Any Second Read online

  Chest aching…Exhale is ending. Is relief. No one suspects the weapon among them.

  Just a ten-year-old boy that afternoon, just walking home, that’s all I ever did—

  “No! You are a wolf. A messenger. You will make light. You will be light. You will show them. Don’t make me get the pliers.”

  I will never have to feel the pliers again.

  One…

  Never have to feel the barbell, the calloused hands.

  One…

  The Purpose. The Purpose has hurt so much.

  Do it!

  My hand shakes, thumb slick on the smooth button. Arm twitching. Will I have arms in paradise? Legs? A body at all?

  Carbon Czar? Was that the MechBot card? The other boy was Jessie. A sixth grader—one year older. Trading with him right before I missed the bus.

  “Why are you hesitating?” Gabriel shouts in my head.

  Lungs burning.

  But these people—

  “No, sheep! They are complicit. Don’t be a little shit, Jacob.”

  Jacob, that’s not my name. I just want to know my name.

  One…

  In heaven they will tell me my name.

  One…

  Air crushing out against my ribs. Have to breathe. Have to let go—

  Swaying where I stand. Guts trembling.

  Pants soiling again.

  No—

  THE PURPOSE.

  “DO IT, Jacob! NOW. Or I will make her scream in agony like you have never heard—”

  No, don’t! Melissa, I won’t let him hurt you again.

  Just let go. It will be over.

  Oh God, please help me.

  Dios mío, my mom would say—

  The air explodes out. Chest caves.

  I let go—

  Dios mío, Elián…

  Wait, my name, that was my name!

  I don’t—

  “Now serving number ninety-one.”

  Dad sighed. “We don’t even know how high the numbers go.” He glanced from his phone in one hand to the ticket in the other. It had a big number 3.

  Maya noticed that the ticket was shaped like a penis head. Great, now she was seeing more dicks in the world than there already were. What would her therapist call that association? Cock projection? She wondered what he would try to tie that to, what Venn diagram of anxiety, family instability, and impulse control—

  “Stop it.” Dad’s ticket-holding hand slapped against hers.

  “I’m not doing anything.” Maya checked her hands; she’d been working on that situation on her right thumb again, the callusy swath from her knuckle to her cuticle. Thick, lumpy, and, ugh, a sickly white that needed to be taken care of. She’d been picking at it, tearing off strips.

  A light snow of skin on the puke-brown carpet of the Department of Licensing Express! office.

  “Just try not to do that,” said Dad, looking around.

  “Nobody even notices.” Except sometimes they did. Maya had caught the sidelong glances from classmates, from people on the bus. No one here, though. Everyone else in the waiting area was gazing into their phones, as bored as she was, stuck in this pale, soulless office on a Thursday afternoon. “How much longer do we have to be here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dad. “Can’t believe this place doesn’t have an app.” He swiped at his screen. For a second, it seemed like maybe he was searching for answers, but then his phone blipped and vibrated and he tapped over to his feed, his head lolling forward, the screen sucking him in with its magic thrall. For years, both Maya’s parents had been telling her to put her phone away, when they were just as bad, if not worse.

  At least it kept Maya from having to talk to them much.

  “Hey, look.”

  Or not.

  Dad held out his phone. “Fourteen likes already. See? I told you this was a good idea.”

  He’d checked in here at the DOL and written: Time to get a new pic for a new me!

  Of course, the very first comment was from Kendall: Smile big!

  “Right,” said Maya. Kendall, of the thongs and fake lashes, trim and fit and fourteen years younger than Dad, the equivalent of Maya dating a thirty-year-old. She was cute, and perky, and had all these opinions and beliefs that were relentlessly positive, completely unlike Mom, which was, Maya guessed, the point. Dad wanted them to hang out more, and Kendall had been trying: inviting Maya to Pilates (Maya played sick), making her smoothies on weekend mornings after she stayed over (Maya slept in)…but even when she found herself thinking maybe Kendall was okay, she immediately felt like a traitor.

