September 2

I finally worked up the courage to talk to Mira after a week of relative silence and terse replies. "Do you want to go to the library?"

She shrugged before asking, "When?"

"This afternoon," I said. "I'll get it approved by Mom and everything. I just want to get some new books, you know."

"Fine," she said and continued staring at the little cans that we put in the greenbox. The mustard plants have sprouted, and I could see tiny little leaves poking out from the dark soil, reaching for the artificial sunlight, powered by the real sunlight that, so far, hasn't started fading away. It was bright and sunny outside, though a thick morning fog gave everyone a scare because they thought the ash blizzards had returned. But no, it was just normal, dreary fog.

Mom was actually pretty alright with the both of us going out to the library but gave me the electric lighter. "What is this for?" I asked.

"You can use it to taser someone," Mom said and turned it on, the end of the lighter sizzling with a bright white and blue electricity. "Just in case."

"Does it even work?"

"Hopefully," she said before turning back to starting outside of the kitchen window. The skies were still blue and clear, and I think she was savoring every moment of it while it lasted.

There was this awkward silence between us while we were walking to the library, the sun losing its cheerful effect. Or maybe it still had it, but our frigid atmosphere was breaking it up, hurtling the positivity in a thousand different directions until they faded away far from us, alone and miserable. Even though both of us were there, it felt like a one-sided walk, me on the left and an ice statue gliding next to me on the right.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I know," she replied. "But a thousand sorries doesn't change it."

"You have to understand—"

"I don't understand," she said. "How can you just let everyone else sacrifice their lives for you while you just sit back and do nothing?"

"It's more complicated than that," I said, the thought of Charles and his family popping in my mind.

"There's nothing complicated about just putting a little help to make the community better for everyone," she said. "Including yourself."

"But I mean what's good about having people die, especially when death ripples—"

"I know what Mom said," Mira replied. "But think about all the people whose lives will be affected if the rockfall netting isn't built on time or properly. We're lucky that we have so much food, but many others don't."

"I know," I wanted to say. Charles and his family are starving. I know their pain and how, for the past two months, I've seen Charles get weaker and weaker, though lately that has stopped, probably because he's close to the edge of starvation and just a step away from spiraling. But all I could manage was, "We have to look out for our own."

That made Mira visibly angry, and I almost immediately regretted my choice of words. "I didn't mean—"

"I understood it perfectly," Mira said. "How could you be like this? This isn't the Neal that I knew from before all of this, the one that'd spend hours helping his little sister on homework and studying."

I could feel the rush of emotions: guilt, anger, regret, and all those lies protecting the truth about Charles and his family, swirling together in my mind, my forehead flushed as I began feeling dizzy, stumbling a little, kicking up some ash. The same question repeated over and over in my mind, drowning out all my other thoughts: Should I tell her the truth? Should I tell her the truth? Should I tell her the truth?

Was it worth it to keep all the lies? I knew that if I continued that it'd ruin my relationship with Mira, possibly forever, and it's not like my conversation with her had made things better. It probably made things worse, cutting the rope between us to a fine thread, a couple of tugs away from snapping fully. But the alternative felt worse, the risk of Charles and his family starving to death because once a secret is out, it spreads like wildfire until everyone knows and is consumed.

But when I looked into her eyes, I saw a devastating mixture of disappointment and anger, and I just couldn't lose my older sister. Not when all I needed was to tell the truth, and I just hoped that Charles and his family wouldn't get hurt when I'm trying to stitch Mira and me back.

My heart thundering, I said, "I know someone who ran out of food."

"Please, I have no time—"

"It's Charles and his family," I said before letting out a big sigh of something that resembled relief. "They didn't store up any food when everything started because they thought everything was going to be fine, until it wasn't."

"What?" Mira said and stopped walking. Ocean breezes kicked up ash between us, as I continued telling her the full, unvarnished truth.

"I've been slipping them cans," I said. "Every week, about half a dozen cans for the past month or more, so that they can have enough energy to stay alive."

"Well, why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" she asked. "I mean, I could've—"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Helped?" I said before kicking a rock down the road. "Telling someone would be too dangerous. Imagine if Mom or Dad found out. They'd ban me from ever even seeing that pantry, and who knows what's going to happen to Charles if that happened."

Mira didn't say anything as I continued. "I know what it's like to see people without food. I see it every week with him. I didn't tell you this, but when he came to your wedding, he threw up because he was so hungry that he couldn't stop eating. And even though he hides it, I can see it."

"I'm sorry."

"And that's what I meant about people I've got to look after," I said. "Because I'm looking after Charles and his family."

And that was the end of my truthfulness. I thought I'd feel relieved or unburdened by my lies, but all I felt was a deep sense of dread, weighing me down worse than any lie had ever done. Instead of flying, I was stuck on the ground, two stones taped to my wings, a stone of lies and a bigger stone of the truth holding me down. If anyone ever found out about me giving food to Charles and taking me away from the pantry, I don't know how I'd be able to live with myself.

"You can't tell Mom and Dad," I said.

"I know. You said it already."

"I'm serious," I replied. "If they found out... I just can't risk it."

"Your secret is safe with me," she said, and we began walking again, the frigid atmosphere between us warmed but the awkwardness still remained there, like a lingering smoke.

