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CAIN
(tw: brief mentions of child abuse)
TWO MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS before closing time, in walks a stressed-out middle-aged woman with a face highlighted to the gods. She squints at the menu above my head and asks me what a Margherita pizza is.
I tell her. "It's a classic Italian pizza. Neapolitan style: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, the works."
"Oh," she says, sounding bored and disappointed that it's not alcoholic. (Same, girl. Same.) "Can I have three extra-large pizzas with everything on them? And an order of pasta."
Look, if you thought pineapple on pizza was as bad as it gets, never work for Little Caesars. A lot of times, we get normal, sensible pizza. Pepperoni, extra cheese, meatballs, onions, you know the works. (Especially the meatballs. Meatballs go with pizza like, well, meatballs go with pizza.) Other times . . . it's a nightmare. Canned tuna, fried eggs, bananas, pickles, Tide pods, peas, chocolate, mayonnaise. Once, someone tried to sue us because we didn't have any ranch for him to dip his pizza in.
So, really, it's understandable that I try to warn her. "Ma'am, that really isn't a good idea." And it's understandable that I ask her to clarify what kind of pasta she wants, because come fucking on. We're Italians. We have more types of pasta than I have personalities.
"Why not?"
"Ma'am, we have mayonnaiseâ"
She's having none of it. "I have three boys at home," she insists. "And they all have friends over."
Whatever. The customer's always right. She wants to get a taste of this pizza place hell? I'll let her have it. It's her own funeral. "So what kind of pasta was it, then?"
She looks like she's this close to losing her patience with me. "The kind with noodles."
I close my eyes, reminding myself that we'll be closed tomorrow and the day after that for Shavuot, and I won't have to deal with this. I'll just have to stuff my face with enough cheesecake and blintzes to put myself in cardiac arrest and drink enough Red Bull to get me through Tikkun Leil Shavuot tonight.
"All pasta has noodles. If someone ever tries to get you to eat noodleless pasta, call 911 immediately."
"Then make it spaghetti. And it's going to be to go."
"Three extra-large pizzas with everything on them and one spaghetti, coming up!" I grin, leaning into the window into the kitchen to relay her order to our troops.
The only two people besides me and my dad (who's out on a delivery) working so late are Nick and Lili. They haven't even been here a week, and they already understand how this place works. When I tell them that she asked for everything on her pizzas, Lili pretends to pass out and Nick crosses himself. Then they get to work, Lili swearing at her brother and Nick repeatedly hitting her with a rolling pin.
Eventually, Lili passes me three extra-large pizza boxes and a small black styrofoam box full of hot spaghetti. I rest the boxes on the counter while my Valued Customer pays, and hand them over to her with a polite smile before she leaves.
Once the door's slammed shut behind her, Lili leans forwards, pressing her hips into the bottom of the window. "I spat in her spaghetti, and I think I have mouth herpes."
I high-five her. "You're honestly the best person in the universe."
Nick, however, looks incredulous and a little nauseas. "How do you even get herpes in your mouth?"
"From oral sex. I read about it on Twitter. But, obviously, you wouldn't know anything about sex." Lili opens her mouth wide for Nick to inspect. "Look."
And inspect it he does. "It just looks like a normal mouth. But, also, ew. Do you never brush your tongue?"
"Hey, you guys wanna help me finish bussing tables?" I ask.
Nick turns his nose up at the idea. "Not unless your dad gives me a pay raise."
"Oh, hell yes," says Lili, who's arguably the better sibling. "I live to bus tables."
So Nick and Lili shut the kitchen down, and I lock up. Both of them end up helping me bus tables, though Nick's definition of "help" is seeing how many glasses he can balance on his head before he breaks them.
After we get everything cleaned up for the night, we all change out of our uniforms and into our street clothes. We've got a little tradition going: everyday after we close up, we just hang around, updating each other on the latest gossip and memes while my dad finishes up anything else he needs to. Tonight, he's still not back from his delivery. We all sit in this booth by the window, spring rain pouring down on the other side of the glass, leaving it cold to the touch, curled together around Nick's phone as he shows us the latest memes.
