Where There's Smoke

Liz Boysha

Published by Liz Boysha, 2024.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE

First edition. August 12, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Liz Boysha.

ISBN: 979-8227185273

Written by Liz Boysha.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Event

Jack and Dex Woods had been happily together for a decade, more or less, when Dex was shot on stage in front of thousands of people by someone wearing a black balaclava and a white t-shirt that read “God Hates Fags” in bold black text.

Jack was at home, sipping sugary milk and cereal from a metal spoon as he watched a livestream of the protest where his spouse, introduced by their popular moniker, “Dr. Doom,” had been invited to give a speech.

“In defiance of the name assigned to me by the media,” Dex drawled, pacing back and forth on a temporary stage that had been constructed in the middle of a usually busy highway, “I want to start by telling you that mine is a message of hope. I firmly believe that, even when it seems as though we have lost everything, we can still cling to something, just so long as we have hope.” Dex’s voice began to trail off near the end of the sentence as they squinted at something in the crowd, and the word “hope” is drowned out by a loud pop pop pop that makes the livestream’s audio ring static. Only Jack hears it, because he knows the speech by heart; he'd helped Dex practice it the day before. The rest of the talk was to be about climate change; about the heat waves and Arctic bombs and droughts and floods and tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires and what, maybe, we could all be doing about them.

Instead, Dr. Doom’s words are cut out at “hope.” Something invisible hits them in the side; then again, the second blow accompanied with a cloud of red next to their head. Dex’s body collapses backwards onto the stage. More gunshots, screaming, chaos blurring in the tiny window of the livestream video.

“No,” Jack says, “no, no no no nonononono no.” He has dropped his spoon into the cereal bowl, splashing sticky milk onto the table. His chair is on the ground and he is on his feet, backing away from the table, the laptop, the video. “Fuck, no.” He spins to look around their empty house, breaking his eyes from the screen like a physical force was holding them there. He runs down the hall to the bathroom and retches, puking up colorful cereal into the toilet bowl.

Jack, a paramedic, has never felt so helpless before in his life.

. . .

The rally that Dex was invited to speak at was called “Fight For Our Future.” It was held in the city a couple hours away from the rural-ish town Jack had lived in for most of his entire life. Jack had declined to accompany Dex to the protest that morning, both because he had worked overnight and also because he thought the whole thing was a little pointless, frankly. If the world really was ending, would some random climate scientist’s speech really be able to make that much of a difference? Even one as semi-famous as Dr. Dex Woods. In truth, Jack kind of agreed with the nickname “Dr. Doom”; Dex had a tendency for the dramatic, or else a blunt honesty about facts which most of the world is yet unable to accept.

Jack emerges from the bathroom. The house is still empty, because Dex is a hundred miles away, dead or dying. His laptop sits open on the table. There is movement on the screen, and Jack takes a few unconscious steps forward to get a better look. A hundred miles away, an armed shooter is climbing onto the stage. He turns to face the protesters, displaying the words on his shirt; he is laughing as he hoists a rifle and starts firing shots at random into the dissipating crowd. Then, abruptly, he stops; his arms drop, the rifle drops, and the shooter drops face first off the stage. Behind him, Dex’s body moves, rolling heavily onto their back and dropping their handgun onto the stage with a clatter.

“Oh, fuck,” Jack says.

The Gun

Dex obtained their concealed carry permit and purchased their firearm, something with a name accompanied by numbers and letters that Jack couldn't be bothered to commit to memory, about two years previously. It came after the two were attacked outside a gay bar during a trip to the city; an armed mugging, sprinkled with not enough slurs to make it a hate crime. They had been celebrating Dex’s successful defense of their thesis earlier that day. Neither was harmed, at least physically. But the surreal, detached violence of the event - a deadly weapon, pointed first at one, then the other - barked commands, sneers and slurs - the quiet, helpless compliance as first Jack, then Dex silently handed over their wallets - stuck with both of them, stuck particularly hard with Dex.

Afterwards, there had been a thick, terrified silence between them. Finally, their attacker long gone, Dex, standing all of 5’5” tall, mumbled, “I should have done something.”

Jack had been opposed to the gun, had resented it, mocked it. He had already seen more than enough gunshot wounds as a paramedic, even in as small a town as where they lived. Accidents and violence were all firearms were good for, in Jack’s opinion.

“What are you going to do,” he'd said scornfully, “stop a mass shooting?”

. . .

Jack watches dazedly on the still streaming video as someone else saves his spouse's life. Several someones: first a bystander attempting CPR, then a team of medics arrives, then the livestream is abruptly cut off.

“This content has been removed for violating our Content Moderation Policies.”

Jack looks down at his phone, a blank black rectangle on the table next to his cereal. Fifteen minutes ago, he was using it to talk to Dex, who was breathless and exhilarated at the protest; the crowd, the chants, hot sun and the stink of bodies, smoke, asphalt, and is that tear gas? There was a time, years ago, when they would attend those protests together. They were just kids, then.

“Break a leg,” Jack had said. “Love you,” he'd added... right?

Jack resists the urge to redial the last call, which would have been hopelessly futile, and possibly hearing Dex’s voicemail would have broken him entirely. He almost drops his phone when it vibrates in his hand; for half a second or less, he has a brief flash of something like hope, that maybe Dex is calling him. But the name that appears on the screen, Naomi, is exactly the person Jack needs instead.

“Hey, Gnome,” he says, or tries to say; but his voice is choked up with tears he didn't know were there. Instead what emerges is some sort of anguished moan.

“You know already?” Naomi’s voice is soft, staticky through the wireless ether.

Jack nods, then, remembering how phones work, grunts, “Yeah. I saw...” His voice trails off.

“I'm on my way to pick you up.” Naomi’s voice is tight, controlled. “We can figure out which hospital they're at on our way up.”

. . .

Naomi MacGregor is Jack’s oldest friend; he cannot really remember a time in his life when he did not have her steady presence solidly backing him. They went to preschool together; college together; returned to their hometown together. It was Naomi who introduced him to Dex: her neighbor, who was kicked out of private school in the south before they moved up here, who was homeschooled for a bit before joining their school. Dex was only recently emerged from the closet as trans-masc, transitioned only socially and still too effeminate for Jack’s tastes; something about their narrow frame, their strawberry blond hair and freckles. It was Naomi who convinced him to re-examine his internalized transphobia or misogyny or whatever it was and give them a chance.

“Sure, they're fascinating,” Jack had tried explaining, early on. “But, like, I'm gay. Dex isn't... I mean, they...” He floundered under Naomi’s unwavering stare, trying to find the words to explain what was obvious to him but not, apparently, to her. “I like dick,” he finally stated, bluntly. This opinion was based on a handful of illicit encounters with a soccer player the summer before; one still firmly hidden in the closet a year later.

Naomi gave him a skeptical look. “Your loss,” was all she said. She’d only introduced them because Dex was looking for a hiking partner, anyway.

. . .

Naomi drives well over the speed limit until traffic forbids her from doing so; any other time, Jack would scold her, rant and rave about car crash statistics. Any other time, she would not be speeding at all; Naomi is an ER nurse to Jack’s paramedic, and while she may not witness the immediate aftermath of the consequences of speeding, etc, she certainly has to deal with the after effects.

The first few minutes of the car ride Jack spends rambling vaguely coherently about all of the things he needs to do; all of the people he needs to contact; did he even bring his insurance card?

Naomi, who had remembered to grab Jack’s wallet for him as they left, does not remove her eyes from the road, but does remove her hand from the wheel to let it rest on Jack’s knee, which is bouncing erratically enough she can practically feel the car shake. “Let's just worry about one thing at a time,” she suggests softly. Like: finding out what hospital Dex was taken to. Jack scans a map of the city and starts calling, beginning with one closest to the event. The hospitals are understandably wary about providing any personal information, but he is finally able to convince someone that he is Dex’s husband; she gives him no real information but instructions on where to go once he arrives at the hospital.

“They're in surgery,” Jack says dully; he is silent the rest of the drive.

Unloveables: 1

Look: human beings are tenacious fuckers.

Tenacious is an old SAT word meaning holding fast; cohesive; retentive; persistent; obstinate. Fuckers an old curse meaning ones who fuck, or have sex. Or any of the other meanings of the word fuck. Humans definitely fuck a lot, especially around here, and if you're willing you can even make something of a living for yourself here by fucking.

I'm not willing, FYI. For Your Information.

. . .

FYSA: For Your Situational Awareness; this was after the Megadrought, the Great Floods, after the Water Wars, the TriPlague, the Midwestern Firestorms, after the Superricane that wiped out the entire East Coast. After the Refugee Crisis and the Great Migrations and whatever wars they fought over that; we stopped keeping track. After after after after...

My point is, we're still here. Not just Them, the Fat Cats in their climate havens or underground bunkers or space pods or whatever they ended up escaping to. I mean Us, the Unloveables, the seedy underbelly for whom survival has always been the only option.

. . .

The Safe Havens aren't a myth, for the record. On clear nights, when the last of the solar banks that power the automatic factories has drained and the lights have flickered down, you can still see an orange glow on the horizon, just off to the south.

Also: what else would the factories be doing, besides making everything the Fat Cats need for a soft, cushy lifestyle?

Why else would we be kept alive, if not to feed the factories?

. . .

Look: it's not some big conspiracy or anything. Once or twice a week, the Vans sweep through the streets in the afternoon, picking up the dead and chugging them along the road to the factories where they will be deconstructed and recycled into...

Well, that I don't know exactly, and I don't care to find out. They might be in our soap. They might be in our laundry baskets. They might be in our ultra-processed foodstuffs.

. . .

The thing is, even when we're not old, some of us could still remember what it was like Before. I have fuzzy memories of using a cell phone to play games, tapping on the screen while sitting in the basket of a squeaking metal cart that my mom pushed around the grocery store. I remember gluttonous displays of produce, rows and rows of nonperishables, the cold chill of open-topped freezers stacked with pearly red meats.

I’m only, like, seventeen. Ish.

. . .

Both of my parents are dead. Most people's parents are dead, or else their children are, or their siblings, their friends, their pets. The survival rate around here is next to zero.

What Dex Remembers

Dex remembers waking up - too early in the morning - to Jack, freshly showered and still damp, crawling into the bed next to them. They remember rolling over and curling up next to him, as they did most nights when Jack came home from work. They remember an alarm, a couple hours later; hitting the snooze button once, then again, then ignoring it all together as they had accidentally knocked the phone to the floor and were too busy fucking to retrieve it.

“I was going to take a shower before I left,” Dex remembers complaining when they finally picked it up and looked at the time.

Jack stayed in bed, sleepily watching Dex get dressed. He’d teased, “Do you think it'll be difficult, giving a speech with my cum still dripping out from between your legs?”

Dex remembers an odd knot forming in their stomach. “I had not considered it,” they'd responded, “At least I have several hours on a bus to get used to the idea.”

Dex remembers the bus ride into the city, over mountains and across vast empty fields. They remember the early crowd, milling around in disjointed groups, well before some unknown, critical mass was reached and the protest could begin in earnest. They remember talking to Jack, wishing he was there with them.

They remember waking up on their back, warm liquid pooling beneath them, half their world missing, the other half blurred and disjointed. A shadow of a figure, climbing onto the stage in front of them. Gunshots, muffled by the ringing in Dex’s ears. They remember reaching towards their side holster incredulously; they had practiced for this, dutifully putting up with the red hats at the gun range every week, but had certainly never expected to have to actually follow through with it. A shock of pain in their head, their stomach as they half sat up to fire once, blindly; they could only hope they hit their target. They could only hope their target was actually the shooter.

They remember the sky: bright blue and cloudless, rapidly fading to black.

. . .

Dex wakes up to a sensation of nothingness; they are a husk, floating through empty spacetime. Then, pain: a stabbing ice pick through their eye. They can see nothing but they hear a steady beeping. They try to move; their body feels sluggish and heavy. Their left hand is stiff and bound by tape, a flexible tube: an IV. Dex is no stranger to hospitals: their ovaries removed laparoscopically after high school, top surgery a few years ago. Dex tries to touch their head, their face. Half of it is covered by thick layers of gauze and tape, but only half. They wave their free hand in front of their eyes; nothing. A once steady beep, beep grows quicker, and a wave of nausea clutches their stomach.

Then, Jack’s voice: “Dex,” he says, “hey, it's okay, I'm here.” His words are less consoling than Dex would like them to be. Something touches their right hand and they flinch away. Then they connect the touch to the voice, and reach out again, gripping Jack’s hand tightly.

“Jack,” Dex tries to say; but their throat is hoarse, and it only comes out as breath. Their lips feel numb and they try to lick them, but their tongue is also dry. “I can't see, Jack,” they whisper airily.

“Like, at all?” he asks, voice filled with concern.

A nurse comes in as Dex shakes their head, the tiniest movement bringing forth another wave of nausea, a brief stab of pain. “How are we feeling, Mrs. Woods?”

Jack responds automatically. “Mister,” he corrects, “or doctor.” He trails off, feeling petty for interrupting, for telling a nurse that Dex, with a PhD in Climatology, was a doctor; but it was, by this point, a pretty ingrained response. Also, their preferences were right there on the room’s white board. It is past midnight, and Jack is exhausted.

“My throat hurts,” Dex manages, “and my stomach.” Their bed moves under them; their head is being elevated, and everything inside them shifts uneasily with the change in perspective. A wide, corrugated plastic straw touches their lips; Jack is holding a cup of ice water. He permits Dex only a few sips before pulling the sweet nectar away.

“Sorry, dude, don't want you to get sick.”

The nurse nods approvingly, a gesture Dex misses; they are only vaguely aware of the woman as she briefly touches them here or there, presumably conducting an examination. “Smart one you've got there,” she says.

“He's a paramedic,” Dex explains distantly. The water helped soothe their throat but only exacerbated their nausea, and now the world is spinning as well. “I love him so much.”

The nurse offers Jack a wide grin. “You know, I'm really happy to hear that,” she says. “The world needs all the love we can give it.”

Dex doesn't respond. Jack recognizes the look on their face: the sudden paleness, trembling lips, their tight, controlled breathing through the nose. He reaches towards a canister on the wall and pulls out a blue plastic vomit bag, getting it under Dex’s chin just in time for them to puke.

“There's those paramedic reflexes for you,” the nurse remarks dryly.

White spots of pain fill Dex’s head as they retch, first vomiting out the water, then bile, then dry heaving until the nausea finally slips away. Someone else comes in and starts talking, rapidly; to the nurse, or to Dex, or Jack, they do not know, the words blurring together with the beeping of machines in the fog of Dex’s mind. Then, suddenly, it is silent; the room is empty, they think; even Jack’s hands have disappeared.

“Jack?” they call wearily into the darkness of space.

“Yeah, I'm still here.” Jack’s hand returns, clutching Dex’s.

“I'm sorry.”

Jack half chuckles, an airy sound. “Let's put a moratorium on apologizing for a bit, okay?”

“Okay,” Dex says. “I can't see,” they say again, voice trembling.

There is a pause; a brief hesitation. “I know,” Jack says, finally, “Just, focus on getting some rest right now. We'll worry about that in the morning.”

Dex is skeptical about getting sleep, but between the morphine and the ondansetron pumping through their IV, they are out within seconds.

A Summary of Injuries

The first bullet ripped through Dex’s side below the ribcage, completely obliterating a kidney on its way out but causing minimal damage otherwise. The other bullet, technically just a fragment, lodged itself in their left eye, destroying the globe, shattering the orbital. CT revealed mild brain injury in the frontal lobe, damage to the other ocular nerve that may or may not be permanent. No tracking in the remaining eye; minimal pupillary response to light.

“Overall, they should consider themselves lucky,” according to the surgeon.

Lucky that the shooter had bad aim. Lucky that a sixteen year old with a brand new CPR cert was at the protest. Lucky EMTs arrived on time with the AED. Luckier than the one fatality, not counting the perpetrator; less lucky than the other victims, of which there were five, whose injuries ranged from a sprained ankle to a hole in the leg and shattered femur.

Unloveables: 2

I can't tell you what things were like around the world. The cellular network that provided entertainment to toddler me had been down for years. I can only tell you how things were here.

“Here” was the remnants of a town named after a person I never met. It was 208 miles away from Denver, according to the green and white sign on the highway. Denver was the capital of the state of Colorado, if states and capitals were still things. Colorado was a rectangle of a state surrounded by other rectangles. It was split in half by a range of mountains whose distant blue peaks were tipped with snow in the dead of winter. Even Before, before before before, the state of Colorado was divided by those mountains: civilization to the east, barbarians to the west.

We were on the western slope.

. . .

You can tell east and west pretty easily by the movements of the sun. Even in ancient times, way Before all this, the sun has always risen in the east, set in the west. It will continue to do so long after we are gone.

There was also a highway that cuts east to west through town. Besides the Vans, maybe two or three cars drove on it a year. To the east, supposedly, were more towns. To the west, a lot of nothing; at least until you get to Salt Lake City in 280 miles.

. . .

An aqueduct ran east of town from north to south, sucking water from a vital, nearly empty reservoir and drawing it down, through a mountain, to the sanctuary where the Fat Cats live.

. . .

Ours is a short history of death, destruction, and devastation. Same as most of the country.

There used to be a power plant, which stood on the site of a Native American burial ground. It was fed by mines that ripped open the mountains and never closed them back up again. It burned through coal ravenously and helped to heat the Earth in the process.

After the coal plant closed, what did we have? What could we produce? Some cows, some sheep, a lot of hay. Most of the wealthy landowners fled a long, long time ago. Everyone who could leave this town, did.

Factories were installed in place of the coal plant: solar powered, wind powered, automated by artificial intelligence from production to shipping. The products of the factories were shipped by drone to other places, like the sanctuary to the south.

Except for the ones that do not make their flight.

. . .

This is how the Remnants survive: some become merchants. They sell the products of the factories to each other. These are things like soap, candles, laundry baskets, ultra processed foodstuffs, opioids. The availability of stock is largely based on what drone someone has shot down that day.

The rare few can sell their own goods: eggs, meat, milk, vegetables, methamphetamine. Homemade soap and candles and hand-woven baskets.

Others sell their services: they tend wounds, they build fences, they have sex.

The rest of us, we: beg, steal, fight for scraps.

. . .

It's not like there's a lot of us left.

. . .

That is why I was so surprised, the first time I met Rat. Because I had never seen him before, and, on the streets, even when you were invisible, you got to know pretty much everybody around.

Which means Rat wasn't from around.

Jack Can’t Sleep

Jack can't sleep that first night, even in the private room of the ICU. “A courtesy,” explained the nurse who initially led him to the room, “given the nature of their injuries.” Easier to keep a private room under lockdown, he meant.

While waiting out the surgery, Naomi helped him deal with the new influx of messages and calls from others invested in Dex’s life: their mother, their boss, various friends and colleagues, some names and numbers Jack didn't even recognize. Naomi took care of emails and texts, but Jack took the task of calling his mother-in-law to inform her of the event. He found himself dreading the call; Dex had a complicated relationship with Joanne, but they still went to her house for dinner every week. Jack only occasionally joined them.

After offering what little information he had, since Dex was still in surgery at the time, Jack asked, “Have you told Star?”

He heard Joanne’s hesitation over the line. “I think it's best we wait until we have more news, one way or the other.” She had a thick southern accent, speaking slower than even Dex’s drawl.

For once, Jack was inclined to agree with his mother-in-law.

“You know,” Joanne then started, “this wouldn't have happened if she...”

“They,” he interrupted; but she didn't stop to acknowledge the correction. Jack zoned out, watching the second hand on a nearby clock tick by excruciatingly slowly, before suddenly interrupting, “I think a doctor is coming, gotta go.” Then he hung up.

. . .

Now he sits on a hard, fold-out cot, face illuminated by his phone screen as he scrolls through the well wishes he'd ignored earlier. There are not many, but these are only the people who reached out to Jack instead of Dex. Their phone, one of the few personal belongings tucked away in a drawer next to their bed, was, at one point, buzzing almost incessantly. Now, Jack suspects, its silence means its battery has died. He doesn't care to look.

His email also contains, inexplicably, multiple requests for interviews and updates from various news outlets, and he wonders how they got his email address, connected him to Dex. He deletes them all. It is only a matter of time before they get his phone number; perhaps that is the real reason Dex’s phone was so busy before.

A notification pops up: a text from Star, who, at 11 years old, is probably too young to have her own phone - not that Jack has any say in the matter - and is definitely too young to be awake at three o’clock in the morning.

Star > I need to know if they're okay.

Recalling his conversation with Dex’s mother, Jack realizes it is too late; she knows. He hesitates, trying to decide how best to reply.

Jack > I think they will be. Go to bed.

Who is Star?

Star, nickname for Estelle (which really only Jack uses anymore (which she kind of loves him for)) is Dex’s daughter. Dex was 15 when she was born and, officially, she was being raised to believe that she was Dex’s sister. Unofficially, however, she had confronted Jack in private a couple weeks ago demanding to know if he was her father. “Because I already know Dex is my mom,” she’d said, “or, whatever it is they would call themselves.”

Jack kept his tone shockingly neutral as he asked, “How on earth did you come to that conclusion?”

“I found my birth certificate in mom’s closet,” she explained. “Grandma's closet,” she corrected herself, which made Jack eyebrows furrow, just slightly.

“If you’ve seen your birth certificate, then you know who your dad is.”

“Father's name is blank.”

This made Jack’s frown deepen, briefly; then he recovered and sighed. “I am not your father,” he reiterated, “but you are going to have to talk to Dex about the other stuff.”

“Please don't tell them I know,” she’d begged, “I don't want them to hate me.”

“Dex could never hate you.” It was a lie, partially; Dex had hated Estelle, early on, and still resented her when Jack first met them. They had gotten pregnant in a less-than-consensual way, and they had carried the pregnancy less-than-willingly, a fact that informs some of the tension between Jack and his mother-in-law. By now, of course, Dex has found a way to love her, which meant so could Jack, who had been feeling a vaguely paternal affection towards the girl almost as long as he's known her, not that he would admit that to Dex.

He met Star when she was almost a year old; she was a solemn baby, round-faced with thin, pale hair and wide green eyes that matched Dex’s almost exactly. Jack had watched her crawl around the dried brown grass of their front yard with some trepidation; Star was the first baby he had ever met. He had only known Dex for a couple weeks by that point. They were not yet dating but, despite his early protestations to Naomi, Jack was already falling head over heels for them. This revelation - a child, at their age? - put only the slightest dent in his enthusiasm, a spark of doubt that Naomi quickly tamped out.

“Sorry,” she'd said, “are you worried Dex is going to ask you to play daddy to their baby sister?” She knew the truth, of course, but her point was: maybe the high school kid just wants a high school relationship.

They hadn't; it turned out, Dex took a lot of convincing before they were willing to go out with Jack, a fact that hit particularly hard when he broke up with them after less than a year.

Apologies

This is why Dex apologized for puking: the first time the two tried dating, which lasted most of their junior year of high school, ended somewhat painfully after Jack’s eating disorder reared its ugly head. First in the form of anorexia, which he tried to brush off as a lack of appetite until it became too obvious; then as purging, which worked fine until it didn't and he started puking up thin ribbons of bright red and passed out on his bathroom floor. He felt obligated to break up with Dex, who didn't deserve that shit, before heading off to a recovery center that took up nearly the entire summer before senior year as Jack struggled to gain enough weight to satisfy his doctors. Then he struggled to keep it on, especially after his release; the start of senior year; the fact of Dex in, somehow, literally all of his classes.

But he survived. He moved on. He hasn't even relapsed since college, which was really just a blip. That Dex, with a hole in their head and chest, was thinking of that of all things, considering it enough to apologize about the potential trigger after so many years, makes Jack feel a bit like shit for the rest of the night.

Unloveables: 3

The first time I met Rat, he was foraging along a creek. It was late spring, so the sandy bed was still damp with snowmelt. I thought he was just a child; he was so small, and crouched barefoot in the mud like they do. He was absorbed in picking mushrooms and didn't notice me until I said, “That's a bad idea, unless you want your liver to turn into soup.”

“I know what I am doing,” he said in a comically deep voice, which made me believe even more that he was just a child, trying hard to sound older and unsuspicious. He did not look at me, facing away in the shadows so I couldn't really get a good look at him.

“They’re poisonous,” I insisted.

“They are not.”

“It's literally impossible to tell without a microscope,” I said smugly, reciting a little-known-fact from an old magazine I read in the library.

. . .

Yes, we had a library. It was open 24/7 and there were no librarians. There was no one in charge at all, and there was little furniture left besides the staggering bookshelves. It was not in great shape and the newest book was almost as old as I was. I practically lived there. The basement storage rooms were particularly cozy year-round.

. . .

Rat: “That is a myth perpetuated in the twenties, after artificial intelligence began publishing misleading field guides that encouraged readers to consume toxic mushrooms. Since it is true that mushrooms can be difficult to distinguish, it was easier to convince the public to stop foraging all together than to attempt to address the misinformation.”

Me: “Uhm.”

. . .

Rat walked here. Over the mountains and through the woods and all that. He had some experience foraging.

. . .

The second time I met Rat was about a week later. He was taking a shower.

There was a spot along the aqueduct, a few miles south of town, where the water leaked out a wide crack in a constant shower, almost year-round; though since it was almost impossible to leave town during the winter, I don't know what happened then. I suspect the crack freezes over. The rest of the year, it showered the ground beneath it, filling a pond that's ankle deep, soaking into the soil to nurture a thick patch of grass and shrubs and even wildflowers.

As far as I knew, I was the only person who ever ventured out to this spot, which was a veritable oasis in the summers. It's even tolerable during the day time.

. . .

There are four seasons here: blisteringly hot, windy, frigid cold, and windy. During the summers, often for weeks on end, it is impossible to go outside during the day for more than a couple minutes. I've tried: the sun immediately burns your skin. Your eyes and mouth dry out. Even breathing in the superheated air is painful.

If you can get to the oasis without dying, it's not a terrible place to wait out the afternoon hell.

. . .

Rat was standing under the shower of water, completely ass-naked. He was standing tall, almost leaning backwards, his head tilted up, eyes closed under the stream, so I got a much more thorough look at him this time around, even from the distance. Short, sun-bleached hair that stayed light in the water; his limbs were shockingly pale and spindly, and I could practically count his ribs protruding through nearly translucent skin. His chest was nearly flat but a thin triangle of dark hair between his legs suggested he was not as young as I'd first assumed. I assumed, also, that he was a girl, his deepened voice from before a disguise.

I wasn't exactly hidden, but he still hadn't noticed me, entranced by the water as he was. I didn't know whether to interrupt his reverie, to announce my presence and thus my potential as a threat, or to just quietly disappear, but I was saved from having to make the decision by the loud screaming of a nearby crow. In a flash after noticing me he was out of the water and grabbing something out of a nearby pile of clothes. The crow fluttered away and I felt suddenly alone; now he was pointing a weirdly long knife at me. I also had a knife, fixed-blade and in an obvious sheath attached to my belt, but I wasn't particularly inclined to get into a knife fight, so I held my hands up and, against every instinct, squeezed my eyes closed.

“Hey, I, uh,” I stammered, “I didn't mean...”

“Do not move,” his gruff voice interrupted, “If you try to rape me, I will cut off your dick.”

I kept my eyes closed but it sounded like he was getting dressed, which meant his guard was down, and probably the knife too. Not that I intended to do anything with that information; I kept my hands raised. “I'm not -” I said.

“You were watching me,” he spat, “Pervert.”

“I wasn't -” I started to defend myself, but there isn't a lot of defense to watching someone shower naked in the middle of nowhere, even if it was an accident. I was a big guy, probably not someone you'd want to run into in the middle of nowhere in any situation. “Look, I've never seen anyone out here before. I was just surprised. I’m sorry.”

I heard a swishing sound of metal on plastic, then a click. “You may open your eyes now,” he said, and I did. He was wearing dark, loose clothing that swamped him and made him look even smaller than he was. A wide brimmed hat kept his face in the shadows. His knife dangled off a rope that served as a belt to hold up his baggy pants. His feet were bare and muddy. My own feet felt hot in their shoes.

“As you can see,” he said, holding his arms out as though presenting something, “the mushrooms were not poisonous.”

“You remember me?”

“You foretold my death,” he answered, looking at me like I was an idiot, “In ancient times, it was wise to keep your prophets close.”

I didn't know what to say to that.

“My name is Rat,” he said, “And to save us any further confusion, my pronouns are he/him. You can forget about whatever you think you saw before.”

“Okay.” I saw his shoulders slump with visible relief.

“And you?” he asked.

“Oh, uhm,” I stammered, “I guess my pronouns are he/him as well.”

Rat glared at me from under the brim of his hat. His eyes were cold, like ice. “Are you being intentionally obtuse?”

“Yes.”

. . .

The thing is, I shared my name with my dad, and the last person to call me it was my mom, and I wasn't really coping well with that fact. Still. For over a decade, people just referred to me as “hey, you.”

. . .

