Chapter 13: XI: GET ME SOME LINGERIE AND CALL ME A SUGAR BABY

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CAIN

"GUYS," announces Meredith. "We should watch Food Boy."

"What the fuck is Food Boy?" Atlas asks.

"Oh, my God, the actual worst movie ever made." Meredith roughly grabs the Xbox controller out of Maya's hand, heading to the search menu and typing in FOOD BOY. The machine makes a satisfying clicking sound with each stroke. "It has that dude from High School Musical in it. The gay one."

"Ryan!" Callie adds enthusiastically. "Oh, I love him!"

Right now, Callie and Maya are cuddling on a blue bean bag chair, Fidel Castro purring away in their laps. The rest of us haven't even been in their apartment for half-an-hour, and we've already made ourselves at home. Meredith's gotten showered and cleaned up, and now she's wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants of Maya's, which are only a little small on her. Maya ordered pizza, and it's on its way. We're trying to find something to watch on Netflix while we wait on it, and now Meredith's in control of the remote. She and Silas are sitting on the edge of the coffee table, their ankles wound together. Atlas and I have taken over their worn red couch. He's sitting on one side of it like a normal person, and I'm spread the fuck out, laying on my side, my legs stretched over his.

Seeing the two of them, Callie and Maya, has made my gay heart swell to thrice its size. Even though they aren't that much older than I am, seeing Certified Gay Adults in action, being cute and domestic, gives me hope for the future—for a happy gay future with Atlas, maybe. Hopefully.

I'd never really thought about my future before.

But I don't think that I just hadn't ever thought about my future. I think I'd actively been avoiding it. It had always seemed like everyone around me was going to go on to some golden future without me, while I was stuck in the crummy past. I could actually have a future. I could spend a part of it—or all of it—with the boy that I love. I mean, maybe. We're still in high school. The odds are stacked against us. But it's different with him. He's different than any guy I've ever dated. Not that I've actually dated a lot. Like, sure, I've had a couple flings, slept around a little, but I've only had, like, two real boyfriends. The gay dating pool isn't exactly an ocean.

All I know is that I think I like the thought of me and Atlas living in a cute little apartment together with a cat like Fidel Castro.

"The gay one and the first love of my life!" I say. "How could a movie with him in it be bad?"

"Because it literally is!" Meredith exclaims. "It's one of those movies that's so bad it's good. It's about this guy that has the power to, like, squirt food out of his hands. Have y'all seen that gif of Ryan sitting on a public bathroom's floor, crying over a bunch of slices of bread? That iconic piece of cinnamon topography is from this fuckin' movie."

"I don't want to watch something stupid," Silas whines.

"It's not stupid; it's art," Meredith replies, defensive. "And you don't get a say on which movies to call stupid. You liked Angry Birds, for God's sake!"

"Come on," I urge Silas. "What's the worst that could happen? Is Ryan from High School Musical gonna crawl out of the TV screen and kill us, huh? Is that what you're afraid of? You fucking coward. That's my wildest fantasy."

"This is an alternate dimension, Cain," he mumbles. "For all we know, that could be what happens here when they try to watch movies."

"It isn't," Callie says, sounding disappointed. "If it was, I'd be married to Gal Gadot right now."

"You'd also be dead," I add. "She'd fucking kill you. Did you not listen to my theory? The whole murder thing is a big part of it."

"Hey!" Maya exclaims. "Am I not as good as Gal Gadot? I can literally swing a sword just like she did in Wonder Woman, she ain't special!"

"Maya, honey, I love you, but no Gentile can compete with Gal Gadot."

"To be fair," I add, "us Jews can't, either. She's, like, a literal goddess."

"You're Jewish?" Callie asks.

"And proud. You are, too, right? Your mom is, back in our dimension."

"Yepperoni."

"So, anyways, I think it's a risk we're willing to take," Meredith decides, pulling us all back in to the issue at hand. "Silas, would you rather be killed by Ryan from High School Musical or that dude from The Notebook?"

"If the movie's going to kill us," Silas replies, "why not watch TV instead?"

"Because you don't get a choice as to whether or not you die; you only get to choose how." Meredith casually says. "So Food Boy it is, then?"

"Oh, hell yes!" Atlas replies.

