The Release

“It’s not like...you know...we...me,” he quickly corrected, “wanted you to have lost everything too.”

“I get it,” Lucy said kindly. And she did. She could understand the jealousy and bitterness, the anger. “But you’re right. You were all right. Maybe he’s...maybe the message was from that first morning and he’s gone now too. Maybe I’m chasing a phantom. But—”

“But,” he cocked one eyebrow, “maybe he’s not gone.”

“I can’t help but hope,” Lucy answered, willing herself not to cry.

Grant sighed and crawled over. Hesitating, he put an arm over her shoulders. “We don’t want to take away your hope,” Grant said in a whisper. “It’s envy.”

“I should go to Salem,” Lucy said and rose on her haunches, but Grant put a hand on her knee and kept her from rising the full way.

“Nah, just let her be by herself,” he told her and Lucy listened. She settled back down on the floor and eventually stretched her whole body out on the ground, staring at the ceiling. She saw her book and grabbed it, flipping through the pages, her arms stiff above her, just flipping, flipping, not really reading, but sca

She noticed a phrase and it caught her off guard. Spilling from the page some character asked another character about the life before. It was an interesting concept. Some day, maybe, people would wonder: What was life like before the virus? Before the virus. The world wasn’t always demolished, broken, and full of fear, she wanted to scream. Lucy let these words and ideas percolate through her.

“I’ve read that book,” Grant said. He was leaning against the couch now, his eyes closed.

“Uh-huh,” Lucy responded. “Mrs. Johnston gave it to me. To read on my trip.”

“That’s right. Your family was going somewhere really far away, right? Some place in Africa? I heard about that.”

“Kinda. Near Madagascar.”

“Why?” Grant asked.

Lucy flipped through more pages. Flip, scan. Flip, scan. “My dad was leading a team that had some major breakthrough at work. And he’d worked without a vacation for like three years. So, the company got him this trip. I think my dad picked the destination. He had written some report or something about the island a long time ago...they said they’d send him anywhere.”

“Nice,” Grant replied. Then he opened his eyes and grimaced. “I mean—that would’ve been nice...it still sounds nice.”

“It’s okay,” she stopped him from saying more. Let him off the hook. “It was nice.” She paused. “So, did you like it?”

“What?”

“The book.”

Grant nodded. “Yeah, sure. I still remember, you know, we read it in class and our teacher, Ms. Houshmand, had this one quote written on the board for the whole unit and I just stared at it. I don’t remember what it said exactly…but something about infiltrating people’s brains or souls. Or something like that. It was up there, like a command.”

Lucy didn’t say anything for a second and then in reply she repeated the quote back to him, trying to make sense of it. “Huh,” she shook her head. “That’s fu

Grant raised an eyebrow incredulously.

“I mean,” Lucy plopped the book on the ground. “I get it, you want control and so you limit what people think. But...look at us,” she motioned around the room, “someone out there found a different way. Infiltrate our bodies.”

He let the phrase linger and then nodded, “Maybe you want absolute power, but you know you can’t control the people.”

“Destroy the people,” Lucy finished.

“Are we ever going to be safe?” Grant asked.

“No,” Lucy answered.

Someday people would wonder what the world was like before. Someday people would dream of a world free from the memories of bioterrorism, death, and fear.

Life would never be the same.

This was the new world.

Salem didn’t return right away. They gave her space and time; they set her rationed lunch outside the journalism door and knocked and then retreated. But an hour later her corn nuts and peanut butter and jelly were still sitting there and she hadn’t made an attempt to come back to the room. While it wasn’t completely strange for Salem to allow a perceived wrong to fester, Lucy was usually the one who had to crawl back to her with an apology—deserved or not—and this typed of prolonged nonappearance was unusual. Salem needed to make her dramatic exits, needed the weight of her absence to be felt by everyone, and then she waltzed back in, accepted apologies, and went on with life as if nothing had happened.

She was the quintessential drama-queen, still trying to cause a scene in a world with a dwindling population.

It was aggravating to be her best friend sometimes with her sense of self-entitlement and her lack of self-awareness. It grated on Lucy. But Salem’s quirks notwithstanding, she was a good friend. A great friend, even. Sacrificial. Supportive. Fun. It was true Salem’s inflated ego caused problems, but she at least had inflated opinions of her friends too. If Lucy needed someone to go to bat for her, Sal would be there. No doubt.

“She’ll be back,” Grant said numerous times. “Maybe she’s sleeping. Where could she go? She’ll come back when she needs to,” he mentioned with softness and deference. Like he knew her and was protecting her—because they shared pain and loss and because Salem had already fallen in love with the idea of falling in love with Grant while they wasted their hours in a glorified storage closet, among garbage and stolen treasures, surrounded by the constant stink of processed peanut butter.

Lucy knew her.

Salem didn’t need to say that she wanted Grant’s attention or his arms around her while she cried. Somehow the ache for love’s magic was made even more real by their proximity, their shared experiences, and their limited options. Throughout their entire friendship, Salem had longed for a boyfriend to sweep her off her feet. She was a romantic and a believer in love at first sight. She was the girl who needed an epic story to pass down through generations. You’ll never believe how your grandfather and I met. There was no dose of reality Lucy could administer and this made Lucy irate and irrationally angry. But Salem was Salem.

“She’s waiting for you,” Lucy replied. She picked up her book again and pretended to become immediately engrossed in a particular passage, but she occasionally lifted her eyes to watch Grant’s expressions as he processed. “Pouting probably. Just go. Get her.”

Grant sighed.

He waited a few more minutes and then sighed again.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He ran a hand over his stubble. “Why me?”

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“Fine, fine. Close the door after me. Four short knocks to get back in.”

“I know the drill.”

Lucy sat and waited for their return. It was nice to have a small moment of total aloneness. She thought back and tried to think if she had been fully alone since the first night at the school and she realized that she hadn’t. But after fifteen minutes, Lucy wondered what would be taking so long. She slid off her couch and walked over to the door and as she neared it, she realized that there were voices in the hall, hushed and whispering. Opening the door a fraction of an inch, Lucy spotted Grant and Salem standing in the small alcove outside the journalism lab. Salem’s foot was holding the door open and Grant held the keys. She could barely make out their conversation, but Lucy realized that they were oblivious to her and there was something about their body language and tone that suggested to Lucy she shouldn’t be privy to their dialogue. Yet she couldn’t turn away.

“How long will we stay here?” Salem had asked in a whisper. “I’m going crazy.”

“Is this the moment I remind you that this was your idea? To stay.”

“It can be my idea and I can still hate living like an animal in a cage.”