And then someone pushes open the front door, triggering the little bell above it.
"We're closed!" Lili shrieks.
I look up from Nick's phone, expecting to see my dad, but Atlas is standing there, soaking wet from the rain, looking like a lost little puppy.
"Atlas!" I exclaim.
"You know him?" Nick asks. "Please make him leave. I'm not getting paid for this."
So, here's the thing: Nick and Lili don't exactly know that I'm gay. I know, it's weird. It's not like I'm a very closeted person. People that I don't even know know that I'm gay. And I guess that, between my fashion sense and my music taste, I don't exactly scream Straight Teenage Boy. You'd think that they'd just Know. But it's . . . it's complicated. Coming out to my friends was one thing. Coming out to my dad and Rachel was something entirely different, even though Rachel always went to Pride with her gay best friend Abby and my dad experimented back in high school. Besides, I've kind of lived my entire life feeling like I don't have any family other than Rachel and my dad. Now that I can finally have a relationship with my cousins, some part of me worries that I'm going to fuck it up. Maybe they're massive homophobes. Maybe they aren't. I don't know.
It's hard.
But Atlas looks desperately in need of a hug, and, like, fuck my cousins. I've known them for the past two months. I've known Atlas since I was six years old. Who cares if they end up being homophobic? I'm gay, and if they don't like it they can suck my dick.
"I don't think he's a customer," I tell Nick and Lili, sliding out of the booth. When I get up, he practically runs to me, fiercely hugging me and burying his head in my shoulder. He's holding onto me like his life depends on it.
"Atlas?" I ask, hugging him back. "What's wrong? You look like hell."
He laughs, taking a step back. "Do I really look that bad?"
I cup my hands around his cheeks and lovingly offer that "I've literally never seen another human being look as awful as you do right now, and I dated Ben Berkovich."
"Introduce us to this dashing young gentleman," Lili orders.
So. Here goes nothing, I guess. I grab Atlas's hand and tug him back over to the booth. We slide into the bench opposite from the two of them.
"Atlas, these are my cousins Nick and Lili," I say.
"Right," he says. "The ones that think you're a prostitute."
"To be fair," Nick adds, "he told us that he's a prostitute."
"Because I am! Also, this is Atlas," I say quickly. "So, like, I'm gay. He's my boyfriend."
"Noooooo," Nick deadpans. But he looks a bit panicked. So I'm not sure if that's a good reaction or not.
"You didn't tell us you had a boyfriend," Lili complains, sinking down in her seat and pouting like a child. "You and I are gonna have a little chat tonight, okay? I want ALL the details."
I think that's good.
"Cain," says Atlas, "I'd love to stay and meet your cousins, but there's something I really need to talk to you about. In private."
Between you and me? Oof, shivers are already rolling down my spine. "About what?"
Atlas lowers his voice, and I've gotta admit, it's kind of very hot. "Private things."
Oh, boy. There I go. I'm a messâI can already feel myself melting. Atlas makes me feel all kinds of things I wouldn't like to admit in front of my cousins.
"Anything you say to my son can be said to me," Lili says, somewhere between defensive and curious.
"Sorry," I tell her, then Atlas drags my sorry ass outside. We stand together, under the awning and out of the rain. Too far away for it to be comfortable, too close for it not to be weird. Or maybe I'm just paying too much attention to those sorts of things.
The rain smells hot on the cement. It's started to fall in big, fat drops, blurring the neon signs of the other little Main Street businesses. A car whips past us, veering a sharp left around the corner and splattering us with gritty warm water. Atlas shrieks and hides behind me.
"Dammit!" he yelps, furiously cleaning his glasses with his little cloth. "Protect me, tall person!"
I turn to face him, leaning my forehead against his. "Attie, baby, talk to me. What's wrong?"