"Ryan! Ryan! Ryan!" Callie chants.

"I agree," I declare. "Because Ryan."

"I just want to watch a good movie," Silas says, like he's talking to God. "It can even just be a mediocre one. Just this once. Please."

Meredith pretends to strangle him with the cord to the Xbox controller. "It is a good fucking movie! You just don't know how to appreciate art!"

"I love art!" Silas whines, slumping back so he's laying on top of the coffee table, his arms crossed over his chest in defeat. "You know what? Fine. You can watch Food Boy. Whatever. I don't even care anymore."

"And democracy triumphs over tyranny!" Meredith declares, slamming the play button on Food Boy.

"Move it or lose it, bitches," Atlas orders the two of them. "Ya boy can't see."

"Shhh!" Meredith snaps, moving to the second bean bag, the green one mirroring Callie and Maya's on the opposite side of the couch. Since she just took the last available chair, Silas sits awkwardly beside her. She looks rather pleased with herself, most likely because of the movie.

"Mer-Bear," I ask her in a whisper, "you said Food Boy can squirt food out of his hands. Can he squirt food out of . . . other places?"

"WE CAN ALL SQUIRT FOOD OUT OF OTHER PLACES!" Meredith screams.

"What?" Silas asks, horrified.

Someone knocks at the door.

"PIZZA!" Atlas screeches.

"PIZZA!" comes the answering cry from the rest of us.

Atlas shoves my legs off his so fast his glasses fly off. "Get your filthy legs off me!"

"I use Bath and Body Works lotion, you fucking ho!" I reply.

And then we all rush to the door, and my ho turns to an oh. Because the three people standing on the welcome mat aren't a trio of pizza deliverers.

They're my dad, Bianca, and . . . Bianca? A second Bianca?

"MOM!" Callie exclaims, embracing the second Bianca.

The OG Bianca looks beyond horrified. So does my dad.

"You don't have pizza," Maya realizes, sounding beyond heartbroken. It's Ramadan, and night just fell. She'd been looking forwards to breaking her fast with the customary pizza. "Ms. Mendoza, did you clone yourself?"

This second Bianca briefly embraces Callie, then pulls back from her. For a second, she hesitates, her eyes locked on Maya. Then she sighs. "Maya, this isn't a conversation I'd like to have with you right now."

"Come ci sei arrivato?" I ask my dad. How did you get here?

It's not that I'm not happy to see him; I am. It's just that . . . well, understandably, I'm a little taken aback by his sudden appearance. I think I'd be less in shock if my mom had been the one to walk through that door.

"Che cosa?" my dad asks. What?

"Come ci sei arrivato?" I repeat.

"Cosa, niente scuse?" What, no apology?

"Cosa, ti aspettavi?" What, were you expecting one?

"Non sei scappato di casa, Cain, sei scappato via dalla nostra dimensione." You didn't just run away from home, Cain. You ran out of our dimension.

"Mi dispiace." I'm sorry I tell him, not really meaning it.

"Cosa stavi pensando?" What were you thinking?

"Che le mie esperienze con i viaggi interdimensionali sembrerebbero grandiose in un saggio del college, del corso del cazzo, papà, che altro potrei aver pensato?" That my experiences with interdimensional travel would look great on a college essay, of fucking course, Dad. What else could I possibly have been thinking?

"You're Italian?" Maya asks, suddenly butting in. "Bruh, that's cool as fuck. And, oh, my God, is that your dad?"

"Yeah," I say, glad for the change in conversation.

"The butcher!" Maya grins. "Is your shop halal?"

My dad looks so horrified, he actually physically flinches. "I'm not a fucking butcher."

She shoves her thumb in my face. "This one told me you were. He said that's why he had all those knives in his bag."

"You had a bunch of knives in your bag?" he asks.

"Only, like, five."

"That's five more than the average person," Maya says.

"I'm not a butcher," my dad repeats. "He just had a bunch of knives in his bag 'cause he's a dumbass and I need to have a word with him."

Without even waiting for me to say something, he grabs me by the collar of my shirt and drags me out of the apartment, slamming the door behind us.

"Come ci sei arrivato?" I ask, again. How did you get here?

