This is Not a Test

“Let’s go back,” he says.

When I get to the auditorium, everyone looks at me and that makes it feel more like high school than anything. Before anyone can speak, Trace crosses the room and hugs me. It hurts. He doesn’t speak, just holds me until Rhys finally says, “I went out there too.”

“And you got your pat on the back.” Trace releases me and when he looks at me, his eyes are all warmth. “Thank you for what you did for us, Sloane.”

“Forget it.” I want everyone to forget it.

“I want you to know it means something to me that you tried.” He looks past me and the warmth disappears from his eyes. “Unlike some people.”

“Fuck you,” Cary says tiredly.

“Who’s got breakfast?” Rhys asks. “I did it yesterday. Not doing it today.”

“I do,” Trace says.

Surprising. I don’t think Trace has gotten breakfast once since we got here, and it’s not like there’s anything to prepare. Grab packaged food, an assortment of drinks, toss on tray. He jogs over to the stage and hoists himself up, disappearing behind the curtain.

“Kitchen’s the other way,” Rhys calls. No sooner is it out of his mouth than Trace reappears with—the whiskey. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I said breakfast.”

“Why didn’t we get drunk on this the day we found it?” Trace hops offstage. “What exactly are we waiting for again? I don’t think we have time to wait on this.”

“All we have is time,” Grace says.

“Yeah, but who knows how long that is? Fuck tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.” He opens the bottle, moves to take a swig, and stops. He holds it out to Rhys and me. “It should be you two first. For what you did.”

“You’re a douchebag,” Cary says.

Trace ignores him and pushes the bottle at us. Rhys takes the whiskey first, brings it to his mouth, and drinks it easily. He hands the bottle to me. I mimic Rhys but unlike him, I nearly choke. It burns all the way down. I hand the bottle back to Trace. He drinks and hands it to Grace, who grudgingly passes it to Cary after she takes her swig. We go in a circle. Harrison has such a hard time with it, he grabs a bottle of juice from the kitchen to cleanse his palate. In that moment, he looks too young to be alive.

“Pussy,” Trace says.

Grace elbows him. “Better than wasting it.”

And then we realize this is it as far as booze goes, at least. A bottle of whiskey. This is all we have. It’s unlikely there will be any more hidden around the school, waiting to be found.

Trace sets the bottle on the floor and we all have this convoluted discussion about how much we should drink, if we should just go for it or if, you know, moderation is the key.

“It should be fair,” Cary says.

“Hey, if life was fair, you wouldn’t be here,” Trace says. Cary doesn’t rise to it. I feel so bad for him today. “Also, fun isn’t always fair.”

“Well, we’re not staying sober while you get wasted,” Rhys says.

“Now that’s a good idea,” Trace says, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t rouse the rest of us into agreeing with him. I don’t know who says drinking games first but someone does, and that is how we all end up on the floor playing I Never. Trace seems really satisfied about this turn of events, so maybe he’ll have some kind of edge on the rest of us. Maybe he’s done everything or maybe he’ll just lie and say he has. He starts us off, anyway.

“I have never ski

“Fuck off.” Rhys grabs the bottle from Cary. “I’ve never cheated on a test.”

“Bullshit,” Cary says.

“I’m so brilliant, I’ve never had to.”

Everyone drinks except Harrison.

“I have never engaged in sexting,” Cary says.

Trace. Rhys. Trace freaks when he sees Grace reach for the bottle.

“With who?” he asks. Grace smiles and before she can answer, he says, “Wait. Forget it. I don’t want to know. Wait—one of my friends? Oh, Jesus, was it Robbie?” Grace’s smile gets wider and wider until he can’t look at her anymore. “I hope he’s fucking dead.”

“Sexting is really pedestrian anyway,” Rhys declares. “What happened to love letters? E-mails. Love e-mails, sorry.”

“Love letters now,” I say absently. “E-mail is over.”

“I just got a chill when you said that.”

Lily showed me a dirty text message she got once. It said something like I want to be inside you but it was text-speak: I want 2b inside u. It made me blush and she acted like it was nothing, like it was just her life that someone would say something like that to her.

“What’s it like out there?” Harrison asks.

I don’t realize what he’s asking and who he’s asking until I look up and find everyone’s gazes divided between me and Rhys. I look back down at the floor quickly because I want him to handle it. But he knows that. He knows that and he is still angry at me because he says, “I don’t know. What do you think, Sloane?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know either.”

“Yes you do,” Trace says. “Tell us what it’s like out there now.”

There’s a beat and then—

“Quiet.”

Rhys and I say it at the same time. It’s such a strange thing that it would be the first word out of our mouths. I look at him and he looks at me and I feel what happened out there will co

“It’s quiet,” Rhys says. “I can’t even describe it.”

They turn to me again, for confirmation, and I can only nod.

“What about when they came?” Grace asks. “I mean, I don’t understand how either of you made it back. Rhys said you were outnumbered but you made it and—” She stops and I know what she’s thinking. My parents were outnumbered. They didn’t make it. “You didn’t even get bitten.”

“I came close,” I say.

“Too close,” Cary mutters.

“They’re … they don’t think like we do, you guys know that,” Rhys says. “It was … it’s not like they work together. They’re dumb animals. They were fighting each other for Sloane and holding each other back. I just went at them while they were distracted. We got lucky.”

“The girl was persistent,” I say. As soon as I say it, I see her in my head, I see her eyes staring into mine and she’s hungry, I remember that hunger, but now I remember something else: a longing like … no—I’m imagining that. I make myself picture her again and this time it’s just hunger. That’s all there is, nothing more complicated than that. It’s so uncomplicated, I’d almost call it beautiful and that sounds wrong, but it’s true.

“Were you scared?” Grace asks me.

I can’t lie to her.

“No. I mean … I think when you know it’s really going to happen … that you’re really going to die, just … a part of you accepts it because there’s nothing else you can do.”

“Well, it probably helped that you were semi-conscious,” Rhys says. “I bet you’d have felt differently if you were really awake.”

“You think so? I don’t think so.”

Trace lets out an impressed whistle.

Grace says, “Well I couldn’t … I wouldn’t feel that way.”

“Do you—” Harrison stops. “Do you think they have souls?”

“Oh fuck,” Cary says. “Remember when we were playing I Never? That was a lot of fun and this is turning out not to be.”

Nobody says anything for a long time and then Grace reaches for the bottle.

“I’ve never stolen from my parents.”

“Really?” Trace asks.

He takes a drink. I take a drink. Cary takes a drink. Rhys takes a drink. Even Harrison takes a drink. It’s so nothing, stealing from your parents. Money went missing from my dad’s wallet all the time and he never knew about it. It was the only way I could contribute because he wouldn’t let me work before I turned eighteen. Lily was allowed, just not me. Arbitrary rules. Lily was at the supermarket setting aside what she could for us. But I couldn’t let her do it all by herself. I touch the bandage on my head, let my finger dig into it until I feel the sting. If I’d been caught in his wallet, if he noticed the missing bills, it would’ve been so bad for me. Lily told me that every time I handed them to her but she still took the money because it was for our escape plan. Our escape plan. Our. Escape. Together.