they’ll get worse before they do—the rest of the winter will be hard, harder for people in colder climates, harder for people in poorer communities. It’s a different kind of aftershock.
“Gotta love SpaghettiOs,” I say with a sigh. I’m hungry, but I go to Jared first and ruffle his hair. “Did you get enough to eat?”
He picks up his book and rolls his eyes. “Don’t even try to give me your dinner again.”
I don’t respond, because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Instead I say, “How was school?”
“Lame,” he answers. “I don’t know who decided it was okay to have school on Sunday, but they should be abducted by aliens.”
Schools shut down when the quakes happened, but they’ve opened up again—large, auditorium-style, and organized by accessibility instead of grade, and they’re open every day. Jared walks to the old Mira Mesa High School each morning with the other kids who live on the base. Grades seven and up have classes in the gym, and everyone else is in the cafeteria. I went the first few weeks, but Jared’s right, it was lame.
The truth is, organized school keeps kids out of trouble. It’s a mild sense of normalcy to hold the hysteria at bay. That’s why there’s school on Sundays. Instead of that, I say, “Got to make up for that lost time.”
Jared frowns, but he doesn’t bother voicing his opinion about my absence at school. It’s a discussion that was considered closed a long time ago.
I put in to take my GED and effectively graduate early. So did most of the people I knew from Eastview. A lot of them got involved with the Red Cross to help the reconstruction effort. That’s what Kate and Nick are doing. Anyone a little more hardcore took the ASVAB, the military entrance exam, and joined the military.
I got where I am now because of Struz. After I “graduated,” I went one step further with the tests and firearms qualifications. Then Struz signed off on my employment with the FBI—so I’m essentially a cross between an apprentice and a temp. He paired me with Deirdre because of her experience and told me he expects me to pick up and go to college once things get back to normal.
We have no idea when that will happen, though, and I don’t know what else I would want to do with my life, anyway. I didn’t really ever have concrete plans, but I wanted to go to college, travel, and study abroad. I wanted the chance to figure out what my dreams were. Alex wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps. With both of them gone, I feel like I owe it to them to do what they can’t—to fight the bad guys and all that.
Jared’s stomach growls but I ignore it. “How’s the leg?” I ask.
“Fine,” he says, but his face scrunches up a little and I know it’s not. He broke it during the quakes, and even though it’s healed now, it’s not as strong as it was before.
I lean into him and remind myself it could be worse. Deirdre’s son lost his arm, and her daughter hasn’t spoken since the world changed.
“What are you reading?” I ask, but focusing on the book makes me think of Ben’s lookalike and how maybe I should have helped him pick up the books I made him drop—maybe I should have talked to him—and I have to shake him from my head.
Jared’s eyes light up. “It’s super cool. Struz found it somewhere. Some of the pages are water-damaged, but it’s all still readable. It’s about this guy who just got out of prison and goes hiking up in Alaska and he finds this downed airplane that had the president’s wife on it, and she’s dead.”
“Because of the crash?”
“No way, people totally murdered her,” he says, standing up. “I’m only like fifty pages or so in. It’s pretty awesome. You’d like it.” Then his face gets serious. “You’re really not hungry? Because if you are, you should eat, but if you’re not . . .”
I shake my head. “Go for it. Struz out back?”
“Yeah, he’s doing the whole walkie thing.”
I nod and head out through the sliding glass doors to the porch and the five square feet of lawn that we call a yard. Struz is sitting in one of the two folding chairs and his legs make him look like he’s too big for the chair, like it’s a kiddie chair or something. He doesn’t pay me