Consider (13 page)

I watch too much sci-fi.

We face the television screens. It’s all over the news. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, or PDCO, has confirmed that a comet, ten miles wide, is on a trajectory for a direct hit on Earth, most likely on the Atlantic Coast, within the next three months. Governments are warning everyone not to panic. The United Nations has been working on a three-part plan with NASA and other space engineers around the globe to adjust the comet’s course.

But the media stresses that there are no guarantees the plan will work and debates whether the vertexes are a more viable option.

This just got real.

Chapter 10

Day 92: October—2,211 hours to decide

Question: How do you handle natural disasters on your planet?

Answer: Since we are able to regulate atmospheric conditions with our technology, we do not experience the harsh temperature changes, storms, floods, or droughts of Earth. Our structures have been built to withstand any seismic activity with little to no impact.

The entire store
erupts from silent trauma mode into ants-on-fire mode. Everyone is in an uproar about the comet. How did the government not know a ten-mile-wide comet was only three months away from hitting us?
How do you miss something like that?
In the vast cosmic universe, is it really a proverbial needle in a haystack? Is it really something as easy and diminutive as forgetting to dot an
i
, cross a
t
?

All I know is there’s a comet. Fact. According to the hologram countdown app on my phone, we have two thousand two hundred eleven hours left to decide. Now what are we going to do about it?

Phase two begins instantaneously: people begin to scatter. Without even discussing it, Dominick, Rita, and I push past other shoppers, run out of the store, gowns and wands flying behind us, and flee to the parking lot.

The lot is flooded with foot and tire traffic, honking horns, adrenaline. The government warned us not to panic.
Panic: from Pan in Greek mythology, a satyr who was known to create irrational, sudden fear in people for fun. Something that happens to everyone when the world announces that an Earth-crushing hot mass barreling toward the planet may likely kill us in three months.

“Where did I park?” Dominick spins slowly in a circle like a broken compass.

“Over there, maybe?” Rita points to the left. I have no idea where we are, where we are going, where we’ve been. I follow her lead.

In times of complete panic, people move.
As if we can move out of the way of global disaster. It’s not hide-and-seek. Annihilation is absolute.
The strange thing is that everyone has the same reaction. Move. Go home. Is it to be with our families? People who have known us since the beginning? Born together, die together?

Giving us time to move around and pretend we’re not helpless—it’s just irresponsible. Rude almost.

We cannot run from this one.

We could go through a vertex.

My phone vibrates, snapping me back into my body and out of my head. It’s my dad. I hold up a finger to quiet Dominick and Rita, then answer.

“Alexandra!” It’s wartime, and I’m standing in the line of fire.

“Dad?” my voice shakes to match his.

“I’m coming to get you. Where are you? I want you home. Now.”

Home.
Everyone has the same gut response. Will it really help?
Will we hug as we burn?

“Alexandra!” his voice booms through the receiver.

“You don’t have to come get me. I’m with Rita and Dominick. They can bring me home.”

“Where are you?” he barks at me again.

“We went out for Halloween.”
Is he really going to argue with me when the world might be ending?
I pull the Ron wig off my head and fan my face with it.

He must hear the edge in my voice. “Alexandra, don’t worry about the comet. They have nukes for shit like this. I’m more afraid of how people will overreact. You need to come home so we can bunker down. Make a plan.”

Bunker down. Make a plan. The comet’s no big deal. Dad’s lost it.

“I’ll be home soon,” I reassure him. “We’re leaving.”

“I’ll be waiting at the door.”

After hanging up the phone, Dominick, Rita, and I find his car. Dominick fumbles to put his keys into the ignition. Rita starts crying softly.

“My parents are never gonna let me leave through a vertex,” she says. “They’ll make us die here.”

You and me both.

“It’ll be fine,” I say, trying to believe it myself.
“The comet’s three months away. You’ll have time to convince them.”

It’s weird to say she has plenty of time before the world might end.
But how else do I have conversations? What matters and doesn’t matter now?
Doesn’t everything other than death become petty and small and equal in unimportance?

Time. Three short months.