"My mom hit me," he says, going all quiet. Too quiet. His voice sounds like the way the clouds open up onto each other before a thunderstorm.
It's like my vision turns red. I feel my hands start to heat up. I force myself to take a step away from him, scared I might burn him. How dare someone ever lay a hand on this puppy of a boy. How dare anyone ever lay a hand on their child. "I'll kill her. I swear to God, I'll kill her."
"No, Cain, stop it." He shakes his head, his eyes wide. "I know IâI know I shouldn't be so upset about it. Lots of parents hit their kids. Lots of parents do even worseâbeating them and abusing them and killing them. And I should feel lucky, shouldn't I? Because she's always been so nice. And this was just a one time thing, and it didn't even hurt, andâ"
I have to cut him off. "Pain isn't a competition, only beauty is. You shouldn't feel lucky that people have it worse than you do." But I'm getting the feeling that this isn't what he's upset about.
Atlas shrugs. "I guess, but I just . . . I don't know. I feel weird."
"Why did she . . . ?"
"I kind of maybe almost got us killed." Atlas replies, rubbing the back of his neck. "And then I guess I said something about it that made her kind of snap."
"You almost died?"
"She almost died," he corrects me, like it's more important. When it's obviously not. I mean, obviously. She isn't Stacy's mom. I'm not in love with her. I'm in love with him.
"You said us. That implies that you almost died, too."
"Well, maybe I did, but that's not the point! I had to keep her from killing him."
Freeze frame. "Okay, hun, you've gotta start from the beginning. Spill the tea for Mama Cain. Yes, my children, spill it. Mommy's thorsty."
"She had an assignment, right?" He splays his hands out like he's laying out an invisible story map. "So I go to this creepy-ass apartment building with her, and she goes right on inside. And I go in with her because I'm a dumbass. And that's when she catches me following her, and I tell her that I was only there because I thought she was going to McDonald's. So instead of taking me to get some nugs, she leads me into this sketchy-ass elevator, and I'm, like, praying, 'cause I swear to God I thought I was going to die in there. But, anyways, while we're in there, I shoot my shot. I beg her not to kill the guy. And then she kind of blows up on me. And it turns out these guys heard us talking about killing them, and they jump us as soon as we get out the elevator. They tried to kill us. And when we got home, my mom hit me." He takes a deep, crackling breath, swallowing hard. "That's it. That's what happened."
The Villa. Of course this is about the Villa. Atlas and his mom stand on opposite sides of the room with their opinion on it. I stand with his mom.
This is one of the many things I love about Atlas, but also one of the few things I hate. He's willing to risk his life to save someone else, even someone he doesn't know. Even the scum that we take care of. It's infuriating. Like, can't he be a selfish son of a bitch every once in a while? It would save me a lot of worrying.
"Atlas . . . "
"So I ran away. Kind of. A little. I guess."
So he ran away because he hates the Villa, from one person that loves it to another?
"What are you going to do, now?"
"That's why I'm here. My first thought was to get to you; I didn't know who else to go to. Your dad harbors fugatives. I'm sure he'll harbor a teenage runaway. But I've been thinking, and . . . "
"Oooh, an and! How exciting!" Maybe he's going to run off to, like, Europe and start a traveling group of teenage runaway vigilantes! Maybe he'll wear lederhosen. That would be hot.
But at the same time, a disappointment burns in the back of my throat. Because his first thought was of me. And now he's having second thoughts about it. Just like they always do.
If you think dating while straight is hard, try dating while gay. It's a whole different ball gameâliterally.
"And we need to get Meredith and Silas on the phone."
I'm confused but interested. "Yes, yes. Us without them would be like Macklemore without the love and the support of the LGBT community."
He just looks at me.
"What?" I ask, appalled. "Have you not listened to Same Love? Like, Obama, who? That's a true ally right there!"
"Cain, you're going to hell."
Understandable. "Yeah, okay. But can you at least tell me what we're gonna do? I need to start picking out some good emojis to use in my Tweets about it."