I don't expect him to be mad at me. He's never gotten mad at me before. I've gotten in trouble with the law, but never trouble with him. He's the laid-back kind of parent that thinks it's okay for me to stay out past curfew or have boys over when he's not there or murder a man in cold blood.

"Cain," he says, softly. "What the fuck." It's not a question.

I shrug. "YOLO, amiright?"

"No. No, this isn't funny." He snaps his fingers in my face as if trying to get me to pay attention to him. "Is this because of Rachel?"

This, I realize, isn't something he's just going to let me get away with. A wave of guilt washes over me, so powerful I feel sick to my stomach. "I have to save her, okay?" I reply, my voice watery. "Devo." I have to.

"You don't have to do anything!" he exclaims. "You're sixteen years old, Cain, okay? You're a child! There are some things you don't have to deal with. Some things you can let me take care of. Some things you need to let me take care of."

"What?" I ask. "Like keeping my sister alive?"

For a second, his eyes flash so dangerously I genuinely think my dad is going to kill me.

"I'm sorry," I quickly add, my vision blurred through tears, my words garbled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that . . . please don't hurt me."

Until just now, I'd never realized that I was actually afraid of him.

And then he sinks against the apartment's door, his head in his hands, defeated. "Do you know why, when the rift first opened back up again, we didn't send anyone in to find Rachel and the others that fell in?" he asks, his voice eerily calm.

Given the Mendoza Institute's track record, I'd assumed that it was because they didn't give enough shits to even bother. But I don't think that's what he wants to hear, so I lie. "No."

"Because it isn't safe," he explains. "We were going to send people in. We were going to send in professional adults to save them, eventually, but do you know why we were taking our time? Because this shit is dangerous! We don't know jack about these worlds."

"Okay," I say, quickly.

"You fucked up, Cain. You really did." He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes, running his hands over his face. "First in burning down the Mendoza Institute. Now in doing this. You didn't only endanger your own life, do you know that? You endangered mine, and you endangered Bianca's, and you . . . you endangered your friends', and those poor girls in that apartment, and Rachel. Do you really think we'll be able to save her? We won't. We're all going to be trapped in this fucking dimension and die."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Just . . . just think about your actions, okay? That's all I'm asking." His hands drop to his knees in defeat. "Please. For me. I already lost Rachel. I couldn't handle losing you, too."

"I'm sorry," I say, again.

He's quiet for a moment, and I let my guard down. Everything's okay; he's not mad at me anymore. He got it out of his system, and now we're going to find Rachel and get back home, and everything's going to be okay. Some distant part of my brain realizes that this is the first day of Shavuot. Callie's Jewish; maybe we can go to her synagogue tonight. My dad will make cheesecake like he always does, and everything will be fine.

And then he drops a McFreakin' bomb on me: "I'm shutting the Villa down."

"WHAT?"

"We kill people for money. It's fucked up and I'm shutting it down."

"But . . . but . . . but . . . you can't! You just can't!" I find myself unable to come up with a valid argument. Think of the children? What, all the children we've murdered? "It's our only source of income! We'll starve!"

"I'm only shutting down the whole hitman part of it," he mumbles. "Not the pizza place."

"Papà," I beg, "Papà, please. Think about this. We're already poor. We can't afford to shut it down."

"I'll get a second job," he offers. "You can get a second job. Bianca's going to start working again. Maybe Eva and I will expand to a second location."

"But I don't want to work at a pizza place for the rest of my life," I whine.

"Then what do you want to do?"

I'll admit that the question catches me off guard. I've never been asked that before. I've never had to think about that before. I give him a look. "You already know! I want to run the Villa. The real Villa."

There's a beat. He does nothing but stare at me. I feel my skin crawl like it's trying to rip itself off my skeleton.

"What about college, Cain?" he finally asks.

The idea of me going to college is so absurd, I laugh. I mean, come on! Me? Going to college? With my impeccable record and straight-A's? Colleges are sucking my dick trying to get me to apply to them! Yale's giving me head as we speak!

I shrug. "Nah. Not for me."

"Why not?"

"It's a waste of money. Besides, there's nothing I'm even good at besides breaking the law. What would I even study, how to get away with murder?"

"You know, you'd make a great politician."

"Dad, I'm being serious."