Dominick touches my shoulder and snaps me out of it. How did I ever think that I could survive without him?

The typical twenty-minute
ride home takes forever. Traffic clogs the highway. We take turns driving, pulling over to the side of the highway every half hour or so, running around the car like there’s an emergency, and then sitting in slow-to-unmoving traffic once more. The TARDIS air freshener spins in midair, teasing us.

We turn on the radio. The same breaking news spouts on every station. NPR claims that media sources are investigating a possible cover-up to see if governments had prior knowledge of the comet and were keeping it from the public. They report that several online bloggers claim they had warned about the comet for years and no one listened. NPR discredits their evidence, explaining that the bloggers produced doctored photographs, and some of their older blog entries originally professed the images were alien spaceships, not comets. Instead, the reporter provides a scientific explanation. Something about the sun’s alignment with Earth blocking our direct line of sight of the comet until now.

I want to scream. Does it matter who’s right and wrong here?
This is bigger than conspiracies and rhetoric. It just
is
.

“Did either of you see the movie
Armageddon
?” Rita asks.

“I think I did,” Dominick says. “Was that the one with Bruce Willis?”

“Yeah, and they have to blow up a comet, or maybe it was an asteroid? Anyway, they blow it up but the pieces still do major damage.” Rita’s eyes begin to grow wider and wider with concern.

“That’s Hollywood, though, not real life,” Dominick says. “In real life, scientists would rather move it off course.”

“Hollywood, right. They can do anything. Governments, not so much.” Rita snaps a piece of gum like she’s trying to beat it into submission.

“It’s not the scientists’ fault. NASA hasn’t been funded properly for years,” Dominick argues.

“I wasn’t blaming the scientists.” Rita looks back at me in the backseat for help.

I can’t debate. Not this time. My mind seems to be overprocessing all information. I can’t cry. I can’t truly understand it. Even my anxiety is too confused to kick in. I’m like a computer stuck on the little spinning hourglass instead of an arrow cursor, trapped in time instead of moving with direction and action. Maybe I’m not capable of understanding the level of devastation. Maybe we’re not supposed to fathom it ahead of time. Maybe it’s just too damn big.

We drop Rita
off first since her house is closer. Mom calls me to see what’s taking so long. When I finally get home around 11:15, Dad opens the front door as soon as my foot hits the bottom porch step. When he says something, he means it. He’s been in sentinel mode, waiting up for me. Not good. Mom appears, groggy eyed, hugs me, then returns inside.

The stars fill the night sky with foreboding. Nothing is safe.

Dominick turns to leave with a wordless wave.

“Dominick.” I try to figure out what to say and how to say it. I want to kiss him, need to kiss him after everything that’s happened, but it’s awkward enough without Dad watching on top of it. I try to give Dad a can-you-give-us-a minute-alone look, but he stands vigilant.

“It’s late,” Dad announces. “Nick, it’s time to head home.”

“Thanks,” I manage to say to Dominick, my voice wavering with so many more important things to say but without a way to say it in front of my dad.

“No problem. I’m glad I was with you.”

He turns to leave.

“Wait,” I squeak. It’s now or never.
Screw it.
I take a quick step forward and throw myself at him. At first the kiss feels hard, desperate. But once he responds, it changes to a soft, wet, deep yearning.

Dad clears his throat. The kiss goes on and on anyway. It’s all that matters.

“Enough already,” Dad says.

Dominick and I break away, grinning like amused children who share an amazing secret.

“Sorry, Dad,” I say. “No disrespect, but the world’s ending.” And I walk into the house after one more quick peck and wave at Dominick.

“The world is not ending,” Dad yells.

That same night,
after a few short hours of restless sleep, I wake up to find Dad sitting on his throne, drinking. Black splotches of paint cover his arms, hands, and shirt. Despite the news repeating the contrary, he still thinks the world’s not ending and people will go crazy once the doomsday prophecy approaches. He’s decided the basement will be our safe spot, so he’s blackened the windows. I pop a pill.

I keep asking myself the same question:
Why did I come back here?

And the same answer:
Where else was I supposed to go?

