Chapter 16: XIV: FATHERFUCKER!

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CAIN

I'M THE FIRST PERSON that Rachel sees, and she does not look nearly as happy to see me as I am to see her. She screams when she sees me, and, behind her, hardly audible over her scream, echoes the pitter-patter of little footsteps jumping down the porch steps two-at-a-time.

I know. It's shocking. Imagine seeing me and not being happy about it. I can't believe it, either!

Seeing Rachel after all those months of trying to convince myself that she's dead is inexplicably earth-shattering. This is Rachel but it isn't; this is my sister but it isn't. It's not the Rachel I've always known, intelligent and determined and sweet and awkward. This girl is something . . . something else. The bones are all there, but the skin is entirely different. It's like seeing the ghost of someone you knew in a past life; it's like walking through your childhood home years later, seeing the same foundation done anew.

Everything about her seems completely normal. She's wearing a headband; God, she never goes anywhere without one on. It looks like a strip of fabric cut out of a pair of blue jeans, tied into a bow on the side of her head. Her hair's the same shade of midnight, still as unmanageably curly and frizzy as it's always been. Her eyes are the same shade of hazel; her freckles are in the same spots they've always been in. She's even wearing a horribly Rachelesque outfit: a pair of white flats with cute little bows on them, a pleated skirt, a Space Camp t-shirt in an innocent shade of light blue, a jean jacket covered in pins and patches. She looks like what she is: a little girl thrust into a harsh world completely alone.

She marches straight on into the living room with that stupid angry walk she does—her body tilted forwards, her hands curled into fists at her sides, her face all scrunched up and angry and red. She jams a finger into my chest. "YOU!" she yells, spit flying. "Get out of my house! Get out get out get out get out get out GET OUT! I'll beat you! I'll kill you! I'll—I'll—I'll—"

Family reunions, amirite?

But it's at that moment that I realize that Rachel isn't angry to see me. I'm still wearing the fucking gas mask. She can't see my face through it. She has no idea who I am, and why would she have any reason to suspect that I'm me? For all she knows, I'm a stranger in a gas mask chilling in her living room uninvited. Besides, she's gotten tunnel-vision for me; she hasn't even realized there are people behind me. She hasn't seen our dad.

"Rachel." I grab onto her hands, trying to calm her down. "Stop it. It's me, your beloved brother."

"Cain?" Rachel takes a step back. She no longer looks murderous, just a little pissed-off. "What the ever-loving fuck are you wearing?"

"A gas mask," I answer, as one does. "It's called fashion, sweetheart, look it up." And, look: Rachel doesn't have a stupid fucking mask, and she looks perfectly fucking healthy. Besides, I've risked everything to save her. If the radiation's going to kill her, I might as well let it kill me. I wrestle it off my head and dramatically throw it to the ground.

"Rachel?" asks a soft, childish voice from behind her.

Avani Nagarkar. She'd slipped in a couple seconds after Rachel and is hiding behind my sister. Even though Rachel's only four years older than her, she's so tall and the younger girl so short she hardly reaches her ribs. Silas had been babysitting Avani the day the world ended. She fell into the rift under his care, and he never forgave himself.

I've never met her, but I can tell it's her. It has to be. She's a short, chubby little nine-year-old Indian girl with a gap between her front teeth and choppy pigtails braided with wildflowers. Her skin's almost as dark as Silas's, and she seems to radiate something pure and warm and soft. She's barefoot and dressed in oversized sparkly pink Justice t-shirt over a floral-print sundress.

"Avani," Silas whispers, confirming my suspicions, looking on the verge of tears. Which is a usual look for Silas. He's just a big ol' softie.

Speaking of looking on the verge of tears: my dad's full-on crying. "Rachel," he mumbles. "Oh, my God, Rachel."

Rachel's looking at him like he's a hologram: something she can see but not touch, something that's real but not really there. Blindly, she takes several steps forwards. She grabs onto my arm, and then she barrels into Dad's chest, forcing us all into a group hug. I let it happen because, like, all three of us are crying. Not just my dad. And I don't want fucking Maya to see. She'd never let me live it down, and I have a reputation to uphold.

"Are you real?" Rachel asks.

Interdimensional travel drips a gray haze into your mind, coating your memories in a fog like dry ice in strobe lights. You know everything you see must be real, has to be real, but there's this line that's cut between your eyes and your brain. The message is lost in translation, and you're left in a state of constant confusion. Always wondering what's real and what isn't. Never quite knowing if you're dead or alive.

I've learned to just say fuck it and accept things as they come. But Rachel isn't so prone to not giving a shit. It's had to have been worse on her than it's been on me.

"Am I real?" Dad looks confused by the question. Of fucking course he does. He doesn't understand us teenagers and our technology and the demon bugs slowly destroying our brains. "Of course I am."

Rachel casts a panicked glance around the room. Her voice's hardly a whisper. "Are they?"