"It could show you what you're good at, that there are so many other options out there than what you're giving yourself. Going to college could give you a chance. Maybe you could study business," he suggests.

"A chance to do what? Sit it an office all day? Take advantage of the millions of impoverished Americans to earn an extra buck? No thank you."

"Forgive me for not wanting my only child to grow up to be a murderer."

It takes me a moment to realize what he said, but once it finally clicks . . . I swear, for a moment, all my blood turns to fire. Only child. Like Rachel never fucking existed.

"In case you forgot, I'm not your only child," I remind him.

"Cain—"

"I'M NOT YOUR ONLY CHILD!" I scream, my hands balled into fists, angry tears burning the backs of my eyes. "Oh, my God, I'm not! Rachel's still your fucking child, and she's still my fucking sister, and she's still fucking alive!"

I have to get out of here or I'm going to kill him.

I shove past him into the hallway, my vision blurring and vomit rising in the back of my throat. I feel like I'm no longer in my body; I'm no longer in control of this fleshy prison, but just a spectator observing it from above. I can't find the elevator, so I run down all five flights of stairs, but, like, the only kind of running I ever do is on a runway. This body pauses at the bottom of the stairwell, its hand digging into the yellowed wall, crying, coughing, heaving, trying to catch its breath. What a weakling; what a prison. I could kill the body and free my mind.

This body is on fire, I realize, distantly. I watch as it tries to pat the flames out. Once it does, it steps out into the night, and, suddenly, I'm zapped back inside of it.

Back inside of my body, I take a deep breath. The air is cold, far too cold for late spring. Breathing burns like icicles are being shoved down my esophagus. Back inside of my body, I feel pathetic and weak. The universe, all of a sudden, seems far too big. In the grand scheme of things, I'm not just a spec of dust. My entire galaxy is just a spec of dust. And if everything I do is so small and insignificant . . . does anything really matter? Do a few murders really matter, in the grand scheme of things?

Of course they do. The universe might be infinite and overwhelming, but there's a universe inside of every person. Everything does and doesn't matter. Is and isn't significant.

Oh, my God. I'm a murderer.

I'm a murderer.

There's a city bench a couple sidewalk-squares away from where I'm standing, and I head over to it. Dramatically, I throw myself onto it, sitting with my legs pressed against my chest and my forehead digging into my knees, trying to conserve my body heat. It's also so this godforsaken city won't see me cry, because boy, is a motherfucker crying. Like, it's all Niagara Falls up in this bitch.

I wish I had some little red shoes, because I just want to go home.

I know that if I hadn't come here, Rachel would have been stuck in this place forever. And I know that if I hadn't come here, Atlas would have been trapped with his mom that hit him and is BFFs with my dad. But I also know I shouldn't have come here. I've already fucked things over enough times without even taking into account everything I risked coming here.

But why is my dad shutting down the Villa? It's everything I have. Everything we have. Without it, what will I do? I'm too pretty to be a truck-driver, and I can't be a janitor, my nails are too good. I'll have to break up with Atlas, because my only option will be finding myself a good ol' sugar daddy. Unless he'd be willing to be my sugar daddy.

Now that, right there, is a man I'd be willing to be a trophy husband for. Just get me some lingerie and call me a sugar baby.

I'd just begun to actually think about my future, and now it had all gone down the drain.

But I can't help but remind myself of little Kenzie Michaelson. Kenzie God-fucking-damned Michaelson. The innocent little girl I grew up with, that Rachel had been best friends with, who was sweet as she could be, that I killed at a bonfire the night Atlas and I first discovered the rift. She had anger issues, sure, and she didn't know how to keep her mouth shut, but who doesn't?

If it hadn't been for the Villa, she'd still be alive right now.

Did she deserve to die? Did anyone that I've killed?

I suddenly realize that my dad's found me. He's standing right in front of me, looking like he thinks I actually want to talk to him. I look through my knees at him, refusing to wipe my tears. Let him see them. Let him see what he's caused. I'm that messy bitch.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"I'm sorry," he says, awkwardly sitting down beside me. After a minute, when I don't respond, he rests his hand on my back, gently rubbing his fingers against the fabric of my shirt. "I didn't mean it like that."