My parents both died in the Great Autopilot Crash, along with tons of other people who were on the roads that day. I remember the clunk of the doors locking, a jolt of acceleration that flipped my stomach. My parents were arguing, their quiet conflict quickly turning panicked as they pressed and pulled and slammed at the buttons and petals that would no longer respond to their commands. I remember the car’s stereo, playing some sort of generated pop song, the volume rising and rising and rising to drown out their voices.

. . .

I still fucking hate music.

. . .

I was in the backseat, facing the back windshield, so I didn't see the stone wall the car drove us into. I did see the next car, however, as it slammed in us, crumpling our vehicle like an aluminum can.

The car seat saved my life, I guess. If anyone has figured out what bug or glitch caused that catastrophe, I've yet to hear about it.

Blinded

Dex still cannot see when they awake the next day. Gunshots echo through their skull and they lay there and do not open their remaining eye for several minutes, hoping perhaps the whole thing had been a terrible dream. They try to listen to the room, to orient themselves and their surroundings based on sound alone. They do not realize Jack is with them until he clears his throat somewhere off to the right. Furniture creaks as his weight shifts.

“Jack?” Dex says out loud, voice pale.

“Hey!” There is shuffling, then a touch - first Dex’s hand, then their hair, their face, the half not covered up by bandages. “I'm so glad you're awake. How do you feel?”

Dex feels Jack’s fingers, calloused but gentle, and the physical contact feels detached. They can only imagine his hands floating freely through space, no body to attach to. “Fine,” they say finally.

Jack rubs Dex’s cheek with his thumb. He stares intently at their face; their skin is pale and puffy, lips chapped and cracked, their emerald green eye glazed and unfocused. “You had a seizure this morning, do you remember?” Dex shakes their head subtly, barely a twitch. “That's okay,” he says, “you're not supposed to remember them.” He is trying to be light, but a tear slips out, rolling down Dex’s cheek. Jack brushes it away with his thumb. He doesn't know what to say.

“How long have I been here?” Dex asks, finally.

“It's only been a day,” Jack answers, “A very, very long day.” Jack is fucking exhausted; he has been awake now for over 24 hours. He desperately needs a shower and the only reason he's not starving, he knows, is because Gnome keeps dropping off food he has no real memory of eating.

“Naomi is here?” Dex interrupts; Jack hadn't realized he was talking aloud.

“Not here, here,” he says, “This room’s on pretty tight lockdown.” After Dex got out of surgery last night, she rented out a room at a nearby hotel. She has no reason to be here, not really, but she plans on burning through her sick leave as long as she can. “I'm sure she'd love to see you, though.” Dex blinks slowly, and Jack briefly regrets his word choice.

“I don't want anyone seeing me like this,” they say. They mean Jack, too, but there's nothing they can do about him being here; they need him here. They feel so helplessly, completely alone in a dark and terrifying world. They know nothing of their room beyond the hospital bed on which they are confined. They don't even know the extent of their injuries; a bandage itches and burns on their thigh, but they don't remember getting shot there. They don't even know what really happened; were there others? Did they stop the shooter? There are too many questions and not nearly enough oxygen left in Dex’s blood to bother asking them.

Is it even Dex’s blood?

They are crying fully, now, tears streaming down one side of their face and Jack wonders if the bandage is getting wet, or does removal of the eye also remove the tear ducts? Why hadn't he thought of that when the surgeon asked if he had any questions... how long ago now? Jack feels hopelessly out of depth. He gently kisses Dex just above the eyebrow; he hunches awkwardly over the hospital bed to hold them as they quietly sob.

. . .

At various times throughout the day, Dex is visited by an assortment of nurses and physicians, voices too many and varied to keep track of. They come at them like wraiths out of the shadows, their touches cool and professional but assaulting nonetheless. When Dex was pregnant and giving birth they'd had a doctor who would jab his short, manicured fingers inside them, almost without warning, to check for dilation. At least then they could see the doctor, the room, the closed door and open window.

Dex learns they are missing a kidney, as well as an eye, and that the remaining one is struggling to filter out the byproducts of muscle death. Their catheter, they learn, is spitting out something resembling tea, and a machine is brought in to clean their blood externally. A different type of catheter is placed in their chest. They cannot see the tubes, their scarlet blood pumped to and from a softly whirring machine.

Well, not their blood - they'd required several liters of transfusion. A-positive.

An entrance wound and an exit wound on their side and back; just more scars to add to their torso, alongside two deep, thick scars on their chest; a curved, angry slash on their lower stomach, like a smile, from an emergency c-section; a handful of tiny puckers from laparoscopic surgery. The itchy spot on their thigh, Dex learns, is where the plastic surgeon borrowed their skin to rebuild part of their face. They are wheeled away in their bed for an x-ray; they have several cracked ribs from CPR.

Dex listens without hearing what the doctors say. They nod and agree and let Jack do all the important talking and remembering and decision making.

. . .

At some point, Dex doesn't know when, they are visited by a pair of cops. Their nose wrinkles distastefully as they talk.

“Do I need to call a lawyer?” they hear Jack ask, voice weary.

“No one's pressing charges,” a deeper voice explains, “whole thing was caught on camera. They're calling it self defense.”

Another voice, higher, an accent Dex can't place. “They're calling you a hero.”

Silence.

The deeper voice: “We just need to check a few boxes.”

Yes, the firearm was registered; yes, Dex has a CC license. No, they don't remember the shooting, or their part in it. This last part, only Jack can know, is a lie; a small part of him is thrilled to know he can still recognize when Dex lies. Surely they haven't changed that much?

Dex does not ask about any other victims. They do not ask about the shooter.

The Feed

Estelle is as curious as she is precocious, and she does ask about the other victims and the shooter. She uses her phone; she has long since figured out how to bypass the parental controls with her mom’s password. The fatality, she is disheartened to learn, was a ten year old who was at the protest with his parents. Estelle has never been to a protest. She can't imagine Dex taking her to one of those things; her mom would probably call them in for kidnapping. But she knows what they are about, and she knows roughly about Dex’s research and what the media calls the hopeless futility of her generation. Even in school they cannot quash the buzz of anxious chatter about this or that weather disaster; this or that war; this or that mass shooting. During drills in school Estelle has learned how to build barricades out of desks; how to smear her classmate's blood on her face and play dead. Would she have smeared Dex’s blood on her face?

She hears the name “Dr. Doom” from her classmate Riley’s mouth and has to refrain from hitting him. She has a sudden, vivid memory of the same boy on her soccer team a few years ago calling Dex and Jack “that pair of faggots.” She hadn't known the word, but knew enough to understand it was an insult, and she went over to talk to them about it. Dex was home from college for the summer. They were braiding Jack’s dark, shoulder length hair as they watched Star’s game from the sidelines. Estelle’s mom sat nearby, a sour look on her face as she glared resolutely at the grassy soccer field.

“Riley called you two the f-word.”

“Fuck?” Jack had asked, confused, prompting an irritated glare from Joanne.

Estella shook her head. “The other f-word.”

Dex said, “Riley can suck honeydew.”

“Dex!” their mother had scolded, which was really only a win; she wasn't deadnaming them.

“Sorry,” Dex just muttered, ducking their head.

The look on their mother’s face made it clear the conversation was over. It was, ultimately, Jack who explained what the word meant. After the game he took Star and Dex out for ice cream, looking like a Viking with his braided hair and scruffy beard. They sat at a table outside in the sun and Jack asked if she still wanted to talk about what Riley said. Surprised, Estelle had nodded, then quickly busied herself with her ice cream so she wouldn't have to do any actual talking; having only just finished kindergarten, she was not accustomed to being given agency like that.

After first defining the f-word in a calm, academic tone, Jack said, “The thing is, what bullies like Riley don't want you to realize, is that words don't actually have any power to hurt you unless you let them. Riley is right; I am gay. I might even be a faggot.” His casual use of the word had made Dex cringe. “But the fact that he thinks it's an insult is more a reflection on his character than my own.” He'd looked at her very intently then, dark eyes shining, to make sure she was still paying attention. “It's just sad,” he'd concluded. “I pity him, because he’ll never know how it feels to love without hate.”

. . .

The news calls Dex a hero for stopping a mass shooting; the prime example of a good guy with a gun. That Dex even owned a gun was news to Estelle; it is a fact discongruent with everything she knows about them and especially Jack. She thinks back to all the times she has spent the night with them at their big, old house; at least once a month, ever since Dex left her alone with their mom and moved in with Jack. Did they keep the gun in their bedroom? Their office, the library? One of dozens of closets? Could she have accidentally stumbled upon it, exploring somewhere she shouldn't? Are there others?

Not all of the commentary towards Dr. Dex Woods is positive, Estelle learns. An article titled, “Okay, Doomer,” calls them out for their pessimistic views, their association with leftists and socialists and other disreputables. There are calls for their arrest for such crimes as blocking traffic and disrupting meetings, accusing them of sabotage or inciting chaos. Comments call them a commie; a twink; a bleeding heart. One anonymous user claims they are a scam artist, as are all climate scientists. Another suggests Dr. Doom had encouraged the mass shooting: “Isn't overpopulation a major concern for his followers anyway?”

Estelle still has not heard from Dex; her mom is still pretending she doesn't know what's going on. Jack won't tell her anything beyond “they will be okay,” whatever that means; but on the second day, he has to ask her to feed the cat, which gives her just the slightest leverage. She will ride her bike out to their big old house on its dusty dirt road and take care of their cat; in return for Jack calling her and letting her know what's going on.

. . .

“Do you want to talk to Star?” Jack’s disembodied voice comes from somewhere off to Dex's left.

They groan. “Is mom with her?”

Jack shakes his head, remembering too late again the futility of physical gestures. “No. She's feeding Roger.”

Roger is Dex’s cat, who was found as a too-young kitten shortly after they moved in with Jack. He was a feral, vicious baby, and grew into a mischievous, ornery orange tomcat whose favorite activities involved claws and bare flesh. Dex loves him dearly, and so does Star, so Jack tolerates him.

The tinny speaker of Jack’s cell phone rattles the loose bones in Dex’s skull, but they try to ignore it and keep their voice measured as they try to explain the extent of their injuries to an eleven year old. Dex doesn't really know how to talk to an eleven year old; they have never understood children, not in the natural, casual way Jack could talk to Star. They tell her they are blind and they hear her gasp over the phone; quiet, involuntary, suppressed, but full of all the emotion brewing somewhere deep and dark inside Dex's own heart. They leave out the rest: the seizures, the pain, the muscle death and subsequent kidney failure. That they are blind feels like enough; a life sentence by itself.

“I'm sorry,” Jack says quietly, taking his phone back to end the call. “She was insistent.”

Dex makes a noise that could be interpreted as anything.

. . .

Estelle wanders through the house, creaking wood floors and drafty disused bedrooms. She tells herself she is looking for Roger and not just being nosy, digging into the personal lives of her sibling-slash-bio-mom and their husband. She wonders if Jack ever told Dex what she knows, then realizes he almost certainly hasn't; Dex would never let that go undiscussed. She tries to picture them wandering blindly through the crooked halls of this house. So many steps; so much furniture to stub one's toes into. Estelle doesn't find the cat, but she adds food and water to his bowls. She will know he's still around when the food has disappeared the next day.

Days Blur

Jack showers in the narrow, cramped hospital bathroom; he dozes on the narrow, cramped fold-out hospital cot; he eats tasteless meals in the narrow, cramped hallways outside the hospital ICU, brought to him by Naomi who begs him every evening to spend a night at the hotel, just one night to get some sleep.

“I could stay here with Dex, if it makes you feel better,” she offers.

Jack shakes his head. “They don't want anyone seeing them like this,” he repeats dully.

“What, are they worried I'm going to judge them for being in a hospital gown?”

He only shrugs.

. . .

Naomi spends her days wandering around the city she knows well; run down shopping malls, a zoo, an aquarium, a million parks. The college campus they had each attended, variously: first Naomi, a year older than the other two; then Dex, who studied biology, then ecology, then climate sciences; then finally Jack, belatedly, to round out his EMT and wildfire fighting certificates from community college with a paramedic degree. They had all shared an off-campus apartment, too expensive and permanently in need of repairs, not far from where Dex had been shot.

Naomi doesn't need to be here, has no reason to be here except that she is worried about Jack, who seems to be fading in front of her. Her savings slowly dwindle. This isn't sustainable, she knows, but she doesn't know any possible alternative.

. . .

Days blur together for Dex but they manage to work out a system for determining day or night based entirely on the frequency and reason for physicians and their probing fingers. Nighttime visits are brief and far between; mornings are for checking in, and afternoons for any new activity - tests, treatments, therapies.

Early on Dex is made to stand and walk around despite the pain, catheter pinching between their legs, clutching their IV pole and shuffling steps in grippy socks. They send away a trauma counselor twice; they do not feel like talking. Each morning a surgeon removes the bandages from their face and pokes around at the tender, bruised flesh beneath, murmuring about the healing progress before placing fresh gauze and tape over the mess.

Jack tries not to stare but also has to; it's not like they know, a nasty voice inside reminds him. He didn't know what to expect, underneath the bandages, and now he doesn't know how to feel about it. The plastic surgeon did a fine job, probably - the swelling and bruising makes it hard to tell - and the damage from the bullet fragment had been minimal. Dex will even be able to wear a prosthetic eye, later.

“Sounds expensive,” they mutter.

Jack does not want to think about money; not now, not ever. They had never been particularly well off, not on the wages of a chronic student and a paramedic. Their house - Jack’s house - was inherited from his parents; he was, literally, born in it. It is the only reason they are not stuck splitting a studio apartment or trailer somewhere with Gnome. Or worse, living with Joanne. How much time does he have before the hospital starts sending bills? He hopes they will at least wait until Dex is out of their ICU.

“How bad is it?” they ask when they are alone with Jack again.

“Not bad at all,” he answers, voice measured, “You’d make a really sexy pirate. We'll get you an eye patch.”

“Jack.”

“Sorry.” His voice is quiet, and Dex isn't really sure why he's apologizing. They need to say something, but don't know what. They don't know how to express the enormity of the chasm that has opened up in front of them; where, once, Dex could see something resembling a future, now it is an empty abyss. Dr. Doom’s infamous writings about increasing climate disasters and impending global catastrophe were not just a melodramatic show; they are legitimately concerned about their own future, and secretly not convinced Estelle even has one. Dex had plans, steps towards climate resilience they were working on between post-doc research and writing. Now - can they garden? They will never be able to afford solar panels, drowning under medical debt. Can they even write, if they cannot see the words? Can they still analyze data? Screen readers exist, they know, but they can't imagine listening to a robot spit out numbers on a data sheet that they could once read and interpret at a glance. Will their kidney survive this continued trauma; will the seizures stop; is Dex doomed to forever choke down pills to survive? At least until the inevitable collapse of the pharmaceutical supply chain; then they will die, slowly and painfully.

The silence between them stretches on too long. As far as Dex knows, Jack could be just next to them, or out of the room entirely.

“I'm scared,” they say finally; they hate the pathetic whine in their tone. Jack’s disembodied hand finds their forearm, gently squeezing; so he was right next to them, after all. The contact centers them, reminds them they are not alone. “I feel so isolated. I never know what's going on around me.”

Jack's hand moves to theirs; his fingers intertwine with Dex’s, and he squeezes. “I forget. I'm trying.”

Dex wishes they could forget.

Unloveables: 4

Rat had an entire box of protein bars in one of the pockets of his enormous backpack, and he offered me one, despite still not knowing my name. This surprised me. Sharing wasn't exactly the norm anymore. Friends aren't really the norm either. Alliances, maybe; the few remaining kids in town had formed two rival gangs, but they would mostly leave you alone if you didn't bother them. Or, alternatively, if you avoided being seen by them at all costs.

“I thought about making you keep your eyes closed until I left, but there is only one direction to go,” he said.

“It's too late to go back, anyway,” I said, “You'd cook within a mile.” The sun was overhead and an absolute scorcher, even in the shade and mist of the aqueduct. I wanted to soak my feet in the little pond, but I felt somewhat like I was being held hostage, and I was wary about making any sudden moves.

“It is a good thing this oasis is here, then,” Rat remarked, and I nodded. He added, “Do you suppose there are others, along the way?”

“Along the way?”

“South,” he said, jerking his head downstream.

“I hope not,” I said, “If it lost too much, it'd dry up before it even got to the end. Someone would notice, and they'd fix it.”

“They?”

“Whoever lives there.”

Rat nodded. “How far does it go?”

“It goes into a mountain in a couple miles. No idea after that.”

. . .

I had tried following it one spring, when the temperatures weren't too much but the wind sandpapered my skin. Losing it into a mountain was disappointing, to say the least.

. . .

As we waited for the sun to sink down near the horizon, Rat showed me his foraging guides. He had three of them, two for plants, one for mushrooms. They were ancient, crackling paperbacks with faded covers but bright, colorful photographs inside. Their spines were falling apart and pages falling out, threatening to be lost forever.

“I do not trust anything printed after the 20th century,” he explained as I flicked carefully through the first pages to the copyright information.

“I can fix these,” I offered.

. . .

Generosity is not my normal modus operandi; this is from Latin, meaning: established way of doing things. There was just something immediately endearing to me about Rat. I think I was already falling in love with him by then.

Eventually

Eventually, Naomi has to go home; she has to get back to work.

“She would really love to visit before she goes,” Jack pleads.

Eventually, Dex relents; they love her, too. Aside from the phone call with Stell, they have had blissfully no contact with the world. How Jack has managed to keep their mother away is something of a miracle. Dex is pretty sure they would jump out the window if she were to show up.

Does this room even have a window?

Naomi comes bearing gifts. First, a smoothie, which Dex accepts skeptically; they are as yet barely able to eat toast.

“Trust me,” she assures, and they take a sip then nod approvingly.

Next, a new smartphone and brand new phone number, complete with the number one screen reader app installed. “So you can start responding to texts again.” Dex was a bit of a luddite; they never graduated beyond a flip phone, which they have not touched since the shooting. Naomi spends some time showing them the apps, including one for audiobooks that isn't owned by a corporate mega-giant. She'd even managed to find a device with a headphone port, knowing they wouldn't want wireless earbuds.

She squeezes into the narrow hospital bed alongside Dex as she guides them through the menus and settings, physically moving their fingers to the right positions. Jack watches them for a while, wondering why he hasn't done that. Physical affection has never come naturally to him; he was young when his parents died, and grew up in foster homes where he was more likely to get hit than hugged. But now, he realizes, it's the only way to connect to Dex; he is going to have to learn.

Eventually, the conversation lags, and Naomi asks the dreaded question. “So, how are you?”

Dex sips at the smoothie, delaying. “Fine.”

“Mhm,” she nods, then turns towards Jack, “And you?”

Jack clears his throat. “I'm fine.” What does he have to complain about?

Naomi gives him an exasperated look. “Have you guys really not talked about this, at all?”

Jack shrugs. “Talked about what?” Dex asks, obtusely.

“Um,” she starts, incredulously; her voice gets higher and more flustered with each sentence. “Maybe about how you were about to give a speech about hope of all things when you were shot? How you were still able to hold your shit together long enough to stop a mass shooting, which is, like, superhero level shit?” Dex scoffs; they are tired of hearing that. “And as a reward you are blind and damaged and nothing is ever going to be the same for you or Jack?”

Silence.

“It's not fair. It's not fucking fair that this is happening to you. You shouldn't have to deal with all of this.” Dex’s face is blank, and Naomi feels her eyes burn for them with unwanted tears. All those days anxiously waiting to see them, but she was unprepared for the reality of their injuries.

“Gnome...” Jack starts, but his voice trails off; he doesn't know what to say.

“So, you guys are just, like, ‘fine’ with all this.”

More silence. Then, Dex: “I wish I had died.” A pause, then they continue. “Sometimes I think about jumping out the window, but I don't even know if there is a window. I thought about looking for roof access, but I probably wouldn't be able to get there, either.”

Jack starts hyperventilating.

Jack Woods Has A Panic Attack

As a general rule, he tries to avoid them; panic attacks are not desirable traits in emergency services. Jack is a rock; he has faced down fire tornadoes without flinching. Also, he is big, built to traverse rough backcountry terrain carrying a hundred pounds of equipment. He looks like a mountain man when he grows out his beard; so he can only imagine how foolish he looks, in the process of a panic attack. Until today, he could count on one hand how many times he'd had one, meaning he was familiar enough with them to recognize the symptoms in himself and others. The thrumming heartbeat, racing in his ears; rapid, uncontrolled breathing; the hollow shrinking in on himself; the surreal detached feeling, as though nothing around him is real.

“What is happening?” Dex asks, their voice sounding so far away. If Naomi answers Jack doesn't register it; somehow, she gets him up and out of the room, through the hospital corridors and somewhere quiet and empty. She makes him go through the counting and grounding exercises they've both used on patients and bystanders. She explains what happened to a nurse, who hurriedly retreats to check on Dex; if they are suicidal, they are in the best possible place for it.

“I'm sorry,” Jack says when he can finally talk again, “I'm so tired, Gnome.”

“Have you slept at all this week?”

He shakes his head, tears creeping out the corners of his closed eyes. “I keep waiting for something terrible to happen.”

“If I stay here with Dex tonight,” she offers again, “will you spend a night in the hotel?” Jack nods, offering no resistance, much to Naomi's relief.

. . .

The first time Naomi sat next to Dex in a hospital bed was over a decade ago; they were both still just kids. Dex had a different name and pronouns, then, and they had just been cut open to make room for the tiny, fragile lifeform that was baby Star.

They had only been her neighbor for a couple months but they were already close. The house next door was a rental, and Naomi was accustomed to new residents every year. Typically they were pregnant newlyweds or else families with way too many young children in diapers. Only once before was it someone roughly Naomi’s age: in preschool when she met Jack, freshly orphaned foster kid of the family next door. He had lived there for less than a year.

The new teenager next door was quiet, possibly surly, but also very obviously pregnant. “I'm from Texas,” they'd offered by way of explanation. Later, Naomi would meet Joanne, and it would all make a lot more sense; Dex’s mother was strict, religious, and overbearing, and she made it no secret how disappointed she was in her only child. According to Joanne, their pregnancy caused the dissolution of her own marriage; they'd had to flee the state in disgrace once Dex started showing. If only you had left the state a few months earlier, Naomi remembers thinking.

The first time Naomi visited a teenaged Dex in the hospital they'd fallen into the same hopeless, defeated silence they sit with now. Back then, though, they had just reached what they saw as the end of a shitty journey; this is only the beginning. Over time, Naomi had been able to help get Dex out from under their mother's thumb and grow into themselves, but that seemed easy compared to what they're facing now.

. . .

Dex sways slowly back and forth, face tense as they focus intently on something they are listening to on their phone. The movement is not something they are wholly conscious of, but perhaps it helps to center them. They grimace, then tap the screen again, and again, then they sigh, dropping the phone onto the bed and pulling out the earbud. “This is really hard,” they say into the ether.

Naomi’s voice: “Do you want help?”

Dex shakes their head, regretting the movement that is accompanied by a stab of pain, then vertigo and nausea. The smoothie from earlier had inspired them to try eating more than just toast for dinner; the result is a lot less pleasant when it comes back up. Naomi wordlessly places a plastic bin in Dex’s hands for them to puke into; when they're done, she takes it away, replacing it with a cup of water. Married to a paramedic, best friends with a nurse; how did they get so lucky? Their hands tremble as they sip the water; their entire body feels weak, grimy, coated in sweat. Their head hurts from trying to listen to emails.

“I fucking hate this,” they say.

Naomi considers them for a moment. “Dex,” she says, “you're the strongest person I know. I'm so sorry that has to be the case.”

Unloveables: 5

The basement of the library had something like a workshop for books, with hundreds of rolls of tape and thick, colorful paper in stacks. A cabinet was loaded with several dozen bottles of glue which, as long as they were still sealed, were usually still good, and offered a quick headrush if you tried to smell them.

. . .

Gluesniffer is an insult, isn't it.

. . .

I took Rat to the library, the basement, my sanctuary, because I was, somehow, the only one who ever ventured so far. Even without power, the temperature down there stayed manageable year-round. The workshop locked from the inside and offered a safe place to sleep.

It wasn't exactly a place I should have been giving away to strangers.

. . .

It was dark by the time we arrived, and he followed me quietly past the rows of books, creeping just in case someone was there, sleeping between the shelves. The basement sat behind a nondescript wooden door; nondescript because someone (me) knocked down the emergency exit sign overhead. Through that door is, indeed, an emergency exit; but also, a pitch-dark echoing stairway. Rat kept a hand on my shoulder as we stepped blindly down the concrete stairs, his casual touch warm and disconcerting.

. . .

No, my feelings about his touch were disconcerting. The feeling itself was...

. . .

Electric.

Ten Whole Hours of Sleep

Jack returns to the hospital the next morning not exactly rejuvenated, but at least well rested and showered, twice. He stops at the juice shop for a smoothie for Dex and, standing in line, recognizes it as a delaying tactic. His anxiety spikes when he returns to Dex’s ICU room and finds it empty and being cleaned out; only to be informed that the patient has been moved. His apprehension grows inexplicably in the elevator, threatening full on panic by the time he gets to their new room in a recovery ward. Dex’s face is solemn when he opens the door, but splits into a wide smile when Jack announces himself, and all the anxiety that built up about their short time apart flows out of him in a whoosh. Whatever Gnome had done, it clearly helped.

. . .

“That's the problem,” Naomi confides; Jack is walking her to her car while Dex is busy with doctors. “I didn't really do anything. We didn't talk about anything. We watched TV.” She cringes, then says, “Well, I watched, they listened.”

“Maybe that was all they needed?” he suggests optimistically.

“Maybe, but,” she shrugs, “you know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Mood changes don't just happen overnight like that.

Naomi promises to come get them, when Dex is finally discharged; she promises to check in on Estelle and Roger. “Take care of yourself, Jack,” she says; and then he is alone.

. . .

Dex is free from all needles and tubes and walking, with minimal assistance from a nurse, from the bathroom back to the bed when Jack returns to their room.

“Guess what,” they say, after he announces his return, “I get to pee by myself now.” Their confidence wavers, adding, “Ish.” Where was the bathroom again? Sitting on the edge of their bed, Dex has already lost themselves again.

“That's fantastic,” Jack's voice says, “You'll be out of here in no time.” Suddenly he is in front of Dex, gingerly wrapping his arms around them. They melt into the embrace, ignoring twinges from various injuries; ribs, back, head. A tension eases which Dex hadn't previously been aware of; they feel substantially freer without the IV and the catheters. This means their kidney is working again; this means they are healing. However far that can get them.

. . .

Dex feels rather less optimistic about their situation the next morning; after a previously unheard of full night's rest, they wake up with a yell, gunshots ringing through their head. They bolt upright, ribs screaming in protest, a wave of vertigo sending their stomach churning.

“Fuck,” they say. They heave, chin bumping a plastic bowl. Jack.

“Caught that one on time, at least,” he says mildly as they retch up bitter stomach acid. The ‘at least’ is in reference to the cooling puddle of urine soaking into Dex’s hospital gown and bedsheets.

“Fuck,” they say again. They stand by awkwardly as someone - a nurse, a janitor, someone random patient, who knows? - changes the sheets. They exchange their soaked hospital gown for a clean one, declining when Jack offers a pair of soft pajama pants to go under it; another gift from Naomi.

“I'll just piss in them, too,” they predict.

Dex desperately wants to shower, or bathe, or walk into a lake with rocks in their pockets, but they settle for a sponge bath under Jack’s gentle hands. The water, though warm, cools quickly, sparking goosebumps on their skin. He starts with their neck and back, then each arm; gently drying each part before moving on to the next. He keeps on hand on them at all times, so his touch is never a shock. There is a strange clinical intimacy to the sponge bath; Dex wishes they could see Jack’s facial expressions. Is he aroused as he quickly swipes the sponge between their legs? Or is Dex now just a body to him, as they now feel to themselves?

When Dex is relatively cleaner, Jack proceeds with lotion, starting with their feet and working his way up, massaging muscles that feel permanently atrophied after a week in bed. When he is finished, he cups Dex’s face in one hand and kisses them. His lips are a surprise, but not unwanted; the kiss is sweet and tender, and it reminds them of their first.

“I've been dying to do that,” Jack confesses, pulling away, “I just didn't know how.” How do you kiss someone who almost died, who can't ever see you coming? The rhythms they had gotten into over the years with non-verbal communication - brief glances, quick smiles, lingering gazes, smirks and pouts and grins - all mean nothing now.

Dex reaches up to find their husband’s face; one hand on each side, they take in the textures with a new perspective. Tender flesh, bumps and lines and pits and wrinkles; scruffy, scratchy facial hair; soft, full lips. Bones still intact; two whole and functional eyes; generally unscarred. Just a thin line over his eyebrow, from passing out in the bathroom. That was just before Jack broke Dex’s heart, the first time around.

Does Dex have it in them to break his heart now? They kiss him again; harder, this time.

