardwalk and out of the house. The Stepp’s door slammed so hard a section of railing fell to the ground below.