"I think," he says, "it's time we should go to the rift."
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SILAS
UNFORTUNATELY FOR EVERY PARTY INVOLVED, Silas has once again found himself in a life-or-death situation: family movie night. And it's Ella's turn to pick the movie.
So, naturally, after seven and a half (not that Silas was counting) minutes of Emily trying to steal the remote from her sister by being a totalitarian dictator, seven-year-old Ella settles on Angry Birds, which she has been dying to see.
Six-year-old Emily is not impressed. She'd wanted to watch White House Down. Seventeen-year-old Silas is beginning to plot his revenge. Sure, he loves his family, and he loves movie night, but the one thing he can't stand is animated movies. Especially animated movies about pop culture five years after the culture popped.
(Cain would argue that Silas still thinks Grumpy Cat is funny and therefore isn't allowed to have an opinion on pop culture. Silas thinks he's incredibly elitist.)
And then they put the movie on, and Silas is transported into another worldâa better one. Because even if he can't admit it out loudâbecause it's, you know, Angry Birdsâas they delve deeper and deeper into the movie, he finds himself enjoying it. At least a little bit. Because it's not just some dumb app and jokes made for elementary schoolers. It's deeper than that, deeper than Shakespeare, deeper than the Mariana Trench. All about false idols and and the power of utilizing your negative emotions towards a positive goal and capitalist corporations exploiting and manipulating and lying to those below them to make a profit andâ
And something is beeping. Something is beeping and Silas's pitbull Daisy leaps off his dad's lap, suddenly wide awake, barking raucously. Something is beeping and oh, God, the pigs have come to steal their eggs and Silas knew this was going to happen, knew it from the secondâ
"Silas," his mom is saying, "could you get the door?"
Maybe he'd gotten a bit too into the movie.
He pushes back the blanket he'd been snuggled up in, setting his bowl of popcorn in his mom's lap so she can protect it from Daisy. He stretches, then jogs over to the front door, Daisy growling protectively at his heels. Her fur's standing up on the back of her neck. Silas pushes the curtain out of the door's window and peers out into the darkness, looking to see who it is.
His heart soars.
"It's just Meredith," he tells Daisy, scratching her behind the ears to calm her down. "Silly girl."
So he pulls the door open, and there she is. Standing on their front porch, shivering. The blue porch reflecting on her skin like moonlight on water and gnats buzzing around her face like vultures hovering over the dead. She looks very pretty, Silas thinks, dressed in an oversized, off-the-shoulder gray sweater, olive green shorts, and brown hiking boots, but it's not that he notices it or anything. She's got a black Jansport hanging over her shoulder, and her hair's up in a messy ponytail, wispies framing her face like golden strands of silk.
"Meredith! Come in. You look like you're freezing. Do you want some hot cocoa?" Silas steps to the side so she can come in, then turns his attention back to the living room. "Mom! Meredith's here!"
"Okay, sweetie," says his mom.
"Thanks for including me in this conversation," voices his dad.
"ME TOO!" screams Ella.
"HEY!" There's the sound of Emily shoving her sister into the wall. "I was gonna say that first!"
"MOM! EMILY PUSHED ME!" Ella whines.
"Girls," their mom warns.
"Mmmhh, hot cocoa sounds amazing," Meredith decides.
"I'll make some!" Silas offers.
She steps into the house, her face flushed. Silas shuts the door behind her. She slides her backpack to the floor and slips her boots off, setting them beside the welcome mat. At the sight of her, Daisy melts, wagging her tail and shoving her muzzle into her knees, trying to get her to pay attention to her. Silas knows that if Meredith had been a burglar, the stupid dog would have given her the same treatment. Really, she's all bark and no bite.
Meredith plops onto the floor. Thrilled, Daisy licks all over her face and neck, covering her in pitbull slober. But Mer's loving it: she lets out a loud giggle, grabbing onto Daisy's ears and scratching them. Daisy just about shits herself with excitement.
