September 13

This morning's water gathering was quiet, like usual. Mom and Dad were sleeping in because they had to stay up all night attending to the fireplace, so after a breakfast of half a cup of rice and some canned beans that we had to painfully cook by the fire, all of us kids set off to finish gathering the last three buckets, or in the case of May, two buckets.

There was a heavy fog in the morning, and I could see dewdrops forming on the dying grass and the few stubborn weeds that still remained (along with annoyingly misting up my glasses). For a second, I saw a darting of a shadow in the fog behind me, and the memory of those men in the ash storm flash through my mind. But it turned out to be nothing, probably just a deer or the gust of the wind.

When Mom and Dad woke up in the afternoon, they didn't look too good, their faces were a bit gaunt and pale, probably because they didn't eat any dinner, as far as I know, and they had to stay up all night tending the fireplace. I probably should've stayed up at night instead of them and woken up Mira to do Dad's middle of the night shift. Dad seemed to be counting firewood while Mom disappeared into the garage and got a long tube of wrapping paper that she probably was going to stash in an old suitcase in her room for May's "surprise" birthday.

I met with Charles this afternoon. For a second, I thought he had died or something because I literally spent an hour waiting outside without any sign of him, and another hour sitting inside until I realized that I had completely forgotten about the food bags because I'm such an idiot. And the second that I realized that I saw him walking towards our house, and I didn't have enough time to formulate a plan to somehow sneak the food underneath Mom and Dad's tired but still sharp eyes.

When I stepped outside and waved at him, he waved at me pretty energetically. He looked better too, and for a second, I thought that maybe his family would be alright without food. But I know that I was just imagining things to make myself feel better because his family isn't alright. When he stepped onto the porch, I began my apology tour. "I completely forgot about the food. Sorry about that."

"It's fine," he said. "We can manage."

"I'll see if I can sneak extra in next week," I said. "Or maybe sometime later this week."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "We'll be fine."

But will he actually be fine? I couldn't tell if he was saying the truth or telling a lie to make me feel better like friends do.

"You sure?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Yeah," he said. "Anyways, back to business with your dream number four and your book writing bucket list, which is still very lame by the way. Have you got any rough drafts for me to review?"

"I haven't been thinking about it a lot," I said. "We should move on to your final wish now, just to make it more efficient, and finish my book after."

"That would be cheating, so since you haven't got any ideas," Charles said with an evil smile. "To spark some inspiration, let's talk about dating."

"Dating?" I asked. "Why are we even talking about it, and what does that have anything to do with me writing a book?"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I don't know," he said. "I feel like everyone but us talks about this—"

"Well, we shouldn't conform to societal pressures. You know, independence and all."

He ignored me and proceeded to plow on. "So tell me, was there anyone you had a crush on when school was still around?"

"You go first."

"Well, I'm not telling you if you don't tell me first."

"You asked the question, so you can answer it first."

"I asked the question to you, so you have to answer it."

"This question is getting pointless," I said. "Talking about dating and whatever is cursed."

"Fine," he said. "At least tell me what your ideal girlfriend would look like."

"That's even worse. It's like objectifying," I replied. "And since you asked the question, why don't you answer it first?"

"You know that AI is getting so advanced that they're getting the ability to mimic human speech," he said as I nodded along. "Well, that's what my ideal girlfriend would be like, but more anime-like."

"That's just creepy," I said. "Like why would you want a robot, anime-girlfriend?"

"There's no disappointment with robots and machines," he said. "Like, you can't get rejected, and whatever you don't like, you can just change."

"All of that seems fake."

"But it is real—"

"But it's not," I said. "I don't know anything about love—"

"You know what? We can finish this philosophical debate about future things later. Now tell me."

Now was a chance to come clean that I've never really thought about an ideal girlfriend, but I have most definitely thought about an ideal guy I'd like to be with, like the perfect guy in the magazine. But I didn't say that because I'm just too much of a coward, and instead, I thought really hard about what I'd want in an ideal girlfriend because I've got to at least try for Charles. But I couldn't think of anything and couldn't make something up to make Charles feel better, so I just said, "I haven't really thought about it. Dating is, like, a college thing, and we're still in the middle of high school."

"Well, given everything happening around us, I'd say that it's safe to say that college isn't happening soon," he replied. "So we might as well make college right now."

"I mean, I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I don't know," I said.

"I feel like you're dodging the question."

"No, I'm not," I said. "Anyways, I've figured out what I'm going to write about. 'Charles and his Anime Robot Girlfriend - A Human-Digital Love Story.'"

"No."

"Yes," I said. "It'll be great."

"Now that is objectively creepy," he said.

"It's not," I said. "It's like hitting two birds with one stone: we get my book down and your future romance all at one go together."

"But that's not real," he said, flipping my own argument against me, so I did the same to him.

"Like you said, we've got to experience the future now, and in any form possible," I said, and he gave up on his argument and we began our brainstorm session, filled with terrible puns from Charles, horrible ideas from me, and we basically ended the same way that we started, virtually idealess and completely stuck on my book project. It's not like the ideas weren't fun, but I don't know, I guess I was struggling to find any way to expand on the idea. Nothing was really connecting.

But while we were talking and joking around, with the skies clear and cloudless, everything felt so normal that it scared me. It was as if college and internships and everything that I worried about before was coming back and that I'd finally have to face the future again. And just for a smallest second before instantly taking it back a thousand times over, I wished that the ash clouds would sweep in, so that this would never come true, and that I'd find whatever chaotic peace that we had when the ash clouds snowed us in.

Sometimes, I don't know, it almost scares me how much I can't move on. I want to be like those people that just brace uncertainty without fear, the ones that just look at the future and just rush towards it and all the change that comes with it. I wish I could be better at this because maybe honesty will come out of it and being actually honest to myself and everyone else.

But I don't know because I don't know if I actually want to change or that I think that I actually want to change. I don't know anything at this point.