We Are the Ants (25 page)

If the world is irreparably fucked, it doesn't make sense for the sluggers to give us a second chance. If my life is meaningless, it makes no sense for the sluggers to spare it.

Unless that's part of the experiment. They want to see if I'm willing to endure a lifetime of misery simply to keep breathing.

I've been driving myself mad thinking about it, but I haven't come any closer to an answer.

Diego hasn't kissed me since Thanksgiving, but we still spend much of our free time together. He even tagged along with me to visit Nana in the nursing home. I tried to find a way to ask him about the article I'd dug up but never found the right time.

The last day of school before winter break, Ms. Faraci played a movie about the life of Nikola Tesla. I tried to pay attention, but the monotonous voice of the narrator kept lulling me to sleep. I was grateful for the distraction when Marcus sent me a text.

ALL-STAR PLUMBERS:
behind the auditorium at lunch?

ME:
why?

ALL-STAR PLUMBERS:
want 2 talk

I glanced at Marcus, but his head was on his desk with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. I didn't answer because I didn't know how to. It should have been an easy decision—don't acknowledge the guy who attacked and humiliated me—but Marcus had been there when no one else had, and I couldn't ignore him when he needed me.

I was still debating whether to meet him, when the bell rang. I lingered behind, waiting for Marcus and his friends to leave before gathering my things to walk out with Audrey.

“Have a nice break,” Ms. Faraci called after us. I wondered whether she had family or if she was going to spend her vacation preparing lessons and grading tests. I wondered if teachers were people who, for whatever reason, couldn't reach the escape velocity of high school. Ms. Faraci deserved better than to be marooned on such a lonely planet.

“Tell Diego I'll catch up with you guys in the cafeteria in a few minutes.”

Audrey eyed me suspiciously. “What're you up to, Henry?”

“Who says I'm up to anything? There's just something I've got to do.” I tried not to sound evasive, but I'm pretty sure I failed miserably.

“Please tell me you're not going to see you-know-who.”

“He just wants to talk.”

“Are you stupid or what, Henry?”

I pulled Audrey to the side of the hallway to avoid being trampled. “Jesse called you before he killed himself, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you regret not answering, right?”

Audrey glared at me like she was considering kicking in my teeth. “This is different. Marcus attacked you!”

The bruises were gone, but the memories persisted, especially when I closed my eyes. “If he needs help and I ignore him, I'll never be able to live with myself.”

“If you have to,” Audrey said, “you can learn to live with anything.” She shook her head. “Be at lunch in ten minutes, or I'm coming to find you.”

  •  •  •  

Marcus was waiting behind the auditorium, pacing in front of the back door. It was an open space with few hiding places, and I scoured the area for signs of a trap, but as far as I could tell, Marcus was alone. The weather had turned cooler, but I was still sweating, anxious to get this over with, paranoid that Adrian and Jay were going to jump me and do worse than pour paint over my head.

Marcus looked up when I approached, and broke into a splintered grin. “I didn't think you were gonna come.”

“I wasn't.”

“You look good.”

“You . . . don't.”

Marcus stopped pacing and stuffed his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. “I miss you.”

“Is that why you wanted to see me?”

“Isn't that enough?”

“Whatever we had ended when you jumped me in the showers.”

“You used to like it when I jumped you in the shower.”

“Good-bye, Marcus.” I turned to leave, but he called for me to wait. His voice cracked, as did my resolve. “What do you want?”

“You're with that Diego guy, aren't you?”

“No . . . it's complicated.”

“Does he make you happy?”

“Marcus . . .”

“We were happy, weren't we?”

“You were horny, and I missed Jesse.”

“It was more than that,” Marcus said. “For me, anyway.”

“Then how come you never told your friends you were fucking Space Boy?”

Marcus looked at the sidewalk, the grass, rarely at me. “Why didn't
you
?”

The question caught me off guard. “Obviously because you didn't want me to.”

“Did you ask? Did you ever think maybe I was hoping you'd tell people because I was too scared to do it myself?” His voice was colder than the Boomerang Nebula.

I tried to recall the many opportunities I'd had to out Marcus. There was the time his parents came home early from Greece, and I hid under his bed while his mother recounted the horror of nearly having to fly coach because the bastards at the airline had overbooked first class. Or the time Adrian nearly caught us making out behind the English building. Marcus shoved me to the ground to cover, and I skinned my palm. We had quite a few close calls, but I thought Marcus liked the thrill. I never once wondered if he was hoping we'd be caught. “Did you really want that?”

“Remember when you asked me if I'd save the world?”

“I didn't think you'd heard me.”

Marcus snorted like I was stupid to think otherwise. “Well, I would.”

“Why?”

Instead of answering, he pulled a folded envelope from his back pocket and handed it to me. “Merry Christmas, Henry.”

Marcus tromped off, leaving me standing behind the auditorium still trying to think up a reply. A sane person would have reveled in seeing Marcus brought so low, but I hated him that way.

I tore open the envelope. The Christmas card sported a picture of a hunky frat boy who resembled Marcus in a revealing Santa suit. Across the top it said
I'll jingle your bells.
He'd taped a prepaid calling card to the inside and written
Space Boy, use this to phone home. And if no one answers, I will. Love, All-Star Plumbers.

If I weighed 146 pounds and Diego weighed 162 pounds, and the distance separating us was fractionally nothing, then the gravitational force between our noncelestial bodies was approximately equal to three times the force a seat belt applies to a restrained passenger in a vehicle traveling at sixty-three miles per hour when it collides with a stationary object.