"Oh, yes. Oh, Daisy," Meredith is somehow managing to say while Daisy's tongue is attached to her face like an urchin. "I missed you, baby girl."
"Awwwww," coos Silas. He digs his socked foot into a hole in the wooden planks. "What are you doing here?"
Meredith gets to her feet. "Are you not happy I'm here?" she accuses, breaking out in a grin. "Also: why don't you ever check your phone?"
Silas shrugs. "It's family movie night."
Meredith looks at him for an explanation. Her family, he knows, doesn't have family movie night. Her family has Netflix marathons where they all watch different shows in different rooms and have different dinners without communicating with each other at all. Currently, Meredith's watching Sons of Anarchy. She's also on a health food kickâfrozen taquitos instead of Taco Bell, frozen chicken nuggets instead of Kid Cuisine. Silas knows this. She Snapchats him a lot.
"No phones," he explains.
"Oh. Well, that's lame." Meredith grabs hold of his arm and drags him into the kitchen. "So about the hot cocoa."
Silas is already three steps ahead of her. He pours her a measuring glass full of milk and warms it in the microwave while she searches inside the pantry for the cocoa packets.
"So what's up?" Silas asks, grabbing the glass from the microwave and transferring the milk into a mug Ella made in school.
"We're going to the rift," Meredith casually replies, tearing open the cocoa packet with her teeth. She pours the brown powder into the mug and mixes it with a spoon.
"We're what?" Silas asks, incredulous. "You want marshmallows or whipped cream?"
"Hell yeah, whip me some cream," Meredith insists. Then she repeats herself. "We're goin' to the rift, cowboy."
He grabs a canister of whipped cream from the fridge and tops her mug off with some. "Tonight?"
"Duh." She takes a sip, staining her nose with whipped cream. "Mmmhh, it's delicious."
"But it's family movie night."
"There'll be more family movie nights when we get back." Meredith shoves herself onto his island, swinging her legs back and forth, leaning back on her hands. Innocently, she tilts her head into her shoulder. "You need to hurry and get packed. We need to be out of this dimension before anyone notices we're missing."
"Why now?"
Meredith shrugs. "Dunno, don't care."
Silas hesitates. He figures now is as good a time as any. It's a Friday night, and they have Monday off for teacher inservice. Hopefully, they'll be back by Tuesday like nothing happened, and he won't miss any school. He leads Meredith back into the living room, to the stairwell and up to his room. Quickly, he packs his things, and they head back downstairs. Silas's parents seem very interested in the two of them.
"Meredith," his mom asks with a smile, "are you gonna watch the movie with us?"
Meredith politely smiles back. "No, ma'am. Silas and I are going out."
Silas feels his heart drop. Meredith's grandparents might not exactly care where she goes off to and when, but Silas's parents aren't Caucasian. They very much do care.
"Where are you two off to so late?" his dad questions.
"I need Silas to help me study for a test," Meredith replies. Easy-peasy. Like she lies all the freaking time. Silas can't believe her. Half-heartedly, he hefts his backpack to add to the illusion.
"Can't it wait 'til tomorrow?" his mom wonders.
"The test is tomorrow," Silas lies, feeling sick to his stomach. He's an awful liar.
"It's Friday night," Emily points out, the bastard.
"Saturday school," Meredith explains, quick on her feet.
That shuts his parents up real fast. They like to pretend that all of Silas's friends aren't professional juvenile delinquents.
"Why don't you study here, then?" his dad suggests, looking for a compromise.
"We need to go to the library," Meredith lies. "I lost my textbook, and they have copies of it."
His mom finally caves in. "Just be home by eleven, okay?"
"Okay!" Silas calls. He and Meredith are already at the door, pulling their shoes on.
"Curfew, Silas, baby, okay? Remember your curfew!" his mom calls.
"Yeah, Mom, I will!" Silas replies, genuinely nauseas now. "Love you, bye!"