  At least there was no danger of Mom seeing Dad’s post. They’d pretty much muted each other’s feeds, ships passing in the night on the rare post Maya let them see. Mom was basically a ghost online anyway these days, haunting her friends’ and coworkers’ updates with the occasional like. Meanwhile Dad was everywhere. Dude couldn’t lift a barbell (Going up a weight!) or buy a jar of salsa (Muy caliente!) without enthusiastically sharing it. This from a man who’d had a pixelated photo of the sailboats at Shilshole Marina as his profile picture for most of Maya’s life.

  “Well, thanks for humoring me by coming here,” said Dad.

  “It’s not like I had a choice.”

  “Come on. You didn’t have to.”

  This is supposed to be our afternoon together, Maya didn’t say. Instead, just: “I’m the one who should be getting a license, not you.”

  “We told you to sign up for those driver’s ed classes.”

  That was true. Maya had missed the deadline, if by “missing,” you meant knowing exactly when it was and not clicking on the link.

  “Seriously, though…” Dad pulled out his wallet and held out his old license. “Look at that photo.” In it, he was staring straight ahead, slack-jawed, eyes weary. “That’s not me anymore.”

  “Yeah.” But it stung because that was him, just the him from before. Maya could make fun of the recent changes: coloring his graying-more-than-he’d-admit hair, the new wardrobe with patterns and pearl buttons and hipster sneakers, suddenly enjoying tennis?! Going to Pilates with Kendall, not minding at all having to walk her rat-sized dog thing even though he’d refused to get a pet for his daughter’s whole life—and yet, all these things spoke of someone who was awake. Who cared. (Maya refused to include the tattoo. A Norse symbol that meant strength? Probably signified the opposite of strength.)

  So how could you not take it personally? That the zombie dad in that old license had been the result of a life with Mom and Maya. That this new version had only been possible once he’d freed himself from them.

  Maya and Mom still lived in their half-empty house. The divorce wasn’t official yet, but it was coming, signature by tearstained signature. Everyone was “shocked,” but the harder truth was that the signs had all been there: the bickering and backstabbing, the way they’d been taking Maya places separately. Also it turned out that Kendall had been around for a while—she was a junior software engineer, and Dad was her supervisor, so ewww. Technically, that made Dad the bad guy, and yet Maya found her hate glowing equally red-hot in both directions. Furious at Dad, the asshole, but also at Mom, acting like a victim, and even mad at herself for not being enough to hold them together—

  “Relax, don’t do it, when you want to go to it….”

  Maya reconnected with her senses, like the teeth of clock gears sliding together, the outside world seeping back in. Her phone was vibrating in her pocket, accompanied by muffled singing.

  The alarm was to stop her from picking. The song a retro choice, but appropriate. She’d gotten the idea from a blog about living with dermatillomania, the official term for when you liked to flay yourself, pick yourself apart strip by strip.

  Three of her fingers were currently in Band
-Aids. She’d been in the midst of pulling a long slice free from that thumb, but it had gouged deeper than she’d intended, and now blood was welling up in the canyon left behind. Maya tore the peel free, rolled the little fillet between her fingers—

  Popped it into her mouth.

  Tastes like chicken? Kinda bland, actually. But there was something satisfying about the rubberiness.

  She considered the ruby of blood on her thumb.

  Sucked that too.

  Her therapist had asked her if she liked it. She’d said no. Was there any other answer? Why, yes, I enjoy tearing myself apart and occasionally consuming my own flesh. Wasn’t that on the same spectrum as I keep pieces of my neighbor in the freezer for special meals?

  When the therapist pressed, Maya had said that it was more like she needed to do something. Something to calm the white-hot energy that prickled just beneath her skin, all the time. Fidgeting. Unsettled. An army of bugs with swords. Energy that whispered of how impermanent the universe was, how every passing second was a small death, the good ones somehow worse than the bad. At its worst, she felt like she could see the end of her life as if it was right there. She remembered having this same feeling as far back as nine or ten, lying awake in bed, the dark wraith of her anxiety preaching the certainty of nothing, nothing, nothing.

