You & Me at the End of the World

It’s a simple black outline of a heart, no bigger than a quarter. Around the edges, I add a watercolor splatter of paint in every color of the rainbow.

“There,” I say. “That’s to remind you not to keep all your ideas inside you all the time.”

She takes my arm back. Under her fingers, colors spread like dye until I have a matching heart on my wrist. But instead of spilling out, all my colors are inside my heart.

“And that’s to remind you not to ignore what you’re feeling,” she says. “To keep some of it inside for yourself.”

We’re quiet, just staring at the tattoos. They’re a perfect set, like a lock and a key.

I imagine the strength in those thighs, those hips, and—

There’s an easy familiarity with this now, in the way we pass each other drinks.

I pick at the frayed end of my pointe shoe. “Is that really the best way to deal with things? Ignore them?”

He peeks around my bedraggled mess of hair and says gently, “Isn’t that what you’re trying to do? Just in a different way?”

When Thunderchicken rolls to a stop in the circular driveway, Hannah cranks her window down and clambers out through it.

And then they get really bizarre. A sky with clouds dripping red like blood. A sky made of jelly beans. A sky like cracked desert dirt. A kid’s drawing of a sky, with a slice of lemon for a sun. A sky that looks like a virus under a microscope, organisms twitching in a putrid goo.

And then—the apocalyptic sky of an imagined end of days. Above us, there’s an entire planet about to collide with ours. Darkness falls over the field as the meteor eclipses everything behind it. Hannah grabs my hand and screams.

I also generally feel like puking up my guts. In a happy way. JoyPuke.” He tilts his head thoughtfully. “I should trademark that.”

The chemistry is intense. There’s no denying it

Leo looks down at me and waggles his
eyebrows.

I’m about to faint. Because he’s shattered through my shields, again. This is the first time touching someone has met my expectations. Exceeded them.