What Comes After

September 6

I thought I got caught. Everyone sleeping together in the living is a nightmare beyond anything that I've ever imagined.

Even after I had managed to already pre-pack the cans (which I thought was the hardest part), I needed to sneak them out of the door and into the safe spot, something that I could not do yesterday because Mom and Dad were milling around and gathering wood.

Luckily for me, only part of the door was visible from the living room, and I kept my bag low and close to me to avoid detection in case someone woke up. Unfortunately for me, the front door is so creaky, and when I opened the door, the creaks reverberated through the house. I managed to move the bag into position and put some dried-up weeds over it before I heard someone say, "Neal?"

I nearly had a heart attack, and I managed to let out only a small sigh when I saw that it was Mira before for a second. I thought it was May since with the pulsing heartbeat filling my ears, they sounded the same. Even though she wouldn't dare expose me to Mom and Dad, having more people know my secret would make every week more and more risky.

"Yeah," I said. "Do you need anything?"

"Is this how you do it?" she asked. "Giving food to Charles."

I nodded. "It was the door, wasn't it? We definitely need to grease up the hinges."

"Maybe have Dad do it this afternoon?" Mira suggested. "Or maybe have it be a brother-sister thing, you know. And who knows? It might be useful in the future."

"I've got to talk with Charles this afternoon," I said. "To make sure that he's alright. After the earthquake, I don't know."

"He's going to be alright," she said, and I nodded even though the pessimism drowned my thoughts: Charles trapped under debris, Charles killed by food raiders, Charles dead of dehydration. I've got this bad habit of imagining the worst all the time even though I always tell everyone that everything is going to be alright.

"You remember the last time that we were out here?" she asked. "I was in a bad place, I guess, and you told me how everything's going to be alright."

"Yeah," I said. "You think he's going to be alright?"

"He is," Mira said with such firmness that I didn't know whether she actually believed me or whether she was just putting on this mask of strength to stop me from worrying. "And I know this because of the sun."

"The sun?" I said. "This better not be some lecture about the sun shining again."

She laughed a little. "It's not— Okay, maybe it's a little bit of that. I just feel hopeful now, and I can't really explain it. It's just that I never really expected to see a sunrise again and here it is in its gold and amber glory. And with the letter delivering from all the way in LA, I just feel like our dream might come true."

"You're kinda scaring me," I said. "With all this optimism."

"Yeah. I think I might be going a little crazy," she said. "It's probably the sun."

"Nah," I said. "It's definitely the moon. You're probably not getting enough sleep because it's shining so bright."

"Maybe," she said with a smile that slowly faded away. "Tonight was the first night where I didn't dream about their deaths and wake up and fall back asleep to the same nightmare. I know Mom and Dad don't agree with me, but I feel a sense of purpose doing the night watch and helping people, and I'm going to work and win them over."

"Mom and Dad aren't going to change their minds," I replied before pausing and adding. "Why are you always trying to win them over? I mean you can just do it for you, you know."

"Before, it was more about their approval, but now, I just want them to understand. There's more to life than just looking out for ourselves," she said. "I wish I could give food to the hospital workers, but there's just not enough, so the best that I can do is at least try to protect everyone's families and homes."

"Then what did you dream about? If you didn't dream about, you know, death."

She shrugged. "Just normal life. I don't really know. I should keep a dream journal."

"Did you ever try journaling?"

"I did," she said. "But it feels better to talk about my actual feelings instead of writing them down. I just feel like it helps move me forwards."

"That's good," I said and nodded awkwardly. "I was wondering if I could have the notebook back. My journal is almost completely filled up."

"Yeah," she said. "I've got a couple of doodles in there, but I can erase them."

"No, it's fine," I said.

"No, I insist," she said. "They look awful."

"They're probably not bad," I said even though I knew they were going to be blobby messes. "And plus, I want to see what my sister is drawing about. It's nothing R-rated right?"

"My intent wasn't anything inappropriate," she said before gazing into the distance and grimacing. "But I think certain shapes may be interpreted that way."

"Mom and Dad are going to freak when they see whatever you drew."

"Good thing Mom and Dad aren't you," she said and stood up. "Next time, you know you can ask me for help."

I nodded as she entered the house, but I lingered out there longer. The sky was crimson red with the dawn sunlight and cloudless. I didn't know if that was a good or a bad omen, and I double checked the bag before going back inside a couple minutes later.

There was this slow bustle at home throughout the morning. Mom transferred the peas to the soil while Dad cleaned up the ash produced by the fire and scooped it into the bag. He was about to dump the ash into the garden when I told him that the ash could be used as fertilizer for the plants and that we could make soap out of it in the future.

"I think we've got enough soap to last a lifetime," Dad said.

"That's what we said about a lot of things," I replied.

"Okay," Dad said. "But you better not be hoarding this ash for no good reason, like all your fourth-grade papers that you've never touched since we've packed them up in the boxes."

I ignored him and went back to doing an inventory on the canned food. May and I created a spreadsheet on graph paper and tallied up all the canned food we had. Mom wanted us to use a pen because she can't see pencil well (even though she's got reading glasses), but I managed to convince her that we don't want to make a permanent mistake with a pen and that we'll write super dark.

