Instructions for the End of the World by Jamie Kain Page B

lying around the house, the websites and message boards he leaves open on the computer.
    But I’ve always wondered about this fantasy and its potential for disappointment. After all, if we really want to live like that, why not pack up and move to the far reaches of Alaska right now? Why wait?
    And I see, this is exactly what my dad finally did. He’s saying to us, and to the rest of the world, why wait? Why not start surviving the apocalypse now?

 
    Five
    WOLF
    I have been dreaming of the girl from the woods, Nicole. Although I don’t normally remember my dreams, I remember this one clearly because I’ve had some version of it every night since I met her. She is stalking me in the woods, and after she shoots me in the leg and bends over me to see if I’m still alive, I kiss her.
    It’s not a complicated dream, but it is a vivid one, and it makes me want to see her again for reasons I’d rather not explain to myself. I wake up from it sweating, dry-mouthed, heart racing, weirdly aroused, and fearful at the same time.
    I tell myself it’s the recurring dream that keeps her in my thoughts, because I don’t want to think about that strange girl with the gun. I don’t want my mind to be full of nothing but her, the way it threatens to become. It goes against my Thoreaulike aspirations of simplicity and solitude. Henry never mentioned having girl crushes during his time at Walden Pond.
    I am doing afternoon kitchen duty—and enjoying the rhythm of it—when Laurel finds me chopping vegetables for dinner. I like to chop, and even though my current task is dicing onions, my eyes are unaffected by them. Light slants in through the windows over the counter, and it glints off the chef’s knife as it moves.
    â€œYou,” she says, leaning against the butcher-block counter next to me and crossing her arms over her chest. “Where have you been?”
    â€œFor the last hour, here.”
    â€œI mean, like, all the time. You’re on another planet.” I look up at her for a moment, catch the pout in her eyes that she’s kept out of her voice.
    Laurel is a high-maintenance friend. She always wants more than I can give. I used to try to please her, used to like the way she seemed to need me, but I’ve learned the hard way not to.
    â€œI’ve been here and there.”
    An irritated silence follows as she watches me chop. I’m good at it, and the white flesh of the onion quickly dissembles into a pile of quarter-inch cubes. Then I grab another and start the process again.
    â€œI had a talk with Annika,” she says.
    I say nothing. I don’t want to talk about my mother or anything else. I come early to kitchen duty so that I can work alone, without the noise of other people’s chatter.
    â€œShe says she’s worried about you.”
    â€œHmm” is the sound I make.
    I mean it to sound bored, to discourage her from further comment, but she interprets it as an invitation to say more, I guess.
    â€œShe thinks you’re suicidal, like your dad.”
    If I didn’t know Laurel so well, I might interpret this comment as some attempt at helpfulness. Or kindness.
    But we have grown up together like trees intertwined at the trunk.
    Siamese twins of parental neglect.
    â€œShe shouldn’t worry,” I say to the pile of onions.
    â€œI worry too. You’re acting depressed.”
    â€œI’m not.”
    She places a cold hand on my arm that’s doing the chopping. I pause and look at her. Her blond hair is caught in a green batik cloth and hangs over one shoulder almost to her waist, and her gray-blue eyes reveal nothing. In her left nostril glints an ever-present silver ring.
    â€œShe told me she wants you to go with her to an AA meeting.”
    â€œI don’t drink.”
    â€œShe means as her family support person, or whatever.”
    It’s not like Laurel to play intermediary between my mother and me, but