Meredith pulls open the front door, bounding down the steps like it's any other day. Almost jovially, she skips down to the end of the driveway, where her bike awaits her. Silas can't believe that she seems excited about this.
He reminds himself that she's not a host. That she hasn't seen what he's seen, that she hasn't been where he's been, that she hasn't done what he's done. That she's only ever travelled to Canada, not interdimensionally. That her family might not miss her.
His heart left hanging somewhere behind him, he follows her. He can hear Daisy howling inside.
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THEY MEET CAIN AND ATLAS at the monument.
The woods are just as Silas expects them to be. The trees aren't trees: they're hands reaching out to sink their claws into his vulnerable flesh. The sky isn't above him, and it isn't the sky at all: it's a gaping chasm of fire beneath his feet, the red-hot maw of a caldera. The squirrels are hungry, red-eyed monsters circling silently through the trees. It's every dangerous and beautiful thing in this little world of his.
But it's peaceful, here, somehow. Peace like the rush of roaring water over your head the second you first go under. Peace like the eye of a hurricane. Peace like the second before a bomb hits. The peace before the unknown. He can feel the warm safety of the earth beneath him, even in the dark.
And then, in a split second, everything changes.
It is the unknown. It's the bomb exploding. It's the hurricane flattening your home, destroying everything you've ever known. It's the moment you realize you're drowning. He can feel the earth, even in the darkâfeel it move and lurch like wet clay. The air's sulfuric, decaying with the death of thousands of millions of billions of years of life. He can feel the world starting to rip him to shreds.
Suddenly, a wave of pain knocks over him, so violent it brings him to his knees. He feels like he just did 80 laps in the pool. Panicking, he shoves his face into the ground, choking on cold dirt. He feels it crumble into his lungs with every breath he takes, feels it solidify in his mouth like it's a bitter cake.
This isn't real, he tells himself, over and over again: it isn't real but it's the only thing that is. The trees aren't real; his hands aren't real; the bugs aren't real; the dirt isn't real; his friends aren't real; his pain isn't real. Nothing is real other than a single blade of grass, inches from his face. It's like the rest of the world is made out of 3.784 pixels, total, and this blade of grass is in HD.
He grabs hold of it, and it's like he's grabbing the universe's steering wheel. This planetâthis flimsy mortal planetâis in his hands. He tugs, and earth jolts sideways. He's sliding to the moon like he's an ocean tide. He has to grab clumpy fistfuls of wet grass to keep his brain from falling out of his head.
He's going to die.
silas someone is saying and their voice is tiny tiny tiny and thin and its like theyre speaking in all lowercase letters no punctuation needed silas are you okay buddy
we found the glory hole someone else is saying
silas we need to go says the first person and its meredith silas realizes please youre scaring me oh my god you guys somethings wrong with silas
hes fine says the second someone and its cain silas thinks hes just having a moment with the dirt trying to become one with the planet finger mother nature yada yada yada
shut up says meredith
his brain suddenly revenkefvbve fvhubbwigwfqgipea vabvf u ewhnd9reinvapz 34y8902rios=ERROR EORRO ERROR gyuehnrmowisxa- ;, rvw8d9s evaiosunlk SYSTEM SHUT DOWHB lurches like a dying computer
"HE! LOOKS! BLISSFUL!" SAYS! A! THIRD! PERSON! AND! IT'S! ATLAS! AND! HE'S! SCREAMING! AT! THE! TOP! OF! HIS! LUNGS!
Silas shoves one ear into the dirt, needing to block them out, needing to block out the sun. Even though it's pitch-black out here, it's too bright for him.
stop being idiots and help me grab him orders meredith and her voice is quiet again but somehow its so much worse
And then there's hands grabbing him, so many cold hands. More hands than the three of them should have, legally. Hentai hands, Trump hands, unclean hands. None of the hands feel like they're really touching themâit's like he's wearing seven coats they barely brush against, even though he's just wearing khaki shorts and a thin blue sweatshirt. He doesn't want those filthy hands anywhere near him. He kicks, and he hits, and he bites, and he scratches, and heâ
Suddenly, the world jumps into focus, a laggy YouTube video finally loading. It's real: fragile, breakable, vulnerable, but very real. His friends are real, their voices back to normal. Meredith has his arms, Cain and Atlas each a leg. They're dragging him through the woods like they're dragging a dead body.
