Page 8 of The End of the World As We Know It

Night had fallen, and it was time to eat.

Nothing was easy, not anymore. They couldn’t take the baby into the poisonous world, but they couldn’t leave the baby alone. Abel offered to go on his own, but Amelie was aghast.Why? So you can bring all the germs back with cold fries?Beyond that, she was tired of Room 24. She needed to getout.Abel fell in line and helped get thebaby in the car seat. He suggested they hit a drive-thru, but Amelie shook him off. She needed to be in a booth, with people. He treaded lightly, made a casual remark about germs, and again Amelie snapped.Stop questioning my every move.Eventually, he spotted a diner and again Amelie scoffed.I, too, know how to read.He used the directional as he turned into the parking lot, and Amelie huffed.We’re the only ones on the road, you’re such a Ronald Rule follower.Abel said he was sorry, and she said to stop being so…Never mind.When they walked into the diner, her face fell. There was only one other party, an older couple. Abel requested a booth and Amelie and the hostess laughed at him, but that didn’t hurt as much. Hewasa little silly when you considered all the open seats. Dinner came and went. Meatloaf for him, a cheeseburger for her, and a bottle for baby Randy. Abel couldn’t let their big night out end like this, he had to do better, make her smile. He caught her eye as he ordered his dessert. “A slice of angel food cake, if you please.”

It was supposed to be sweet, a private sundress kind of moment, but again, Amelie balked.If you’re going to make us sit here, you should at least get something substantial.Abel hung his head. He felt it coming. He wanted to hold it in, but for the first time in their life together, he lost his cool and snapped. “At least I’m not a monster.”

The look on her face. Her eyes bulging. Abel spit out an apology, but Amelie raised her hands in the air like she was in church. “Finally,” she said. “A littletruth!” She clapped her hands like this was progress, like she wanted him to be vicious. Abel looked at baby Randy. Sleeping and innocent, pure. Okay, yes, Abel did bad things, but Amelie didn’t know about all that. He didn’t want to be vicious. Hewasn’tvicious. When she went to the bathroom, he changed his order, and when she returned and saw the devil’s food cake she frowned.

“Are you really that much of a doormat?”

It was time for bed.

Sure, they were in separate beds, but there was hope. Come the wee hours, Amelie might have a nightmare and wake up scared and go to him.

She turned on the TV. He looked at her. Really?

“I need the white noise.”

“All night?”

“You will, too,” she said. “I snore like a freight train. It drove Kip nuts.”

She flipped past all the nice old movies. Amelie wanted the news, and Abel’d had enough of the doom and gloom. She didn’t love the silence they made together, not the way he did, and when they were settled in their separate beds, he turned out the lights.

“Sweet dreams, my love.”

“Fat chance,” she said. “Between the stench of bleach and this mattress… I’m pretty sure you call this acot.”

This was not pillow talk, but it was early. She’d been through things. She might never be sweet with him. Her former marriage might have killed something inside of her, same way he was when they met, rendered cynical by all those domestic calls. Life wore you down, no matter what you did, and soon, she was out cold. She wasn’t a liar. Her snore was something out of a dragon. Abel couldn’t sleep, not with Amelie’s gargling and the shiny newspeople on the TV barely able to contain their excitement over the thing, the virus, Captain something or other. He longed to be with Amelie, to open up to her the way she had with him so many times. And he wanted to know things about her. Did she believe in God? In good and evil?

Sometime after three, he smelled something funny. He went to check on Randy. So, this is what a dead baby looks like. A first for Abel, and he allowed himself a few tears. How did he miss it? He should’ve known something was wrong in the diner when Randy fell asleep, when he didn’t wake up in the car, even after napping most of the day. And his drooling. He’d been drooling more, hadn’t he? Hislittle body was fighting, and what did Abel do to chip in, to save him? Nothing. This is the worst it gets. A life that doesn’t get to be lived. He covered the almost-boy’s tiny body, and he climbed into Amelie’s bed. Her body was hot, her skin slimy with sweat.

She shuddered. She was alive.

“I killed Kip,” he said. “I killed Rona, too. Sort of.”

He could feel the wheels turning inside her head, but he couldn’t see where they were going. So, he went again.

“Amelie,” he said. “The pistol was my dad’s. It was never inside of you.”

She was shivering, and was it the virus? Was it love? Hate?

He opened his mouth to hers. He felt her hand find his pecker. Second time that happened in this room. She was delirious. Murmuring. “Kip… Kippy.” She pulled Abel closer, and then closer. And then that word again. “Kip.” Abel looked the other way. She’d said it herself.I’m terrible with names. This was it, the beginning and the end, and this was beautiful, the three of them together. He wanted her to pass while he was inside of her, to die without knowing about her baby. He kissed her to be sure he would catch it. He willed her toxic breath to penetrate his airways, shut down his lungs, and prove that, despite what she said to Joanie, she was not a beggar. She was a chooser. She chose him.

“Abel,” he said. “It’s Abel.”

Her body rattled as if she would go anywhere with him, be it Boise or heaven or hell.

In the morning, Abel smacked his lips.

So that was love. Sex. Abel had just lost his virginity in the same place where he kept it all those years ago. He rolled over and the breath got trapped in his chest, his heart. There she wasn’t. Amelie. Her body was cold, and he was stranded. Alive. She ran off to heaven or hell or Boise to be with Kip and Rona and Randy and he wasn’teven feverish. The flu didn’t want him. Amelie didn’t want him. No one wanted him.

He leapt out of the deathbed and dug his gun out of his duffel bag. He was dizzy and fuzzy.Off.But there was more to it. The room was off. The light.

He had to focus. Choose.

He could pull the trigger and chase Amelie down in heaven or hell or Boise. She was weak. She was always going to stumble, but he could bring her back, knock them out all over again, Kip and Rona, Randy. And then what? Would they go on like this forever? Would she do it again, sneak out while he wassleepingand run back to the bastard who nearly put her in her grave?

Something tingled in him. He remembered about souls. About purgatory. He didn’t see the light so much as he felt it. As it turned out, Abel was dead. Gone. This was a challenge, the kind of thing his dad talked about. If Abel wanted to be with Amelie, he had to pull the trigger, do to himself what he’d done to the others. God was testing him, and Abel would rise to the occasion, same way he did last night. He brought the pistol to his lips. He imagined it in Amelie’s mouth. Did she really want that kind of action? He closed his eyes and—