Jack and Dex’s First Kiss

Jack did not intend to fall in love with Dex in high school. They were just meant to go hiking together. Jack liked the outdoors and exercise, and Dex liked birds, and insects, and leaves and flowers and bark and whatever else caught their eye. That Jack's pace had to slow down substantially, often grinding to a halt when they found something interesting, seemed to matter less and less as that first summer went on. He liked watching Dex make discoveries. They took some of the most amazing photographs, and he was always learning something new. They were a walking encyclopedia, already prepared with facts about whatever they've found. He was even starting to find their freckles endearing.

There were dozens of hiking trails scattered around their rural town, and hundreds or more if they crossed into the mountains. Jack would pick them up in the morning, not from their house but from a gas station nearby, which was weird because he knew exactly where they lived, had even lived there before, but he didn't ask, at least not at first. Longer drives meant more interesting hikes, and eventually the conversations fell to personal things; mostly Jack’s personal things.

Dex did not intend to fall in love with anyone, ever, in high school or beyond; not after their disastrous first attempt. Jack in particular was already large and intimidating, though Naomi assured them he was a teddy bear. She was right; Jack's intrinsic gentleness and kind heart revealed itself in the way he spoke as he drove them back and forth from deadbeat town to natural paradise. Even when the topics fell to tragedy, which they so often did for him - dead parents, abusive foster siblings, bullies and bigots at school - he always tried to find the good in things.

Then, he met Star and didn't recoil. He corrected Dex's own mom when she misgendered them. He carried a stranger's dog down a mountain after it broke its leg chasing deer. He sat on a log and waited patiently for way too long while Dex tracked down a bird they could hear but could not find. He asked for permission before kissing them; standing on a boulder overlooking a narrow waterfall, surrounded by pine and aspen trees, serenaded by the love songs of colorful birds.

. . .

Dex wonders if they will ever go on a hike again.

Unloveables: 6

This is the timeline of my life, post car accident.

I had a concussion that still causes migraines to this day. I was in a hospital for three months, but only because the lone pediatric doctor didn't want me lost to the system. Things were getting worse and worse around the globe.

I lived in half a dozen different foster homes over the next five years. None of these were “official” arrangements, but at the good ones I could choose to work to earn my keep. I ran away for good when I was nine. I lived in an abandoned nursing home for a while. The schools were long abandoned, so I found a classroom to call my second home. I learned to read. I spent some time in jail when I was eleven, and again when I was fourteen. Then the county jail shut down.

I found the library. I discovered dumpster diving. I became a creature of the night, of loneliness, of cramped, dark places.

I survived.

. . .

My point is, I was a loner. I had long accepted that I was meant to be alone. There is safety in loneliness. There is even comfort.

. . .

In the basement workshop, I lit a candle, and its flame cast flickering shadows around the suddenly cramped and cluttered room. Rat gazed over the stacks of books I'd collected as I cleared off the paper guillotine. I had learned how to repair books a few months ago, practicing on some worn paperbacks from upstairs, and never even bothered cleaning up the thin slivers of paper left behind.

“How do you know how to do this?” he asked. He seemed suddenly reluctant to hand over any of his books, now that we were surrounded by hundreds of replacements. I handed over the guide I followed; it was a librarian’s manual, printed on inkjet, plastic laminated and decaying spiral binding.

Rat glanced over the manual as I carefully lined up the pages of his first book, Edible Plants of the Rockies, and sliced the jagged, gluey edges cleanly off. I decided I was going to rebind the books entirely, meaning I would have to resew the registers before gluing them.

“I'm going to need to make new covers,” I explained, “Pick out your colors.” I showed him the cabinet full of end papers, which were admittedly hard to tell apart in the flickering candlelight.

. . .

Rat’s favorite colors: purple and green. His favorite food: something his book calls ‘Hooker’s onion.’ His favorite animal: bumblebees, which he claims still exist.

. . .

He continued exploring the small space as I sewed the pages together with strong, waxed thread. He read the title and back of the books I'd left stacked around. He crouched down and stared at my nest of blankets underneath the workbench. He opened cabinet doors and drawers and fiddled with the tap, which had gone long dry.

Finally, Rat sat down on the floor a few feet from where I perched on a stool, squinting in the dim circle of candlelight. He leaned against the cabinets. “You have remarkably few personal possessions,” he said.

“Things get lost easy.”

“I thought maybe I would find something with your name on it.”

“Nope.”

“Well, is there something else I can call you? I was not always named Rat, you know.”

. . .

I did not know that.

. . .

“I dunno. I never really thought about it.” I wanted to change the topic. I wanted to ask him where he was from, or who he was before he was Rat. Why he came here, of all places. Instead, I explained, “I don't sleep here every night. I switch things up.” I do it so people are less likely to notice me. I have no idea if that's how it actually works, but, like, no one has noticed me, so.

“Nemo,” Rat said suddenly. “Can I call you Nemo?”

“You mean like the fish?”

“Like the submarine captain,” he corrected, “It means nobody in Latin.”

“I know that.”

. . .

Rat is the only person I know who has read as much as I have, but, then again, I don't know many people. I mostly know books.

. . .

“The thing is,” I had to explain, because Rat’s readings did not extend into anything in this millennium, “there's this cartoon fish.” A round, bubbly orange and white striped thing. I think I saw the movie when I was in the hospital.

“In Greek it would be Outis.”

“No.”

“Nessuno in Italian.”

. . .

Rat was looking kind of faded by the time I had finished stitching, gluing, and clamping the first book together. It wasn't particularly late by my standards, but his eyes were sort of glazed and he'd given up on trying to read by the candlelight.

“I should go,” he said finally. In his weariness, his voice was less artificially deep, higher pitched but husky. “Am I going to have to leave that with you?”

“It needs to dry,” I said. “But, uhm,” I hesitated, because I didn't want him to leave. “You could stay here, if you want.”

Rat gazed at me evenly. “I do not think that would be wise.”

“No, really, the door locks and everything. I can sleep in a closet down the hall.”

“Are you sure?”

. . .

And that's how I ended up giving away my favorite sleeping spot to a complete stranger.

. . .

No regrets.

The Old House

Naomi stops at Jack and Dex’s place after work to check on Roger as promised. It is somewhat late, after dark, and a handful of lights are on inside the house. A shadow moves across a window; it is only Star, she is relieved to discover upon confrontation.

“Does your mom know you're here?”

“I'm feeding the cat,” Estelle says, answering a different question. “I'm supposed to be here.”

“After dark?” Naomi asks skeptically. She shrugs. “What about your mom?”

Estelle shrugs again. “She's drunk.”

Joanne's one saving grace: she is usually too drunk to do much damage to her children, or exert any control whatsoever. Naomi hasn't lived next door to them in several years, but it seems things have not changed much. “What are you really doing here?”

Estelle looks around uncertainly. “I'm trying to make it so Dex can live here.” Naomi’s face softens, so she continues, more boldly. “Like, that table, right?” she points towards a low, heavy coffee table that has been pushed away from the couches, into the corner of the room. “I've jammed my shin on the corner of that thing loads of times, and I could see it.” She falters, the sadness in her expression betraying her age. “Do you think they'll be mad?”

“Of course not,” Naomi says, “I think that's really thoughtful of you. Just, maybe don't be going through their things?” The window she'd seen the girl in was not a frequently used one, she's pretty sure. Also, if she knows her friends (which she does, unfortunately) they've probably got a drawer full of kinky sex toys somewhere.

“I was just looking for Roger!” Estelle protests. If she happened to stumble across something, some insight into Dex or herself, then all the better (she thinks). So far, she had only found a yearbook from the year Dex graduated. It wasn't terribly helpful; doing the math, she realized she was almost three by then. The implication, and Dex’s young, solemn photo, makes her stomach twist. She couldn't tell if the book belonged to Dex or Jack, since there were no signatures or notes at all. Jack, she learned, was class valedictorian; Dex’s senior quote came from Star Trek: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life.”

Naomi insists on driving Estelle home; her bike sits awkwardly half-out the open trunk, and she drives slowly through dark, familiar roads.

“Dex won't be able to ride their bike anymore,” the girl remarks, feigning casual. She looks for a reaction, but Naomi’s face is impassive. “My mom is still pretending nothing happened. Dex missed Sunday dinner and she didn't even say anything.”

“Does she know you know?” Estelle shakes her head. “How did you find out?”

“Internet.”

Naomi grimaces; she pulls her eyes away from the road just long enough to look at the young girl. “I really hope you didn't watch the videos.” She shakes her head again, and Naomi breathes a sigh of relief.

The car stops in front of Naomi’s old house, not Estelle’s; old habits are hard to break. Her parents still live there, though Naomi doesn't visit the neighborhood nearly as often as Dex still does. The lights are on, meaning they are still up, and Estelle seems wary of going home, so Naomi invites her in for the inevitable fresh baked goods her dad would have made that afternoon. It is important, she thinks, to see what a normal, loving family can look like; and also recognize them as a resource in case of an emergency.

Naomi taps on the MacGregors’ door then opens it herself, calling in, “It's just me!” Her parents are sitting in their respective recliners in front of the TV, as they had every night for as long as Naomi can remember. Her mom, Ruth, is reading something on a tablet while her dad, Jeff, crochets with pale green yarn. They greet their unexpected guests with matching wide smiles. Taking the intrusion in stride, Ruth gets up to prepare a glass of milk and plate of cookies for the girl. The three sit at the kitchen counter, Estelle mumbling answers to her neighbor's questions about school and home without really telling her anything.

As they are leaving, Ruth hugs her daughter, then offers a hug to Estelle, who declines. “You let me know if you need anything, okay dear?” she says, as she does every time they meet, and the little girl nods obediently.

Estelle cuts across the grass to her own house, watching from the doorstep as Naomi climbs into her car and sits there; she is waiting for her to go inside. She doesn't need to be sneaky, but she is quiet as she tiptoes through the lonely house, past Dex’s old room - nothing useful in there, she's checked, hundreds of times - and into her own. It is late, and her mother is still passed out in her room. She will never even know Estelle was gone.

Homecoming

Naomi returns to the city to pick up a solemn Jack and a grim-faced Dex from the hospital that had been their prison for too long. Dex has been declared healthy enough for discharge, which really only means they can't do anything more for them. They are still blind, still operating on a single kidney, still stuck wearing a diaper if they plan on being more than a few seconds away from a toilet; they can no longer feel their bladder until it is too late.

“It’s a process,” someone had said, “be grateful you don't have to relearn how to talk, or eat.” Dex is tired of people talking about how it could be worse. There are a lot of ways it could have gone worse that they would be perfectly fine with, because they would be dead, or at the very least braindead and therefore unaware of all the shit going on around them. And the doctor, or whatever, was wrong; Dex does have to relearn how to eat, and walk, and read, and shower and get dressed and put on their shoes all without seeing, and with a fraction of the energy and willpower left in them. Dr. Dex Woods, who glided through university and graduate school without breaking a sweat, has been reduced to roughly the capacity of a toddler.

Jack guides them from gravel driveway to wooden porch steps, which Dex has climbed thousands of times yet still has to count now: one, two, three, they stumble, four, five. They knew that; they had helped rebuild the staircase. They try to picture the house before them; mental images are so exhausting now, and quick to spark headaches. In their mind, it is as run-down as the first time Jack took them here, during spring break of their junior year. If it had been any other boy (their ex being their only example to draw this conclusion from), Dex would have assumed he was taking them there to have sex; but despite having been dating for nearly six months by then, Jack had shown no hint of wanting to move beyond third base. The first (and only) time they tried, he'd even had a panic attack. This was rather distressing to Dex, who did want to have sex but did not know how to bring it up. They were also convinced (for good reason) that it was due to their lack of penis, which was already a pretty rough source of dysphoria for them. As it turned out, it was actually Jack’s body image issues that were holding him back; he would break up with them only a few weeks later.

Although Jack technically owned the house, he was a ward of the state until he turned 18, so no one had lived in it for years except for a few nights here and there, when Jack needed to get away from a foster family. It was clearly too big a house for a family of three; Jack had once explained, grimly, his theory that he was meant to be the oldest of half a dozen or more little Woodses before his young parents' dreams were cut short by a drunk driver. He showed Dex his old room: cartoon fish on a tiny toddler bed, matching blue curtains and rug, neatly organized bins of unloved toys that he eventually would give to Star. He showed them another room, next door: a nursery, pink and green and butterfly themed. Diapers, stacked and waiting. Newborn clothes, never worn. The sight made Dex’s eyes burn with tears which they'd tried to pass off as allergies. Thick layers of dust coated every surface, rooms untouched by human hands for over a decade. It was isolated enough to avoid being robbed or looted by anything but nature, which had made an effort: a tree branch had broken through the roof over an office room, and Jack had hastily covered the hole with tarp that flapped uselessly in the wind. Birds made nests in the rafters of that room, and, by the look of things, other animals too.

Dex had loved the place immediately; they never wanted to leave. “Why don't you just live here now?” they'd asked. “You could grow your own food and everything!” There was a huge, overgrown garden with herbs that had become weeds with their proliferation. Apple trees, peach trees, berry bushes, not yet budding in the early spring. The nearest neighbor was almost a mile away, hidden beyond low hills of tall grass and wildflowers; yet the town was only a short distance beyond that, making it accessible by bike.

Jack had felt ambivalent about the place, was considering selling it as soon as he was eighteen; if they hadn't gotten back together at graduation, he probably would have. Instead, he spent the better part of the summer after senior year fixing up the place, with Dex’s help. They would ride their bike up at sunrise, arriving to still a silent house, Jack asleep in the bedroom he had carved out for himself. Some mornings they would slip into the old, collapsing bed with him; listen to his breathing and doze while he slept in from a late night. Others, they would retreat to the kitchen and make breakfast on an old, janky electric stove, before Jack could afford to get it replaced. Pancakes, french toast, cinnamon rolls, berries picked fresh from outside; Dex loved to cook, but they were also a vegetarian with a limited palate.

For a few hours they would work in the garden or assist Jack while he repaired the roof and porch, but they would have to be back by lunch, to babysit Estelle while their mom worked at the same grocery store where Jack worked nights as a stocker. He would drive them back to town, Dex’s bike in the back of the ancient, gas guzzling truck left behind by his dad, then head over to the city pool where he also worked afternoons as a lifeguard.

Dex wasn't allowed to work, for reasons Joanne was never quite able to articulate; Jack's running theory was she wanted to keep them dependent on her forever. No wonder she hated him so much.

. . .

The house they live in now would be unrecognizable to the naive young teenagers of the past, given all the renovations they have made over the years. It is also unrecognizable to an older, much more weathered Dex, who has to relearn the place they had once fallen in love with. The house feels too vast, the rooms too cavernous to rediscover by touch and feel, the gardens outside completely out of reach.

“Star and Gnome moved some stuff around to make it easier on you,” Jack explains as they stand alone, swaying, a few feet away from where they expect to find a couch; but their shins haven't hit the coffee table yet, disorienting them. “Nothing major, but, like, the coffee table. Roger’s bowls.” Mostly, they had cleared out all the junk that had accumulated throughout the halls; the flotsam and jetsam of married life. Removed the tools dropped carelessly near the back door and reorganized the various work boots and tennis shoes that were spilling out of the closet. Replaced the expired food from the fridge and washed the cereal bowl that Jack had left on the table, so many centuries ago.

. . .

The first morning home, Jack wakes up to the sound of yowling; a scream; a crash; moaning. He darts out of the room to find Dex crouched in the hallway, leaning against the wall, cradling their head in their hands. Jack crouches next to them, rubbing their back and trying to subtly assess them for injuries: three scratches, not terribly deep but long, across the top of one foot.

“I stepped on Roger,” they explain, feeling pathetic.

Jack tries to suppress a laugh, fails. Dex frowns; they do not know what is funny. “I'm sure he's fine,” he says, “He needs to learn not to be underfoot all the time.” He walks them to the bathroom, where they sit quietly on the counter as he cleans the scratches. He does not acknowledge the wet stain soaking through their pants, for which Dex is grateful.

Adjustments

Over time, Dex will carve out a circuitous path from the living room, where they sleep in fitful spurts on their recliner; to the kitchen; to the nearest bathroom, which is generally close enough, but they develop a habit of getting up to piss every forty-five minutes or so, day and night, regardless. They refuse to sleep in their bedroom, the bed they should share with Jack; a development that manifests unspoken between them. In Dex’s defense, they pretty much permanently feel like shit. They have a migraine more often than not; they can't walk more than a circle around the invisible garden without getting winded; the growing heat of late spring leaves them puking in the grass.

Jack tries to help Dex adjust to this new life, but eventually he has to go back to work. The towering dread of impending financial ruin - Dex’s post-doc fellowship on hold and financial bills piling up - sits like a permanent weight on his chest. The fear of something happening to Dex while he is gone threatens to tip him over the edge, but they firmly refuse suggestions of inviting Naomi over, or even Star, who could at least call 911 if Dex had another seizure.

“I don't need a babysitter,” they grumble irritably. These conversations always seem to happen when they are trying to listen to something on their phone or laptop, which they are slowly growing more proficient with; screen readers, voice-to-text, touch typing. The effort is exhausting, and by the time they have managed to spit out an important email Dex has to massage their clenched jaw to relax it.

They do, after some argument, assent to Naomi bringing Estelle over once a week, on Jack’s day off, having little weight to demand otherwise; Naomi spends the time helping Jack with meal preparation for the week, because Dex is useless and can't otherwise feed themselves.

Unloveables: 7

I don't normally sleep at night, at least not in the summers, but I had actually been up for over 24 hours by that point; I was supposed to have napped at the oasis. So I fell asleep in the closet down the hall, and I stayed asleep through Rat’s quiet escape out of the basement in the morning. I woke up and the workshop closet was unlocked and empty. I thought maybe I'd never see Rat again, but then I noticed he left behind the other two books, still in need of repair.

I went up the stairs and out the emergency exit to take a piss, because there's no running water in the library. I left my shoe in the doorway, because otherwise you're locked out; the outer door doesn't even have a doorknob. It was already too hot outside, and my bare foot burned against the pavement. I walked over to water a cluster of bushes that leaned against the brick wall, and when I turned back around, Rat was there at the door. He was trying to look casual, but his face was red, sweaty from the heat.

“Thanks,” he said, grinning, “I locked myself out.” He pulled the heavy door open and held it open for me; it fell shut behind us, trapping the sunlight outside. We stood there in the hollow space for a moment, listening to the quiet.

“Do you happen to have any food in this library?” he asked quietly, whisper echoing in the darkness. “I can trade,” he added quickly, voice suddenly deeper.

“Sure,” I said, although I already had no intention of taking anything of his. “Do you need help getting back downstairs?”

“I can manage,” Rat said quietly, but after bumping into me on the first flight he kept his hand on my arm for the rest of them.

. . .

I keep a small stash of food everywhere I go, close to but not exactly where I sleep. It's mostly junk: potato chips, cookies, crackers, pretzels. The Store throws it out after its best by date, but it doesn't go bad; or, at least, I've never gotten sick from it. There are no ingredients anywhere on the generic, black text on white packaging.

. . .

It's probably people.

. . .

I didn't always have a lot, but this was not one of those times. Actually, I had gotten into a sort of routine, a rather successful one, which I viewed as more of a rut. I was terrified something was going to slip, and my little house of cards would come crashing down.

Precarious is another old SAT word, meaning: not secure; dependent on chance; uncertain. Uncertainty was pretty much the foundation of my life, but, I would learn, a relatively new state of existence for Rat.

. . .

“This food is revolting,” Rat said cheerfully, “How do you live on this?”

I shrugged. “It's what I have.”

“Have you ever eaten a real vegetable?” he asked.

“The things that come in cans?” I asked. I was only kind of joking, and Rat groaned. “There are some families that live on farms outside of town,” I explained, “They grow everything they need. When they have extra, they set up in the parking lot outside the old mall.”

. . .

The old mall, closed for decades, holds the location of another of my sleeping spots. To get there, you have to climb into the ceiling from the backroom of an old clothing shop. It is only usable during the spring and fall, when the winds violently beat against the metal paneling, reduced to a cooling breeze in the liminal space within.

. . .

“That is what my family was like,” Rat said, “We had chickens and a huge garden.”

Last year one of the nicer families was uncertain if they would be able to continue. The heat was destroying entire crops, and their irrigation was failing because all the water was being sucked down to the south. I asked Rat, “Were your harvests also getting smaller and smaller every year?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you left?”

“No.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

He didn't answer, not then. He said, “I miss vegetables. I can forage, but the edible plants that grow wild are not the same. They are tiny, so I am always hungry.”

“For what it's worth, I'm always hungry too,” I said, “I think this shit is mostly plastic.” We were sitting around a candle eating chips and canned bean dip for breakfast. It's kind of like a vegetable, right? They were stolen out of a downed drone, and when no one in town could buy them in time, they were tossed into a dumpster behind The Store.

. . .

Dumpster diving is strictly forbidden, not that there's anyone to enforce laws anymore, aside from a handful of uniformed thugs who call themselves cops. The police station has pretty much been destroyed.

The problem is, waste removal was all automated, and there was only a narrow window that it was possible to grab the goods before an AI waste removal drone came to carry it all away, to the factory where it will be recycled and reassembled into new stuff.

If you are caught unawares, the drones are merciless; they will carry you along with the trash.

. . .

It takes a certain digestive system to handle the ultra-processed reconstituted nightmare that churns out of the factories. Let's just say it takes some getting used to.

Also, while there are plenty of toilets in the library, there is no running water.

“So you've got two options,” I explained to a very uncomfortable looking Rat, “Well, three, if you consider going outside in hundred and ten degree weather an option.” He groaned, and I continued, “You can use one of the toilets upstairs, assuming you find one in a cleanish state, but it'll just sit there until we can fill up this bucket, maybe sometime this evening.”

“Or?”

“You can shit in the bucket,” I continued, “Line it with a trash bag and toss it out.”

“Fuck.” It was the first time I’d ever heard Rat cuss, and compared to his usual method of speech it was jarring.

. . .

Look, I'm sorry for devolving this whole chapter into something about poop. It's just, it turns out it works the other way, too, so Rat ultimately got his revenge. Eating real food after living off junk my entire life was almost as bad as getting food poisoning. But, like, the body adapts. We evolved on this planet, after all.

Just Some of the Things for Which Dex is Now Utterly Dependent on Jack

There are resources - support groups, therapists of all sorts, workshops and classes - available to recently blind adults; though nothing locally, not that it matters. Even when Jack offers to drive them to the city for vocational rehab every week, Dex refuses. They prefer to scramble and squabble and flail and sulk.

While there are a great many things Dex now feels unavoidably dependent on Jack for, the most pressing include:

1. Food: Dex, once a fairly proficient cook and actually pretty decent baker, cannot navigate a kitchen blind and has no desire to learn how. Oh yes, plenty of blind people learn how to cook for themselves; oh, look, a famous blind chef. Dex doesn't care. They burn themselves with food from the microwave. Between their newfound indifference towards food and the ever looming specter of Jack’s eating disorder, they would both probably starve to death if not for Naomi’s intervention.

2. Medicine: Dex takes a number of pills every day, which are paid for only in part by the meager insurance offered by the hospital that employs Jack. There are pills for their kidney and pills for their headaches and pills for their nausea and pills to prevent seizures, which only mostly work. The pharmacist helpfully labeled each bottle with textured bumps, explaining what each meant to Dex; information which leaked out their ears as soon as they heard it. Jack sorts the pills into little containers and usually watches over them as they swallow them down anyway. The dark voice inside him is relieved that he is given this responsibility; he worries Dex will try to choke them all down at once, one day.

3. Grocery shopping, or; Leaving the house in general: Self-explanatory; but Dex doesn't want to leave the house anymore anyway. Jack expects to come home one day to find Dex sprawled at the bottom of the porch stairs, head cracked open and oozing grey matter onto one of the oversized landscape rocks that line the path.

4. Security: Yet they refuse to accept it. They take their sleep on the recliner in short doses, waking up alone in a shock of panic; heart racing, gasping breaths.

Well. When they got mugged, it was Dex who lamented their futility, but Jack had done nothing as well. It was Dex who went out and bought the gun. It was Dex who killed someone with it.

Things Jack Has Lost

All sense of control: Anxiety and paramedics do not mix, so he tries to set his worries aside; he pictures a thick black line painted into the dirt road that leads away from the house. As soon as he has crossed it on his way into town, he is not allowed to worry about Dex. The line exists for incoming traffic, too; although there was a time when he could talk about the shittier aspects of his job with them, he realizes doing so now would be a mistake. Even in a small town like theirs, the calls for paramedics are rarely pleasant. Overdoses, domestic violence, car crashes. Seizures. Jack’s negative lensing of the world, he realizes, is not all that dissimilar from Dr. Doom's, and now he has to keep that side of him away from Dex. The compartmentalization does not work particularly well, and at all times Jack feels like he is drowning. His stomach is forever churning; much like Dex, he constantly feels on the verge of throwing up. If he were to do so, he would be relapsing. Knowing this only makes him feel worse.

According to the various therapists Jack was made to talk to during his weeks at eating disorder summer camp, restricting and purging are as much about control as they are about body image issues. Jack certainly had issues with his body image; he was already six feet tall upon entering high school, and built proportionately to match. He hated towering over his classmates, taking up space in his foster homes, eating the food that they only ever offered begrudgingly. He had no problem skipping meals with the disconnected belief that perhaps it would stop his incessant growth. It was only together that Gnome and Dex had noticed the seemingly random habit was actually a pattern. So he started purging instead.

Teenaged Jack felt a sort of bittersweet pleasure in making himself puke after meals, but he recognized it was a vile habit. He brushed his teeth and chewed gum almost constantly, but still could barely bring himself to let Dex touch him, or to touch them in any way that betrayed his excessive bulk. He had gotten over his initial hang-up over their genitals, had even managed to watch enough of the right porn to fairly confidently attempt oral; but when they tried to go further, he would freeze up, chest tight. He could picture crushing them, choking them, holding them down with his own weight.

His fear of hurting Dex was one of the reasons contributing to Jack’s decision to break up with them, after it became clear he had a problem out of control. What happened was: he'd puked up blood and, in his shock, stood up too quickly. Black spots swam in his vision and the next thing he knew, he was crumpled on the dirty floor of the bathroom he shared with three others; two bio-kids and another foster kid. He would have to clean up the pool of blood or he'd be in trouble. This family, his last, wasn't terrible, but also wasn't great, as evidenced by the conversation he had with Stephanie, the mother, after stumbling out of the bathroom, scarlet soaking through the toilet paper pressed to his bleeding forehead.

Jack: “I need to go to the ER.”

Stephanie: “Charlie's not here.” She was referring to her husband, who was a mechanic.

Jack: “I think I need stitches.”

Stephanie: “Well I ain't takin’ ya.”

He'd ended up calling Naomi, whose silent judgment as she drove him to the urgent care and waited with him for a PA to stitch up the cut on his forehead, was enough to prompt him to call his social worker and ask for help. A week later, Jack was single and stuck at a clinic that was the worst combination of resort and juvenile detention center. He was twenty pounds underweight, despite all his convictions of being a lumbering hulk, and had ulcers in his esophagus. If he had kept going, his stomach acid could have eaten through the tissue entirely, and he would have died choking on his own blood, which is, like, the opposite of control.

. . .

Jack likes to think he has grown beyond the need to worry about his eating disorder, but here he is. He feels an enormous responsibility for keeping Dex alive, with the additional pressure of knowing they are not particularly interested in keeping up with that responsibility themselves. Most of their time is spent staring blankly at the ceiling; sometimes they will listen to an audiobook or the television, the latter with the volume turned up loud enough to disturb the birds outside; or, for an hour or so a day before it gets too tiring, Dex will type away at their laptop. All they will tell Jack is they are writing a book.

What Joanne Lost

Joanne lost her daughter, but this was years and years ago, and the reason for which is made evident by the fact that she still thinks of Dex as her daughter. She lost her so many times; first to that boy back home in Texas, a college kid with sparkling blue eyes and predatory charisma; then the harlot next door; then to the fag she met at school. There was a reason Joanne had insisted she go to private school, before. A reason she tried so hard to homeschool her.

Joanne lost her husband, who had wanted to take Dex out of state for a dreadful abortion. She lost her job at the salon and all her friends who silently judged her (she could see it in their eyes) and gossiped about her and her pregnant daughter. She lost all respectability; “a grandma, at your age?!”

Eventually, it was Joanne who took Dex out of state, but only when she knew it would be too late for intervention no matter how liberal the place they ended up was. She'd made it seem like Dex had wanted it; had wanted to start a new life with the baby she had suddenly grown overwhelmingly attached to. She told her daughter that Allen was absolutely disgusted by her; he couldn't bear to look at her. It was the only way to keep them from conspiring together to have the thing killed or adopted before they'd even cut the cord. Aside from a barely modest alimony, she has not heard from her ex-husband in eleven years.

Now she is losing her granddaughter, over whom Joanne has also lost the will to exert any effort or control. Estelle is a wild, bitter thing; like Dex, she spends too much time outside and not nearly enough time in church. She talks back, spits insults, and runs crying to Dex and Jack the minute she is threatened with anything resembling discipline.