"Are they what?" Dad asks. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG?" Rachel bursts out in a fit of high-pitched laughter. "Oh, absolutely nothing. Everything is perfectly fucking fine. I've never been better!"

I put my hand on her shoulder. "Rach, do you want to just talk to me and Dad?"

Rachel slumps down onto the hardwood floor, her arms crossed over her chest, her back pressed against the wall. "The ghosts can leave."

Y'all, you might be witnessing the fall of an empire. I might be abdicated from my position as the Terranova Family's Resident Drama Queen. Rachel's out for my crown.

"What do you mean, ghosts?" Dad's eyebrows are raised in concern. "They're all . . . sweetie, they're all alive."

"No." Rachel shakes her head like she's trying to explain simple math (which is, to her, quantum physics) to the dumbest kid in her grade. "They're either not real or not alive. Pick one and get them out of here."

"Okay. Bye-bye, ghosts." Maybe he's just doing it to humor her, or maybe her deathly serious expression has him believing her. He is pretty gullible. Nevertheless, he still orders everyone out of the house, and they leave without a question.

"I've been thinking a lot out here, about the universe. There isn't much else to do in a deserted wasteland." Rachel blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. "I don't want to work for NASA anymore." We haven't seen her in, what, five months? Six? And this is what she's talking about, really? "I don't want to do anything anymore. I just want to sleep."

"What?" Dad asks. "Why not? What happened?"

"Space is boring or whatever. There's no point to it, to any of this."

"What else do you want to do, then?"

She just shrugs. "Nothing?"

"Rachel." Dad kneels down so he's eye-level with her. "What happened?"

"A lot happened, Dad, okay?" Rachel replies, her head snapping back up. The tears in her eyes make the hazel look like dripping honey. "I killed someone. I fucking killed someone. I fucking helped Cain kill someone and I fucking got away with it. And not only that. I'm fourteen fucking years old, and I've had to become a mother to Avani because there's no one fucking else in this ugly fucking world. I've had to protect her from all the shit this universe has thrown at us. But I've had no one to protect me from it!" She takes a deep breath. She's almost screaming, now. "I wanted to explore the universe, Dad, but I've already fucking done that, and guess what the fuck I found!"

"What?"

"NOTHING!" Rachel screams. "There's nothing! The universe is completely empty and there's nothing! It's bullshit! It's complete bullshit!"

And then her screams turn into violent sobs, and she keeps apologizing over and over and over again as she buries herself in Dad's chest. I force myself into their hug. Dad keeps rocking back and forth, rubbing Rachel's hair, telling her it's all going to be okay. I try to help by shoving my face between the two of them.

I can't stop thinking about what Rachel said. They're either not real or not alive.

Some people really do seem like ghosts.

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THERE'S MEREDITH, SCREAMING as she flies into the swimming pool, her blonde hair floating out behind her. Someone decided to push her into the pool fully-clothed. Someone by the name of A Sexy-Ass Motherfucker. By the sound of her screams, someone is going to get his ass beat. Whoops.

Everything's normal. Just a bunch of friends hanging out by a stranger's pool. Rachel and Avani and me and my friends and the only two people actually from this dimension, Callie and Maya. Completely normal. Just like I had, everyone else wearing a gas mask abandoned them. Absolutely fucking normal. Callie and Maya decided they didn't want to leave this radioactive hellhole until the next day because maybe we can see if Maya's family actually is dead before we go. Totally normal. We broke into the abandoned house next door's pool. Rachel told us about how she'd been scavenging in the same house for food a couple weeks ago. She found the bodies of the owners and their four-year-old daughter huddled together in the master bath like the lovers of Pompeii. So normal it's disconcerting.

Meredith resurfaces for air, gasping, rubbing the water out of her eyes. Her makeup's running, her hair plastered down the back of her neck, browned by the water. The deep end only goes up to five feet, so she can stand in it, the water only reaching her collarbones. "My phone's still in my pocket, you piece of shit!"

Casually, I pull a phone out of my pocket, undeniably Meredith's. She still has an iPhone 4, and she still has one of those Minnie Mouse cases that were popular in, like, 2014. "I don't completely lack foresight." I set her phone down on a white plastic table, then set my own phone down beside it. Because I'm not taking any chances.

"Jackass," mumbles my amazing sister who is Just Now Back From the Dead. She's lounging poolside, leaning back on her hands. Her red-painted toenails glint like rubies as she kicks her feet in the ice cold water. She pushes her hair out of her eyes, holding it in place with a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses she scavenged from an abandoned Drug Mart.

Meredith arches an eyebrow and splashes me. "Get in here and fucking fight me, you little bitch!"

I shriek and jump out of her line of fire, hiding behind Atlas. "Hiss, hiss, you fucking snake!"

"You're the one that pushed her into the pool," Atlas reminds me.

"Guys!" Silas says in shock. "There are children here. Don't talk like that."