  But what does the picking accomplish? All Maya knew was that when she picked she drifted. Time seemed to slip by with no harm done. Well, except to her poor fingers, or sometimes her face.

  But skin grew back, no matter how mangled. Far better than marriages.

  And yet as the rift between her parents had grown, she’d also gone from Maya, honors student in the science baccalaureate program, to a former honors student whose place in the program might soon be in doubt. From a JV volleyball player to a former volleyball player. She was still drumming in the jazz and concert bands, and practiced more now than ever before. But other than that, she felt like, rather than being pulled apart, as people usually described in a divorce, she had been sinking into the space in between. Her parents were like two tectonic plates, Maya being slowly unmade by the roiling mantle beneath.

  She dug around in her pockets and found a used tissue, speckled with brown dabs of dried blood. Pinched it between her bleeding thumb and her index finger, then spun the clock dials on her phone, setting the alarm to go off in another forty minutes.

  “Why does it always do that?” said Dad, typing away with Kendall. They liked to have long conversations in comment threads as if they’d never heard of private messages.

  “It’s a glitch,” said Maya, a glitch in your daughter. Dad’s eyes flicked to the bloodstained tissue and his brow wrinkled. Maya tensed, but he just returned to his phone.

  She closed the clock app and checked her feeds. She should probably post something—a selfie from here in the mall? Maybe a shot of how the light was slanting down through the glass ceiling out at the food court? But as she scrolled along, she felt a tightening squeeze of adrenaline. Her feed was all smiles, successes, hot takes, group selfies, everybody looking perfect and smooth and Photoshopped, like they were having so much fun. She had nothing like that to post. And anything she might share about what she was going through would just seem selfish and lame compared to all the real problems in the world these days.

  Maya closed the apps. She was just putting her phone away when it buzzed with a message: Todd, her boyfriend.

  I’ve got a raging throb for you right now.

  Maya frowned, fearing that a picture would show up to verify this information. Luckily the message just sat there. She should probably reply.

  Things couldn’t be less throbby here at the mall with my dad.

  You should’ve come over instead. I could’ve brought you home.

  Sigh. I know.

  How about tonight?

  Negative. Chem exam I HAVE to study for.

  She actually felt pretty prepared, but when she thought of Todd’s “raging throb,” she realized she could probably review a few more things. Or maybe watch home shows.

  So basically never, said Todd.

  One night is not never.

  And yet Maya had been feeling like this most nights, and they’d only been dating five months. Shouldn’t she want him a little more often? Todd had his good points: he was funny, great at drawing comics, had a fake ID, and knew everything about all the superheroes and their franchises that you had to be an expert on just to watch movies these days. Also he played basketball and had excellent shoulders. He didn’t seem to really listen when she talked, but he also didn’t interrupt. Any normal girlfriend would at least throw him a, ahem, bone.

  How about tomorrow? she typed.

  Away game at Nathan Hale, Todd replied. Never mind. Sorry to bother you.

  You’re not bothering me.

  Todd didn’t reply right away. Maya’s fingers crept over to that problematic thumb. She wondered if Todd’s trip to Nathan Hale might include a run-in with that cheerleader who’d randomly posted on his wall a couple weeks ago. Todd had said she was just another counselor from summer camp. He’d probably had a raging throb there too.

  Hey, she messaged, I like you. I’m really sorry I can’t come by.

  Do you?

  Duh. It’s just weird with my parents, so this Dad time matters more.

  I get that. But I matter too. It’s just like…

  Pause.

  You don’t want me getting bored.

  Asshole. I gotta go, she typed, and she stuffed her phone away. But did he have a point? Was she turning into her fucking mom?

  “Number ninety-nine,” the automated voice announced.

  A few clerks were back from lunch break and things were moving faster.