Joanne tries to find it in herself to care about what happened to Dex, but concern is not forthcoming. The man who did it was misguided, sure, but she agrees with some of the things he is reported to have said. Homosexuality is absolutely a sin; she has always consoled herself that her daughter’s marriage is technically heterosexual, no matter what Dex wants to pretend she is. Perhaps that is also enough under the eyes of God. Also, if there is to be an apocalypse, it will be the one described in Revelations; it will most certainly not be man-made. Dex’s own father works in the oil fields; she has directly benefited from “Big Oil” for most of her life. The number of times she would come begging for money while getting brainwashed in college, and now she's out there calling for his job to be cut.

On top of everything else, she killed a man; now her daughter is a murderer. And she calls Joanne a hypocrite.

Joanne does not say any of this out loud; she doesn't say much of anything during the rare phone call with Dex. Jack is always hovering nearby. She bites back her words and drinks until her thoughts are buried deep beneath a warm, cozy blanket.

Unloveables: 8

The library is generally abandoned, but it's also public, so I wandered around upstairs to make sure no one interfered while Rat was incapacitated. That's where I stumbled upon the body. It wasn't my first body, but it was the first one I'd run into indoors, and I knew the Vans wouldn't be able to get to it in here, and what do you do with a body, anyway?

The weird thing was, I knew who she was, at least as an acquaintance. Her name was Sara and she was a few years older than me, a prostitute, and generally pretty nice, for a junkie. Most of them are, as long as they're not withdrawing or overdosing.

Sara’s body didn't seem to have anything worth taking, except maybe the reasonably decent condition combat boots she was wearing. I eyed them wearily; I wondered what size shoe Rat wore. Rat’s shoes were fucked. The soles had worn through at spots during his travels.

. . .

“Eighty-two miles, give or take.” That's how far Rat walked before reaching my town.

“But why here?” I asked.

“I had to get away,” he explained vaguely.

“Sure, but, like, why here?” I asked again.

“Would you believe me if I said this town is bustling compared to where I'm from?”

. . .

The thing is, if Rat walked 82 miles, that means he's from Dinosaur, on the border of Colorado and Utah. That anyone was still there at all was kind of surprising.

“There are no actual dinosaurs,” he said. Psssh.

. . .

I took the boots off and dragged the body outside the library. The front door was locked but the glass paneling all around it was shattered, and some of it stuck to the skin, digging in as I dragged it over the pavement to the street, where a Van could pick it up.

It was not my proudest moment.

. . .

Later that evening we would go down to the creek where we first met. The water had all dried up but plants were still growing around the bed, buzzing with mosquitoes that did not fuck around. Rat’s new boots were a little big so he wore two pairs of socks to pad the space, which must have been uncomfortably hot. It was still warm, but the air was dry, so the night would cool fast. We picked some tart blackberries, the thorny bushes stabbing at my hands, and Rat explained that the plants were actually invasive around here.

“You mean there are plants that should be here, and ones that should not?” I asked.

“Technically. They outcompete the native plants and reduce biodiversity.”

“But they're edible? Not poisonous?”

“That is correct,” he assured me.

. . .

Uh huh. Just don't eat too much.

. . .

It didn't exactly sit right with me that there were plants that didn't belong. I guess because it felt like we didn't belong either. We built coal mines and factories and aqueducts that dried up entire creek beds and dragged everything down with us. I guess that's the point; we brought blackberries to the landscape, too.

. . .

With the blackberries we pulled up some sort of thick-rooted plant with yellow flowers and leaves that smelled spicy, which Rat called biscuitroot. It was kind of like a tiny carrot.

“You have to be careful with things that look like wild carrots and potatoes. The wrong ones will kill you,” he explained cheerfully.

We picked the Hooker’s onion, Rat’s favorite flower, which was like a tiny onion with magenta flowers. He showed me death camas, with the order not to touch it.

“No way,” I said, “the plant called ‘death camas’ is dangerous?”

Rat nodded sagely.

“How long have you been doing this?” I asked.

“Officially, only a few weeks,” he answered, “but I have been learning about it my entire life.”

“What if you get it wrong?”

“Then I die.”

. . .

Of course I had to tell Rat where the boots came from. He took the information casually, accepting the boots gratefully, and it made me realize I still had no idea how old he was.

“And I still have no idea what your name is,” he responded when I asked.

His cavalier attitude towards death told me he was at least as ennumbed to the nasty, brutish, and short nature of life as I was. How he got there, though, he was not keen on telling.

. . .

Here is how I got there: the second time I went to jail, it was for killing someone. I stabbed a man twice my size, because I was still tiny then, in the stomach. I watched him bleed out on the pavement. It was all caught on camera, because cameras were still a thing even just a couple years ago. In my defense, I was defending myself.

. . .

“Did he deserve it?” was all Rat asked when I confessed the crime to him.

“I don't know,” I admitted, “I probably could have fought him off and run away. But, like, it's a small town.”

. . .

I was only locked up at the local police station, and I was only there for a couple weeks. Then, inexplicably, no one came in for three days straight. I was left alone in my cell with no food. On the second day, the power went out, but at least the water was running. I legitimately thought I was going to die.

Then the station was looted, and one of the looters was the cop who arrested me, and she let me out.

I got lucky.

. . .

In addition to the plants, Rat collected a jar full of fat grasshoppers, which he needed to build a fire to cook. He had a folding camp stove set, and he quickly got to work building a small fire right there in the middle of the creek bed.

“Ugh,” I said, watching him roast the insects alongside the biscuitroot and onions, “I don't think I'm going to eat those.”

“Suit yourself,” he responded indifferently as he poked them around the pan. “I wish I had butter,” he added.

The thing is, with the onion, it actually smelled kind of good. It takes a lot of getting used to eating insects, especially with their prickly little legs getting stuck in your throat, but, like I said, the body adapts.

The First Bill Arrives

It is just for the ambulance service, and the amount due at the top right makes Jack's heart race. One would think a paramedic would get better insurance, he muses. More bills will pile up; soon Jack will be buried in them. Drowning in them. He starts a stack in the drawer of a disused desk in a room that is never opened. If things get bad enough, he can use them to heat the house; the bills and the desk.

Dex is Learning How to be Blind

The first thing that really hit them was, Dex realized they could tell when Jack was masturbating in the shower. The shower would turn on for barely long enough to warm up; then off, only for a few minutes; then back on again for a longer stretch. Dex can hear the water creaking through the ancient pipes in the walls; if they happen to be standing near the door at the right time, they can hear him grunt softly when he finishes, which makes them blush from the invasion of privacy. Once upon a time the sound would have excited them, but now they're pretty sure their sex drive is as broken as the rest of them. Once upon a time masturbating was never necessary; the two had sex nearly every day. They had sex mere hours before Dex was shot and nearly died (no, did die - they'd had to restart Dex’s heart) with Jack’s cum still leaking out from between their legs.

So, you see the problem. Because Dex can't. Ha.

When Dex tries to bring up a mental image of Jack, tries to remember what attracted them to him for so long, different versions come up. There's Jack the teenager: early on he was confident, smug, flirtatious. Then, through the lense of heartbreak: so passive, so weak. The subsequent revelations: just how dangerously thin he was, how problematic his exercising habits had become, how much he was overcompensating for his anxiety. Dex felt ashamed they had not noticed it before.

Jack, in his natural habitat: long, narrow dirt trails through gorgeous landscapes. Thickly wooded forests with burbling creeks running through them. Boulder fields and snowy mountaintops and valleys filled with wildflowers. He pressed Dex to hike further, explore deeper into the wilderness, and as a result they were able to see and photograph so much more than they would have otherwise. Now they never will again.

Jack, the firefighter: this will be the first summer since college that he has not volunteered with the state wildfire fighting crew. Jack the firefighter was short haired and clean-shaven (which he could barely tolerate); he was dark and rugged and jaded. He would come home after weeks away with shiny red burns on his forearm and smelling perpetually of smoke, no matter how many times Dex scrubbed his hair in the shower.

Jack, in bed: hot, sweating, grinning, moaning, gripping, clutching, licking, sucking, grunting, sleeping, dreaming, cuddling, reading, crying.

Jack, the paramedic: Dex has never seen their husband at work, since it is not a position that can readily take visitors, but they have watched him in enough emergencies to know how he would look: cool-headed, confident, assertive. How many lives has Jack saved by now, they wonder. He certainly has never killed anyone before, though he has watched plenty of people die. The first time, Dex had been at college; they’d annoyed the crap out of their roommate, FaceTiming him at three in the morning because that's when he got off shift.

So many other versions of Jack: lifeguard, carpenter, student. Jack with tiny kitten Roger; Jack with wild child Star. With effort, Dex can picture them all, but they can't can't picture him now: overworked, exhausted, broken. They can hear it in his tone, which only ever lightens when Naomi is around. If only she wasn't ace, Dex thinks. If only Jack wasn't gay. Jack and Naomi and Estelle; the family she deserves. Not the sibling-slash-bio-mom who resents her, the drunken grandma who adopted her.

Dex still does not know what Estelle knows; it is a fact that gnaws away at Jack’s stomach every week when she visits. First, he wasn't sure how to bring it up; now, too much time has passed.

Unloveables: 9

We walked back together to the library after midnight. The moon was just a sliver amongst the stars but I knew the narrow, potholed streets of this town blindfolded. We bypassed the highway through a neighborhood; various glowing spots and distant shouts suggested something to be avoided along the way.

Rat looked curiously at the small, run down houses clustered in the darkness around us. “Do you ever squat in any of them?” he asked.

“There's a few on the outskirts that I trust,” I answered. There's way too many houses in town for such few people, but there's also enough disparate militant groups to have command over who gets to make use of nearly all of them. The borders between gangs are tenuous and subject to conflict, and the houses within are out of reach entirely for outsiders not willing to get shot.

“They still have weapons here?” Rat asked.

“How do you think they get the drones?”

“I do not know how they get the drones.”

. . .

I once watched a man shoot a drone down with a bow and arrow. They are not particularly durable; after the cargo is removed, the rest is left behind for a scout drone to pick up for recycling.

So, like, they know that people are doing it, but they don't add armor or anything to the drones. It's almost like they let it happen.

. . .

“Can anyone do it?” Rat asked.

“I guess, if you had the means. There's not a lot of competition.” I still had to repair two of the books, and Rat was keeping me company. I was really enjoying his presence and I wanted it not to end. I was trying to come up with excuses for him to stay with me even after I was done with the books.

“Where would you get a bow?”

Oof. Hunting used to be really popular around here, but all of the houses in town have been looted of anything useful. “Maybe one of the farmhouses in the hills?”

“The ones I checked along the highway were mostly ransacked,” Rat said. “Does this library have a map? We could check along the back roads.”

“We can check in the morning,” I said, “I wouldn't want anyone spotting our lights.”

. . .

I cannot emphasize this enough: the only reason I've managed to stay alive this long is by staying out of sight.

. . .

I continued working, and Rat tried to come up with something to call me.

“Sebastian,” he suggested.

“No.”

“Rutherford.”

“No.”

“Julia?”

“What?”

“Alice,” he continued.

“Rat,” I said, interrupting.

“No, that one is mine,” he said.

“I'm a guy.”

“Sorry. What is your favorite animal?”

“I think I can count on one hand the number of animals I've actually seen.”

“What about in books?”

. . .

I had to think about that one for a while. I didn't read the animal books much, to be honest. I had a thing about books with pictures; they made me sad.

They were Rat's favorites.

. . .

“You're not calling me Penguin,” I laughed.

“Penguins are cute,” he responded. I thought maybe he was flirting with me. I really wanted him to be flirting with me. But then he yawned, loudly, and asked, “Do you never get tired?”

I laughed again. “I'm always tired.” Rat gave me a curious look, so I added, “I've got a weird sleep schedule.”

. . .

My sleep schedule is: sleep when convenient. This is rarely for more than a couple hours at a time and always at unusual hours. It helps avoid the worst parts of the seasons and the most active people in town.

. . .

“I want to thank you for being so kind to me,” Rat said. “I am lucky to have found you.”

“Oh, uhm, no problem,” I replied, “I'm glad I found you, too. And not, like, someone... worse.” It sounded vaguely threatening after I said it, but Rat just gave me a rare smile. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, looking exhausted.

“I'm almost done with this, then I'll go,” I said apologetically. He looked eager to get to sleep. Also, my stomach was starting to squirm painfully from the fibrous, nutrient-rich meal earlier. I finished up the books quickly, clamping them down to dry, and had to wake a dozing Rat to lock the workshop door when I left.

I didn't get to sleep for a while, because shit, then I only got a couple hours in because we were going to go to the oasis just before dawn, so we could get there before it got too hot.

. . .

For real, feeling sick, even if only briefly, is an existentially terrifying experience when there is little hope of medical care to help you if things go wrong. The pediatrician who helped me when I was little was long gone, the hospital abandoned and scavenged. There are a couple trained EMTs who will work for peanuts (literally), but tracking them down is a task when you're not also dying from whatever.

Star is Trying

Estelle for her part, acts like any concerned little sister would. She brings Dex a book from her school’s library: Learn to Read Braille. No one expects them to touch it, and they all make an effort not to sound too excited when they do. She makes them follow her around the yard through an obstacle course of her own design, tap tap tapping on the ground in front of them with a long, slim white cane. She sits with them on the porch swing and asks them to identify birds by their songs. Some nights, after Naomi drops her off at home, she tries to tell their mom what Dex is doing; how much progress they have made. She wants to make her mother feel proud of them, but Joanne, if she is even conscious, is inevitably indifferent. The old Sunday dinners are replaced by cocktails, Dex’s absence a pink elephant between them.

Other weeks Estelle comes home and ignores her mom entirely as she storms straight to her room. The days Dex refuses to engage or, worse, does so in their own horrid, pessimistic way, without any filter; Dr. Doom on steroids. One day, they spend fifteen minutes vividly describing a famine afflicting a country Estelle has never heard of. They explain how dying children's bellies bloat due to fluid retention in the liver, resulting in a characteristic potbelly. How toddlers would eat the dirt at their feet just to ease the pain of starvation. How their mothers had to wade through knee deep flood waters, searching for hours for a handful of bland, nutrient-less bulbs; all the other crops are wiped out by repeated droughts and floods.

Jack finally comes outside to check on them, discovering Star with tears silently pouring down her cheeks and Dex, rocking back and forth, speaking in a dull monotone, oblivious. When he asks what is going on, they say, “Jack likes to starve himself. Isn't that fucked up?”

Estelle lets out a loud sob; the porch swing clatters as she jumps off it. Stomps on the porch; five steps down, then Dex can hear her crunch through the grass as she runs away. Jack does not follow her right away; they can feel him staring at them.

“What the fuck, Dex?” he asks; the disgust in his voice is almost palpable.

They don't answer; he continues standing there, watching them for a moment, before they hear his long strides off the porch. They feel as though they are in a dull, detached trance, hypnotized by the sheer volume of despair towering over them.

Jack finds Star in the garden, shredding an overgrown herb, the air around her scented with peppermint. It was not a normal garden; Dex had been working for years now to develop the permaculture, which focused on perennials and self replacing plants rather than crops that would need reseeding every year. It would continue to grow without their intervention, at least for a while, until weeds took over. Estelle loved the place; she could walk through the meandering paths and pick fat, juicy peas off their vines, or berries from their prickly bushes. Coming from a home where three meals a day were only guaranteed if she made them herself, Dex’s food forest was a veritable buffet.

Jack sits down in the dirt nearby; he never tries to hug Star or anything, which puts him a step above most of the other adults she knows. He doesn't even say anything, just sits with her while she tears apart one of Dex’s precious plants.

Finally, Star says, “I don't know what they want me to do about Sudan.”

A look of confusion crosses Jack’s face, then, briefly, amusement, which he quickly tamps down. “I don't think anyone knows what to do about Sudan,” he admits.

Estelle strips another short branch of its sweet perfumed leaves, then tosses it into a tangle of overgrowth. “Well, just talking about it isn't going to feed those children,” she grumbles.

“It's not supposed to,” he explains, “I think Dex just wants to spread awareness.”

Children can't eat awareness, she thinks. Dr. Doom’s whole life was about spreading awareness and all that ever did for them was get them shot.

Dex is still on the porch swing when they return, and Estelle’s light, quick footsteps dart past them inside without saying anything. Jack’s heavier steps pause on the porch for a moment.

“Dex,” he says, “dinner.” Then he is gone; they will have to find their way inside alone.

It is quiet around the table, Jack picking at his food and Dex rhythmically rocking back and forth as they eat. Estelle wonders, suddenly, what she is doing here; why is Naomi, who isn't even her neighbor anymore, driving her out here for just a couple hours a week, when it used to be she spent so many nights here she had her own room?

“Can I stay here tonight?” she asks, breaking the silence.

“No,” Dex answers automatically.

“Why not? I used to -”

Dex cuts her off, voice calm and cold. “Because I do not want you here.” Before she can take it too personally, they add, “I don't want anyone here. I just want to die alone.”

A slam; clattering of silverware; footsteps; another slam; Jack leaves the room, and Estelle leaves the house.

“That was a really fucked up thing to say,” Naomi says into the lingering silence. Dex says nothing as she gets up to first check on Jack, then Estelle, who is already waiting for her in her car.

. . .

The ride back to Estelle’s home is uncomfortable.

“Is Dex dying?” the young girl asks.

“No,” Naomi answers quickly. “I think they're just being dramatic.”

“They're being a jerk.”

“That happens sometimes, when people have a brain injury.” Naomi has no idea if this is the case for Dex; did they even lose their memory? But if it's true, perhaps that means they will return to normal.

Estelle declines cookies with her neighbors; Naomi’s parents are nice, but they're just more old people, and all old people seem to be good for is lying to her. She ignores her mom, mumbling from the couch; once in her room, she flops onto her mattress and pulls out her phone. She has been reading everything ever published by Dr. Doom; Dex has a personal blog, a university page, several published papers that they reprint on their website. Some of it - no, most of it - can be dispiriting, in the same way that her conversation with them earlier was; something about the bland, expressionless recitation of devastating facts about the world. Millions of people dead or displaced from climate disasters, which they predict will only increase in severity, with graphs and maps to show just how; the growing stream of electronic waste, poisoning underdeveloped countries and the people tasked with recycling them; microplastics: in our guts, in our muscles, in our brains. But unlike their earlier conversation, Dr. Doom’s facts are never presented in isolation, but padded out with solutions; ones the detractors apparently dismiss out of hand. They talk about their garden a lot, even providing guides for starting your own permaculture mini-garden at different scales. They talk about degrowth and community cooperation and public transportation and the need for socialized healthcare for all; preferably before the impending plagues caused by rising temperatures start decimating the population. They talk about grassroots organizing and contacting your representatives and habitat restoration and finding equitable solutions. They probably do have a solution to Sudan, she realizes; it would just involve changing the fundamental structure of our economy. They would redistribute the wealth gained from fossil fuels and child slavery to those most impacted by their destruction.

Or, as Dex would put it: eat the rich.

Estelle sends a text, just to remind them. She wonders what it sounds like; what uncanny robotic voice did Dex choose to read their texts aloud?

Jack Has Failed

After puking up what little of his dinner Jack could choke down, he flushes the toilet and leans back against the opposite wall. He tells himself this doesn't count, because he didn't make himself do it, not really; and perhaps he is even right, but he doesn't believe it. He stands, cups his hands under the faucet to splash his face and rinse his mouth. He hates himself more than anything in the world right now.

Tapping at the door; Naomi is outside it, silently judging him. Jack opens it, and she gives him a pitying look.

“I'm fine,” he says, “it's just... nerves.”

“Mhm,” she says, “I'm going to take Estelle home, and then I'll come back?” Her voice trails up in a question mark.

“Please don't. I'm fine, really.”

“This isn't sustainable, Jack.”

“I know.”

Jack should talk to Star, but he doesn't; he brushes his teeth, delaying as he waits for the front door to open and shut before leaving the bathroom. Dex is in the kitchen, rinsing the dishes before stacking them neatly in the dishwasher. It is a task they can accomplish fairly easily, albeit slowly, by touch. They left a fork on the table, and Jack carries it over.

“You missed a fork,” he says, just to say something. He drops it into the basket in the dishwasher.

“I missed a fork,” Dex repeats tonelessly.

“I mean, that's what, a five percent failure rate over all the dishes? Not bad.” He stops himself before adding, ‘for a blind man.’

“Straight A-student,” they mutter. They turn off the water, feel around the metal rack for a place to put the last plate. “Get me my graduate certificate in dishwashing. It's always been my favorite job.”

This, Jack knows, is not true; some of their most fantastic arguments as a couple have been about the dishes. “No one likes doing the dishes, Dex.”

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” They add detergent at random, close the dishwasher, then hesitate before pressing start. They turn away from the counter. Jack is still in the kitchen - his footsteps haven't left - but Dex isn't sure where. “Jack?” they say.

“Yeah.” From the left; by the table?

“Do we still have ice cream?” they ask neutrally.

Jack breathes out in an audible sigh. “Yeah.”

Dex nods and finds the cabinet for bowls, feels around in the silverware drawer for two spoons. Jack makes no offer to help, but he must be watching them as they shuffle across the kitchen, one hand running along the butcher block countertop that they had installed together three years ago. The freezer is more organized than it has ever been before in their time together but it still takes Dex a moment to find the cardboard tub of ice cream; they don't know what flavor it is. The dessert is hard and unyielding, and their fingers are sticky and cold by the time they have what they estimate to be a reasonable amount of ice cream in each bowl. When they pick them up, however, they realize one is quite heavier than the other; they place that one on the table in front of Jack. Or, rather, where they hoped Jack was sitting, silent and unmoving.

“You're getting better at this,” he finally remarks, sliding the bowl closer.

“It's just ice cream.”

Silence, punctuated by the clink of spoons on ceramic. Dex takes a bite, teeth aching with the cold; cookie dough.

. . .

Ice cream is Jack’s cure for any ailment, mental or physical; at times it can be a source of contention, since Dex has some things to say about the dairy industry. But they recognize their husband's need for something sweet and vaguely high in calories, at times. In a way, ice cream is what brought them back together after Jack broke up with them the first time.

It was near the end of their senior year, which had been rather difficult for Jack; not academically, but sharing the exact same schedule as someone whose heart he'd broken a few months earlier was kind of difficult on his stomach. He kept himself distracted with schoolwork and a night job stocking shelves at the grocery store, which he was doing with diapers one evening when Dex showed up.

“Uh, hey,” they said; they hadn't known he worked here. They'd gotten used to talking to Jack again in class, but seeing him out in public was far more awkward than they would have liked.

Jack gave them a bland, pleasant smile. “Hi Dex.” They stood there staring at him for a moment before he asked, “Need help finding something?”

“Um, baby Tylenol?”

Jack’s dark eyes had flashed with concern. “Is Star sick?” He walked over to a different shelf and grabbed a box; bubblegum flavor.

“She's got a fever. It's probably just the flu or something.” Dex hadn't really expected this reaction - concern? - from the guy who had broken their heart; and, in a way, also Estelle’s, since the toddler had spent at least a few weeks asking about Jack after he disappeared from her life entirely. But concern it was: the next morning, they got a text, asking about her. “Strep :/” they'd responded a few hours later, after a visit to the urgent care.

That afternoon, Jack had showed up at their house with ice cream. He didn't really intend to stay, but Star insisted. She didn't remember him; she wasn't even three and it had been almost a year. A third of her life had gone by since she had seen him. But it doesn't take much more than ice cream to win over a toddler’s heart, especially one miserable with a sore throat and fever.

Jack ended up staying for a couple hours, just talking; about the future, mostly, a topic that had never really come up before. Dex was going to college, much to their mom’s displeasure; but they had received a scholarship, so there was nothing Joanne could do about it. Jack, who was graduating top of the class, was also the school’s great disappointment. Instead of continuing on with academics, he was embarking on a wildfire fighting apprenticeship in the fall.

“Holy shit,” Dex had remarked, “that sounds intense.”

Jack had laughed, a sound that stirred butterflies in their stomach. “I'm more anxious about the speech I have to give next month,” he admitted. As valedictorian, he would be expected to give a speech to the entire graduating class.

He had to leave sooner than either really wanted; Joanne would be returning from work, likely already tipsy and irritable from Star’s restless illness the night before. But after that day, things between them got a lot easier, and it wouldn't be long before they both had to admit they still had feelings for each other.

. . .

“I love you, Dex,” Jack says softly; he is standing next to their chair, hand on their shoulder. He doesn't wait for an answer, which he isn't confident is coming, just takes the bowl from them and carries it to the dishwasher. Dex hears the click of the start button; the whir of water through the pipes.

Jack's words echo through their head, along with the question, “Still?” They take too long to try to form the response that should have been automatic. Their phone buzzes, and they trace along their headphones wires to an earbud and stuff it into their ear.

“Text from: Star.” The robotic voice, Male Voice No 4, has a light British accent; Dex calls it Jarvis, and while it is tolerable for most purposes it is somewhat disorienting when it comes to texts from their little sister, who managed to pick up just the slightest Texas twang from Dex and their mom, even way out here. They find the right button and listen to the rest of the short message. “I love you Dex.”

Still?

Unloveables: 10

We left at civil twilight, when the sky was a deep, penetrating blue. On the way out we stopped at the post office, where I actually had a key to one of the boxes. It's where I kept my most prized possessions: sugar, or at least sugary foods, in the form of candy and chocolate. I grabbed two bars and slipped them in my pocket while Rat stood guard.

Just before leaving the neighborhood we ran into someone on patrol; this was made evident by the fact that she was armed with a shotgun. I knew her face but not her name. She was roughly my age, and in another life maybe we would have been classmates.

“Hey,” I said, “Do you like chocolate?” I gave her one of the bars as a toll for safe passage.

Rat watched the exchange impassively, following behind me until we reached the aqueduct. It towered above us, the roaring rush of water distant and tempting. The sun made its appearance and we hurried in silence to get to the oasis in time. We didn't talk at all until we were within sight of the bright patch of green against brown.

“What would have happened if you had nothing to offer?” Rat asked finally.

“I don't know,” I said, “I've never cared to find out.”

. . .

This was not entirely true; I found out, once, that some people will always find something to take from you, even when you think you have nothing at all.

. . .

At the oasis, I sat down on lush but itchy grass just outside the spray of water, where the air was cool but mostly dry. Mosquitoes immediately started attacking my arms. Rat sat next to me, just within accidental brushing touch range. I broke the remaining chocolate bar in half, and gave him a piece.

“This is my favorite food of all time,” I said, “So you better not start criticizing it.” Rat was overly fond of criticizing the products of the factories.

“I have had chocolate before,” he said defensively, but he didn't bother hiding his delight as he ate it.

The mosquito assault very quickly became too much, so I took my shirt and shoes off and stood underneath the stream of water. Rat joined me, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt made of a loose, plasticky fabric that would dry quickly, and blue and green plaid boxer shorts that made me feel something I was not accustomed to feeling.

. . .

I once found a stash of pornography hidden in someone's attic, and spent the afternoon examining the bodies with what I would call scientific curiosity. The photographs were mildly arousing, but I was more interested in the people, all their shapes and colors and genders. I learned how to masturbate that day, but I didn't find the experience nearly as exciting as the magazines had suggested it would be. One article, on the other hand, particularly resonated with me: “What Does it Mean to Be Ace?”

. . .

Fortunately, my general disinterest in sex meant I wasn't going to get visibly aroused, but I definitely thought about it. I had seen Rat naked, albeit only from a distance, and suddenly that didn't seem fair, that I had that knowledge and could call it up on command without his consent.

“Are you okay?” he asked, because I'd been staring resolutely at a concrete pillar for a while now.

“Yup.” I stepped out of the water and stretched out in the sun to let my pants dry. The day would be a repeated cycle of shower, dry, repeat; I did this at least a couple times a week in the summer. A crow circled overhead, cawing, like it wanted me to be dead.

A shadow crossed over my closed eyes as Rat laid down next to me. I glanced over; he was on his side, facing me. Watching me. His eyes were bluer than the sky behind him.

“Hey,” I said. He didn't say anything, so I continued. “I like spending time with you,” I said.

Rat looked surprised, but only for half a second. Then he smiled, or, rather, one corner of his mouth twitched up into a smirk. “I enjoy spending time with you as well,” he said.

I closed my eyes again and tilted my face towards the sky. The sun burned my eyelids. The buzz of mosquitoes was dying down; it was too hot for them.

“If you wish to sleep, you should move to the shade,” Rat remarked. His voice sounded distant, and I looked over again. He was sitting now, staring at the sky. He turned his head to look at me. “My first day out, I got the worst sunburn of my life. It felt like I was on fire. My blisters got blisters.”

“Oof,” I said. My skin was darker than his, a deep tan year round.

“I do not recommend it.” I groaned and made myself stand, trudge over to the shade of the aqueduct. “Wait,” he said suddenly, running to his backpack. It was a large, framed camping bag, made of waterproof canvas and infinitely vast. He pulled out a tightly rolled grey wool blanket and shook it out as he walked over. “Here,” he said, laying it out over the scratchy grass.