Across the globe more people have gathered at vertexes to take the plunge. News of the comet struck a nerve in everyone, but some people have reacted immediately and want out. Others, like me, are frozen with indecision. Or, like Dad, they are stubborn until the end.

The following afternoon,
my cell phone rings. At the sight of Dominick on my screen, the heat of our kiss returns to my mouth. I wonder if he felt it too, and if it was enough for him to forgive me. I mean, what’s the point of arguing about college choices when the world could explode?

“Are you watching the news?” Dominick asks.

“No, I shut it off for a break.” I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom. The crack above my bed grins at me, mocking me for assuming the call was about our lost relationship.

“Turn it on,” he says. “The hologram’s message changed today at noon.”

“What?” I sit up, my open journal falling off my chest, and fish through my blanket and sheets for the remote.

“Watch it. It’s on replay.”

As soon as I click on the television, the image of a hologram fills the screen. It takes me a few seconds to find a channel that has the message from the beginning.

A hologram stares out blankly at a crowd gathered in front of it.

“By now we hope you understand the urgency of our message. The comet should be visible with your technology. In three of your calendar months, that comet will strike your planet and destroy your people. This is your known destruction; there is no way to prevent it.

“We hope we have answered all questions to your satisfaction. We are waiting and able to help. Simply walk through the vertex. We will be on the other side.

“This automatic message will repeat once a day at each vertex location. You have approximately two thousand one hundred ninety-six hours to decide. The vertexes will remain open until then.

“Consider. Save your people. Save yourself before it is too late.”

I click off the television. My heart can’t handle more.

“You there?” Dominick asks.

“Yeah. For now.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” I lie, chipping off a piece of OPI & Apple Pie from my ring finger. I should be upset that he’s worrying about me again, but with a coming cataclysm, I guess it’s time to get over it. Everybody’s worried. Two thousand one hundred ninety-six more hours of worry to go.
And that message was taped an hour ago.

“Want me to come get you?” he asks.

My heart leaps to the crack in the ceiling.
Maybe that kiss meant something to him after all.

Dominick and I
sit in his car staring out at a moody, November Atlantic Ocean. Being with him has never felt so hard before. We aren’t talking. The world has definitely changed.

As I watch the waves, my mind tries to examine my relationship with Dominick, my relationship to the world, my relationship to existence. I try to examine every variable. Decisions are coming. I need to do the right thing.

“Should we all just leave?” I blurt out.

Dominick looks at me from the driver’s seat. “You mean through a vertex?”

The last time I saw a vertex, I was almost its victim. Now I’m wondering if it’s time to let it swallow my life. I nod.

“We just found out the comet’s real,” Dominick says. “I’m surprised you’re already throwing in the towel.”

“But the comet changes everything.”

“We still have three months to decide. Ninety-one more days after today. Why not wait it out a little at least, see what scientists can do first? I thought there was more of a fighter in you.”

I nudge his shoulder with my elbow. He fake flinches.

“There’s my girl.”

As soon as he says those words, he turns away and stares out the window. The silence returns to the car. The kiss from yesterday lingers between us, an answer to an unasked question.

“I love you,” I say. “I always have.”

“I know.” His eyes stay on the beach. A seagull circles the area and swoops out of sight.

“I just want everything to be back to normal.” I don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry for pushing you away. I went to a therapist, and she helped me deal with my anxiety better. I needed to get myself together. To be worthy of you.”

He gives me a dirty look. “You are worthy of me.”

“No, I’m a basket case. And the comet thing has made me even worse.”

“Alex, you’re not a basket case. You’re stronger than you realize. Everyone’s freaking out. You’re not alone.”

I’m stronger than I realize.
Everyone’s freaking out. You’re not alone
. I like the sound of those words coming from him.
Is that what he really thinks?

He continues. “And sometimes I worry about you, but it’s not because I think you’re weak. That’s what people do when they care.”

I let his words wash over me like the cold waves swirling in front of us. I know his words are true in my mind. I just have to get my heart to believe him.

“I realized something when we were apart,” he adds.