You can't fight gravity. Gravity is love. Love requires us to fall. Anyway, I couldn't have reached the escape velocity required to break free of Diego even if I'd wanted to.

“Why do you keep laughing?” Diego asked. His skin was damp with sweat, but I didn't mind.

“Your hair tickles my nose.”

“Then stop kissing my neck.” Diego paused. “On second thought, definitely don't stop.” He pulled me on top of him, running his hands up the back of my shirt, holding me like the last note of a song.

When Diego kissed me, I could hardly believe it was real. Believing Diego liked me and wanted to be with me seemed more implausible than being abducted by aliens who wanted me to decide whether to save the world. If I thought about it too long, doubt burrowed into my brain, multiplying and feeding on my fears. Mom was working, and I'd only invited Diego over to play the new Zombie Splatter, but we started kissing and I knew we should stop, but I didn't want to.

Diego sat up, breathing heavily. “I think my lips may fall off.”

“That would be unfortunate. And gross.” I grabbed one of the glasses of water sitting on my desk, and drank. My tongue felt heavy and my lips raw.

Diego started rifling under my bed before I could stop him. He ignored the dirty socks and went straight for the spiral notebooks. “What are these?”

“Nothing important.” I tried to sound casual, but my voice cracked.

“Are they stories? Read me one.”

“They're my journals.” I grabbed the notebook and shoved it back under the bed.

Diego raised himself onto his elbows. “What do you write about?”

“Personal stuff.”

“You've seen my paintings.”

“Those weren't hidden under your bed.”

“Only behind a closed door.”

“Why don't you tell me why you were arrested for assault? Then maybe I'll read you something.” I hadn't meant for it to come out like that, but I couldn't stand how easy it was for him to demand to know my secrets without giving away any of his.

Diego's eyes narrowed. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I read about it online.”

“You Googled me? What the hell, Henry?”

“Forget it. This was a mistake.” I pulled my knees to my chest and tried to wipe the feel of Diego's lips off my mouth.

I waited for him to leave, but he didn't. “Why does the past have to matter? Can't now be enough? Can't
this
be enough?”

“I want it to be.” If Jesse had asked me to read to him from my journals when he was alive, I would have. Maybe if I'd shared my secrets with him, he would have told me how much pain he was in. I'll never know. I lost my chance with Jesse, but Diego was sitting right in front of me. One of us had to blink, and I had nothing to lose. “Sometimes I write about how the world might end. Sometimes I write about the abductions. . . . You know, for science. I forget the details otherwise.”

“What're they like?” Diego spoke softly, like he was afraid he'd spook me if he spoke too loud.

“It'll be easier if I read you something.” I reached past Diego and retrieved the notebook. The pages were filled with my cramped hieroglyphics, a byproduct of being born a lefty. I cleared my throat and began to read before I lost my nerve.

“Last night I was created from light. Stoplights and patio lights and campfire lights and Christmas lights still up in summer. Sunlight and moonlight and starlight and light that's taken a million, million years to arrive. I was made of them all.

“It happened like always: the shadows, the urge to pee, the helpless paralysis. The dark room. I love and loathe that room. It's there that they deconstruct me, study me, and rebuild me. It's there that they probe me, searching for answers to the mystery of Henry Jerome Denton. I try to tell them there is no mystery. I am not special, not unique, not even a little important. They never listen. As they perform their experiments, which make little sense to my primitive intellect, my mind wanders. It wonders. Why me?

“Do mice ask the same questions when scientists study them? Do they believe in their uniqueness as they are injected with syringes of experimental drugs? When a hand reaches into a cage, grabs one by the tail, and vivisects it, do they marvel at their specialness? Will the sluggers kill and cut me open one day?

“Tonight something unusual occurred. The tallest slugger touched my forehead, and I ignited like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Shards of dazzling light rippled under my skin. I was the constellation Grus. The Trifid Nebula. I was the Big Bang, expanding endlessly through time and space forever.

“I thought I was dying. That I was going to expire on a cold slab, trapped inside a UFO, my body filled with every light that had ever existed. I couldn't imagine a better way to die.

“But I didn't die. The lights rose to the surface of my skin, through it and into the air where they hovered over me, maintaining the form of my body. I was no longer filled with light; I
was
light. My photonic heart beat, pushing my glittering blood through my glowing veins.

“This was probably a routine procedure for the aliens—no more wondrous than a CT scan or an X-ray is to us—but seeing that twin of myself created from heavenly particles made me believe that I
was
special to them in some way.

“One by one, the lights began to fade and slowly die. Not with the big bang that birthed them, but with a whimper and a gasp.

“They returned me to Calypso shortly after, I think. I woke up in Mr. Haverty's backyard. I really wish they'd stop taking my pants.”

My throat was scratchy, so I drank the rest of my water while I waited for Diego's reaction. His mouth hung open, and his eyes seemed unfocused. I couldn't read his expression, but I felt exposed under it.

“That was a dumb one, I can find you one where they cut—”

Diego grabbed the back of my head and pulled me to him, kissing me like I was the only water in the desert. He sucked the air out of me, but it was okay because he breathed for both of us—his heart pumped blood for us too. We were a closed system, complete.

“Read me more.”

“It's bullshit.”

“It's beautiful, Henry. You're beautiful.”

Diego never did answer my question, and after a while, I wondered if it even mattered.