“Thanks.” I laid down and he sat against the pillar nearby, book in hand.

“Sleep well,” he said. And I did.

. . .

I woke up in the afternoon. Rat was sitting with his back to me in the stream of water. I walked barefoot through the undergrowth to a nearby cluster of trees to pee, and I wondered how Rat did it. He had to squat, I guess; sucks for him.

My pants were stiff and still damp in places from drying in the shade. I sat down at the edge of the pond, which was really just a puddle, except that there were actual minnows living in it. I wondered if they fell from the aqueduct above. I wondered if it terrified them.

Rat didn't acknowledge me when I sat down, and I wondered if he even noticed, so I splashed my feet in the water to make some noise. He still didn't say anything, not for a few minutes.

Then: “Are you hungry? I have lunch.”

I was expecting more plants, but Rat’s lunch was peanut butter sandwiches. As in actual peanut butter and slices of fluffy white bread. Peanut butter was more precious than gold, and I hadn't had bread in forever; even stale, it's the first to get snatched up.

“Holy shit,” I said. “I should have saved the chocolate.”

Still

“Nothing,” Dex says. Still. The eye still fixed firmly in its socket is still completely useless, and they are still completely blind. Once in a while, a spark of white or blue light will flash through the empty field in their periphery, but it is not attached to anything in reality.

The ophthalmologist - one of the few follow-ups Dex has actually consented to show up for, and only because it was just in town and they needed refills on their migraine prescription - clicks and tsks and sighs; they roll around on their little stool; they prod and press and squeeze cold burning drops into Dex’s eye so they can take pictures of the inside.

Jack sits next to Dex, holding their hand as they undergo these minor assaults. He taps his fingers back and forth along their knuckles, a soothing rhythm. The doctor offers no real news, suggests Dex wears sunglasses. They nod, wordlessly replacing the wide sunglasses they had only removed for the exam; Jack snickers.

Dex clings to Jack's forearm and whacks their cane into the chairs and plants occupying the narrow hallways of the ophthalmologist’s office. They feel the metal plate surrounding the elevator buttons and try to interpret the Braille, which still just feels like random bumps.

“Yep,” Jack says, pleased, when they have guessed the right one; not from the dots, but from its location at the bottom. They quell the nausea that churns as the elevator floor drops beneath them.

Outside, Jack asks, tentatively, “Do you want to get a smoothie while we wait for your script?”

No, Dex thinks. They shrug. “Sure.” This will be the longest they have been out of the house since leaving the hospital, and it is exhausting.

In line at the coffee shop, Jack’s hand suddenly tenses around Dex’s. They squeeze it, questioningly, and he tries to relax, but quickly tenses back up again. “Are you okay?” they ask.

“Yup,” Jack says. Dex can practically hear his eye twitch, an old tell he was lying.

Jack is lying, and he knows that they know it; he doesn't care. When Dex and half a dozen others were shot by a man wearing a “God Hates Fags” t-shirt, the church responsible for the hate slogan quickly disavowed the act; but that didn't stop it from getting adopted by extremists and rightwing edgelords alike. Jack is pretty sure the kid standing in front of him is of the latter category, and therefore harmless; he seems disinclined to acknowledge them again after his initial eye contact with the towering Jack. Therefore, there is no reason to alarm Dex by letting them know what a piece of vile trash is standing in front of them. The kid leaves as soon as he grabs his order, shuffling out of the shop without taking his eyes off the floor. Jack breathes a sigh of relief as he leads Dex to a table. A coward, then.

Dex sips their smoothie - they can't drink coffee anymore, caffeine rips through their kidney like sandpaper - and listens to the conversations around them. If they focus, they can hear pretty much everyone in the shop - at least the ones who are talking - but sorting out their voices and interactions gives them a headache. They wonder if anyone is looking at them; do little kids stare? How bad does Dex look, anyway?

There is one person who would be honest about their ruined face, and she has stopped even trying to call them. Dex wants to be relieved about this newfound freedom, but a small, whiny part of them feels abandoned.

“Have you heard from my mom?” they ask, apparently out of the blue.

Jack pauses. “No,” he says, keeping his voice measured.

“Don't you think it's kind of weird?” Dex asks.

“I'm just glad she's not keeping Star away.”

Dex scoffs. “Have you met Stell? No one's making her do anything.”

. . .

Estelle is currently getting into an “altercation” just off school grounds, where she heard a rumor some kids were planning on setting off some fireworks in the dried out, grassy field that spills out into dried out, grassy shrubland. Dex has written extensively about wildfires and their increasing intensities (and paradoxical necessities); likely influenced by their husband’s career fighting them. Estelle knows that the ingredients for grassfire are all here: drought, excessive heat, overgrown grass, and idiots with explosives.

She had known right away what a mistake she was making confronting Riley and two of his minions, alone, because people like Riley and his minions don't listen to reason or facts or logic - they hold girls by their arms and shoot bottle rockets at them. They run away screaming when, predictably, one of the rockets lights up a patch of dried grass. Lucky Star is there to stomp out the smoldering tinder; truthfully, it probably would have put itself out. Blood drips onto her shoe from a cut over her eyebrow.

. . .

Jack's phone starts ringing as they are leaving the pharmacy. “Star’s calling,” he explains as he answers. Dex wonders, briefly, why she chose to call him instead of them, but then remembers their last conversation and winces. They can hear her voice, small and tinny through the speaker, but cannot parse the words. Jack says, “Aren't you supposed to be at school?” He sighs. “Fine,” he says, “we're actually, like, five minutes away anyway.” He waits. “See you soon.”

“Stell ditching classes now?” Dex asks when it is quiet again.

“Evidently.” Jack sighs again.

Dex wonders again where their mother is at. What happened to the overbearing woman who figured out before they did that they were pregnant - just because they hadn't asked for new pads that month? The woman who made Dex ask for pads every fucking month, who wouldn't let them use tampons to protect their ‘womanhood.’

Estelle is lucky; between Jack and Naomi, she will never have to grow up scared or confused about what is going on with her body. Her first period won't be an unexpected shock of blood one morning that she feels obligated to hide, convinced she's done something wrong. She'll know about safe sex and consent, ideally well before she tries it. She won't try it with a fucking college kid six years older than her.

Fireworks

Jack assesses Star’s status as he pulls up to the sidewalk where she's sitting with her elbows on her knees, pressing a sleeve into a bleeding scrape on her forehead. He's out of the truck before she can get to her feet; other than the melodramatic head wound, she is relatively unharmed.

“Head wounds always look like they're bleeding a ton,” Jack explains, examining the wound. “They're never that bad.”

“Do I need stitches?” she asks anxiously.

“Nah,” Jack says, “I can fix this with a first aid kit.”

The first aid kit has been in the same place in the truck since they were teenagers; Jack has used it hundreds of times, even on animals, and always kept it restocked. Dex, who remained in the vehicle but rolled down the windows to listen to the exchange, wordlessly retrieves the hard metal case and holds it out for him. “What did you do?” they ask.

It's not quite the right question, and Estelle bristles. “I was attacked,” she retorts, glaring at an indifferent Dex. Her eyes slip back to Jack’s face as he works to patch up her forehead. “I think I hit it on a rock when I tackled Riley.”

“You tackled Riley?” Dex asks, grinning.

“You think?” Jack asks simultaneously, frowning. “You don't remember?”

“No, I do,” she says, stammering, “I just wasn't really paying attention. There was a fire.” She hurries to explain: she had tried diplomacy, threatening to call the police, and eventually tackling Riley to the ground in an attempt to wrestle the fireworks from his grubby fist. She had been quickly overpowered by the other two boys who, one on each arm, held her up as Riley aimed a pop rocket at her. They let her go to duck away as the hissing rocket spiraled wildly towards them all, whizzing past and exploding somewhere behind her with a shower of orange sparks over dry grass. Riley was already lighting a second one, sticking it in the dirt at his feet and backing up; this one exploded on the ground, sending the boys scurrying.

“I got the sparks out before it spread,” Estelle assures her rapt audience.

“Holy shit,” Dex says. Jack throws them a look they can't catch. “I'm really proud of you.” She beams.

“You're really lucky you weren't hurt worse,” Jack has to remind them both.

“I know,” Estelle agrees, “Riley’s an idiot. If he’d been holding the second one like he did the first, it would have exploded in his hand.”

He shudders; he's seen that before.

Estelle has to crawl past Dex to get to her spot in the middle of the wide bench seat; that's how old Jack’s truck is. They shrink down so she doesn't brush against them; they've been stewing in a diaper full of their own piss pretty much this whole time now, and while supposedly no one can tell, Dex definitely can.

“How’s mom?” they ask.

Estelle shrugs. “Probably drunk.”

Dex cringes; what had been a manageable evening habit evidently turned into a full-time job for Joanne after they moved out. The driver’s door opens, closes again. Jack: “Ice cream?”

Dex groans, and they can practically hear Estelle's face drop. “I'd rather just go home,” they say, “we have ice cream there, right?” A tacit invitation; she accepts it. She will accept their apology, too, when they offer it later; though the words “I don't want you here” have become permanently etched in her memory.

. . .

Estelle, Jack, and even Dex are playing poker in the game room, one of the many upstairs bedrooms in the house. Dex makes their exchanges and bets with utter sincerity, despite having no clue what is on their cards. When they happen to win a round with three Aces, Jack informs them they were born with a golden horseshoe up their butt, a comment that makes Star giggle. Dex sits cross-legged and hunched over on the hard wooden chair, swaying side to side; their constant movement is still distracting to Estelle. They stop moving abruptly, tilt their head and say, “Someone is outside.”

Unloveables: 11

Something absolutely magical happened that evening during sunset, as we were getting ready to leave. I was starting to walk away when Rat suddenly grabbed my hand, saying, “Wait.” He made a shhh-ing sound but I missed what he was hearing; I was too focused on his hand on mine. Then they appeared: a family of deer stepped through the brush that concealed the oasis. There were two does, a buck with short, skinny antlers, and a tiny spotted fawn. They froze when they saw us, then the buck stepped forward, watching us warily as he approached the puddle to drink. He bent his head, and the others broke their trance and quickly joined him.

Rat squeezed my hand, sending a jolt of warmth through me. We stood still for what could have been hours, but was probably only a few minutes, as the deer drank their fill and nibbled a little at the grass. The fawn jumped circles around the herd as they slowly departed. They disappeared and we moved apart, suddenly, the spell broken. I felt colder without Rat’s hand in mine.

“That was amazing,” he said, breathless.

“I kind of thought they were all dead,” I admitted.

“Me too,” he replied. His face dropped, suddenly morose. “I hope they survive the rest of the summer.”

“One day at a time,” I said. I stood there a moment longer, feeling awkward, then said, “Shall we?”

Rat shouldered his backpack; it was heavy, and huge on his tiny frame, but he wouldn't let me carry it. Even though I could probably carry him and the pack without much struggle.

“Onwards,” he said, stepping in front of me.

. . .

The sun set and there was no moon, just a glittering splash of stars that stretched across the sky. We walked slowly, admiring the Milky Way. We followed the dark, looming shadow of the aqueduct north to the highway, then walked along the cracked asphalt towards town.

Just before reaching town official, I turned us down a dirt road that climbed steeply into the wooded hills above.

“Where are we going?” Rat asked.

“One of my homes.”

We followed the dirt road, took a left, then a right, then cut through an overgrown patch of shrubs into a hidden narrow driveway.

This was not a house, technically, but an RV that had been there so long the wheels were sunk into the mud, grass overgrown and tangled through the undercarriage. It had never been raided and hosted one of the most valuable things I know of: a small solar panel mounted to the roof, which continuously charged a little battery pack inside. It could power a light, even at night; a little fan that keeps the entire cramped space cool enough; and even a kettle for boiling water.

The kettle was my reason for taking Rat there, because boiling water is all you need to make instant noodles, and they even had vegetables; packets of colorful freeze dried sprinkles that quadrupled in size when they reconstituted. The process was absolutely fascinating to Rat.

“It is almost vaguely reminiscent of real vegetables,” he commented. I chose to believe it was a compliment.

As we ate, Rat told me just a little bit more about his life: he knew how to make pasta from scratch. He used to help his mom.

“Wait, where did you get the flour from?” I asked.

“The basement.”

. . .

Rat’s dad was one of those prepper types. He “saw the writing on the wall” way before Rat was even born and amassed a bunker full of supplies.

When Rat imitates his dad, his voice gets gruffer, angry sounding. When he talks about his mom it turns vague, distant.

. . .

“Do you have any siblings?” I asked.

“No,” he answered matter-of-factly, “I was an accident.”

I didn't want to ask him again why he left; some topics are just out of bounds, like my name. I tried to think of something I could tell him about my parents. I had little to remember them by; no photographs or trinkets or anything. Just flashes in my head, a detached voice saying my name, a birthday cake with four candles.

“When is your birthday?” Rat asked.

“Uhm,” I said, “I want to say it was in February? Maybe. There was snow.”

. . .

What even is time when you're practically a ghost already?

. . .

Rat’s birthday was in October, but he still refused to tell me how old he was. He was oddly distraught about my backstory and my indifference towards memories.

“The house I used to live in is still there,” I offered. “Can't get to it because it's, like, in the middle of gang territory. But I remember falling down the stairs to the basement once, during a tornado. I had to get stitches.” I pointed to the scar that cut straight through my right eyebrow.

“I had to get stitches once,” Rat said, “My dad did them.” But he would not elaborate beyond that.

. . .

It was after midnight; we were sitting around a candle, flickering shadows thrown onto the cramped walls behind us. Rat was looking faded, not that I thought he was going to admit to being tired, so I suggested it. “So there's a bed back there,” I explained, pointing towards the thin wood paneling that separated the bedroom from the rest of the RV, “I'll sleep on the couch.”

He frowned at me. “I will take the couch.”

“Um, sure,” I said, “but you should see it, before making that decision.” The back of the RV was mostly window; a wide, clear sheet that curved up and over the roof, forming a skylight. It was cracked from storm damage, but still in one piece, and the view it presented was phenomenal.

“Oh, wow,” Rat said, standing in the narrow doorway.

“Yeah,” I said, “sometimes I lay awake there all night, just watching the stars.”

“Like a movie.”

“Sure,” I agreed. The last time I saw a movie was in the hospital as a kid.

He turned away from the room and walked the few steps back to the couch; it was not a large space. “I would not want to take that away from you,” he said.

“Oh, I've seen that one, like, hundreds of times.”

He hesitated, sitting down next to me. “This place is nice,” he said, “Why do you not stay here every night?”

“There are neighbors?” I tried to explain, “They would know I'm not supposed to be here.” Don't draw attention to myself, don't draw attention to my safe places. Those are my rules.

“Why have you not found a place further away?”

“I don't know, man, I'm seventeen. I don't even know how I've managed to survive this long. I've sort of been making it all up as I go along.”

“You are lying?”

“No, like, improvising.”

We sat awkwardly on the couch for a few minutes. I watched the candle flame; Rat was fidgeting and chewing on his cheek like he wanted to say something.

“Is something wrong?” I finally asked.

“Do you get angry when someone throws away something you cannot have?”

What kind of question was that? I thought about it. “You mean like the Fat Cats in New Haven?”

He gave me a confused look. “New Haven?”

“You know those glowing lights to the south?” He nodded, “The aqueduct goes there, right? And it's this place called New Haven. I figure, it's one of those sanctuary cities you used to read about in the newspapers. I bet they throw away all sorts of shit. The drones carry it all right back up here to get recycled.”

Rat swallowed, and shook his head. He said, “My parents are both still alive, but I am never going to see them again.” Before I could say anything, he added, “I would rather kill myself.”

. . .

What the fuck?

. . .

“Okay,” I said, “uhm, no judgment there. I'm sure you have your reasons.”

Rat sighed, visibly relieved. He tried and failed to stifle a yawn. I said, “This couch is going to be awfully cramped if you insist on sharing it.”

I don't know what I was expecting, but it was not his response: “If we are to share sleeping quarters, it would be more logical to use the bed.” I froze and he quickly added, “For sleeping, I mean. Or to watch the sky.” I nodded, but stayed seated as he stood up. I watched him pull the grey blanket out of his backpack, and very deliberately pick up his knife.

“I maintain that if you try to rape me, I will cut off your testicles,” he said before moving towards the back room. I blew out the candle and stood to follow him. The bed was wide enough that we could both lay down comfortably with no risk of touching. Rat curled up into a tiny ball with his back to me and fell asleep almost immediately; he snored just the tiniest bit. I watched the stars for a while longer before falling asleep myself.

The Mother-In-Law

Joanne pulls up to the dirt driveway of the house she has only been to a few times since Dex abandoned her and her daughter to live in it. It scarcely resembles the shabby monstrosity it was back then, but she finds ways to hate it nonetheless. The chaotic, overgrown garden that Dex insists is supposed to grow like that, like weeds all tangled up beneath her feet. The vulgar clothesline, literally airing their dirty laundry; has Jack never heard of a clothes dryer, she wonders. The despicable rainbow flag hanging in the window, since Dex insists that ‘they’ are ‘queer.’

Queer used to be an insult, Joanne thinks; and the fact of the matter is, her daughter is in a straight relationship. If she hadn't run off to college and gotten her ovaries removed - in secret! without even pretending to be considerate about what her mother might think about the whole thing! - the pair could be giving her more grandchildren now, ones she wouldn't have to raise herself. They might be a shade too dark - Joanne can never tell if Jack’s skin tone is ethnic or from too much sun - but they would probably be cute, at least as babies.

As children, however, Joanne is learning they are far more trouble than they are worth. When she got the phone call from Estelle's school that the girl had been marked absent from her afternoon classes, she considered making a big fuss - the school lost her child! - but she was really too drunk to deal with the inevitable fallout. She would have to go to the school and talk to the principal and perhaps he would try to call the police to report a missing child and they would surely notice the alcohol on her breath. And Joanne knew exactly where Estelle was, anyway. She told the secretary she had forgotten to call the girl in sick, then poured herself a glass of wine, then another, considering her next move.

. . .

Jack is already standing in the open front door as she approaches the porch steps. “Joanne,” he says disingenuously, “always a pleasure.”

Joanne grips the wooden porch railing tightly enough to give herself a splinter as she stumbles up the stairs. So much for house maintenance, she thinks. Jack hasn't moved from the doorway, watching her impassively. “My daughters in there?” Joanne asks, careful not to slur.

Jack smiles, willfully misinterpreting. “Yep,” he says, “Dex too. Come on in.” He steps back, still towering over her as she crosses the threshold.  He can smell the alcohol oozing out of his mother-in-law’s pores as she passes by him and glances out at the car parked haphazardly in front of his house. “Are you staying for dinner?” he asks mildly.

“I'm just here to pick up my delinquent daughter. Estelle has been playing hooky.”

“Wait here and I will retrieve her. I believe she has an acceptable excuse for leaving school.”

Joanne isn't particularly interested in hearing any excuses. She stands in the foyer of the house; it is, truly, far too much house for an eternally childless couple, even on a paramedic’s income. The first time she was here, it was Estelle who had given Joanne the tour; even with her own room, a dedicated library, an office for Dex, and something called a ‘game room,’ there were still several rooms that went unused, emptied of unwanted furniture that was donated or given away.

A sound from behind her; Jack is coming down the stairs, followed slowly by Dex and a sullen looking Estelle. This is the first time Joanne has seen her child since what she has, bizarrely, come to refer to mentally as “the accident.” They step down the staircase slowly, clutching both handrails; they are thin and hunched, trembling. A pair of wide black sunglasses obscures half their face, and Joanne can only see the edge of shiny red scar tissue peeking out from behind the frame. They look at the same time both better and worse than she had been expecting.

Dex could have stayed upstairs. Dex should have stayed upstairs, regrets not choosing to do so when their mother's voice, slurring her words, begins to berate first Estelle for skipping school; then Jack for assisting her. Dex enters a void space inside their head; only a few barked phrases break through.

“I should have y'all arrested!” Joanne raves, “Contributing to the delinquency of a minor!”

“It wasn't his fault, I-” Estelle interrupts.

“I don't want to hear your excuses. We'll talk at home. Let's go.” Joanne moves to grab Estelle's arm, but she jumps out of the way.

“She can stay,” Dex protests.

“She most certainly cannot,” Joanne retorts. “Estelle is grounded. Now.” She jingles her keys, vexed.

Jack takes a single step closer to his mother-in-law. “I'm afraid I can't let you do that,” he says.

Joanne, standing all of 5’3” tall, stands up straight. “Well ‘I'm afraid’ it's none of your business, Jack.”

He sighs. “Joanne,” he says, voice infuriatingly calm, “you are clearly in no condition to drive right now. I will drive you home. Both of you.”

“No,” Estelle says, backing away further.

“No!” Joanne shouts, clutching her keys tighter and bringing her hand up to her chest defensively, as though Jack had moved to grab them; but he continues standing still, hands clasped behind his back. Dex stands behind him, head cocked at an odd angle and rocking back and forth. “Oh for God's sake Ann, stop that,” she spits, “you look ridiculous.” Dex flinches, stiffens.

Jack ignores the attempted deflection. “Please let me drive you home.”

“No,” Estelle says again; she doesn't wait for an answer, just turns and races out the back door.

Joanne watches her leave. “You poison everyone against me,” she cries. “She hates me.” This is directed to both Dex and Jack, whom she has managed to blame retroactively for her daughter’s gender nonsense. He only encouraged it, as he encouraged Dex’s studies and research and political activities. Jack can be blamed for everything, really. Fortunately, when she is self-pitying instead of hostile, she is more compliant, and he is quickly able to convince her to hand over her keys.

There's nowhere outside for Estelle to go, not really, unless she feels like hiking through endless rolling fields of tall grass and scrubs. The garden, a toolshed, a small copse of trees that grow in a rough row at one edge of the property. They are short and barely climbable; operative word here barely. She scurries up one of the larger ones, hiding amongst the leaves and prickly branches. From here she can watch Jack exit the house, walking pretty much directly to where she is hiding. He squints up into the trees; the sun is setting behind her, sharp shards of light peeking through the branches.

“I've got to take you home, Star,” he says.

Estelle's voice is whiny, betraying her age. “I don't want to go with her.”

“I know.”

“I hate her.”

“That's harsh.”

“She's drunk.”

“That's why I'm driving.”

“I'm going to be in trouble, and I didn't even do anything wrong.”

Jack reaches up to grab a branch of a nearby tree, testing its strength. “Well, you did skip school.”

Estelle rolls her eyes. “Then I won't stop the fire, next time.”

There are things Star could have done instead, Jack thinks; like informing an adult, instead of trying to confront three bullies with firecrackers by herself, for one. But he actually is proud of her for what she did, in a way that would be irresponsible to admit, so instead he asks, “Did Dex ever tell you about the time we were arrested?”

Estelle's mouth drops. “What?”

“We were at this protest for this, uhm, kid who was shot by a cop.” The kid had been 13, barely older than Star is now. Jack had taken a bus into the city to join Dex for what was supposed to be a peaceful protest; but the atmosphere was tense from the start as counter-protestors were setting up around them, chatting pleasantly with the police force. The cops were, ostensibly, there to not take sides; but lines had already been drawn by the nature of the crime, and sides already taken. The line of cops grew too pushy, eventually deploying pepper spray and bean bags to take down some of the more vocal protestors.

“I was helping some guy rinse pepper spray out of his eyes when Dex disappeared. I didn't even know they’d been arrested until we found each other in handcuffs later. There were seventy-eight of us lining the halls of the precinct.”

“Did you go to jail?”

Jake shakes his head. “A lawyer came in and made enough people nervous that we were all let go.”

“Did anything change after that?”

Jack laughs; a cold, bitter sound. “Probably not. They passed a law for police accountability, but I don't know if it's helped.”

“So, it was all for nothing.”

“Nah,” Jack says, “I got to help a guy with pepper spray in his eyes. That shit burns.” Now Star laughs, a cheerful sound like a bird. In the silence that follows, she sighs and starts climbing down the tree.

Jack is smiling, but his eyes are serious as he asks, “Are you afraid to go home?” Star shakes her head reluctantly, so he asks, “Do you think she will hurt you?”

“No.” Sometimes her mom will grip her arm hard enough to leave bruises, pull it too hard so her shoulder pops; but, in truth, the woman is too small and too pathetic to do much physical harm.

“Do you have food in the house?”

Star nods again; cereal, snacks and junk food, some baby carrots and microwave noodles. Not the healthiest diet, but it is food.

“Then I have to take you home,” he says, “I'm sorry.”

“Mhm,” she mutters, sounding weirdly like Naomi as she stalks past him towards the house. She doesn't go inside but around to the front, where her mom’s car sits haphazardly on the lawn and the dirt road; good thing they never get any traffic out here.

Self-Care

After everyone leaves, Dex goes to take a bath. It is not something they are supposed to do - they could very easily have a seizure and drown - but, really, what do they care, anyway? If Dex dies in a tragic bathtub drowning accident, Jack will get life insurance; if they die by suicide, he won't. It is quite the dilemma. Also, they both deserve and need a bath; to relax and wash themselves clean of what they are confident has been their last interaction with their mother, ever. Jack had been understandably reluctant to leave them alone in the house with the woman, but everyone present knew he was the best chance at getting Estelle to cooperate, so he had to go track her down outside.

While he was gone, Joanne had approached Dex; they listened to her footsteps, but were still surprised when their glasses were snatched off their head. Disoriented, Dex had stumbled backwards while reaching out, futility, to try to grab them back.

“Bless your heart,” she'd said, “You used to be so beautiful. Your pretty green eyes. You could get a glass eye, I suppose, if that husband of yours can afford one, but that wouldn't do any good for the other one, and oh, your skin! Perhaps you should have consulted a better surgeon.” She continued for what felt like hours, and Dex, finally, heard the truth, raw and unfiltered: they are hideous. No wonder Jack has made no effort to touch them in any way beyond the clinically helpful.

Dex submerges their head in the water, filling their ears with a warm rush, sinking until only their nose remains in the air. Floating like this, they can almost pretend they do not exist. Time dissolves around them as the water cools. They do not expect to hear a knocking sound, muffled and distant. Heart fluttering, they sit up quickly, water pouring off them.

Knock, knock. It is not so far after all, just the bathroom door. Jack's voice: “Dex?”

They exhale, relieved. “Yeah,” they say, “Come in.” The door clicks open, a slight squeak. “How’d you get home so quick?” they ask.

Jack had driven his mother-in-law’s car back into town, the atmosphere within a sullen silence; his plan had been to go to work, figure out a way home from there. “Gnome was right next door, she gave me a ride,” he says.

“Are you leaving for work soon?”

“Called in sick.”

Dex grins, briefly. “Stell is a bad influence.”

“There’s hope yet for the next generation.”

Their face falls again. “I hope she's okay,” they say, “I hate having to leave her there.”

“Your mom was pretty worn out by the time we got home. She must've used up all her vitriol on you.” Dex had shut down entirely by the time Jack returned from talking to Estelle, but Joanne seemed somewhat more cheerful, as she usually does after berating them. He sits down on the toilet next to the bathtub; he watches Dex, Dex’s body in the bath, for just a moment, feeling intrusive for no reason as he does so. Arousal sparks and he tries to ignore it, wishing they didn't cringe away every time he touched them. “I'm sorry for leaving you alone with her.”

Dex shrugs. “It's alright. I have a feeling I won't be seeing her again.”

A pause. “Was that a joke?”

Dex grins, reaches forward to feel through the water for the plug. “Can you hand me a towel?” they ask.

Jack hands the towel over, looking away unnecessarily until they have wrapped it securely around their petite frame. They step out of the tub and stand near him, dripping on the bare tile floor. He reaches out and brushes his fingers against their arm, and they flinch away.

He sighs. “Movie night?”

“If you want.” Dex walks delicately out of the bathroom, running their hand first along the counter, around the door frame, along the wall five steps, then they switch sides, searching for the doorway on the left. Along the closest wall they bump into the dresser they were only mostly sure was there. Dex only ever goes into this room to get clothes, now.

New Rules

“Bring me your phone,” Joanne demands, and Estelle stomps back to her room, retrieves the device, and stomps back. “No phone, no computer, no TV. No more Dex or Jack,” the names are spit out like something bitter, “No more bike. You will go to and from school and nothing else.”

“Whatever.”

“You can start going to church on Sundays again, too.”

“I'll go to church when you're awake enough to take me,” she retorts, which reinvigorates her mom’s wrath.

At one point during the lecture, Joanne tries to offer her an out: “What really happened, sweetie? Did Jack ask you to lie for him?” Estelle doesn't take the bait; she retreats to her room, quietly clicks the little button lock. It is easy enough to circumvent with a pin or paperclip, but it is another barrier between her and her mother. She looks around her room; at one time, Jack had slept in it, along with two other foster siblings. He'd shown her where he used to hide in the closet, then chuckled at his own joke; she had been too young to understand it at the time. She tried to imagine Jack small enough to fit in the cramped space.

. . .