We walked for a couple of minutes before she said, "I'm sorry. About what I said earlier when I said that you didn't care."

I shrugged. "It's fine, whatever."

"Okay," she said before taking a couple of more steps. "I'm really sorry."

"You don't need to keep apologizing," I replied. "And for the record, I would've gone to help."

"I know," she said and for the rest of the way, we walked in silence. It was actually kinda warm today, maybe around sixty degrees in the middle of the afternoon. Still cold for summer, but much warmer than before, especially compared to the midday thirty-degree weather a couple weeks ago. But it did feel strange that, with the sun shining, there weren't any birds chirping, not even during the morning hours when they usually chattered their beaks off. I wonder where they all went. I'd hope that at least some of them found their way south, but with all the ash in the air and their fragile lungs, maybe they're all dead. Hopefully, that isn't the case (even if I hate all those geese that poop on everyone's' heads).

The library was actually open. I never actually knew whether the volunteer guy that came on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday was actually a real person, mostly because I always met up with Charles on Tuesday, but it turns out that he's actually real. It's a different guy from when we went to the library a long time ago, but the rules and procedures were the same, and once we got flashlights and lanterns, Mira and I split up to cover more ground. She went to look to see if there were any survival manuals that we had missed the first time while I browsed the contemporary literature section, hoping to find some interesting books to stave off boredom.

None of the horror or historical fiction books interested me, so I turned to the next section, a long row of teen fiction and romance novels, and immediately, one book caught my eye. On the cover, there were two guys with hearts lining the outlines of their lean figures, and my heart pounded as I reached for the book. I'd never really read any books about guys liking other guys. Maybe it was just because my library didn't have any of those books or maybe it was just because I tried avoiding them to avoid feeling the way that I feel and just the weirdness that comes with it.

But for some reason, I grabbed the book and put it in my bag. And then I went through the section, grabbing five books, ranging from rom-com to serious coming-of-age stories, about guys who like other guys. I'm not sure why I did this. Maybe it was because I wanted to expand my reading horizons, especially since it's the end of the world. But I guess I wanted to just find help for everything that I'm feeling, and maybe in these books, I'll be able to see if what I'm feeling is really true or if it's something that I'm making up or just trying to convince myself to have. I think I'm searching for validity, like whether what I'm feeling is actually possible in other people, so that I'm not so alone in figuring things out.

I did dump about ten or so fantasy books that I'd never read on top of my six choices, just to hide them away from Mira, so that she wouldn't think I was being too weird or whether this was my whole identity thing. I know it's a contradiction for me to hide my emotions from Mira while wanting to be less alone in figuring stuff out, but it's more like I want people like me, guys who might be interested in other guys, to be together with, not so much Mira as much as she wants to help. It'll be too complicated, and I guess I don't want to really make any decisions or conclusions about this sort of stuff with another person hovering over my head. And plus, it's just too personal too.

Luckily for me, I never even had to take the books out for checkout since barely any books had been returned, and the volunteer guy was sick of spending hours scouring the shelves in the dark to find the right place to put the books, so there was one less person to reveal my secret too. Even though I just wanted to open a book and dive right into the story, I was worried that Mira would find out and our already awkward atmosphere would get even more awkward. So I fidgeted my fingers as my mind wandered and sunlight filtered through the heavily tinted library windows.

She found some wild Alaska biographies, a couple baking recipe books, and some environmentalist memoirs. "Hopefully, they'll have something on them," she said. "All of the useful books were taken."

The walk home was better than the way there since there was a lot less pressure to talk when we were sweating and panting hard as we lugged fifteen-pound backpacks on the walk home. The silence, only punctuated by frequent "Wait, I need to take a bit of a break" or "Slow down"s, was pleasant, and with the sun shining on both of us, it was probably the best day of the week, relatively speaking.

When we got home and Mira went to take a shower, I quickly took out all of my books and stuffed my contraband, books spines facing inwards, on the top-most shelf, where no one but Dad and I could reach, and when she finished showering, I grabbed one book and put it deep in the bathroom cabinet alongside that magazine. Locking the door behind me, I opened the book and read the first few pages, starting off with an awkward coffee shop meeting, before turning to go shower.

Dinner was okay, and Mom and Dad mostly ignored each other instead of fighting. I guess it was nice to end this chaotic week in a very pleasantly boring way. Hopefully, good things come next week.

Midnight edit -

It's technically "tomorrow", but it still feels like "today." Thank goodness that no one was injured, and that the ceiling and walls were strong enough to not collapse on us. Mom and Dad have a flashlight right now, scouring through the cans and making sure that there weren't any broken glass jars that they had missed. We lost some of Leon's jams and pickles, but it could've been worse.

This earthquake wasn't like anything I've ever felt before, nothing like the rattling of dishes in the beginning of June or the troubles that we had felt this week. It was like a roar, like the Earth was opening up a rift that threatened to swallow all of us whole, and for a second, I thought all of this would be over, and I'd be meeting the darkness. I had heard some crashing of bricks, probably from the houses that were built before the newer earthquake standards, and the sounds of the rushing waves seemed to get louder before becoming softer and fading away. I hope that Charles and his family are alright. Please be alright.