“I don’t know. That could become a full-time job.”
“Worth it.” She winks. We watch a family of tourists go by, all wearing matching “I Chicago” shirts. “Also…I’m sorry about Matt.”
I almost spit out my mocha, laughing. “No you’re not!”
“Yes I am!” she shouts indignantly, her messy bun wobbling on the top of her head.
“I’m pretty sure you called him stupid this morning.”
She grimaces. “Well…he is stupid sometimes. All boys are. Do you know what Sam did last night?” I shake my head. “He tried to jump over a fire hydrant and ended up falling right on his face. He could’ve broken something! And for what? Just to make me laugh?”
“He loves making you laugh.”
She tries to hold back a smile, but it breaks through anyway. “My point is, it doesn’t matter how I felt about Matt. You loved him. And…he had his qualities.”
My eyebrows shoot up. That is probably the nicest thing she’s ever said about him, and it’s not even a very specific sentiment. “Like what?” I press.
She taps her chin dramatically, as if it’s a real struggle to think of something. “He made a mean mac and cheese. He could reach stuff from the high shelves. And…he always looked at you like you were made of starlight or something.”
Her phrasing calls me back to the first time Matt came to one of my art shows, before he was the Vaporizer, and we were just two dumb high school kids enamored with each other. It was the first time he’d seen my art on display, not just over my shoulder while we hung out at my apartment, and I was nervous. I’d spent five weeks cutting a five-foot-wide butterfly out of a roll of craft paper, all the swirls and patterns of the wings cut in intricate detail. I wanted him to like it, or to at least think it was worth the effort, and I was shaking as we walked through the show.
When Matt saw my piece, he stopped dead in his tracks, dropping his program like he’d been shot by a freeze ray. He moved in closer, jaw hanging open in wonder, examining the natural shapes with lines so thin you could almost tear them with a sneeze. It felt like he was gaping at it for ages, though it was probably only a few seconds; still, when he turned back to look at me, he was different from moments before. There was a sparkle in his eye, a curiosity, that made my heart swell almost beyond my rib cage. He took my hands gently, slowly running his fingers over mine like he’d just unearthed a rare, newly discovered treasure, and asked, “You made this?”
And I’d never felt more whole, more seen, more connected to another human being.
Matt wasn’t always there, but when he was, he made me feel like I was the only person in the world.
A burst of yelling from the museum entrance rips me from my memory, and Becca and I jump up to see what’s going on. Stepping outside, onto Michigan Avenue, we see that crowds of people have gathered around the intersection in front of the Art Institute, where a man is standing in the middle of the street. Unbothered by the cabs and cars honking all around him, he removes his jacket, revealing what looks to be a bomb strapped to his chest.
Everyone in the area starts screaming, and we’re suddenly trapped in a stampede of people who have no idea where to go. Shoulders and backpacks slam into us as the museum doors become barricaded by bodies, leaving us no option but to climb up the bronze lion statues on the staircase, saving us from being trampled. Becca pulls me up, my cast making it difficult to climb, and we hide behind the lion’s giant mane, hoping it will protect us from whatever is about to happen.
Instead of detonating a bomb, though, the man starts furiously flapping his arms, generating a red-and-orange fireball around his body. “The siege will prevail!” he yells, just before his pyrotechnics engulf him. The flames grow bigger and bigger, melting the asphalt below, until the street’s structure can no longer hold, and a giant sinkhole crumbles, sending pedestrians, streetlights, cars, and a CTA bus over the edge, plummeting beyond sight. Screams echo down the street as Becca buries her face into my back, quivering in fear. But I can’t look away.
Moments later, my heart leaps when I spot Vaporizer running toward the scene, a flash