He focuses on their hands, feeling sick to his stomach every time he tries to move his eyes above them: Atlas's kind of small and kind of delicate, like a pianoist's; Cain's cold and a bit too thin, perfectly manicured and painted dark blue; Meredith's chubby and warm and almost childlike, her nails a peeling drug-store pink.
All of a sudden, his friends drop him. Disoriented, he sits up and looks at them.
"Silas!" Meredith helps him to his feet and hugs him. "You big idiot!"
He really doesn't know what's going on. But she's hugging him, so it's okay. He can deal with being in the dark a little longer if it means she'll hug him again. "What did I do?"
"I thought you were dying." Meredith's eyes are franticallyâalmost hungrilyâsearching his. It's unnerving. In this lighting, her hazel eyes look like dark pools of moonlight. "Never do that again."
Cain seems uncomfortable that the conversation isn't about himself. "It happened to me, too, you know?"
Like the sincere friend she is, Meredith flips him off.
"Jesus, I remember. The first time we went to the rift." Atlas looks up at Cain, and something odd passes over his faceâa cloudy veil, like he's disassociating his way through one of his (many) traumas. But it fades away after only a moment, and he grabs tight to his boyfriend's hand, burying his head in his shoulder. "I thought you were a goner."
It makes Silas smile a bit, the two of them together. He loves seeing his best friends so happy.
"I'm all right," he promises Meredith.
She makes an accusatory face at him, tilting her head. "If you say so."
"We got you far enough away from the rift that it lost its pull on you, I guess," Cain's explaining. "But to make it to the glory hole, we've gotta go back through it. Are you ready?"
There's not a single doubt in Silas's mind. "Bring it."
His friends interlock their hands together, confidently marching forwards.
"'We're all in this together,'" Cain sings.
"Shut up!" orders Meredith.
"Bite me!"
"I seem to miss the part where we auditioned for a reality show," Atlas mumbles.
"Attie, sweetie, stay out of this," Cain tells him.
The world is wavering, wavering: the eye of the hurricane, the second before the bomb hits. A soft pain bites its way into Silas's forehead. Something terrible is going to happen; he knows this much. He clings tight to his friends.
"C'mon, guys." Cain's swinging his hands back-and-forth and skipping a little with each step, trying to keep his spirits up, but Silas can tell he feels it, too. Sweat clings to his pale forehead, and his dark eyes are blurred, cloudy, like he can't quite keep his focus on this reality. "Skip like the dumb motherfuckers you are."
Meredith rolls her eyes. "Oh, fuck off, Mary Poppins."
"That's homophobic!" Cain decides. "Meredith, stop being such a fucking homophobe!"
Not real not real not real not real, Silas's brain is trying to make him think. But Meredith's hand feels very real.
"How?" Meredith asks.
"I'm gay and you hate me."
"I'm literally bisexual."
Silas feels like a ghost trapped between these three bodies.
"I'm byesexual," Atlas cuts in. "I get off when you both fuck off."
Cain looks appalled. "You and I both know that wasn't what you got off to last night."
Atlas turns such a bright shade of red he looks like a stoplight. "Shut up."
Silas is trying really hard to speak, but doing so right now is even more difficult than not dying is. It's like there's a thick sheet of bulletproof glass separating his mouth from his throat.
"Atlas has a Founding Fathers kink," Cain blurts out.
"Guys!" Silas manages to spit out, his voice tinny.
"Shut UP!" Atlas laughs. "I do not!"
"You're right. I totally lied. He doesn't. He is into BDSM, though, so, like, that's new."
