“Fuck!” Charlie shouts.
He smacks hard at something in his space. The walls creak. Like a haunted house. And then there’s a wobble.
“Stop it! You’re going to make everything cave in!”
“I don’t fucking care!” He smacks again. Growls. Punches.
There’s a crash. I shut my eyes. Hold my breath.
When it stops, he punches again. Another wobble. Another crash.
I cross my hands over my head to protect myself. “Charlie! What’s wrong with you? Do you want to kill us?”
“What’s the point, Ruby? Might as well make it quick and painless. Nobody’s coming for us, okay? Do you think rescue’s going to get any closer than it just did?”
“Charlie,” I whimper. “You’re scaring me. Please don’t do this. I need you to be brave for me. Please.”
“Shut up, Ruby. It’s done. Face it.”
His anger slices me wide open. I don’t even know this person. But maybe I never knew Charlie at all.
I’m angry, too. My whole body shakes with the force of it. But I’m not ready for these walls to come crashing down yet. I don’t want to stop hoping. My elbow and my hip bone grind into the hard floor underneath me. It hurts to even move my left arm now. It’s so hot. Puffy. Oozing. And the rest of my skin is already worn down, rubbed raw and chafed, drawing blood.
So maybe hope is useless.
Maybe all of my flesh will fall right off of me until I’m nothing but a heap of bones. I’ll be a pile of myself underneath whatever Charlie makes crash down on top of us.
I’ll die here.
I thought my dad was young when he died, but I’m thirteen years younger than he was. There is so much living I’ll never do. I won’t move into a dorm or play water polo in college. I won’t backpack across Europe like my mom did or make new friends in countries far away from home. Or see the friends I miss so badly it cracks my heart open. I’ll never again drive a car with the windows down and the moonlight bright. Or eat chocolate. Or float in the ocean. Or ski down a mountain.
I’ll never hug my mom.
I’ll never breathe in the gardenia-and-lemonade smell of her.
I’ll never hear her full-bellied, head-tilting, hair-falling-out-of-her-ponytail laugh again.
I’ll never see my room. Or home.
I’ll never kiss Leo.
There is nothing else after this. Just dirt. A laundromat grave. Flesh falling off my bones.
“Do it,” I say. “Punch it again. Get it over with.”
On the other side of me there’s only a heavy breath drawn in deep.
“Shit, Ruby,” Charlie murmurs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re all I have here. I’m losing it. Please don’t be mad at me.”
I can’t be mad. Because I understand. I do.
Pessimism lives here now.
It’s breaking both of us.
“I’m not mad,” I say. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Don’t say that. This can’t be how it happens.”
“But isn’t that how it is? One second you’re folding laundry and the next second you’re diving under a table in the middle of an earthquake.”
“One minute you’re hanging out at a fraternity house like any other Friday night, the next minute someone’s calling nine-one-one.” He punches at something again, and it creaks. “What’s the point?”
“The point is that you try. You tried that night. You’re trying now.”
“But why am I trying?”
“Because you can never stop trying, Charlie. You can never stop trying to fight for what you believe in or what you want out of life. Everything is connected. One thing leads to the next. It all matters.”