  “Why don’t you go walk around?” said Dad, still typing away, now to the whooshing sound of messages being sent on his work feed, afternoon off be damned. “Maybe some of your friends are here.”

  “I don’t feel like it.” Maya glanced out at the globs of kids and adults walking by. Noise, smiles, purpose…

  There was a momentary gap in the crowd and she noticed a boy standing over by the food court, wearing a wolf’s mask, his dad kneeling behind him. She’d almost forgotten Halloween was next week. There had been that invitation; her friend Megan was having a party. Everyone had been messaging about costume ideas and dates and what games to play. Maya hadn’t replied yet. Talk about being a ghost.

  “Suit yourself,” said Dad. He started, as if something had occurred to him, and looked up from his screen. “I like having you around, when you’re still willing. Here…” He bent and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, holding his camera in front of them with the other. “Let’s take a selfie.”

  Maya flinched. “Is it for Kendall?”

  “It’s for us,” said Dad, meaning she’d asked for it.

  “No thanks.” Maya tried to worm free.

  Dad’s grip held firm. “Fine, we’ll use your phone. Come on, just do it.”

  “Dad…” But his arm felt warm, and it would probably make less of a scene to just take one rather than to tear herself away from him.

  Maya fished out her phone and Dad leaned close, a big grin. She fought the urge to cringe at the sight of herself. Nothing seemed quite right, her dark brown hair too flat, her green eyeshadow too heavy, her cheeks too puffy and round, all of it weirdly distorted by the camera screen.

  “Cheese.” Dad nudged her.

  Maya forced a smile. Took the picture.

  “Let’s see it,” said Dad before Maya could stash her phone away. She tapped the photo. “It’s good!”

  New Dad, same goofy grin that wrinkled up his whole face, and a rare glimpse of Maya’s smile—

  She wiped at her suddenly leaking eyes.

  “What is it?”

  Heart pounding, throat clenching. D
ammit! “Nothing.”

  “Maya, you can tell me.”

  “Dad, I said it’s nothing.”

  He pulled away, returning to his blipping phone. “All right, that’s okay,” he said, doing his job, giving his teen daughter space.

  And yet she kinda wished he’d pried. Except if he had, could she have even described it? Because it wasn’t just the divorce, or that she felt like she was losing her family, her friends, her life, everything. It was that she didn’t even know why she should care. What was the point?

  Where exactly were you supposed to find any hope or meaning in this world? She loved science, but science said terrible things. According to psychology, your personality was essentially set by age three, so if you came out with, say, an anxious heart, oh well. Meanwhile, biology said that your only real purpose was to live long enough to recombine your genes and maybe create something slightly less messed up the next time around. And sure, maybe her unique palate for calloused skin would help future generations when the planet was ruined and all humanity had to eat was each other, but even that slim hope was blasted away by physics, which said that the universe would keep expanding infinitely, that dark energy, stuff scientists couldn’t even identify, was pushing everything farther apart, faster and faster, until someday there would only be cold and darkness and atoms like lonely fireflies searching in the forever night. Not only that: the second law of thermodynamics stated that everything was destined to eventually disintegrate. So, maybe all our ideas of meaning and progress were backward. Evolution was really devolution. The amoeba was actually our best self, because it wasn’t dumb enough to even try to comprehend how fucked we were. Humanity had just enough scientific knowledge to realize that we were screwed, but not enough to do anything about it.

  Maybe the answer was in religion, but Maya’s parents hadn’t taken her to church, and from what she could gather, the entire point of a religion was to believe in something you had no way of proving. She had tried. In ninth grade, she’d written an essay using pointillism as a religion. Gather, my flock, so that I may explain that we’re each just one of trillions of dots, and though none of us have any real idea what overall picture we’re actually making, at least we have each other, and the picture is surely beautiful. She’d gotten an A on the paper, but given what she now knew from physics class, that beautiful picture was only temporary, and you were still destined to drift away from every other dot until you were completely alone….