Avani innocently smiles at him. "Motherfucker."

"Sheesh." Maya's been snacking on a can of Pringles, and she pops a couple in her mouth. "Watch it, little one. I'll wash your mouth out with soap."

"Avani, don't say that," Silas warns. "And Maya, don't you dare."

"He's right," says Meredith. "We don't say motherfucker around here. We say fatherfucker. It's much less degrading. Plus, it's alliteration, so legally they can't stop me from using it in an AP essay."

"Fatherfucker," Avani whispers, trying it out. "FATHERFUCKER!" She bursts out in a grin, repeating the new word over and over again, and takes off running around the pool, her arms spread like she's trying to take flight. "FATHERFUCKER FATHERFUCKER FATHERFUCKER FATHERFUCKER!"

Silas sighs and chases after her screaming about pool safety, deciding he wants to play tag.

And in that very moment, I'm betrayed by the one I love the most. Because Atlas yells "THINK FAST!" and slams into me like a fucking miniature bulldozer and knocks me into the pool. I don't think fast enough to save myself, but I do think fast enough to grab his arm and drag him in with me. The water's ice-fucking-cold, and I suddenly wish my power could actually work well enough to make more than just a spark so I could heat this party up. We both go under for a second, and by the time we come up, Callie's jumped in after us with a joyful screech.

"VICTORY!" Meredith shouts.

"FATALITY!" I shriek, frantically treading water. "I'M DROWNING! I'M DYING! I CAN'T BREATHE! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM!"

"Do I need to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?" Atlas asks, eager.

"Mouth-to-mouth what, now?" Meredith asks, horrified. "Recessive Tahitian?"

"You're standing in the three-foot zone," Maya points out.

My feet slam into the concrete pool bottom so hard my skin bursts. I yelp. The water only comes up to my waist. "I don't have three feet, genius."

"I thought you had all those extra ones in your basement," says Meredith.

"You fool! I don't even have a basement. They're in my garage."

"Only real feet fans know that," says Atlas like it's a real zinger. "I, personally, love Cain's feet."

Okay, this is officially where I draw the line. I'm not about to date someone with a foot fetish. "I'm literally going to fucking drown myself," I threaten.

Meredith looks even more horrified. "First mouth-to-mouth recessive Tahitians, and now this? I'm officially objecting at your wedding. Cain, you deserve so much better than this piece of garbage."

"Hey," says Atlas.

"I love my garbage boy!" I offer, trying to raise his self-esteem.

Meanwhile, on dry land, Silas has finally caught up with Avani. He grabs hold of her and swings her up and down and around as she shrieks with joy, and then he tosses her right on into the pool. She instantly swims over to Meredith and climbs on top of her like she wants a piggy back ride. Meredith pretends not to notice her, and she pretends not to notice Silas, but she's forgotten a crucial factor in this equation: me. I'm the Love Doctor, and I see everything. She's smiling like a fatherfucker. This bitch is in love.

I don't know what's going in between them. I know they both love each other. Maybe just as friends. Maybe romantically. I just know that it's pure and it's good and I love them both so much and I want them to be happy. I'm usually morally against straight couples, but I think I can make an exception for them.

I mean, it's not like they're technically a straight couple. They're not a couple. I don't think. And neither of them are straight; they're both bisexual. Meredith would probably beat me if I called anything about her straight.

You know, I don't remember Meredith ever actually coming out to me. She just made so many gay jokes about herself I kind of figured it out. And Silas . . . he came out to all of us sophomore year. Me and Meredith had been making bets over if Josh Anderson was going to ask me or her to homecoming, and Silas just came up to us one day and told us that he was bi and Josh had asked him and he was gonna do it because he thought he had a cute butt.

I've known Silas since we were five years old. I probably know him better than I know myself. I nearly fainted when he told me that he thought someone had a cute butt. It's just so unlike him! But I wasn't surprised at all to find out that he's bi. I mean, come on. We watched the premiers of all three High School Musical movies together. (Even the first one. Even though I'd just moved to this country. Because even though I didn't speak any English, I could still tell that Bop to the Top was a banger and a half.) His favorite song was I Don't Dance. We actually made up our own dance routine to it, and it was good as fuck. But that's beside the point.

You know, I've missed days like these. Days when the world just seems to melt into laughter and sunshine. With everything that's been going on the past few months, it feels like I haven't actually been able to just have fun. It almost doesn't feel real. I'm kind of worried that this is all some fevered dream and I'll wake up in my own house in my own dimension with my sister still dead.

I still can't believe that she's here, that she's alive. But fuck it! Nothing's real and everyone dies and the universe is destined to implode on itself! Maybe it already has! So we might as well have fun while it lasts! Be as gay as you want to right now, because the last thing you want when you're old and have erectile dysfunction and you're looking back on your life is to think think man, I could have been so much gayer! You never know how much time you have left! So! Make! It! Fatherfucking! Count!