At school, Estelle avoids lunch and recess - avoids Riley and his minions - and spends the time in the library instead. She prints off and reads Dex’s papers, since their university page isn't blocked by the web filters. They are far beyond her understanding of science and math, but she can understand some of the conclusions. Like how every fraction of a degree counts; systems that could handle +1.49°C might collapse at +1.50°C and cause rapid chaos in other systems. Like how Estelle could handle a few sparks, but if they had spread beyond her reach they could have overwhelmed her, ravenously consuming the dried grass and the wilderness beyond. She looks up what it takes to be a wildfire fighter with no shortage of wonder - the website mentions “strenuous physical requirements,” sponsorships, classes and field trainings; and Jack does it all voluntarily.

Did. Now he can't leave Dex, because they can't leave the house. Well, Estelle has that in common with them, at least; especially after summer break starts, and she doesn't even get to go to school.

Unloveables: 12

I woke up at dawn and ducked out of there before the sun could flood that little room with light; the downside of sleeping back there. There were shiny, jagged, wiggling lines in the corner of my vision, and I regretted not going back to the library last night. The cool, pitch dark basement was by far the best place I knew of to wait out a migraine.

It was too late, now; I stumbled out the door to piss in the woods and the early morning light stabbed at my eye, pain like an ice pick through to my temple. It was already too hot and I felt nausea rising as I trudged back through the grass to the RV, pausing twice to dry-heave and spit bile into the grass.

. . .

Migraines fucking suck.

. . .

“Are you okay?” Rat’s voice filled the tiny space, drilling through my skull.

I was on the couch, pressing a pillow against my eyes, it was doing very little to distract from the agony in my head. “No,” I mumbled, “Just, shhhh. Don't talk.”

I heard footsteps, then boots, then the creaking of the door and I wondered, absurdly, if I'd offended him, if I'd never see him again. I continued laying here, immobile, incapacitated, fucking useless. Today I was meant to go dumpster diving; I tried to inventory my various supply stores, but my brain felt like sludge.

Rat was gone long enough that I wondered if maybe I was right, he was gone for good, but then he returned, slipping back inside the RV with a rush of hot air. He was panting and when he crouched next to me I could feel the heat radiating off of him. How long was he out there?

“You came back,” I murmured.

“Hi,” he said, “You need to chew on this.”

He placed a fucking stick in my hand. I moved the pillow off my head and braved the dim light of the RV just to glare at him.

“It will not taste great.”

. . .

It tasted terrible; it was a willow root, which contains salicylate, which is half of what makes up aspirin, a painkiller. It is quite bitter, but semi-effective, especially when combined with caffeine.

. . .

“You also need to drink this,” Rat said, pressing a cool metal can into my hand. It contained caffeinated soda.

“How on earth did you get this?” I asked. I pressed the can against my temple and groaned.

“I traded.”

. . .

He gave up his peanut butter for that. Can you believe it?

. . .

It kind of worked; not 100%, but enough that I could at least sit up and not immediately want to vomit from the marbles clattering around my skull. Enough that I could have a conversation without wanting to rip my eyes out from the sound.

“Thanks,” I said, “I owe you.”

“I do not think you do,” Rat said softly. He sat on the couch next to me, skimming through one of the books I had rebound in a deep, bluish-purple paper. I idly watched his hands, eyes not willing to focus on anything in particular in the dim light.

“Does this happen often?” he asked.

“Ever since I was a kid.”

He looked over at me, eyes wide and sad. “I am so sorry.”

. . .

Apparently, Rat’s old basement contained an entire pharmacy’s worth of medications. Painkillers, antibiotics, vitamins, tranquilizers. I've always been a bit weary of drugs, mainly because you've got two options around here: fentanyl or meth. I've seen people on both, and it is not a road I want to go down.

. . .

“You must have had a real compelling reason to leave all that behind,” I commented mildly, an electric twinge firing behind my eyeballs.

“Mhm,” Rat responded.

I grunted. My stomach felt like a pit of acid, probably from the various forms of acids I had been consuming. I'm pretty sure there was bark stuck between my teeth. I needed to eat something; like he read my mind, Rat procured two packs of sugary instant oatmeal from his backpack.

. . .

“I love oatmeal,” I said, feeling weirdly affectionate towards the hot mushy cereal. “I think I could live off it.”

“Cool,” Rat said, “I will call you Oats.”

“No.”

Good Days, Bad Days

Some days are okay. These are meant to be called good days, but as far as Dex is concerned there is nothing particularly good about them, they just aren't bad.

Bad, like: pain so overwhelming they might as well be getting shot again, a white hot fire poker stabbing through their eye. Every movement rattles lead balls in their skull and sends waves of nausea through their stomach, but laying down hurts, too. They recline on their chair and push the cat away every time he tries to jump on them, his kneading paws too much to bear. They groan and snip and yell as Jack tiptoes through the house around them.

Or like: they manage to accumulate less than an hour of sleep over a night, or day, or week, because time has lost all meaning without the sun and moon to guide them. Everytime they doze off they wake up in a panic, ears ringing from imagined explosions.

Or: a seizure, violent and convulsive and unknown. They wake up dazed and disoriented on the ground, the sour taste of vomit mingling with metallic blood. There is shit in their pants.

“I need shower,” Dex mumbles, tongue thick. They try to get up but their arms aren't working right. They are laying on their side, as though they had been napping on the kitchen floor.

“I know,” Jack’s voice says from above, “I'll help you with that. Just take a minute, okay?” Dex becomes aware of a pressure rubbing up and down their back; a hand. A voice. They reach out and fumble around clumsily with one hand, finding a knee, a thigh that they clutch desperately without knowing why. A whole person, kneeling next to their head.

Eventually, Dex is able to sit up, their brain swimming. They cling to Jack’s forearm as he pulls them up, shakily, to their feet and half carries them to the bathroom. He has to help them out of their shitty clothes, into the shower, and Dex wishes they could cry about this but they can't. They scrub and scrub at their body; they can feel the soap bar shrinking but they cannot feel clean. They throw it angrily in a random direction; it hits the wall, the floor with a sticky-wet thunk.

“Dex.” Jack’s voice startles them. Always.

“What are you doing here, Jack?”

“You're postictal, I need to monitor you.”

Dex sighs. “Why haven't you divorced me yet?”

Jack keeps his voice even when he answers, “Because I love you.” If the question was a surprise, Dex will never know.

“You shouldn't have to deal with this shit,” they say plaintively.

“I'm a paramedic. I deal with shit every day.”

“That's worse.”

“I don't think so.”

Dex finally turns off the shower, feels around past the curtain for a towel. “What if I said I don't love you anymore?”

Jack’s bark of laughter disarms them. “You'd be lying,” he says confidently.

Dex doesn't say anything, slowly leaves the bathroom. They hear Jack's footfalls a few steps behind them. He stands in the doorway, watching them get dressed. “I miss you, Dex,” he says.

“I miss being able to see,” they reply automatically.

“You're going to have to get over that, eventually.”

You're going to have to get over me, eventually, Dex thinks.

Dex Has A Plan

Dex has a plan; they also have a publisher, and an advance collecting interest in a savings account Jack doesn't really know about, because for a couple years there they were poor as dirt, and the stress of negative accounts and unmanageable interest rates sent him over the edge. So Dex took over everything financial, including begging for help from their mom when needed, a fact which will be held over their head until they die.

If not for the nature of their plans, Dex would be pleased with how much they have accomplished alone with a screen reader. The part with the publishers was disappointingly easy; their email had been filled with offers from publishing companies after they were shot. Including one that had been likely about to reject them on a manuscript just before the whole event.

The hard part was finding someone interested in publishing fiction, which is what Dex was writing. Most of the publishers wanted a memoir or a social commentary, preferably something ghost written because Dr. Doom was just a bit too gloomy, you know? One particularly tone deaf agent had sent along a sample of work produced by a generative AI that called global warming a “manufactured crisis.” Technically true, if you consider it a crisis caused by manufacturing, but not what you want it to mean; and how many gallons of water did the AI consume just to produce that drivel?

Dex hadn't expected the advance, but it just makes their plan easier; they have something to leave for Jack.

The only thing they have not yet figured out is how to do it, but they have some time. Their book isn't done yet.

Unloveables: 13

When we returned to the library that evening, it was immediately clear something had changed: the door in the back, the one concealing a stairwell to the basement, had been needlessly ripped off its hinges; needlessly, because it never even had a lock. I stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the voices below, muted conversations interspersed with barked commands.

Rat put his hand on my back. “I am so sorry,” he said gently.

I shrugged, feigning indifference. “It's a public library,” I reminded myself.

As we left through the front windows, we ran into a guard we’d managed to bypass earlier. This was someone I had interacted with before; an older man, beyond the range I could easily recognize someone’s age. He carried a rifle and wore thick glasses that made his watery blue eyes look tiny.

“You're not supposed to be here,” he said sternly.

“Sorry,” I said, waving a book towards him. I was glad I had grabbed it off the shelves before we left. “I didn't know it was closed.”

He looked at me suspiciously, then at Rat with a more curious expression. “I recognize you,” he said, returning his gaze back towards me.

“Yeah, um, I think I gave you a soda once.”

“Oh yeah? You have any more, then?”

“I'm afraid not,” I said.

“What about him?” the man asked, gesturing towards Rat with his rifle.

“Him?” I looked at Rat, standing behind me. “He's just a kid. Have you ever even had a soda?”

Rat shook his head quickly, looking for all the world like a frightened child. I glanced back towards the man, who scowled.

“What about that backpack?”

“Camping gear,” I said, too quickly. “Do you need a sleeping bag?”

“I have a bed.” He said it as though it was a point of pride.

I tried to smile. “Lucky,” I said.

The man looked back and forth between me and Rat for a moment longer, then stepped to the side. “Go on,” he said, gesturing again with his rifle. “Library’s only open during daylight hours from now on.”

“Gotcha,” I said, “thanks.”

We shuffled past and speed-walked away, disappearing into the night. My legs being much longer than Rat’s, he was running to keep up; I didn't notice until he grabbed my hand, his own palm sweaty and hot. I slowed down and he didn't let go. We walked west, towards the elementary school at the edge of town.

“I am sixteen,” he said quietly, randomly.

“Huh?”

“I am sixteen. I am not a child.”

“Okay, but, like, you understand why I had to lie for you, right?”

“Yes.”

We walked in silence for a while longer, then I said, “I'm still not telling you my name.”

Rat sighed.

An Attempt

Jack is sitting at the kitchen table, sorting pills into their daily slots.

“Can you teach me the labels again?” Dex asks. “I really should learn.”

“These bottles don't have them,” Jack says. “I'll make sure to ask next time,” he lies.

It is a horrid thing that makes Jack sick, to lie and manipulate and keep Dex dependent on him; but he also thinks he knows what they're really looking for.

Naomi continues to visit each week, and everyone pretends to be fine. Then they talk together alone in the ambulance bay outside the ER when their breaks overlap. Jack discusses his fears; Dex’s depression, their as yet still unaddressed trauma, the way they don't sleep but wander through the house like a ghost.

“You work odd hours,” Naomi tries to remind him, “They're stuck in your schedule.”

“Yeah, but I sleep when I'm home.”

“Maybe they sleep when you're not.”

They need to go to talk to someone - a therapist or a trauma counselor, anyone - but they refuse. Jack considers taking them to a hospital for treatment; it would have to be in the city, since the rural hospital in town isn't great. He can picture Dex fighting, screaming, jumping out of the moving truck and into incoming traffic.

“I can help if it comes down to that,” she assures him.

Naomi also starts spending more time at her parents’ place, in order to keep an eye on Estelle next door. When she can, the girl sneaks out into her backyard and demands updates about Dex.

“Why won't they come visit me?” she whines, knowing full well her mom wouldn't allow it. And Joanne is home now, more often than not; if she still has a job, she isn't going to it.

With so little time spent in her own place - a studio apartment over a tattoo shop downtown - Naomi is starting to wonder why she even bothers paying the rent. From the outside, it seems like her life is at a standstill. She has mostly gotten past the constant questioning from her parents - when are you going to get a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, or what are you even, anyway? They just want grandchildren. She isn't necessarily opposed to the idea of children - not in the same way as, say, Dex - but she is generally opposed to the idea of sex and relationships, at least for herself; Naomi really likes to be alone. That she is best friends with what is probably the happiest and horniest couple in the state was once a continued source of amusement; now, she wonders if it's even true anymore. The hope that she clings to - for Jack's sake, mostly - that Dex will somehow pull themselves out of this, and things could go back to, not normal, but something just as good or better; it is a sticky sort of hope, but insubstantial.

. . .

When Jack wakes up from an actual wet dream, he has to start laughing; he's a fucking teenager again. The laughter quickly devolves into crying, which he only has to make sure he keeps quiet to avoid Dex’s suspicion. Tears can be pouring down his face in front of them and they wouldn't know as long as he didn't sniff too loud. Not that Dex is there to notice; if they still shared a bed, this wouldn't have even happened. They would be fucking way too much for it to happen.

. . .

Dex is in their office when Jack finally tracks them down; they do not often go upstairs, so it took him longer than usual. Long enough for a haunting dread to build in his gut, a tiny voice to tell him he was looking for a corpse. But they are alive and, maybe not well, but okay. They are typing on their laptop while listening to something on their phone through an earbud.

“Hey,” Jack says, reluctantly interrupting to announce his presence. He has been lingering unseen, staring for too long.

“Morning,” they answer vaguely.

Jack looks at the clock; it is just past noon. “Have you had breakfast?”

Dex shakes their head. They had cereal at some point in their recent history, but that could have been hours ago; and Jack doesn't need an excuse to skip a meal. They hit the hotkeys to save their progress and carefully close the laptop.

“How's your book going?”

“Fine.” They stand and walk around their desk, keeping one hand on the smooth oak surface. The desk, likely Jack’s father's, has been here since the beginning; it was really too heavy to bother moving. Dex filled the shelves with their heavy science textbooks - useless now - and decorated the walls with their own photographs - also useless. That Dex had been a hobbiest nature and wildlife photographer before going blind was just another thing to add to the growing list of tragedies that make up their life.

Jack's eyes burn as he scans the photographs, but he manages to hold back the threatened recurrence of tears. He remembers the hikes where some of them were taken: a herd of deer, spotted fawns frozen in the foreground; an endangered bumblebee that caused Dex to sit in a patch of flowers for nearly an hour, just to get clear shot; a grumpy looking toad that he had almost stepped on.

“I'm thinking we should take the pictures down,” Dex says, “I'll give them to Stell.”

Jack turns to face them; they are leaning against the desk, looking casual. What more things are you looking for to give away? he wonders. He asks, “How did you know I was looking at them?”

They shrug. “Your footsteps,” they explain, “You were walking around the edge of the room.”

“I like the pictures. I like seeing you in this room with them.”

That's hardly fair, they think. The room is silent and they have lost track of where Jack was standing. “Where are you at?” they ask.

“Right here,” he says, quickly moving to place in front of them and touching their arm.

For once, Dex doesn't flinch away; they trace their fingers up Jack’s arm, his shoulder, neck, jaw. They lean in and kiss him. It is a deep, passionate kiss that leaves him breathless and yearning for more when they pull away.

“What was that for?” he asks.

Dex frowns. “Do I need a reason to kiss my husband?”

This time Jack kisses them before responding, “Of course not.” Except for the fact that they've barely kissed at all since Dex was in the hospital; they haven't tried to touch him at all.

Dex did have an ulterior motive for kissing Jack, and they do feel bad about using him in that way. They were trying to write about a kiss between two characters in their book, but had forgotten what the experience was like. They had not expected to get anything from the kiss; the stirring of arousal disarms them, as does the apparent lack thereof in Jack. That does not, however, surprise them; their mom had called them “hideous.”

Summertime

Summer means climate chaos to Dex, and the rest of North America, if they are paying attention: heat waves, tornadoes, derechos and droughts, hurricanes. It means wildfires to Jack; or, it did, until Dex ruined it for him. Just as they know exactly what the 12-month mean temperature anomaly is, they're pretty sure Jack knows exactly how many wildfires he is personally missing out on right now, exactly where the smoke tinged air is coming from.

Summer temperatures mean more migraines, more nausea, more all-encompassing fatigue. Not just for Dex; Jack spends one particularly rough evening on dozens of back-to-back calls for heat related illnesses. Even when temperatures climb into triple digits, people are adamant about going outside and soaking it in. Naomi laughs as she describes a patient who insisted the sunblock they had applied should have also prevented them from nearly getting heat stroke.

“I tried to explain that the sun also heats up the air around her, and she accused me of being one of those ‘climate change nutjobs.’” She is cutting vegetables with Jack, helping prepare meals for the week for Dex, who is not helping; they sit at the kitchen table, working on whatever secretive book they are writing.

“Now there's an idea,” they mutter, “Take away all the air. Can't have global warming if you don't have an atmosphere.”

“We could all live in bubbles,” Jack suggests.

“You think you're joking.” Dex goes on to describe the city of underground bunkers being developed by billionaires, for billionaires in northern California. “Call it reverse terraforming,” they say, “As long as they keep their little biodomes going, they can pollute the air outside as much as they want. And they need to be able to keep polluting, just to keep their biodomes going.” Plants aren't meant to grow underground; the bunkers will need to have artificial lights and water recirculation pumps and fertilizers to maximize growth.

Dex stops talking abruptly as a shock of thunder rattles overhead. It is suddenly strangely quiet, and they tilt their head, listening to the wind-rattled windows, the sporadic spatter of rain.

“There's matches in the top drawer, I'll grab candles,” Jack’s voice says, coming towards them. “Hey,” he says softer, closer, before placing his hand on Dex’s shoulder and kissing the top of their head.

“Did we lose power?” Dex asks.

“Mhm.”

They close their laptop, although the battery was almost certainly charged. They sit in eternal darkness and wonder if candles are really necessary; there are windows, right? Is it already nighttime? Dex listens to Naomi dig around a drawer for matches, then start putting the food she has been preparing into the useless fridge. Leave it closed, they think, you're letting the cold out. Jack returns, and there is a rough striking sound; a hiss; the smell of sulfur, but no illuminating light. The storm outside intensifies, rain and possibly hail beating rhythmically at the outside walls of the house. Its frame creaks and shifts in the wind.

As a child, Dex hated thunderstorms; in southern Texas they were associated with hurricanes, which were devastating, and tornadoes, which were terrifying. One summer a tornado had ripped through the wooded lot across the street from Dex’s neighborhood, knocking down trees that had already been marked for clear-cutting; the lot would later become a Walmart.

After Estelle was born, Dex didn't have the luxury of being afraid of storms; they didn't want that fear to transfer to her. Fortunately the storms in Colorado are very rarely severe, making it easier to act with a bravado that did not necessarily reflect how they felt. This ultimately backfired; last year, Estelle had been caught trying to take her bike out during a tornado watch to go “storm chasing.”

Now, Dex merely appreciates thunderstorms for their honest rage; the violence of the rain and wind threatening to tear the world apart.

Unloveables: 14

The elementary school at the edge of town was isolated enough that no one bothered using it; it was also half torn down by a massive wind storm a few years before I was born and never rebuilt. Fortunately it had a basement, which saved the kids’ lives; according to a newspaper article about the incident that I found at the library. I had a nest in a boiler room, long grown cold despite its name. I padded the cold concrete with nap mats I took from the kindergarten classroom upstairs. The other room was cavernous, at one time used for storage, and amongst the remaining stacks of paper and boxes of crayons I had a small supply of food and winter clothes.

“You are like a squirrel,” Rat remarked.

“You are not calling me that,” I said.

“We could be rodent buddies.”

I sighed.

. . .

I read by candlelight while Rat scavenged through the old school supplies, returning with a stack of colorful paper curled around pencils and crayons. He hunched awkwardly over the paper on the flat concrete floor, drawing out the scene from the night before, sans towering aqueduct: a family of deer, lush greenery, a colorful sunset. It was impressive, especially coming from school crayons.

I told him as much. “I've never known an artist before,” I said.

“I did not bring any of my art supplies with me,” he said, not looking up from his drawing, “I thought they were unnecessary weight. I underestimated how much I would miss them.”

“What do you normally use?”

“Watercolors.”

“They don't have those here?”

“Paint,” he said, “No water.”

“Oh.”

. . .

If peanut butter is more precious than gold, water is more precious than peanut butter. The oasis is a privilege I keep a closely guarded secret, which is why I was so concerned when I first saw Rat there. If he could find that place, that means anyone can.

. . .

Rat finished his drawing, then sat up straight, stretching and groaning.

“Do you want to see the rest of the school?” I asked. “I could use a walk.”

“Yes.”

We wandered through the empty, echoing hallways, entering classrooms at random to examine the ancient, decaying decorations, workbooks, abandoned lunchboxes. I liked reading through the handwritten notes left behind by teachers long-gone. Rat dug through the nurse’s office and found an unopened box of tampons tucked away in the back corner of the highest shelf in the cabinet. We walked through the cafeteria, which still smelled like old food, and the rubbled remains of the library that had been ripped apart by winds. We climbed up a wide staircase to the second floor, then a narrower one to the roof, where we kissed in front of a colorful sunrise.

. . .

It was my first kiss, but it was not Rat’s.

“My neighbor. It was really awkward; we had practically grown up together.”

“Wait, you're telling me there's not one but two families left in Dinosaur?” I asked incredulously.

“Dozens of us,” he said, face serious.

“Is it, like, a commune?” I asked.

Rat blinked at me, surprised, and I could tell I had figured it out. “Something like that,” he said.

“Do you miss your neighbor?”

“No.”

“Hypothetically,” I asked, “if I told you my name, would you tell me why you left?”

“Hypothetically?” Rat repeated. He thought for a moment, then said, “I still do not know.”

“Okay.” We kissed again, and I thought about my hands dangling awkwardly in the air beside me.

Rat pulled away, scanning my face curiously. “You do not seem to be particularly into this,” he commented.

“What? No, I don't mind kissing, it's -”

Rat's face fell. “You ‘don't mind’?” he repeated.

“No, I mean.” I sighed, scrubbing my face with my hands. “Yeah. I think something inside me is broken.”

“Broken?”

“Like, I'm not repulsed by kissing or sex or whatever. It's just not all that important to me.”

“Not important.”

I was starting to get irritated by his repeating my words. “Look, you masturbate, right?” I didn't wait for an answer, just continued, “Most people our age do, but I don't. I would have to be very, very bored to bother trying.”

Rat chewed on his lip for a moment, considering. “I see,” he said finally.

“Do you?”

“I do not know. I will probably never have sex either, but that is because I would rather die than get pregnant.”

“What about kissing?”

“I like kissing. I like masturbating too.”

His candor made me blush, despite being the one who started it. “Good, because I would like to keep kissing you,” I said.

“Okay.” To prove my point, I leaned down to kiss him again; he really was quite short. I moved one of my uselessly dangling hands to rest on his hip, and the other to his hair. A warm feeling filled my chest and down my stomach.

. . .

The thing about gender and sexuality is, they are all spectrums. Not everyone fits solidly or comfortably in the same place. I fall on the “sex-positive” side of asexuality, meaning, for the right person, I had no qualms about doing sexual acts for their pleasure.

And, well, I was pretty sure Rat was one of those right persons. I was actually kind of madly in love with him.

But I am getting ahead of myself here.

. . .

With the sun up, the rooftop rapidly grew uncomfortably warm, so we climbed back down into the bowels of the school to sleep.

Star is Not Dying

Estelle gets her phone back after a few unbearably dull weeks of summer. By getting her phone back, she means she waited until her mother was passed out in the living room then retrieved it from the underwear drawer it has been hidden in, and if or when her mother says something about it she will deal with the fallout then. It is storming, and she stretches out on her stomach on her bed, listening to thunder crack through the sky. She sends a text to Dex:

Star > im dying of ennui

Their response comes a few minutes later.

Dex > Anyone bored during a thunderstorm has to be seriously lacking in imagination.

She grins; it almost sounds like the old Dex. Another message comes in as she is considering a reply.

Dex > Did you lose power?

Star > nope

Dex > Do you need anything?

Estelle can think of a lot of things that she needs; to get out of her house, for one; and away from her mother, that would be nice. She needs to actually talk to Dex and tell them what she knows, but she doesn't know how they will respond and she doesn't want to find out. She probably needs to eat a carrot or something; how long has it been since she ate a vegetable? Jack would be so disappointed.

Star > i just miss you

Dex > I miss you too. I'm sorry.

. . .

Dex is exorbitantly glad to receive a text from Estelle, for the first time since the disastrous visit from their mother. A small part of them was convinced Naomi was lying about having seen her, and the girl was actually dead or dying in the cellar basement, locked up by a psychotic Joanne. Not that she had ever been blatantly abusive before - their mother's weapon of choice had always been words and self-pity - but she was a broken woman, ever since Dex had gotten pregnant and ruined her entire life. She had lost her job - “they were gossiping about me!” - her husband - “he can't even stand to look at you, he's so disappointed” - and her daughter - “and neither can I.” When they moved to Colorado, Dex was meant to be a shut-in; perhaps they still would be, if Naomi hadn't been their neighbor.

. . .

“Why are you smirking like that?” Naomi asks now; she has not seen Dex smile quite like that in, well, months. They are sitting around the table in a pool of yellow candlelight, playing Dominoes. Dex runs their fingers over the cool pieces, feeling for their etched pips, then turns back to their phone, listening.

“Stell got her phone back,” they answer finally. “She actually used the word ‘ennui.’” The declaration had been particularly dramatic in Jarvis's mechanical British tone.

Jack exhales a sigh of relief. He didn't necessarily think kids her age should have phones, but Star was a necessary exception, considering. He tries driving past the house when he's in town, but she is never out front. His mother-in-law threatened to call the police the one time he tried getting any closer. He places a tile, saying out loud, “Five on three.”

Dex feels for the tile they know has five pips, then for its new place in the game. They feel so very childish for being pleased about the ease at which they performed the maneuver. They wish Estelle was here to play the game with them, then remember: her attachment is hardly compatible with their plans. They are the one who abandoned her with their mother in the first place. They are the one who never wanted her at all. Dex’s initial elation at receiving the text rapidly falls as they remind themselves once again what a piece of shit they are, because their own daughter has to talk to them by text.

They get increasingly frustrated with the tiles, the pips, the counting and memorizing, and eventually they push their pile away, messing up the game for everyone. “I have a headache,” they offer as an excuse. They get up to pee for the third time since the power went out then trudge into the front room and collapse onto their chair.

Naomi’s eyes flicker back to Jack, and he offers an apologetic smile as he neatly stacks the tiles in their tin. This is my life now, he says without speaking.

Digging Around

Estelle is in Dex’s old room, which has gone unused for so long as to be nearly useless for information. She has searched many times, but they either took or destroyed anything important. She can barely even remember a time when Dex lived in this room; vaguely, a summer home from college, when Jack was gone fighting fires more often than not. She remembers Dex’s anxiety, the smoke turning the sky a hazy tan. There were days she was not allowed outside because the air quality was so bad. When it finally rained, the water was grey with soot.

This summer is not that bad - probably - but the sky is hazy in the heat of the afternoons. Estelle wonders if Riley ever set off the last two rockets he was still clutching when he ran away from the fire he almost caused.

Estelle crosses the hallway back to her own room. She considers digging through her mom’s closet again - that is where she found her birth certificate, so many months ago - but decides it isn't worth the risk. Or the effort; it is much too hot. She feels sticky and tired, and the window won't open to let in a breeze. She sits down in the same corner Jack used to hide as a little kid, scrolling through her contraband phone. It is a cozy place, she admits.

She looks up news of active wildfires. She reads about a string of tornadoes to the east, a hurricane headed straight towards Texas in the south. She reads about a landslide that wiped out an entire village in Papua New Guinea - which she has to look up - and a dam breach in Guinea - which is on the other side of the world as the first place - that flooded the entire town downstream.

Dex calls this doomscrolling and the solution, according to their blog, is not ignorance, but to build a community that is supportive and prepared for the eventuality of catastrophe. Estelle wonders what this sort of community would look like, and decides it definitely wouldn't include kids like Riley.

. . .

“Can you smell the smoke?” Jack asks. He is sitting on the porch swing with Dex; in a rare moment of intimacy, they are leaning against him, his arm draped around their shoulders. It feels so comfortable, so familiar; it shouldn't feel weird, or fleeting, impermanent, but it does, too.

Dex nods; it is faint, distant, carried by the winds high above. “How many are there?” they ask.

He hesitates. “Regionally, or state-wide?”

“That you are missing out on.”

He sighs. “Seven.”

“That's not too bad.”

“No,” Jack agrees, “it's not terrible.”

. . .

One summer, early on in his firefighting training, Jack had joined a team to tackle a raging forest fire in California, where the trees grew taller than anything he had ever seen in the Rockies. Years of drought - Dex would later call it a mega-drought, which also affected them in Colorado - had dried out the towering redwoods and the tangling shrubs that grew between them to a crisp; a single spark was enough to catch and spread out of control. The air was choked with ash and smoke as Jack and the others trekked through the rough, wild terrain towards the flames. Hot, dry winds blew the fire through the tinder faster than they could cut a perimeter; at one point faster than Jack could run, and he'd had to deploy his fire shelter - a blanket made of layers of foil and fiberglass that deflected heat and trapped a bubble of breathable air with him. The flames rolled over him in waves, the sound like a jet engine in his ears while the raging inferno outside whipped at the edges of the blanket and burned his fingers. A strange calm fell over him along with an absolute certainty: either he would walk away from this, or he would die.