"If anyone's into BDSM," Atlas replies, "it's you."
"Guys!" Silas manages again, his voice stronger this time.
It's Meredith who actually hears him, bless her heart. She'd been listening to the happy couple bicker about their kinks with amusement, but she suddenly turns to Silas, her expression worried. "Shut up, dumbasses!" she demands. "What is it, Silas? Are you all right?"
"Look!" Silas orders, pointing at what he wants them to see. He can't do much more than that.
They listen, following his finger with their eyes. There, just to the right of the trail, is the rift.
They take it in: a gaping vantablack abyss carved into a deposit of foamy yellow sandstone. Silas figures there must have been some sort of road back here, years ago, since the sandstone juts out from the side of a mountain like rock exposed from dynamite. He digs his toe into the ground, and, sure enough, beneath a layer of dirt and weeds, he finds concrete.
"The glory hole," Cain whispers, awestruck. "It's so much bigger than it was the last time I was here."
"Hell motherfucking yeah!" Meredith exclaims, running her finger over the rock. "I'd probably date it to the Mesozoic era. Oooh! Do you think this is what happened to the dinosaurs? Wouldn't it be so cool if they got sucked into the rift?"
Meredith's taking earth science this year and likes to think she's some sort of qualified geologist. Most of the time, whenever she says anything about rocks, Silas thinks she's pulling facts out of a hat just to make herself seem smarter. But what does Silas know? He doesn't even know what the Mesozoic era isâor was. For all he knows, Mesozoic could be a street name for heroin.
"It wouldn't be cool," says Silas. "It would be horrific."
"Why?" Meredith asks.
"It would imply that humans are doomed to suffer the same fate."
"On that note, I'll go in first," offers Cain, who usually isn't so quick to self-sacrifice. "I wanna get a selfie with a mammoth."
"The dinosaurs went extinct long before the first mammoth even existed," Atlas mumbles. "We know what happened to mammoths. Humans hunted them to extinction, just like we always do."
"You can get a selfie with this mammoth dick!" Meredith suggests, thrusting her hips forwards.
Cain takes a hesitant step forwards, like he has to test that the ground can hold his weight before he steps on it. His jaw is set, but his chin wavers. Atlas suddenly realizes what he's about to do and grabs onto his arm, swinging him around to face him.
"Cain, don't," Atlas pleads. "We'll all go together."
"It's too smallâit looks barely big enough for one person," Cain points out.
Atlas just nods and nods and nods and nods, his lips trembling like he's holding himself back from saying something difficult. He just stands up on his tiptoes so he can reach Cain's lips and kisses him. "Just be safe, okay?" He sticks his pinkie out, his face bright red. "Promise?"
Cain's face is somehow even redder. He locks his pinkie into Atlas's, and they shake on it. "Promise." He waits a second longer, then slowly lifts his arm up into the rift. "Y'all better not leave me in there to die," he orders, grabbing hold of the rock to pull himself up into it. His head disappears inside of it, and then his body follows.
"I'll go next," Atlas offers.
Since he's the shortest of the four of them by a good four or five inches, he struggles to reach the rift. Silas has to lift him up and throw him inside of it, and the poor kid disappears with a whoosh of air. Silas feels his blood pound in his head. He takes a step back, dizzy.
And then, without even warning Silas, Meredith dives into the rift head-first. She leaves a shriek of joy hanging in this world.
Silas is more hesitant.
He spends several seconds pondering the science of it, wondering about the possibility of all of them dying in there. He remembers all of the horrific dreamscapes he's visited, all of the ways he's watches his friends die, all of the friends he's met and left behind. He looks back on all the mornings he woke up in a pool of his own blood, on all of the nights he's sat up on his couch, jumping at every sound, pinching himself to keep himself awake, so scared of dreaming he'd rather die from sleep deprivation.
For a moment, he seriously considers turning back around and heading home. But then he remembers Avani.
So Silas reaches for the abyss.