I underwrote as many values as I could, saying that we had 31 cans of sardines instead of 34 or saying that we've got 54 cans of brussel sprouts when we've got 64. May didn't notice for a while until she started glancing at my numbers weirdly.

She pointed at my spreadsheet. "That's supposed to be 37, not 32, and that's supposed to be 57, not 47. Are you, like, high or something? You definitely stink."

"Maybe you should speak louder," I said.

"Maybe you should hear better," she retorted back, but I got the message, so for the rest of them, I didn't risk changing the numbers. I think I scored around sixty or so cans reserved for Charles out of the thousand or so cans that we have, about six weeks' worth of them, from this piecemeal number manipulation. As for what comes after six weeks, I'll figure it out then.

Afternoon was spent doing laundry and dishes, and I scurried around the living room, laying towels underneath the line holding the wet laundry and drying dishes as the smell of detergent wafted throughout the room, tinged with a bit of a smoky smell. May wanted to open the windows, but Mom said no, and then they began bickering, and the clattering of dishes intensified.

A knock on the door saved me from being caught up in their storm, and I quickly grabbed a mask, told Mom that it was Charles, and opened the door to sit with him outside. He looked fine, though I noticed that there was a band aid on his face, and he seemed to be rubbing at his bruised knuckles.

"Are you alright?" I asked. "After the earthquake."

"Let's just say that I'm doing better than some of the houses on your street," he said with a playful grimace. "We should hold a vigil for them."

"I'm serious," I said and pointed to his cheek. "What with the band aid on your face?"

"It's nothing," he said. "I just accidentally slipped on some broken glass and scratched my face. Honestly, I'm actually surprised our old house survived this, though our chandelier did fall down."

"That's good," I said, awkwardly nodding. "Sorry about the can situation. I couldn't get as much out because of the whole food situation and my parents—"

"It's fine," he said. "We're fine. And anyways, I'm not here to accept a billion apologies. I'm here to make dreams come true."

Charles seemed to be filled with energy and seemed even better than last week. I don't know what's up with this transformation, but for a while, he seems almost better. I know that I told Mira that Charles was doing terrible and all, but now he's not. Maybe it's some higher power or something, but a part of me doesn't want to question this, even though I just instinctively know that something was off and has been off for quite some time.

"Even last week's dream."

"That's different," he said. "That's for the adult future."

"So in two years," I said. "Or, like, a year and a half for me."

"Shh," he said. "Even though everyone says that we're adults at eighteen, we're probably going to be the same as now. I'm talking about real adulthood, like when we're married and have got real jobs and stuff."

"Whatever," I replied. "What about being a Pokémon trainer?"

"Now I'm being serious," he said with a light laugh and I smiled, even though he wouldn't be able to see if from behind his mask.

"I guess I want to write something," I said.

"Write," he exclaimed.

"Yes. Write."

"That's something that the old Neal would say," he said. "The new Neal would want to achieve something bolder rather than dwelling on these boring options."

"I'll write an exciting story," I said.

"Doesn't change the fact that you'll be cramped at home," he replied. "You should be out in the world doing stuff."

"Well, I've got a couple things standing in my way." I turned around and pointed behind me. "Chiefly being my parents. Maybe I can go to your house. They might be more okay with that."

There was an awkward pause. "I don't know," he said. "My house is going to be even more boring than yours. Anyways, since you're so insistent about doing your book thing, what are you going to write about?"

That was deflection, and for a second, I wanted to push him. But I didn't because that would be too awkward and because it's not like he was sick or dying like the last time that I confronted him when there was something seriously wrong. So I continued with his deflection, "I don't know. Isn't that what you're here for?"

He leaned in. "You should write about how swords are better than axes."

"Axes will always be better than swords," I said. "And anyways, I'm not writing about that. I want to write a story story."

"Fine," he said and began listing a bunch of random topics: cowboys and western shootouts, fantasy anime worlds (though he mentioned that they cannot have harems, and until that point, I had no idea that that was a thing), some sort of space sci-fi drama that he immediately retracted because it'd be a ton of work, and a superhero-Pokémon crossover story.

As seen by the relatively short list that I have compiled, we were not that productive during our brainstorming session. And with the mid-fifty-degree weather in the afternoon and the bright sun, it almost felt like summer, and we spent most of the time just talking about whatever and casually shooting down each other's ideas and doing normal things.

After about an hour, Charles stood up. "I better see your rough draft next week."

I shook my head with a small smile. "You're not my teacher. If anything, I should be your teacher, being three months older than you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, impersonating a teacher and deepening his voice as he walked down the porch steps. "I was born in 1963. Kids these days, not respecting authority."

"Goodbye," I said.

"I bid you farewell," he replied. "May we meet again down the road."

Before he left, I noticed that his new boots from last week had glass shards embedded in its soles, just like I had noticed a while back. I thought I had been hallucinating the glittering on his shoes, but I guess not. Or maybe I was hallucinating last time. Still, it's weird how much glass there was on his boots, and even though it could've been from the glass shattering because of the earthquake, I don't know.

I'm definitely overthinking it. It was probably from the earthquake, and I was just making it up because I was sunlight deprived last time. That's the only answer that makes sense. And I need to stop being so suspicious.