It is this calm he sees in Dex that has Jack so concerned. It is the calm between wild storms of mood swings; it is the serene acceptance of a fate that has become inevitable.

. . .

Dex works on their book; they sleep in fitful spurts on the old recliner; they eat three square meals a day without really knowing what time they are at. They respond to Estelle's texts and talk to Naomi when she comes over. They swallow their pills - only the ones in the little box, no more, no less - when the alarm on their phone tells them to. Another alarm dings every hour to remind them to pee. They sit outside and smell the smoke and imagine drowning in the fluid produced by their own lungs in response to the pollution; too bad they do not have asthma on top of everything else.

Unloveables: 15

I awoke in the afternoon, in time for a supply run, if I hurried. I debated whether to wake Rat and ask if he wanted to come; twice as risky, but we could carry twice as much. He was curled up tiny under his grey blanket; I shook his shoulder gently, and he startled awake.

“Hey, sorry,” I said, “Do you want to go dumpster diving?”

. . .

We approached the Store from the back, hiding behind a fenced yard as we watched some merchants toss their old shit into the tall, open dumpsters parked next to the loading bay. It was boiling hot, even in the shade, and Rat’s face was red and sweaty. I waited until the bay door was mostly closed before climbing the fence and crossing the overgrown field to the dumpster, Rat following silently behind me. It was just a food day, so there were only two others digging through the bins with us: an older woman, who I knew had a family, and a junkie who ignored anything not in a metal can.

I helped Rat climb into a dumpster, weaving my fingers together into a step up, then climbed in after him. Most of what fills the dumpsters is legitimate trash, empty boxes and packaging that you have to dig through to find the edibles. We quickly filled the backpacks we borrowed from the school, grabbing expired foodstuffs nearly at random. I helped Rat up again, then climbed the wall and jumped to the asphalt below. He remained perched on the metal wall, staring down.

“Come on, it's not that high,” I said, holding my hand out. He wobbled precariously, off-balance from the heavy backpack. I could hear the distant whirring of the waste removal drones. “We have to go,” I said. He jumped down awkwardly, but I caught him and dragged him quickly away from the bins. The woman was already jogging away, lugging a heavy looking duffel bag behind her. I couldn't see the junkie anywhere. The whirring of the drones grew louder and I pulled Rat behind an old electrical box to watch. Four enormous, solar powered quadcopters lowered themselves in the air, their noise deafening, and released clamps that latched to the dumpsters. The junkie scrambled out of the far dumpster as it lifted off the ground, ducking out of the way of the heavy, swinging metal containers.

“Huh,” Rat said, watching the drones fly away. We started back towards the school, sweating under the new loads.

“Yeah,” I said, “Today was really tame. Sometimes there are disagreements.”

“Have you ever been involved in a disagreement?” he asked curiously.

“Are you kidding? I'm a coward. I avoid conflict at all costs.”

Rat was quiet for a while, mulling this information over. I knew he was trying to reconcile my claim with the fact that I'd killed someone.

. . .

Rat was shaking and flushed by the time we got back to the school, and I was worried he had heat sickness.

“Maybe if you didn't wear long sleeves all the time?” I suggested. I had no idea how he could stand it.

“It is UV blocking,” he muttered.

We sorted through the food by candlelight in the school’s boiler room. We ate some of it; the more shelf stable things went to storage; the rest into my backpack. Together we drank a gallon of water as we cooled off in the basement and waited for the sun to set.

. . .

Our destination that night was another house: a small log hunting cabin, nestled deep within a remote wooded lot with an actual permanent creek; it was far enough north that it wasn't yet drained by the aqueduct. It was also over an hour north of town by foot. We passed by a dozen other houses on the highway before turning off onto an unmarked dirt road; we followed this for another half hour before getting to the cabin. The landscape was lit by the Milky Way and a tiny sliver of a new moon.

The cabin was a single, square room with a loft overlooking one half of the space and a deep, cool cellar below. It had a wood stove with a cooktop and a deer’s head mounted to the wall, glassy eyes staring down at you anywhere in the room. It had a closet of a bathroom and a septic tank, which probably needed maintenance but still worked with the help of the cabin’s greatest treasure: a manual well pump outside, from which I could pull forth clean, cold water from deep underground. I carried it inside in a pair of heavy metal buckets.

. . .

“Okay,” Rat said, looking around the clean, neat space. “I really cannot understand why you do not stay here permanently.”

“Too far from town. Also, it's inaccessible in the winter.”

“But there is a cellar.”

“I think you will enjoy foraging around here, too.”

He gave me a wide smile. “Maybe I will never leave.”

I lit a couple of candles to illuminate most of the room. The walls under the loft were lined with bookshelves, and I knew Rat would like to see them. The bottom shelves were dedicated to kid's books, but the upper shelves were packed with field guides and encyclopedias, as well as things I'd found outside in the woods: animal skulls, pretty rocks, feathers. I sat down on the couch and watched him examine the stuff.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, breaking the silent air. “Is there a chance I might accidentally discover your name while looking through these things?”

. . .

Okay, so maybe it was more obvious than I had hoped that I did not just stumble upon this place by accident. It's really out of the way.

. . .

“It's possible, yeah.”

“Are you sure you do not want to just tell me?”

“Yep.”

. . .

If he did find it, probably written down somewhere in my mother’s loopy handwriting, he never said it.

Where is Dr. Doom?

That is the question at least a few people are asking in the last few months since the shooting. Not only will no one respond to requests for updates about the infamous climate scientist's health, but they haven't even bothered to post anything to their blog or social media either. The university where they were once employed has also declined to comment.

An online fundraiser for the family of the kid who died went viral and was funded within days; then it was determined to be a fake and the funds were retained by the company. The actual family never saw a penny.

A Reddit user claiming to be the kid who saved Dr. Doom’s life makes a post inviting users to “ask me anything,” but provides little more than vague answers about what it's like to give CPR and witness a mass shooting; anyone could have written it. Estelle wants to send him a message, but she would need an account, and it does not occur to her to lie about her age to make one.

Estelle digs and digs, doomscrolling endlessly for lack of anything better to do. She is actually looking forward to the upcoming school year; it means she can leave the house. Sixth grade means middle school - a bigger building in a new location, new students from all the disperate elementary schools reorganizing their previously held social order. She reads about flooding in New York City and the mass death of sharks in the overheated waters off the coast of Florida. She does not suffer this knowledge alone; occasionally she will text Dex and ask if they have heard about an event. She wants them to know that she has been paying attention. She wants them to tell her they're proud of her, again.

. . .

“Text from: Star. Did you hear about the tornadoes in Corpus Christi?” The name of Dex's old hometown is jarring in a mechanical British accent. Does she know they used to live there? Surely their mom has talked about it.

Dex has mixed feelings about Estelle's increasing awareness of all of the shit going on around her. It is great she is already so concerned about the world, but also, they worry, probably not healthy. Then again, Dex had been around her age when they'd written a letter to the editor for the local newspaper condemning the construction of a data center over what should have been protected wetlands. They had been just four years older when they gave birth.

“She sounds like you,” Jack says when they ask, scanning through the texts Star sends them. Have you heard about this storm, did you hear about that plague. “It's kind of eerie.”

“I know,” Dex agrees, “It's bad, right? Like, she's never going to have friends.”

“What? No. I mean, Gnome's your friend, right? And I fell in love with you for a reason.”

“You fell in love with me over my toxic need to be informed about every single ecological disaster we have caused on this planet?”

“More or less.”

“That's really sad,” Dex says, “You could do so much better.” They have been trying to implant the idea of Jack moving on, of finding someone else to actually be happy with, into his head.

“I don't want better. I want you.”

It is not working very well.

. . .

Jack passes out after work one night - barely. Really, he just stood up too quickly and mostly sat back down before the black clouds filling his vision consumed him entirely. He was still at the hospital but off the clock, which means his job is safe and thank God for that. He ends up sitting on a bench in an empty exam room with a banana bag draining into his arm, courtesy of Naomi.

“It's so hot out there,” he tries.

“Mhm.”

Jack has gotten out of the habit of eating when he's working, but really that's only one meal out of the day. He has to eat at home, or at least pretend to eat around Dex, or they would starve as well.

“I think you should talk to someone, Jack,” Naomi tries. “Just because Dex refuses to see a therapist doesn't mean you can't.”

“Would a therapist pay my bills for me?”

“Your bills?”

They come in red marked envelopes now, past-due. Jack doesn't open them, just stacks them in the drawer, where they rattle and moan, incessantly demanding his attention as he tries to ignore them.

“How much do you owe?”

He doesn't know; he knows, roughly, what his deductible is - high.

“That's not insurmountable, Jack.”

“Yeah, I know.”

. . .

Jack is later than usual getting home and he wonders if Dex will even notice. They are still awake at three in the morning, typing away at their laptop.

“Good morning,” Dex says when the door opens; they are kind of assuming the person entering is Jack, but it is a safe assumption to make out here. They ask Jarvis for the time; is he later than usual?

“Hey.” Definitely Jack's voice, then. He doesn't come into the kitchen but collapses on the couch in the front room.

“How was work?”

“Fine,” he grunts. A pause, then, “I can't wait for this heatwave to break.” Even now it is sweltering.

“You and me both.” Dex cannot function in the heat; it gives them migraines. There is no drinking enough water to keep them hydrated without also making them sick. Just moving through the thick air is nauseating. Also, the heatwave isn't going away, because it isn't a wave, it's rising temperatures from increasing greenhouse gasses. It's just life, now. Shit piled on shit piled on more shit.

“Dex,” Jack interrupts, and they realize they had in fact been talking out loud. “I'm sorry.” He doesn't sound sorry, not really; exhausted, definitely. Annoyed, maybe. Broken, absolutely.

Dex sighs; they really just need to finish their book and figure out how they are going to end things. Finish their endings. Ha. They close the laptop and go to the bathroom to pee. They return and try to listen for Jack on the couch; steady, even breathing.

“Are you hungry?” they ask.

“No.”

“Do you want a smoothie?”

Jack inhales deeply before answering. “Sure.”

Breaking

Before now, Jack - who has faced down fire tornadoes and former linebackers on PCP - would have said the hardest year in his life was his senior year of high school. Fresh out of ED summer camp and absolutely sick of talking about his feelings, Jack had been looking forward to finishing high school and moving on with his life. Preferably somewhere far away from here.

He was already at a desk in his first period Biology class when Dex walked in; they froze, just briefly, eyes wide, then blinked and stomped away to a desk on the opposite side of the room, resolutely refusing to look towards him. Then, his next class, art; Dex had beaten him to the room and taken the better spot. By lunchtime Jack was already considering skipping it, going to the library or ditching the afternoon all together; but he wasn't allowed to do that. He couldn't let himself slip.

Somehow, it would turn out, Jack and Dex had ended up with identical class schedules; but they would not talk about how weird that was until the school year was almost over. They would not talk at all for the first few months - Dex was a master at not talking to people, a trait they learned from their mom. The sullen silence drove rusty nails into Jack’s stomach and he resorted to eating Tums like candy to try to quell the ulcer he was convinced was forming.

Relief came, rather unexpectedly, in the form of a girlfriend, Tara, whom Dex dated for a couple months in the middle of the year. Jack was able to convince himself he was over them and that they were happy and moved on, and his stomach began to unravel its knots. They started talking again, though only superficially: school, homework, young Star’s latest exploits.

Then one day Jack stumbled upon the two having a heated argument behind some lockers. He wasn't eavesdropping, really, but he did linger unseen around the corner for a moment too long, debating with himself over whether to leave or intervene. Then he heard a sharp crack and the question answered itself. He turned the corner to see Dex, rubbing their cheek, Tara glaring at them with disdain. Their hand quickly dropped when they noticed Jack towering at the end of the hallway.

“Hey,” he said, trying to look casual, “uh, have to interrupt, Dex? We were going to work on that bio lab together.”

“Sorry,” they muttered, picking up their backpack and ducking out of the hall without looking at either of them. Jack had remained a moment longer, staring at Tara, who gave him a sweet smile before turning and leaving in the opposite direction.

He'd had to run to catch up with Dex, who was sporting a bright red spot on their fair cheek. “Dex.”

“I really don't want to talk about it.”

“Okay, but,” Jack hesitated, “can I give you a ride home?”

“I rode my bike.”

“Lucky I have a truck.”

The ride home was quiet. Dex didn't invite him in, and he didn't ask. Then: Star got sick, and he brought ice cream. He enlisted Dex’s help to write his valedictorian speech, just for the excuse to spend time with them. They started going hiking together again. They kissed again at long last at graduation, just before he had to go up and give his speech.

. . .

Jack remains on the couch as he listens to Dex make smoothies, rather rudely offering no help at all, even as they shuffle in blindly from the kitchen, hands full with two glasses full of purplish mush. That they are doing this, he thinks, is an indication Naomi has contacted them, and this irritates him for reasons he cannot justify with words. He sips at the drink; it is too thick, but fine. He watches Dex, sitting as always so far out of reach.

“I am sorry that I am such a source of stress for you now,” they say into the space between them. Jack wants to protest, but they continue, “For what it's worth, I'm almost done.”

“Done with what?”

“My book.”

Dread mixes with smoothie to form an icy pit in his stomach. “And then what?”

Dex offers a wide, fake smile, unsettling under their expressionless sunglasses. “Then I'll be a rich and famous author,” they say, “You won't have to worry about me at all.”

. . .

Dex doesn't feel exactly great about lying (by omission) about their publishing deal, but it's not like they intend to actually make use of any profits from their book; they will leave all that to Jack. If there are any; Ruby, their agent, is confident the book will be a success, “given the circumstances.” Meaning: given that they are already infamous for getting shot. Dex’s success, if it comes, will have nothing to do with their own merit and everything to do with the man they killed.

Dex doesn't plan on sticking around long enough to find out if the book is successful or not.

Unloveables: 16

I built a small fire in the wood stove; it would be out by morning and do little to warm the house, but was enough to boil water for a midnight snack of dried pasta and weeks-off sauce. We sat together on the couch and played go-fish with an old deck of cards, because it was the only game I knew how to play.

“I miss television,” Rat said wistfully; it was around four in the morning, the longest hours of the night.

“Wait, don't tell me Dinosaur became one of those sanctuary districts,” I said, “Are you a Fat Cat?”

“My dad was wealthy enough to amass a fortune of survival goods,” he agreed, “My house had solar panels and a DVD collection.”

“Holy shit,” I said, “DVDs, really?”

“Yes.”

“What's your favorite movie?”

“Star Trek.”

“I think I've read the book. What's your favorite show?”

Rat gave me a peculiar look. “Star Trek,” he answered again.

. . .

Okay, it turns out it was like this huge franchise with multiple TV series, movies, and books. I actually had read a couple of them. I wasn't lying about that.

. . .

“So, what's up in the loft?”

“You can check it out,” I answered, “I don't go up there.”

“Never?” I shook my head. He glanced up towards the hidden space, but stayed put.  “So you sleep on this couch.”

“It's really comfortable.”

“I do not disagree.”

“There's beds. You can sleep up there.”

“Would you mind if I went up there and dragged one of the mattresses down here?”

“Just keep an eye out for rabid bats.”

. . .

There were no rabid bats, as far as I knew; I just didn't go into the loft because it was where my parents used to sleep. I always slept on the couch. Even after Rat dropped a mattress down with a dusty thud.

. . .

Rat left the cabin early that morning; I didn't wake until I heard the snap of the storm door springing shut. I lay there on the couch for a while, reflecting the solitude I had been accustomed to. It really only felt lonely in hindsight.

Eventually he returned with a veritable feast of wild plants, greens and dirty roots and brightly colored berries all piled in my mom’s old sewing basket. The sight of the fresh leafy vegetables made my stomach squirm.

“I know,” he said, “We will take it slow.”

. . .

We went down to the creek after a breakfast of dry cereal and sweet, juicy berries. Rat shook off his boots and rolled his baggy pants up his thighs, wading to the middle of the narrow creek where the water was almost knee-deep.

“It is cold,” he said.

“Yup,” I agreed. “Hey, if you don't want to see me almost naked, close your eyes.” I felt hot and sticky, so I stripped down to my underwear and sat down in the fast moving flow. I was worried about making Rat uncomfortable, but he neither closed his eyes nor recoiled; he actually laughed. He dipped his long sleeves in the water and splashed his face.

“You know, if you want to bathe,” I offered, “I’m also capable of closing my eyes.”

Rat sighed and sat in the water next to me, clothing and all.

“Okay,” he said, “I am going to tell you two things about why I left, because I need to show you something, and that will be the end of it, right?”

I nodded, sitting up straighter in the cold water. He started by pulling his overshirt over his head, keeping his arms in his sleeves; he had on a tank top underneath. He turned so I could see his back, then pulled his tank top up, revealing a handful of long, straight scars stretching across his back. I bit my inner cheek between my teeth to keep from cursing.

“This is what my dad did when he found out I kissed my neighbor,” he explained, dropping the tank top and turning back to face me. “Because she was a girl, right?”

I nodded.

Next, he pulled the sleeves off his arms, stretching his left hand out towards me, tilting it so I could clearly see the long, thickly knotted scar on his inner wrist. “This is what I did when I realized I was a boy, and I was never, ever going to be allowed to live that way.”

I gently grasped his skinny wrist and rubbed my thumb over the scar. Goosebumps dotted his flesh from the cold. I didn't say anything; I didn't know what to say. Then he pulled his arm back and started to untwist the wet balled up shirt in his hands to put it back on

“Wait,” I said, “what was the point of showing me if you were just going to put that back on?” He paused and I continued, the words spilling out in more or less an uncontrolled stream. “I'm glad you showed me. I mean, I think it's awful. What your dad did, I mean, not.. you... I'm really sorry you had to go through that. But I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you showed me, even if I'm going to be absolutely useless in responding to it. I don't know. I don't think I'm very good with the emotional intelligence stuff.” I cringed and finally shut up.

Rat forced out a dry laugh. “I do not think either of us are particularly qualified to handle each other's emotional problems.”

“Yeah, but, like, who is? Have you seen the world out there? What a fucking nightmare.” I was trying to say this humorously, but it was a little too real.

. . .

People die from overdoses and their bodies are eaten by machines. If the winter doesn't kill you, and you manage to survive the violent spring storms, the summer heat will probably do you in. Or starvation. Or dehydration. Or you'll get crushed by one of the enormous, indifferent drones that are just trying to do their job and recycle everything they can - including you. Maybe you'll get murdered; maybe you'll try to fuck with the wrong kid and they'll defend themselves with your own knife to your gut. Maybe you'll catch one of the plagues floating around. A broken ankle. Infection. There are so many ways to die in a world that has grown to treat humanity the way we used to treat it.

Broken

Jack wakes up to a shout, on his feet before he has processed where he is; he fell asleep on the couch, he realizes. Dex is sitting up in the recliner, clutching their stomach and panting. “Fuck,” they say.

“Dex?” He kneels down next to the chair and touches their shoulder.

They jerk, startled; they had not been expecting him. “Please don't touch me,” they say, scrambling needlessly off the recliner, and Jack can see the source of their distress: a dark stain soaking into the brown fabric of the recliner seat. Dex stumbles and steps on the cat’s tail with a yowl; they immediately hop to the other foot, and, unbalanced, end up crumbling to the ground.

Jack's voice: “Can I help you?”

Dex shakes their head, climbing to their feet. They trudge back to the bedroom for clean clothes. The dramatic awakening has put them in a bad mood, which is a shame, because according to Jarvis they have just slept for over five hours, which has got to be a record. They feel downright well rested. It was Jack's presence, they don't want to admit; his soft snores that they've never really liked to sleep without.

The first time they slept with him had been in this room, the night they graduated; Jack hadn't even gotten the electricity turned on, yet, and they'd had sex by candlelight that flickered in the breeze from the open window. It had not been a particularly visual experience - Dex remembers shadows and sharp lines, but mostly sensations. Jack’s weight hovering over them; the smooth, tense lines of the muscles in his arms, his back, his butt. His body was never a threat - if they asked to stop, for any reason, they knew he would have - so they were able to enjoy his power without fear. It is not something they are confident they could do now; Dex has contrived this distance between themselves and Jack so deeply, for so long, they wouldn't know where to begin to breach it.

Dex had spent the night, and the next morning Jack drove them back into town. “You can just drop me off at the gas station,” Dex had suggested.

“I would rather not,” was Jack’s response, “That actually feels really despicable.”

“Please? My mom will flip if she sees you.”

Their mom would flip anyway, for Dex had been out all night without explanation; and they had, after all, had sex. So technically nothing their mom said about them was far off base as she screamed at them in front of Star, who was old enough by then to know what was going on if not why. The toddler was crying into her blueberry muffin and when Joanne had finally run out of vitriol she had cradled her head and petted her soft, thin hair.

“It's okay, baby,” their mom had murmured, “Ann might not love you anymore, but I still do.”

Dex is grateful that Estelle is clever enough to see through their mother's manipulation. Her dad was intelligent, for all his faults.

. . .

“Text from: Star. Mom wants to homeschool me? Double-U. Tee. Eff.”

Dex’s stomach drops. They were homeschooled for a year and a half. For a couple months that meant: rewriting Bible passages; watching and reporting on Fox News; pages and pages of math problems that they're pretty sure Joanne never checked. In the year after Estelle was born it meant watching endless amounts of television while rocking a crying infant through the night.

“Did you hear from Star?” Jack’s voice startles them.

“Yeah,” they say, trying not to show it, “homeschooling? This is a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. He sits heavily on the loveseat against the wall; they are in Dex’s office. “I don't know what to do.”

“Me neither.” Dex has no legal rights over Estelle and therefore no say in how she is educated. They had ended up blackmailing their mother to make her let them start public school, since she clearly was not following the state requirements for progress reporting. “I suppose I will have to blackmail her again.”

“Right on.” Jack's voice sounds amused.

“This really sucks. I miss her.”

“Me too.” He offers to drive them over and demand to see her together, but it's only a half-hearted suggestion, Dex knows. Joanne would have no qualms against accusing them of trespassing; she's done it before. She once called the police on Dex after they took Star to the pool and were late getting home; their bike had gotten a flat. They sigh and rub their face with their hands, pushing their sunglasses off so they fall to the desk with a clatter.

“How are you feeling?” Jack asks tentatively. Depending on the answer, the question is likely to fuel their irritation.

“Oh, I'm fine,” Dex replies, “I've got, like, a normal-ass headache. I think I actually got too much sleep earlier.” Jack’s appreciative chuckle sends a jolt of warm pleasure through their stomach. Their bad mood from earlier almost forgotten, Dex stands, replacing their sunglasses, and trails their fingers along the bookcases lining their wall until their thighs bump into the couch’s armrest.

“Hey,” Jack says, reaching out to grab their hand as they sit on the opposite cushion. Dex sits cross-legged, rocking, hunched over Jack's hand in their lap; habits they developed since losing their vision. He watches as they play with his hand, feeling his nails, his knuckles, bending and straightening his fingers, rubbing the thin, tight tendons in the inside of his wrist. They bring it up to their lips and kiss his palm, sending a spark of pleasure down his spine. Jack curves his fingers to cup their chin and tilt their face towards him, then leans in to kiss them. His heart stutters for a second until their lips part and they deepen the kiss, twisting to press closer; then it races.

Dex traces a path along Jack’s torso, wondering vaguely what T-shirt he is wearing; they don't know what shirt they are wearing, either. They feel his collarbone, his chest, his ribcage, his waist. This is not just for research purposes; this is because Dex actually feels genuinely decent after so much sleep earlier. If they ever get a full eight hours, they'd be able to run a marathon, blind. The desire pooling within is terrifyingly foreign yet achingly familiar. It would be unethical to have sex with Jack, they think, after going to such efforts to push him away; it would give him a false hope that there is some sort of future for them. But God how they want it.

A sound catches their attention, absolving Dex of further internal conflict. They pull away and tilt their head. “Someone is here,” they say, “I think it's Gnome.”

Jack groans. “Seriously?” They nod. “How do you know that?”

“Electric cars are silent.”

“Fuck.”

“Not now, apparently,” Dex says, grinning broadly. They stand, feeling immediately isolated in the darkness once again.

Naomi Has News

Naomi is a little early for her usual weekly make-sure-her-best-friends-haven't-collapsed-entirely visit, but she is particularly concerned about Jack after his incident the night before. She also has news, which is troublingly incompatible with her concern for the well-being of him and Dex.

She knocks and then lets herself inside, as she always does, calling, “Hey guys, it's me,” because Dex isn't in their usual chair in the front room.

“Gnome.” Their voice comes down from the second floor. Naomi’s heart lightens as she watches the ease at which they stride down the steps alone. They really have made so much progress, though they would hate to hear her say it. “Are you early today?”

“Little bit. Am I interrupting anything?” Naomi has a long history of inadvertently interrupting something between them; walking in on them; discovering them in some compromising position or another.

“Nope. Jack was just helping me with something in the office. He'll be right down.” She follows them to the kitchen, where they sit at the table, looking strange without their usual laptop in front of them.

“How's your book going?” Naomi asks.

A strange look crosses their face, then disappears. “Fine,” Dex answers, “I am trying to decide how it ends.”

“I never pictured you as a novelist,” she remarks, cringing at her own word choice. “Fiction has never really been your thing.”

“It is the only way to talk about the future,” they reply softly.

Jack joins them, looking bemused; he stops to hug Dex from behind, plant a kiss on top of their head, adding to Naomi’s suspicions that she was interrupting something. It is a gesture that was once familiar, and it makes her feel better about the news she is about to drop. Jack’s bemused expression lingers but Dex’s face grows solemn as she explains: she's moving to the city. She's going to get her master’s while working at the same hospital Dex had been at.

“Wow,” Jack manages, “That's really great. Congratulations.”

Dex nods, but then says, “That hospital sucks though.”

“All hospitals suck when you're stuck in them,” Naomi retorts. They shrug and say very little for the rest of the night.

. . .

Jack chides them for their mood later, after Naomi has left. “You have to be happy for her,” he says, “This is great for her.”

“Sure,” Dex agrees. “I'm worried about you.”

“Me?”

“Don't we kind of,” they gesture broadly, “need her?”

“Dex, we are two grown men,” he says sternly, “we can handle it.”

They make a non-committal noise, retreating into themselves again. Eventually, Jack goes to bed alone.

. . .

Naomi’s departure happens all too quickly after that; within weeks she is gone from their lives. Without her updates, Dex grows increasingly convinced that Estelle is in danger, and it is their fault; for everything.

Jack tries to keep up with the meal prep, falling behind when he routinely fails to buy enough groceries for a week of food. He compensates by spending too much on premade meals, which Dex hates for being wasteful and Jack hates for being expensive, ultra-processed, and generally revolting. If he is handling it, he is doing so poorly.

Unloveables: 17

I dragged Rat out of the creek when I noticed his lips were turning blue and made him dry off under the hot sun in his underwear. I let him borrow my shirt as we walked back to the cabin through prickly undergrowth, because his clothes were soaked. He stretched them out on the porch railing to dry.

“You really could live here,” he said, looking out at the vegetation growing chaotically through the old clearing. “I think that used to be a garden.” He pointed towards the left, but I couldn't see what he saw.

“Too far from town,” I said again.

. . .

In truth, I was terrified of the idea of living away from town. Sure, it's not great, and I have nothing resembling friends or family there, but it's also a fairly consistent source of food. As long as the factories were churning out drone shipments full of goods, I could be reasonably certain of my next meal.

“What if the factories shut down?” Rat asked.

“It would be war,” I said confidently, “it wouldn't last long. I think they would all just wipe each other out.”

“But what about you?”

“I guess I'd be the king of their corpses.”

“You could be the king of this cabin,” he suggested.

“Look,” I said, feeling suddenly irritated, “I get that you got to grow up in the same house all your life. Lucky you. It must have been really nice knowing you were going to get to sleep in the same fucking bed every night.” I ignored the hurt look on his face and continued, “I didn't. I don't have that luxury. I have to move around. I can't get stuck. It's just not an option.”

“Okay,” Rat said quietly, ending the conversation.

. . .

We didn't talk about staying again after that, but I also made no move to return to town any time soon. Rat easily stretched out the food supplies with weird, tiny plants and seeds and berries; crawdads we dug up out of the sand around the creek; and once, disturbingly, a nest full of tiny, fragile bird eggs which had thankfully not had time to develop into anything recognizable. In the early mornings we would explore the woods around the cabin, where I would climb trees and Rat would and poke under logs for bugs. We slept through the hottest part of the day and emerged at dusk, appreciating the cool breeze as we slapped at mosquitoes on our arms.

. . .

