The Release

“We don’t know if he wanted to kill you,” Grant replied. The wick erupted into flame for a brief second and Grant closed the lid tight.

“It takes an hour to walk to my house.”

“Lucy—” Grant said her name slowly with an undercurrent of warning. “You’ve been having this conversation for days now. Days.”

Salem, who had been watching Lucy pace, her head moving left and right like she was in attendance at a slow-moving te

Salem paused, mid-bite and then she rushed back over to the fridge and sat on her haunches, legs folded under her. She began to pull out the food with both hands and sorting it into three piles. When she was done with the contents of the fridge, she moved to the garbage bags, adding whatever bags of chips or granola bars they had left. She worked with determined efficiency—pull, stack, sort—her jaw still working her breakfast.

“What are you doing?” Grant asked.

Salem, mouth full, glanced sidelong at him. “I am seeing,” she answered.

“Seeing what?” Lucy spat, angry that her own issues were temporarily ignored and invalidated.

“Food,” was all Salem said. She took the three piles of sandwiches and waters, juices and thawing chicken nuggets, yogurt squeeze tubes, and then counted. She looked to the trio wide-eyed. “If we eat three meals a day and drink 2 bottles of water a day…this will last us…only three more days.” She sat back, and then sprang up, reached for Ethan’s backpack and started rummaging through it, tossing out Lucy’s books in distracted ambivalence.

“Stop,” Lucy said and when Salem ignored her, she put her hand out, touching her friend on the shoulder. “Stop!”

Then Salem’s hand landed on what she was looking for—a yellow thin-tipped highlighter—she walked back to the food and marked it: L, S, and G. After branding their piles, she stood up and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Wait, wait, wait. Wait a second,” Grant said. “But you already ate a sandwich this morning and Lucy and I haven’t had anything. So, that isn’t even. And you ate three bags of the popcorn last night when I didn’t have any. So, it’s not like we’ve been equitable until now. Why the sudden concern over fairness?”

“I’m not concerned with fairness,” Salem replied, her hand still hovering over the sandwiches. “I’m concerned about eating. And making sure we can eat. And here,” she hoisted herself up and walked over to her half-eaten sandwich, broke off two pieces and handed them to Grant and Lucy. “Fine. Now we’re even,” she said.

Lucy handed her piece to Grant and walked over to the couch and plopped herself down; she grabbed a thick chunk of her hair and began to spin it around her pointer finger. It was oily and slick. She caught a whiff of her own body odor and turned her head away.

“There’s no more food. Don’t you get it? We’re trapped in here. This is all we have. So, your pile is your pile. You can eat it all at once or ration it out. But your pile is your pile.”

Lucy looked to her stack of food and then to Salem, wondering what nightmares Salem had encountered in the dark to wake up so changed and rattled. They each had their share of waking up mid-scream. As time passed, they got closer to each other every evening, sleeping in a mass on the floor, pulling each other close for warmth and comfort. The room was suffocating and small, but the people of history had often waited for the world’s atrocities to end while hiding in small attics, basements, and closets.

They would be fine.

Ethan was coming.

They would be fine.

Lucy wished she could convey this mantra with enthusiasm to her colleagues in waiting. In an act of boredom, she reached into Ethan’s book bag and pulled out the copy of Fahrenheit 451. She read the first line. She read the line over and over fifty or more times before moving on to the next section. The words floated before her—her eyes sca

But she couldn’t get her brain to focus. Lucy shut the book on her finger. The room had been silent for too long; Salem’s sullen expression made Lucy furious.

“Come on, I can’t let it go. Ethan is out there!” Lucy said on the verge of tears. “And I don’t feel like any of you give a rat’s ass about it.”

“Salem would like to carve up a rat’s ass into three perfect proportions for di

“You think he wants to get us out? Maybe he wants in,” Salem said. “You haven’t thought of that, have you?” She leaned her back against the wall and slid down, resting her elbows on her knees. “Then I’ll have to reconfigure the food.”

“Really? You’re still just worried that we might run out of peanut butter and jelly? What the hell is wrong with you? My brother is alive and you can’t even pretend like you’re happy about it. Screw you, Salem. If you don’t want to leave when Ethan gets here that’s on you. But me? I’m out of here. And guess what, when I’m gone, you and Grant can split the food pile. Have an extra bag of Cheetos. Merry Christmas.”

“Lucy—” Salem started to say, her eyes wild. Then she stopped herself and put a hand up. “Never mind. Just never mind.” And with that Salem stood back up, marched over to a chair where the classroom keys were resting, grabbed them, and stormed out of the room. Grant and Lucy listened as Salem unlocked the journalism lab door and went inside, the second door shutting behind her.

“I can’t handle her drama today.” Lucy tucked the book under her leg and kept twirling her hair.

“That might have been a little harsh,” Grant replied, he scratched the top part of his scalp and grimaced apologetically.

“Wait,” Lucy looked at him. “Which one of us was too harsh? My brother is coming for me. He is.” And she didn’t know if she believed it or if she just wanted to believe it.

It took a while for Grant to answer and when he did, he changed the subject. “What does it feel like?” he asked, not looking at her, his eyes wandering to the door and then to the carpet.

“What does what feel like?”

“I don’t mean anything by it. I just want to know. Ethan…he’s alive…to the best of our knowledge.”

Then everything clicked all at once; the last pieces of the jigsaw sliding into place. “Oh.”

“I’m not being passive-aggressive,” Grant replied. But maybe he was a little. Or he was tactfully steering her toward the truth. “It’s just...you know...it’s like we were all sitting around playing our lottery numbers. And you won.”

Lucy didn’t say anything. Color and heat rushed to her cheeks.

“What did I win exactly?”

“A survivor.”

“Oh, come on,” Lucy tried to calm herself down and she tried to push the seeping defensiveness away. “Your dad could still be—”

“No. He’s not. My dad is a coward. He didn’t really care for me. I mean, not really. He made it mighty clear that I was just a burden to him. If the virus didn’t get him, I bet he took his own life…without a single thought about me. But hey…at least he’s consistent. Didn’t care about me from day one, why start now?”

“I’m sorry.” But Lucy didn’t know what she was apologizing for: Ethan being alive or Grant’s father being dead.

“It’s hard,” Grant continued, “not to be hurt that you have something we don’t.”

They sat without speaking, Lucy resisting the urge to spill out her defenses. She sighed shakily and swallowed.