"It's what you said, so it's what you meant." I physically recoil at his touch. I remove his hand from my back and scoot to the opposite side of the bench. "Leave. You're not welcome here."

"Cain! Don't talk to me like that!" He snaps, as if he has the authority to tell me how to talk to him. "I'm sorry, okay? I've just been so worried about you, and I said some things I didn't mean."

"Okay. Perfect. Talk to me when I actually care," I mumble. "Look, this is the deal: if you don't think of her as your daughter anymore, then I'm definitely not your son."

He grabs my shoulders, forcing me to sit like a normal human being, forcing me to look at him. I physically can't look away from him, but, because I'm a petty-ass bitch, I shut my eyes so I don't have to meet his stare.

"You are my son," he insists. "You're my own flesh and blood, and so is she. Just as much as you are. You don't get to pick and choose who your family is. You're stuck with what you're given, but, by some miracle, I was given the two of you."

"Blood is thicker than water," I tell him, "but you'll die if you try to drink blood. My friends are my family; you're not. Not anymore."

He sighs as his hands drop from my shoulders. I finally let my eyes open. He looks like he's about to cry, as if he has any reason to.

"I'm sorry, Cain," is all that he says before he leaves me alone on a city bench.

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I SIT THERE UNTIL the city grows too cold and too dark. It happens quickly, like a harsh wind snuffing out a flame, turning the world into bonfire smoke. It's slathered in such a heavy layer of gray that I can hardly breathe, but the feeling's comfortable and familiar. As you warm your hands against the heat of the flames, the city's the persistent thought in the back of your mind: burn it, burn it all.

When the cold starts to get unbearable, I head inside Maya and Callie's apartment building. Maybe I'll sleep in the elevator, or right here, by the door. I don't want to have to go back up to that apartment, but it's too cold to stay out there all night. And where else am I supposed to go, Denny's?

Inside, the only light comes from the elevator: the electric blue buttons; the three silvers of fuzzy light pouring out of the cracks in the top and bottom of the elevator and the partition between the two doors. Outside, at least I'd had the stars and the moon, but in here there's nothing but dim electric lighting. Even though it's darker in here, it's significantly warmer. Warm enough that I'd be willing to rip all my clothes off just to prove to you how warm it is. I turn my phone's flashlight on, shining it around the tiny space to see what I have to work with. There's the elevator; there's a small coat closet; there's posters on the wall advertising missing dogs and cheap concert tickets. There's a laundry room tucked in the back of the building, and I head in that direction, figuring it'll be the comfiest spot for the night.

Three out of four of the walls is exposed red bricks. The fourth is covered in chalkboard paint and scribbled on. There's three washer/dryer sets; all three of the washers and two of the dryers are turned off, but one of the dryer's is buzzing, alive. I spend about five minutes figuring out how to open the damn thing until, finally, the scent of warm detergent spills out onto the linoleum tiles. I pile the clothes up in my arms, throwing them in a mess on the floor, and throw myself on top of them, burying myself under some assorted flannels for warmth.

Settled in for the night, I turn my phone off, setting it on the floor beside me. I snuggle into the dryer-warm blanket I made, letting myself pretend it's comfortable, letting myself drift off to sleep as easy as I get first in Mario Kart.

Distantly, nostalgically, I remember Shavuot. If we were home right now, me, Rachel, and my dad would be at our synagogue, spending all night studying the Torah and stuffing our faces.

Tonight, I realize, isn't just the first Shavuot I've spent without the two of them. It's the first one I've ever spent alone.

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I DON'T KNOW how long I sleep, but when I wake up, light floods the laundry room like headlights flooding a dark road. I groan, roll over, and shove my head underneath a gaudy orange sweatshirt.

I realize that there's a voice calling for me, and I jolt awake so fast my vision temporarily goes black. "Dwayne 'the Dwayne' Johnson!" I yelp, convinced it's him. But the reality is even better: it's Atlas!

"Having wet dreams again?" Atlas wonders as he sits in front of me, satisfied with my current state of consciousness, because what other types of dreams does one have about Dwayne? "Aren't you freezing down here?"

Goddamnit, I am. I guess when I first came in here, I didn't realize how cold it was, it was so much warmer than it had been outside.

"I'm actually pretty hot," I reply.

