“I’m riveted.” Lucy didn’t even blink.
“It’s not what you think,” Salem continued with a sly smile.
“It never is.”
“Lucy,” Salem said, her voice changing—softening, switching, allowing the genuine to poke through. “I think I could like him someday. When everything calms down. When I can get my head straight, you know?”
“Sal—”
“No. I’m just saying it out loud. I know it doesn’t mean anything.” She closed her eyes and put her head against the back of the couch. “I think he’s a good guy.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lucy answered and grabbed Salem’s hand. “So, if you two didn’t come back here last night…where’d you go?”
Salem’s eyes opened. “You know that little teacher lounge across the hallway from here? The not-so-secret secret one?”
Lucy nodded.
“Unlocked. And there are couches and a mini-fridge. Bottled water in there too. Not much. We worked for a bit last night trying to get it situated as a more permanent hideout. Even started the morning with coffee and some stale crackers.”
The news that Grant and Salem had let her sleep in a cold drafty room while they waited for her imminent demise by equipping a more suitable living space across the hall created a heavy cold ball in the bottom of her stomach. She tried to look excited, but she could tell her mouth was drawing into an inadvertent frown. Salem noticed.
“We thought we’d let you sleep. I didn’t think it would be all night,” she replied in a quiet voice.
“It’s okay,” Lucy said. She gave up the moodiness as quickly as it had arrived. There was no way it would do them any good.
“We should’ve come to get you.” She untangled her feet and swung them to the floor. “I was a jerk,” Salem leaned her head against Lucy’s shoulder. “Lo siento, por favor perdóname mi amiga.”
“No, really. It’s fine.”
“It doesn’t have to be…and it’s my fault too. Grant asked if we should go get you like a million times—”
“Stop,” Lucy said and put her hand up. “It’s over.”
Salem let out a long sigh. “Then I propose breakfast as a peace-offering.”
The crackers were stale and mushy, but Lucy ate them ravenously, shoving one after another into her mouth and swallowing them without tasting. She had not had a bite to eat yesterday and Lucy couldn’t remember what they had eaten for dinner the night before; something frozen and overly processed—not because her mother didn’t care about her health or about their rapidly-disappearing family dinners, but because trip preparations and concern over dead dogs consumed their evening instead.
She longed for her mother’s sweet and sour meatloaf and goat cheese mashed potatoes, honey-drizzled asparagus spears. It was the dish, along with a smooth as silk lemon-lime cheesecake, Lucy requested for her birthday dinner every year. With six children, birthdays were not large-scale affairs. Instead, every child received a dinner menu of their choice, without snarky side comments from siblings and the fear of complaining.
A lump formed in Lucy’s throat and she bit back tears. She would not cry over eating mushy crackers and drinking cold instant coffee made from bottled water because she did not want to appear ungrateful.
The room was a find. Windowless with a thick wooden door that blocked out most of the speaker sound, which was currently broadcasting Principal Spencer’s throaty snoring, emanating through the speakers in evenly paced intervals, interrupted by jolts of snorts, then settling back down, consistent as clockwork.
The walls were decorated with tacky inspirational posters. A scared looking teacher holding a math book, the message below: Teachers are people too. A young girl with tears in her eyes holding out the remains of a broken vase: Take RESPONSIBILITY for your actions. Another one reading: Effort, not excuses, is the key to success.
Lucy rose from the one of the couches, it smelled vaguely of citrus scented air freshener, and walked over to the first poster. She examined it and then yanked it down off the wall, and the loud rip filled the small space with a big sound. Then she tore each one down, ripping the paper at the corners, leaving little remnants stuck under the imbedded staples.
“There,” she said. “Better.”
No one replied. Spencer’s snores still persisted.
“How can he sleep like that?” Grant asked and he rubbed his eyes, which still looked heavy from sleep, with bags forming in the sockets, the skin tinted black and blue like bruises. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.” He looked over at Lucy with a questioning gaze.
“I can sleep anywhere,” she replied. “It’s a defense mechanism. When my grandma died, they found me asleep in the back seat of our van. I had just crawled there and fallen asleep…”
“I couldn’t shut off my brain,” he said and closed his eyes. “Wondering if I made the right decision.”
“About?” Salem questioned, taking a sip of their cold coffee and grimacing as she swallowed it down.
“About what’s going on out there,” he said. “Maybe I should go home.”
“No!” Salem looked stricken. “We decided to stay. Together.”
“Salem—” Grant started, but he stopped himself. He walked to the door of the room and opened it a bit, peering out into the hallway. “Have you thought that maybe we’re just taking longer…to die.”
“That’s an awful thing to say,” Salem said softly.
“It’s what I’ve been thinking about all night.”
Lucy ate another cracker. She had thought the same thing, but she abstained from entering the argument. Grant’s decision to stay or go was his own, and she could not begrudge him his desire to leave. They were relegated to eating leftover teacher food in a glorified closet while a principal with a gun lurked nearby. It was far from ideal.
“We’re not helping anyone in here,” Grant said. “I feel like a coward. There might be people who need us.”
“No one out there needs us,” Salem pleaded her case. “How many times do I have to tell you? There’s nothing out there but corpses, car crashes, chaos and crazies.”
“Maybe my family is out there,” Lucy said after a long moment.
Grant looked down at his shoes and kicked his toe against some invisible object.
“Is that why you want to go? Grant?” Salem asked. “To look for your dad?”
“I already told you I don’t care about that!” Grant snapped and it was the first time Lucy had ever seen him get upset. Then he hung his head, remorseful. “I’m sorry. But no. I just feel like I could be doing something.”
“You are doing something!” Salem replied. “You’re surviving.”
“It’s not the same. You don’t understand,” Grant said and he moved back an inch, half his body in the hall, half of it in the room and he leaned against the doorframe.
“You’re absolutely right it’s not the same!” Salem was getting fired up. And in typical Salem fashion she had shifted the argument right out from under him. Like a brilliant chess player, she had maneuvered her pieces without anyone noticing and then went in for the kill. “You still have the possibility of a family out there somewhere. You’re scared and worried, but you don’t know. Maybe a friend died yesterday or someone on the track team, but you didn’t see your parents take their last breath. So…what then? You want to go be someone’s freakin’ hero? Go be a hero. But we are not the same. You’re not completely demolished yet.” She took a breath and pointed a finger to Lucy and Grant. “When you’re a shell of yourself…then you’ll see. There’s nothing to conquer out there but more loss.”
Lucy’s heart beat in her ears as she contemplated replying. Grant looked close to tears, or close to throwing a punch, Lucy couldn’t tell which. His whole leg twitched and he bounced it up and down. She knew Salem. Knew that a little pushback would calm her down.