Page 27 of The Final Storm
“Are you going to sing, Aunt Row?” Lewis asks.
There’s a pause, and I watch myself take a long sip of soda. “Yeah. Sure I can sing. Do you want the traditional song, or something special?”
“Let’s be different,” Beau says.
“Because everything is different.” Lewis makes a big circular motion with his hands, almost spilling his drink. A sadness crosses his face, but he takes another gulp and looks at me, smiling at the thought of a song.
“I’m not a fancy singer like your mama was,” I tell them. “Not very good at all.” Beau crawls in my lap, and I wrap an arm around his stomach, placing my chin on his head. His hair is falling over his eyes, and I forget how it felt to hold him like that until this moment. He’s too big for that now, and I’m taken aback by the sight. They’re beautiful in this room of destruction and filth.
I singCome Away With Meby Norah Jones. My voice cracks a few times, and Lewis scoots to my side, resting his head on my arms. A lump forms in my throat watching them - watching us.
“Happy Birthday, BeLew,” I finish, drinking the last bit from the Sprite bottle. “This is a little spicy,” I admit with a laugh.
I open my eyes to the sound of rushing water now cold on my shoulders and back. I’m back in the shower, my skin pruned from the water. I don’t dream like that, and it takes a moment to find my bearings. Most of my dreams are of things to come, not memories.
I pull back the curtain and look around at the steam-filled room. I rub my head, still feeling soap bubbles in my hair.
I fell asleep and dreamed. That’s all.
When was the last time I had a dream that clear?
Never.
I don’t think it’s ever happened.
While others had wild visions in their sleep, mine were always the premonitions of things to come. Memories didn’t come to me like that, like a spectator standing in a movie of my life.
It’s confusing, but I’m… grateful. I smile at the thought of BeLew, letting soda sting their nose for the first and last time. Rinsing the soap from my hair with the tepid streams, I sing Norah Jones to myself.
My voice bounces off the empty walls, and I sway in the shower, longing for more happy memories to find their way back to me.
Chapter 10
Resurrection
Idecidewhathappenedwas a daydream. Everything felt real, like I could reach out and touch the boys’ messy blonde hair and taste the carbonation on my lips.
And itwasreal. It happened not too long ago.
Heading toward the engineering units, I dread the discussion and my necessary apology. I’d never seen Sam look at me the way he did before. What had I done? Accused him of cheating? As if anyone even has the time.
The knife of what I said cuts deep, and I feel the prick myself. Hurting Sam hurt me, and that’s how you know something is true love. When every harsh word you utter stabs you in the heart just the same, it’s because of your love for that person.
I’m the one making my way to him to apologize, and he told me he would forgive anything, but why would he say that? What is there to forgive - something Caleb told him that first day?
The wordEngineering, with a large arrow, shows up at the end of the hall. It’s written in permanent marker, scribbled on the metal wall. I turn the corner, finding rooms with two to three people sitting at tables with tablets and screens. No one stops me yet, but I walk with purpose, pretending I belong.
I stop in front of one room with a large monitor on display and two men standing in front. They point to the image, one making notes on a tablet. It looks like a weather map, and I’m sure of it when I see the twisting lines coming together on one side with the black hole in the center. It takes over the bottom half of the screen, large and full of wrath, from some corner of the ocean.
We’re not out of the woods yet.
One man turns around and narrows his eyes in my direction. “Hey,” he says. I’ve been around enough military to know that means, what the fuck are you doing here and what do you want?
“S-Sam…” I stop myself realizing they may not know that name here. “Nico. Nico Rivera? Where can I find him?”
The other man points without turning around. I keep my eyes on the screen as long as I can, witnessing the slow churn of the storm in the distance.
“Storm’s coming,” I hear the nurse’s voice say in my head. That’s more than a storm. It’s a beast, a global killer, as they used to say.
