“But it’s better than nothing.”

“I think so.”

I pick a song to play for him. My favorite, because why not share them all with him tonight? Why not let the things I love out to breath and exist for eyes and ears other than my own? I’m finding that it makes them fresh and new to me again. Brighter and shinier than they’ve ever been. Myself included.

I’m waking up to ash and dust

I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust

I’m breathing in the chemicals

I’m breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus

This is it, the apocalypse

“What is this song?” Ryan whispers.

I dare to glance up at him and see his eyes are closed. I look down again quickly, feeling like an intruder on something sacred.

“It’s called Radioactive.” I whisper back. “Do you like it?”

“I love it.”

I smile. It’s getting easier.

All systems go, the sun hasn’t died

Deep in my bones, straight from inside

I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones

Enough to make my systems blow

Welcome to the new age, to the new age

When the song comes to an end I feel Ryan take a deep breath. I look up at him again and see he’s smiling, but his eyes are shining in the darkness.

“It’s so… full.” he whispers. “I’ve heard people play guitar or sing, but not like that. Not so many voices and instruments all at once. Not in a long, long time.” He chuckles at himself and closes his eyes again. “Can we listen to it one more time?”

When the music begins again his arms tighten around me, pulling me closer. We’re not hiding the iPod anymore. It’s flattened between us, our bodies pressed together from head to toe, only my arms folded up between us keeping us apart. He’s holding me to him and I have to fight the overpowering urge to rest my head on his shoulder. To free my arms and wrap them around him as well. I’m at the tip of the arc, at the closest point where the comet travels by the earth. I want to reach out my hand and trail my fingers through its shimmering tail of gray dust and starlight. I want a piece of it to stay with me, to cling to me and be one more thing I carry with me forever. One more load I happily bear.

But I don’t because it’s all an illusion. The star that looks so close, close enough to touch, is really millions of miles away. It’s only passing through. It’s lighting up my night and my life for one brief shining moment and then it will be gone and I’ll have to forever make due with the memory. And that’s okay. That’s what’s safe. What’s smart.

When the song ends I pull away with a wan smile. Ryan looks at me over the light of the iPod glowing like a candle between us. He leans toward me, only slightly. My heart hammers in my chest.

If you don’t have anything, you don’t have anything to lose.

The light blinks out.

I step away, making him frown.

The arc is ending. The comet starts its return to space.

Chapter Five

“Are you asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?” he asks with a chuckle.

“No. I talk in my sleep.”

There’s silence. I think he’s given up and gone to sleep, but then there’s his voice filling the empty room again, making it feel small.

“Why do you live alone, Joss?”

I close my eyes and breathe deeply through my nose. I wish he’d stop saying my name. No one says my name anymore, not even Crazy Crenshaw. It’s foreign and familiar.  It’s soothing and it hurts like hell.

“I told you why.” I answer warily. “I got sick of watching people die.”

“Not everybody dies.”

I can’t help but laugh at how absurdly wrong that statement is. “Yes they do.”

“Okay, yes, eventually everyone dies. But you know what I mean. Not everyone is going to die that way.”

“And what way is that?”

“Violently.”

“Everyone I know who has died, died that way.”

I hear him sigh heavily then shift under his blankets. I can feel his eyes on me.

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“Says who?” I ask sharply.

“Says logic.” he replies just as sharply. “No one should be alone like this.”

“It’s been working for the last six years. Don’t try to fix what’s not broken.”

“I’m not saying you’re broken, I’m just saying I wish you weren’t alone.”

“I wish a lot of things, Ryan.” My voice is growing hard, hot. “I wish my parents hadn’t died. I wish zombies didn’t exist. I wish I could have ice cream. But most of all, more than any of that, I wish you’d never shown up outside my building.”

Because then I wouldn’t remember what being alone really is.

“I wish that too.” he agrees quietly. “Now I have to go back and know you’re out here alone.”

“I won’t be here. Tomorrow I will be so far away from here.”

“Where are you going to go?”

I laugh again, but this time it’s brittle and angry. “I’m not telling you that. That’s the point of leaving. So you can’t ever find me again.”

“Are you being a bitch right now so I won’t want to?”

I turn my head and glare at him. He watches me passively and it pisses me off more than anything else.

“I’m being a bitch because that’s what I am. I don’t play well with others, okay? I don’t want other people in my life just so they can disappear. I’m tired of finding things just so I can lose them. Like my home and everything in it. I’m losing all of that tomorrow because of you, do you get that? You’ve cost me everything. My home, my safety. And all for what? Revenge you didn’t even get. Against an animal!”

He looks at me with his large brown eyes and I see the regret in them. The sadness. The pity.

“I’m sorry.” he says earnestly. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

Tears sting my eyes and I can’t stand it. I leap up, grabbing my sleeping bag.

“You already said that. It didn’t change anything then and it certainly doesn’t change anything now. I’m going to the roof to get some sleep and in the morning when I come back down I expect you to be gone. Take what you want with you, I can’t carry all of it out and it will save you and your boys some trouble later when you loot the place.”

I turn to leave. I hear him hurriedly stand up behind me.

“Joss, wait.”

“Stop saying my name!” I cry, my voice cracking and I hate myself for it. For being weak, for being cruel, for being so, so, so angry. Angrier than I ever realized I was but with him here now I can feel it. I can nearly taste it. I take a deep shuddering breath, willing the tears back. I haven’t cried in years and I can’t start now. I’ll be like an addict taking a hit of heroine for the first time in a decade. I’ll never be able to stop. When I speak, I will my voice to be even and calm. “Just go, please. It’s almost dawn. You’ll be alright. Take a weapon with you. Or two or five, whatever. Take anything, but please just go.”

“I’ll go.” he answers, his voice deep and low. “I’m leaving.”

I nod, my back still to him. “Good. That’s good.”

“Just promise me something. One thing.”

“What?”

“Don’t leave. Please trust me when I tell you that I won’t ever tell anyone you’re here. I’ll never tell anyone about you at all. Just don’t go. I can’t stand the thought of you having to start over.”

I don’t respond. I don’t have words, not any which are true. So I duck my head down, feel the angry heat of a single tear on my cheek and I climb the stairs to the roof.

I don’t sleep. I also don’t hear him leave but I know he’s gone. He’s quiet as a mouse, quieter even than me, and it’s no surprise that he could slip out without being heard. My world slips back into place, back into the gray numb of pure survival that it’s been in for the last however many years. Maybe all of them. Maybe since Christmas and my Cabbage Patch Doll. Since the end of everything.