"You're shivering," Atlas points out.

"Fine. I'm cold." I sigh. "But do you know what'll warm me up . . . ?"

"Cardio," he offers, moving so he's sitting right behind me, his arms wrapped around his shoulders, his legs wrapped around mine.

Before we move on, I'd like to make something very clear, if it wasn't before: I'm very gay, and HOOWEE! I love doing gay shit, and I love Atlas. Like I seriously love him. He's so warm. I lean into his chest, and . . . I think about Callie and Maya, how seeing them actually made me see my own future. How my dad telling me he was shutting down the Villa completely destroyed every hope I had for it.

I hope I get a good future, but I don't want it to just be my future. I want it to be our future, mine and Atlas's. And I want it to feel like this moment, forever. Warm and pure and soft and full of gay shit and him.

"How long have I been out?" I ask.

"Thirty minutes." And then—the audacity!—this motherfucker actually touches my hair, frantically trying to fix it. "What were you doing down here? You have sex hair."

Thirty minutes? Only thirty minutes? It feels like it's been thirty hours.

I keep my answer honest, but vague enough to keep him guessing. "I didn't want to go back up there. He's there."

"Um, who?" Atlas asks, tilting his head into my shoulder.

"I'm mad at my dad."

"Why?"

"I don't really want to talk about it." Okay, that's a lie. I absolutely want to talk about it. But he can't know that! "He called me his only child."

"What? That's so fucked up!"

"He's also shutting down the Villa," I add. "And he wants me to, like, go to college."

And he's quiet for a moment, the only sound him breathing into my sweatshirt. "Parents really suck, don't they?" he replies, sounding unenthusiastic.

I sink down so my head's laying in his lap. He has a double chin from this angle. It's kind of absolutely adorable. "I don't even know what I'd study at college. Or in general. Especially if he really does shut the Villa down. I kind of suck at everything I try to do."

"Cain, that isn't true," Atlas insists. "You're amazing at a lot of things. Maybe you'll be a beautician, or . . . Oooh! Maybe you could be one of those ex-criminals the government hires to try and break into their systems so they can heighten security! But I think that's only for hackers." He brushes my hair out of my face, tucking several curls behind my ear. "If worst comes to worst, you could always breed Cerberus. That little fucker's purebred. Make him fuck his sister to keep it that way, and you'd be making thousands a litter."

"We literally cut Cerberus's balls off, he couldn't have puppies if he wanted." I shudder at the thought. "What do you want to do?"

Atlas's answer comes right away: "I want to be a history teacher."

Meredith wants to get into politics. I know because I was there with her the day she decided it. She made a bunch of sticky-notes with career options on them, stuck them to her bedroom wall, blindfolded herself, and threw a dart. She told me she was going to go down whatever career path it landed on. Silas has wanted to go into disease control since middle school. But up until right now, Atlas had never known what he wanted to do. He'd thought about being a lawyer or an exotic dancer or a politician with Meredith, but he'd never actually known. But the way that he said it . . . I can tell it's a final decision for him, one he thinks he should have come to long ago.

Knowing that all of my friends know what they're doing with their lives but me makes me feel a little panicked, but I decide to make light of a terrible situation. "So does that mean you are or are not willing to do a little William Howard Taft roleplaying?" I ask, hopeful.

"Oh, definitely," he replies with a laugh, which makes me think he might not be serious. "You should come upstairs." Which makes me think he's being totally serious.

"For the Taft thing?"

"Oh, my God, do you actually have a Taft fetish? That's it. This is where I draw the line. Cain Terranova, I'm officially kinkshaming you."

"Seriously?" I can't believe him. "Have you seen the man? Also, don't you have a Founding Fathers kink?"

"Would it kill you to stop being so weird for, like, five seconds?" Atlas begs. "You should come upstairs so you can, you know, sleep. Where it's not freezing and infested with rats."

I kiss his neck and groan into his skin. "Anywhere with you is rat-infested."

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btws i use. google translate. to translate english into italian bc im a filthy linguistic sinner and im SO SORRY if any of the translations are incorrect

also i get to read queer lit for school and im beyond excited. we have an independent reading project and one of our options is angels in america by tony kushner and im gonna read it and im READY