This Is How It Ends

“Oy,” she said, exasperated. “The boxes. Always the boxes.”

“Your house is really nice,” I told her.

“You’ve never been here?” I shook my head. “Well, thanks,” Sarah said. “It’s not fancy, but it’s home.”

“It feels like one,” I said. “That’s a compliment. It’s really comfortable and . . . nice.”

She gave me a half smile. “That’s very sweet.” Sarah took my coat and hung it on a hook by the door, her slippers scuffing across the wood floor as she walked.

I wandered over to a table where a sculpture of a windmill sat. It was made out of what looked like old bicycle parts and an erector set. There was a single bare lightbulb beside it.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Sarah came over and fitted something onto the arms of the sculpture, and it started to spin. After a few seconds the bulb began glowing with a soft red light.

“Whoa!” I studied the thing, realizing they were magnets she’d put on and that there were wires snaking from the center of the sculpture to the bulb, making it a mini-generator. “That’s really cool. Where’d you get it?”

“My mom made it,” Sarah said.

“Really?”

Sarah smiled. “Her hobby. Tinkering, she calls it.”

She motioned me toward the sofa. I gave the machine another glance, then sat, trying to look at ease, though I felt anything but relaxed. It was quiet in the house, like it really was just me and Sarah.

“So, um, where are your parents?” I asked.

“My dad’s down in his office in the basement,” she said. “And my mom’s with the jerk she ran off with, somewhere in Florida.”

“Oh . . . uh . . .” I racked my brains, trying to think if I’d known that. How could I not have? I smiled sheepishly. “Open mouth, insert foot. Sorry.”

She smiled back, mostly clearing the cloud that’d passed over her face. “No worries, Ri.”

She sat and leaned forward, getting right down to business. “Why didn’t you tell us the truth?”

I wasn’t surprised—Sarah was a pretty direct girl, and she’d told me she wanted to talk about the binoculars. But I wasn’t quite ready. “How did you know?” I stalled.

“I can usually tell when you’re hiding something.” She smiled. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Riley, but you’re not a very good liar.” She added, “That’s a compliment.”

It didn’t feel like one. My face burned. I wondered how much else she’d figured out. She was still waiting, delicate hands dangling between the worn parts of her jeans.

“Partly it was Tannis,” I said. “She was really twisted about what she saw, thinking the kids meant she’d never race.”

Sarah nodded. “She lost it with me one day too.” She paused, then added, “That hit close to home for you, didn’t it? The things Tannis was upset about . . . being stuck here?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize we’d be psychoanalyzing me tonight.”

“Sorry.” She smiled. “My dad’s a shrink. Can you tell?”

“Well, it explains your deliberate pauses and penetrating stares,” I said. “Anyway, when Trip didn’t see anything, Tannis was so . . .”

“Relieved?”

I nodded. “And if I’d told her I did see something . . .”

“She’d keep believing that what she saw was her future,” Sarah finished.

“I didn’t see any benefit to that.”

“That was really thoughtful of you,” she observed. “I didn’t know you had such a soft spot for Tannis.”

“I don’t. But seeing her cry was like . . . snow in July or a plague of locusts—”

“Signs of the apocalypse?”

“Right. I didn’t really want to deal with that.”

Sarah nodded. “But you did see something?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Which of course was the real reason I hadn’t said anything. “I can’t tell you.” Seeing her disappointment, I added, “It’s not you, Sarah. It’s just that it involves other people.” It was my mom’s and Trip’s dad’s secret. And Trip’s, even though he didn’t know it. “I’m sorry.”

She was trying to figure it out—I could tell in how she studied me. But there was no way she’d guess this one. “Any of us?” she probed.

“Not really.”

“Is it something bad?”

I thought about that scene, my mom with Trip’s dad, her droopy eye and what I knew that meant about her sickness. But she’d still been in our house, which looked nicer than it ever had before. “Good and bad,” I answered.

“Do you think it’s the future?” she asked quietly.

“I have no idea,” I said. “I mean, how could that even be possible?”

She didn’t answer, didn’t ask me about the stuff Mr. Ruskovich had said. Instead she rubbed her forehead, anxious. “I need to look into the binoculars, Riley,” she said finally.

“What?” I hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“The same reason you did. So I’ll know if it’s real that you really saw things.”

There it was again. “You,” not “we.”

“I just told you I did,” I said, wondering what she’d seen and why she needed to hide it.

“Would you have believed Trip if he’d looked and seen something? Would that have been enough for you?”

“I’m not sure. I think so,” I lied.

“You didn’t believe him when he said there was nothing,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but—”

“I think there are just some things you have to see for yourself,” she said. “Right?”

“Maybe.” She was right, of course. But I didn’t want her to look again. I wasn’t sure why. Mr. Ruskovich’s warning, maybe.

“Where are they?” she asked softly.

“In my bag.” She looked at me expectantly. I unzipped it but didn’t take them out.

“Sarah,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

She looked at me warily, and I took a deep breath. “I know you looked before. I saw you. Outside the cave that first night.”

Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t you say anything?”