I thought things were going okay, at least until a couple weeks in, and I overheard Rat crying on the porch outside. I'd woken from an afternoon nap and he was gone, which wasn't terribly unusual. I didn't think much of it until I heard again the sound that had woken me up, and recognized it as a quiet, muffled sob.

The squeaking of the door made him jump as I stepped out to the porch, and he quickly moved to wipe his face off with his shirt.

“Hey, sorry,” I said hesitantly, standing awkwardly by the door. “I can go if you want, I just... I heard you. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

. . .

I can be so eloquent, when it counts.

. . .

“It is okay,” Rat said, voice thick with mucus, “I am fine.”

“Uh huh.” I sat down and his tenuous grip on normalcy slipped; he broke down and I held him for a while as he cried into my shirt. I ran a hand up and down his back and watched a line of ants swarming in and out of a hill just off the porch. He rested his head against my chest for a while even after his shuddered sobbing had eased. There was a damp patch on my shirt from tears and snot.

“Sorry,” Rat said, “this is embarrassing.”

“What? Crying isn't embarrassing,” I said. “I do it all the time,” I lied.

. . .

I ran out of tears a long time ago. Or maybe they were all beaten out of me at my second foster home.

. . .

Rat made a sound that might have been a laugh. I gave him my soggy shirt to use as a handkerchief, since I'd already have to wash it out in the creek later anyway.

I asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Cycles and Systems

Estelle is afraid; of her mom, mostly, because she has been alternating between drunkenly delirious and eerily sober, a cycle that is often difficult to predict. It is when Joanne is clear headed that she is at her least tolerable, clawing her fingers around Estelle's upper arm and dragging her around the house, keeping her up all night to do chores under her mom’s sharp, critical gaze. There is nothing abusive about chores, sure, but the lack of sleep and constant stream of harsh criticism grinds away at Estelle's resolve. She is too fat; she is too brash; she looks too much like Dex, acts too much like Dex. She says, “your sister,” and Estelle wants to scream that she knows: her mom is a liar and so is Dex, and she knows that she has ruined everything just by existing.

The way her mother rants when she is drunk - conspiracy theories about pedophile presidents and pizza restaurants and the gay agenda and chemtrails - frighten her, too, and they remind her of Dex in a way that scares her even more. Why does she believe one over the other? It is the incoherent, rambling nature of the rants, she realizes; Joanne sounds not like Dex but like the fringe groups who follow them. Dr. Doom’s supporters and detractors often go further in their beliefs than they ever would, and across wildly different directions. Denouncing their calls for community and solidarity, so-called preppers prefer using up their resources to ensure their own survival. A group called child-free focus on the problem of ecological overshoot and decry anyone who contributes to overpopulation. Others discuss overpopulation with racist undertones that Estelle is too young - too white - to pick up on. A very small minority praise the plagues, climate disasters, mass shootings and suicides for their roles in reducing the human population. Each of these different groups use Dex’s research to justify their beliefs.

Estelle is afraid, also, that she is never again going to be allowed outside. The first day of school passes by unnoticed; she is starting to look forward to her rare Sundays when her mother is awake early enough to drag her to church. She is even more terrified she is going to be caught with her phone, which she makes sure to only ever use when her mother is fully unconscious. She reads about things that fuel her fears, morphing them into a grandiose scale: flash floods sweep away a toddler’s birthday party. A wildfire burns so hot and fast that it melts a bear’s meat from its bones, the creature still standing where it died. A heatwave kills millions of cows, their corpses mummifying in the dry heat.

Estelle wishes Dex would post something new to their blog. She wishes she could find some hope. She texts,

Star > hows ur garden?

Their response,

Dex > You tell me.

is followed by half a dozen photographs, randomly framed, often out of focus. She finds bright red spots of berries, tangled vines, floppy orange flowers near the ground.

Star > yum

Estelle hasn't eaten a fresh fruit or vegetable in weeks.

. . .

Dex stands in the middle of their garden, listening to the hum of insects filling the air around them. They are regretting the decision to come out here barefoot; the once familiar pathways have grown covered with prickly weeds without their continued footsteps keeping the dirt compressed. Dex had not known what to expect, coming out here, but Estelle’s comment is promising. They try to identify the plants around them by touch, tangled and overgrown that they have become. The sun beats down on them as they crouch low in the dirt, their fingers stumbling on a strawberry plant with three fat berries.

It should not be surprising, but it is; the garden is based on natural ecosystems, which are generally self-replenishing and self-regulating. Many of the plants growing around them are considered weeds, but are actually edible or medicinal. Dex had researched and designed it while also working on their master’s degree, alternating their time between Jack’s house and their on-campus dorm room in the city. By the end, they were tired of the distance, the travel back and forth, and were eager to start roots in a single place. Ha. They would do their PhD online, traveling when necessary for research and conferences while earning a meager income as an adjunct at the local community college for one or two classes a year.

Dex isn't under any illusions that they could live off this garden, but it provided a decent harvest every year with little intervention from them. If they could actually find the harvest. They once had plans to expand it, maybe get some chickens. Now they stand trapped in the middle of their sanctuary, unable to find a path out that doesn't involve hundreds of tiny, painful pin pricks lodged in the bottom of their feet. The low air quality burns at their eye, their sinuses.

Distantly, a door opens, slams. Jack’s voice floats over. “Dex?”

“I'm in the garden,” they murmur, not really loud enough to be heard. They hear Jack’s heavy boots clomp clomp down the stairs, through the grass; they should have asked him to bring shoes.

“Strawberry?” Dex asks, holding out their hand in the direction of the incoming footfalls.

“Fantastic,” Jack says, still too far away; after a moment he delicately picks up one of the berries and pops it in his mouth. It is slightly sour but juicy. “There are tons more,” he says, “Do you want help picking them?”

Dex shakes their head. “Let the birds have them,” they mutter.

Jack ignores them, kneeling down to pick more of the fruit. “We can put them in pancakes,” he explains. He asks, “Why aren't you wearing any shoes?”

“Uhm,” they say.

“Do you want help getting back?”

“Yeah.”

Jack holds his shirt in his teeth to make a pouch for the strawberries as he gives Dex a piggyback ride back to the house. They drop down onto the porch, arms lingering in an embrace; his breath quickens as their hands brush against bare skin. Then they step back.

“Strawberry pancakes?” they ask, “do we have whipped cream?”

. . .

Jack is getting too thin, and Dex hates him for that: his inability to commit to a basic function, a necessity that is the driving force for all normal life. They hate themselves for resenting him and for contributing to his stress. For being disabled, an invalid; their mother's word for them. They picture Jack starving to death next to their mummified corpse. These are the types of images that come effortlessly and unbidden. Dex can't remember the exact color of Jack’s eyes, anymore, but they can picture them rotting out of his skull.

Dex carefully cuts strawberries they cannot see with a knife they can only feel; they manage, somehow, not to cut their fingers. They feel for the mixing bowl of pancake batter prepared by Jack, and add strawberry pieces a handful at a time. Many of the pieces do not make it to the bowl, and Jack feeds them to Dex as the pancakes cook, his fingers rough and calloused when they brush against their lips. He has a hangnail and Dex feels a bizarre, inexplicable urge to grasp his finger and bite off the little piece of ragged flesh.

They eat the pancakes together in silence; the sound of chewing grates at Dex’s ears. “Jack?” They say suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“What color are your eyes?”

He hesitates for a second. “Dark brown, almost black.”

“I don't know what that means anymore.”

A pause, then, “Like coffee.” A warm whiff of dark roast crosses in front of Dex’s nose. Jack drinks his coffee black; they don't drink it at all, anymore.

Their face softens; a smile. “What about Naomi’s?”

“Blue like the sky?” Jack tries, but they shake their head. “Blue like an electric shock. Like the sound of a babbling creek.”

“Stell's?”

“Star’s are green, like yours,” he says confidently. “Green like the smell of cut grass is green.”

“Mom said my eye was hideous.” She’d said it made them look retarded, had suggested they get it removed and get two glass eyes instead. She had been particularly offended by their lack of any prosthetic at all.

“Your mom is a heinous bitch.” Dex looks surprised, then laughs. “No, really. You're still the sexiest guy I know.” It has been so long since their mother was here; have they been holding on to this the whole time?

“She said she would kill herself if she looked like me.”

“What the fuck? Who says something like that?”

The person I let raise my offspring, they think but do not say. They send Estelle a text:

Dex > Don't let the bastard grind you down.

Arguments

Some days, it feels like all they do is argue.

They argue about food and chores; about Dex’s constant typing, their self-isolation; their refusal to make things any easier for themselves.

Jack wants to drive to the city and visit Naomi; “Have fun,” Dex offers.

“I want you to come with me.”

“No thanks.”

“Please?”

“I'd just piss all over your truck.”

“I think that's what the diapers are for,” Jack tries to reason.

“If you're a toddler, sure.”

“Or an incontinent adult.”

Dex cringes at the word ‘incontinent,’ even though it is a perfectly clinical term. “I don't want to go.”

“Naomi wants to see you,” Jack tries. “Yeah, no,” he interrupts, “I get it, you're blind.” He mutters to himself, walking away, “For fuck's sake.”

They argue about Dex’s health, after they have two seizures in as many days, and he accuses them, rather rudely in their opinion, of not taking their medication. “It's hard enough to write as it is,” they protest, “I don't need more brain damage to add to the mix.”

“You're not brain damaged, you're just an asshole.” Jack doesn't understand why they refuse to see a doctor, refuse to talk to anyone at all about what they're going through. Not that he is doing any better. He feels like he is falling apart.

They argue about sex, an argument he doesn't want to have but Dex won't stop self-depricating; Jack deserves better, the sooner he moves on the better.

“Move on from what?” he retorts irritatedly.

“Me,” Dex responds casually, “Find yourself a nice guy who's not broken inside.”

“I don't want some ‘nice guy,’ I want you.” Jack ignores their smug look in response to his tacit agreement that they are not nice. Especially not now, but Dex has never been a nice guy. Incredibly caring, yes, and they could even be kind; but there is a candor to them that precludes niceties.

“I bet Gnome could introduce you to someone in the city,” they say, “A twink with a real dick who could fuck -”

“Jesus Christ, Dex,” Jack interrupts, growling, “That’s enough.” He is getting tired of the perverse sort of pleasure they seem to get from pissing him off.

They do not argue about the things they ought to be discussing; how Jack never touches them, how Dex always flinches away when he tries. They argue instead about going outside, leaving the house, doing anything besides moping around indoors; about Dex’s defeatist attitude about everything; about Estelle and how they are not doing anything for her; how Jack has to do everything, alone, now.

One day, he runs into Joanne at the grocery store. He tries to smile and greet her, but she stares past him and walks away. A part of Joanne wants him to follow her; she could start a scene, possibly provoke him into hurting her. Wouldn't that be perfect? She refuses to believe that anyone so tall and intimidating, who would choose to look like an unkempt homeless person for half the year or more, could possibly be as harmless as Dex insists.

She gets home and pours herself another drink before putting away some of the groceries. She tries to remember if she gave Estelle breakfast this morning; or wasn't that why she went out to get groceries? Whatever; the girl could stand to lose a few pounds anyway.

A few days later, she gets a visit from a social worker. Fortunately, it is one of Joanne’s good days; she is sober, and has been cleaning the house with Estelle since early in the morning. She spots the suit outside and hisses to the girl, “If you behave, I'll take you to see Dex.”

Estelle is in the kitchen, washing the dishes with scalding hot water; it's more sanitary, her mom says. She doesn't need gloves, she needs to suck it up and deal with a little pain. Her hands are bright red as she talks to the social worker. “Everything here is fine,” she smiles sweetly, “I'm really enjoying my Bible studies.”

But, of course, all grown ups are good for is lying.

Unloveables: 18

That evening we looked at a map of the area. It was old, from before my parents even owned the cabin, which was marked by an old cartoon drawing of a cabin and a smiling stick figure. Rat traced out roughly where the aqueduct ran, south past the oasis through badlands and into a mountain. We tried to guess where the sanctuary New Haven could be; it certainly wasn't on the map.

“We could follow it,” he said.

“We have no idea how far it could be,” I retorted.

“Less than eighty-two miles, I would bet.”

. . .

Rat’s attitude towards walking was kind of insufferable. Like, I get it, you walked a lot. Have a gold medal. I don't think the Olympics exist anymore.

. . .

To prove his point, Rat used a string to measure the space between Dinosaur and Craig on the map, then used it to measure due south, along the path of the aqueduct. 82 miles is a long way; also, the state is huge.

“Okay, but you had a highway,” I pointed out, “I'm pretty sure there are multiple mountains along that path.”

“So we know it is not that far. We can still see the lights.”

Rat had this vague idea of going to the sanctuary and, what, applying for asylum? Begging for entrance?

“Haven't you read the articles about those places?” I asked.

“No,” he admitted, “Newspapers were not allowed.”

. . .

Here is what the newspapers were saying about the climate sanctuaries popping up around the country, at least until they stopped printing newspapers a decade ago:

They were all heavily armed and guarded.

They were funded by the inordinately rich, and the rich inhabited them.

They were “humanity’s last hope for the future.”

. . .

Rat's developing ambitions were the main reason why I was content to remain at the cabin for so long. I felt like going back to town would put him that much closer to following through with it, and leaving me. Because I was not fucking going to New Haven, and I was pretty sure he would be shot before he even got to see the mythical utopia inside.

. . .

We idled through the worst part of summer at the cabin; the weather wasn't as bad there as in town, perhaps because of the trees or the creek that never dried out. I tried not to think about what I was not doing that I should have been: stockpiling food in preparation for winter, when blizzards threatened to bury you alive for days on end. Thinking about it made my chest buzz with anxiety, which I tried very hard to lock up somewhere deep inside and ignore.

A couple times, I was rewarded for my efforts with a searing migraine. Chewing on willow root by itself was only marginally effective, and I would spend an entire afternoon and night confined to the couch with a blanket over my eyes, listening to Rat quietly go about his day. With days and nights blurring together, I let myself lose track of time.

Prescriptions

After her mom finally noticed the missing cell phone, she ripped apart Estelle’s room searching for it. She had been smarter than that, though, and was hiding the thing in Dex’s old room. It remains there, safe for now; but Estelle can't retrieve it, because she can no longer leave her room. Her mother installed a latch on her bedroom door, another on the bathroom door leading out to the other room. So Estelle has the dignity of being able to pee when she wants, at least. But she cannot talk to Dex, and Naomi moved away; she can't tell anyone what is going on.

Estelle misses her phone, her constant doomscrolling. She misses Dex and Jack and their big, old house. She decides she will go see them; she needs to talk to Dex anyway, about what she knows. She just needs to figure out how to get out of here.

Joanne doesn't know what to do about her granddaughter, who is growing increasingly out of control; clearly still being influenced by Dex, if she could just find the missing phone. Or by Jack, who apparently wasn't content just to steal away her daughter. At least she hasn't seen the neighbor girl around lately. The reason Estelle is locked in her room now is: the girl threatened to go talk to the neighbors, tell them she was being abused. As if eleven year olds were entitled to being spoiled by technology! She whines and complains about school so Joanne tosses a Bible onto her bed. “Read this,” she instructs, “Maybe it will make you a better person.”

. . .

When Dex has a seizure that lasts an excruciating two minutes and thirteen seconds - not long enough to be an emergency, but far too long for Jack’s comfort - he insists on taking them to the neurologist. This means a dreaded trip to the city, plastic lined diapers and car sickness and greenhouse gas emissions from Jack’s gas guzzling truck. Dex grumbles at first then falls into an oddly peaceful silence for most of the trip.

“I haven't listened to music in a long time,” they remark after about an hour.

“Really? Why not?”

“I get so tired of listening out for things all the time.”

“What do you listen to when you're writing?” Jack wonders. They always have their phone playing in one ear, their laptop in the other.

“Research, mostly.”

“I thought you were writing fiction.”

Dex smirks. “I'm always researching something,” they say.

“Maybe you should go back to school,” he suggests hopefully. “Another online program?”

The smirk falls. “No point.”

They drive past a new burn scar along the side of the highway. Jack wasn't going to mention it, but the sharp, acrid scent of smoke creeps into the truck through the vents. “How bad is it?” Dex asks.

Blackened stumps as far as he could see. “I think this is the Park North Fire,” he says. “They're letting it burn itself out now. Only five hundred acres.”

“Only,” they repeat with a grim smile. Some fire is good; it's necessary - for the natural cycles of certain trees, for the recycling of locked away nutrients, to clear out the undergrowth. In some ways, controlling and putting out natural wildfires has been detrimental, allowing more and more material to dry out and accumulate as tinder for the inevitable spark. More fuel, increased temperatures, drought, and drier winds combine to make wildfires hotter and faster and more dangerous for everyone involved. Dex can blame their sleep troubles on pain and PTSD and the need to urinate, but they were already accustomed to staying awake some nights, anxiously following the progress of distant wildfires as a proxy for news about Jack, who was out there actually fighting them.

The smoky smell gradually dissipates, then is replaced by the odor of traffic and garbage bins. Dex can tell they're in the city by the constant change in speed, accompanied by a shift in their stomach, a brief flash of blue in their vision. The sounds outside - engines, horns, construction equipment, shouting, talking, ringing, beeping - makes them want to cover their ears and scream.

They endure the indignities of tests and imaging in stoic silence, for little recompense; the neurologist murmurs something about scar tissue and different anticonvulsants and a suppository gel in case of status epilepticus.

“A suppository,” Dex repeats blandly, clearing their throat. What good is that if they have a seizure when Jack is at work? There is a prolonged silence, during which they have to suppress the urge to laugh wildly, out of control. “Can I smoke weed?” they ask instead. They can practically feel Jack’s surprised stare, sitting next to them.

“Are you interested in medical marijuana?” the physician clarifies, and Dex nods.

. . .

Naomi meets them in the lobby. She has plans to take them out for lunch, which apparently involves taking a train downtown. There was a time, before, when Dex would almost exclusively use public transportation where they could not bike, which meant doubling or more their trip time into the city; but now they feel apprehensive as they stand on the platform, leaning against Jack to maximize the surface area of contact between them without looking too weird, because otherwise they feel hopelessly lost and alone. They listen to the garbled loudspeaker naming the incoming train.

“This is us,” Naomi says, and Dex clings to Jack’s arm as they step on board the train. They stand, wobbling, because he does, even though there are open seats. They feel detached as Jack chats pleasantly with Naomi about her new job at the hospital they were just at, her flat nearby, her neighbors with a pet pig. They listen to the conductor name each stop and aren't surprised when Naomi tells them it's time to get off.

The sidewalks are moderately crowded but everyone makes room for Dex and their swinging white cane, even as they feel foolish for using it, for banging into things with it and despite it. At the restaurant, they are surprised when the hostess offers them a menu in Braille.

“Oh, I wouldn't be able to read it,” they stammer, “thanks, though.” They are still struggling with the alphabet.

This is part of why Naomi insisted on taking them downtown: to remind Dex that an independent life is possible, if not in their crappy little town then at least here where public transportation is an option. Also, she really misses her best friends, who both look like they are falling apart without her; naturally. She wonders how much it would take to convince Dex to leave behind that ancient haunted house that they love so much and move with Jack to the city. They used to write about what cities could be doing to make life more environmentally friendly for everyone - in some distant utopian future, cities will be dense, carless, walkable, and green - but such changes need leaders to fight for them and implement them.

After stopping at a dispensary on the way back to the hospital, where the truck was parked, Dex is eager to get home. They eat an edible - a single chocolate mint square - after climbing into the passenger seat. They are halfway home when they complain, “I don't think it's working,” and Jack chuckles from their left. “Famous last words,” he says as they break off a second chocolate. By the time they get home, they are floating. They step lightly out of the truck and walk purposefully towards the front door. Jack catches up with them just before the porch stairs, paper bags with new prescriptions crinkling in his hand.

“Hey,” he says, touching their arm, and they do not cringe away. “Feeling alright?”

Dex turns around, wide smile almost foreign on their still new, stern face. “Wonderful,” they say, wrapping their arms around his head to pull him in for a deep, longing kiss.

Jack’s Internal Debate

For the second time in his life, Jack has to debate the ethical implications of having sex with Dex while they are under the influence of THC; the first being the night before their graduation. Dex had gone to a party that Jack had absolutely no intention of going to; he had work, even. As he was leaving said work, which was well after midnight, he got a call from them.

“Heyyyy,” they said, drawing out the word for absurdly long. “I need your help.” They were stoned, having eaten brownies (plural) they hadn't realized were doped. When they tried to ride their bike home, they immediately lost their balance and crashed onto the black asphalt. Jack drove them home, or rather to the gas station near their home, where he purchased them ginger ale and snacks while they giggled helplessly at the display of stuffed animal keychains. Then he walked with them, pushing their bike, taking the long way through the park despite the late hour because “I'm still, like, uncomfortably high right now.” Dex felt like they were floating, their stomach doing flips beneath them. They dragged Jack over to sit on a bench, uncomfortably exposed in an orange pool of light from a street lamp overhead, and demanded to know why he never had sex with them when they were dating.

Jack, who had not been expecting the question, was flustered. He decided on honesty, mostly because it was the only option he could think of at the moment. “Uhm. I had serious body image issues? I couldn't stand the idea of taking off my shirt in front of you.”

“Body image issues,” Dex repeated, nodding. They understood body image issues; their lack of a dick was a regular source of distress, but not as much as their boobs, which they would eventually have cut off. “Aren't you going to be a lifeguard this summer?”

Jack had given a grim smile, one that melted their heart. “Stepping out of my comfort zone,” he explained. “Or, like, belly flopping out of it.”

“Will you have sex with me now?”

Jack had laughed - a short, sharp bark of surprise - and Dex chuckled along uncertainly, because they were being serious. “I can't have sex with you now,” he said.

“Not like, right here, we could sneak you into my room.”

“I don't think that would be appropriate.”

“Why not?”

“Because you're, and I quote, ‘uncomfortably high right now’.”

“I know,” they agreed, “I also think weed makes me horny.”

Dex had been understanding, that night, going home sexually frustrated but also still madly in love with Jack. They would confess their feelings the next day, and he would have no reservations about their ability to consent when they were sober. They are somewhat less understanding of Jack’s reluctance now, given that they are married; but then again, the dry spell they'd be breaking is the longest they'd gone through since they started dating again. By several months.

“We can talk about this when you're sober,” he says, infuriatingly. Then he has to go to work. It is going to be a long day.

Jack stops at Dex’s old house before work, parking the truck in front and staring at the blank windows for a moment before climbing out and walking up the old, familiar pathway to the front door. He knocks on the door, rings the bell, knocks again, but hears no answer. He crosses over to Naomi's old house, but her parents haven't seen Estelle in days. He drives to work feeling uneasy.

Outburst

Estelle regrets the outburst as she is shouting it: “I know, okay! I know that you're lying and Dex is my real mom and -” Joanne swoops over and grabs the girl’s head, holding a sweating hand over her mouth to stop the spill of words. Estelle wants to fight back - she is almost as tall as her mother already - but she is frozen, terrified. Her mom snarls and drags her by the head, stumbling down the hall and into her bedroom, where she is pushed to the floor.

“If ‘Dex’” - the name is spit out like venom - “is your real mom,” Joanne sneers, “then why do you think you're here?” She gives a wide, false smile, teeth stained red from wine. “She doesn't want you. She never wanted you. If it weren't for me, you'd be rotted medical waste in a landfill.”

Estelle doesn't move as her mom slams the door closed; she hears the click of the latch on the other side. She swallows back the thick sludge of tears and mucus threatening to come out in sobs. She turns so she is sitting with her back against the door; she listens and she waits.

At some point, her mother leaves, and the house is silent as though it is holding its breath. A knock on the door startles her, the following doorbell ring even moreso; she tries her own door, but it is locked shut. She tries her window, but it is painted shut. She tries chipping at the paint with her fingernails but it is stuck fast. More knocking, then whomever is at the door leaves, and Estelle feels strangely lonelier. She returns to the window with a pair of scissors, the blades round-tipped and dull, but if she presses them against the seam they easily crack through the thick layers of paint.

. . .

Dex is showering when their mother arrives at the big old house, which is, perhaps, why they did not hear her entry; she let herself in, since Jack's truck wasn't in the poor excuse for a driveway out front. It is a late hour to be showering, although Joanne isn't quite sure what time it is, only that she had been at the bar for quite a while. They have a towel wrapped around their waist, their chest bare, face uncovered, and she shivers at the sight of her daughter, gaunt and mutilated in so many ways.

“Ann, honey, you look like something the cat dragged in.”

Dex jerks, startled, then tries, uselessly, to cover their chest. “Jesus fuck, mom,” they hiss, “what are you doing here?”

“No need to be so vulgar,” Joanne scolds, “Do I need a reason to visit my daughter?”

“Unannounced at midnight, you do.” So that answers that question. “Is Stell with you?”

“Estelle is grounded,” she says, using the girl's proper name; she was named after Joanne's own mother. Stell is just lazy, and Jack’s name for her, Star, is intolerably juvenile, in her opinion. “Again.”

“What did she do?” Dex asks. They can feel themselves trembling; they feel incredibly vulnerable standing there in a towel in front of their mom.

“She's been sneaking around, talking back, snarking,” Joanne says. “She knows you're her mom, now,” she adds casually, cruelly.

Dex flinches, leaning back against the wall. “You told her?”

“I did no such thing,” Joanne says defensively, “She's such a little brat already, why would I give her yet another reason not to listen to me?”

Dex sighs and rubs their disfigured face with their hands, and she cringes. “I need to talk to her.”

“I think you've done enough damage to the poor girl already.”

Dex scoffs. “I've damaged her?”

“What do you think it must be like as a child to watch their mother mutilate herself to become some-”

“Will you just shut up?” Dex interjects, “I get it, you're transphobic. I'm just glad Stell is smarter than that.” They manage to duck their mother's slap, this time; her jangling bracelets provided ample warning, her reflexes slowed by alcohol. Dex can smell it on her breath. “Did you leave her home alone to go out drunk driving?” they accuse incredulously.

“She's old enough to look after herself,” Joanne waves away their concerns, a gesture they cannot see. She doesn't need this. An idea comes to her. “I just wanted to come by and let you know, I'm thinking of moving back to Texas. Estelle too, obviously.”

Dex’s face turns to stone. “You can't do that,” they say monotonously.

“Oh, I think you will find I can,” Joanne says sweetly. “They're a lot more lenient on homeschoolers down there.” She turns to leave, but Dex grabs her wrist in a surprisingly deft move.

“I won't let that happen,” they growl.

She tries to pull away, and their fingers tighten. “You made your decision,” she reminds them, “You didn't want her.” This time they offer no resistance when she pulls away; they stand in the hall, still naked except for a towel, and listen to their mom’s gait as she wobbles away and out of the house. They turn and retreat to the bedroom to get dressed at last.

Unloveables: 19

It was Rat who started preparing to leave, first by gathering his gear and repacking it precisely into his backpack. This was a fascinating operation to watch, and until he was done I had doubted it would all fit. He carefully collected all of the trash we'd brought into a plastic bag which he insisted on carrying back to town. We washed all of our clothes and blankets in the creek and let them dry under the sun, sitting in our underwear on his mattress inside.

. . .

Okay, making out in our underwear on his mattress inside. I liked kissing Rat. I even found I quite enjoyed touching him; the way his skin rippled with goosebumps under my fingers, the way his breath caught when I pressed my fingers between his legs. The thing is, Rat’s logical aversion to actual sex worked fine with me; there were other things we could do. Mostly that meant touching him: his arms, his stomach, his back, his legs and the space between them. Often it also meant letting him touch me; mainly play with my dick. He lamented not having one of his own.

Only his chest was off-limits; we didn't talk about his boobs or his period, which came and went twice while we were out there.

. . .

I realized, at some point, that this might be why Rat was so eager to find a sanctuary: the last vestiges of modern civilization might have hormone replacement therapy. I don't know.

. . .

We were making out on Rat's mattress, which was once my parent's mattress, which was not a thing I wanted to think about, because he was straddled on top of me and grinding against me and I knew that the pressure, even through fabric, was going to set me off. Once I get an erection, it doesn't take much to orgasm, a fact which Rat seemed always to enjoy taking advantage of; even more so at my inconvenience. Not that I'm complaining. I just equally wouldn't say no to a nice back rub, which is a much less messy experience.

. . .

I was saved the trouble of more laundry by the arrival of a fucking bear into the cabin.

. . .

Which is ironic, because the arrival of a bear is probably one of the most justifiable times to ruin your underwear; just, in, different ways.

. . .

I digress.

. . .

“Oh, fuck,” I said, not in any erotic way but in a holy-shit-there’s-a-bear sort of way. We both scrambled to our feet and I pushed Rat behind me, because even though the black bear was small I was positive Rat was smaller. There was a fire poker next to the stove between me and the fluffy little guy, but I waited, hesitating; the bear looked more confused than anything. I raised my arms up and yelled, lunging forward like I was going to attack and it whirled around and tumbled out the open door. I darted across the room and closed the door after it, locking and chaining it for good measure.

“Oh, fuck,” I said again, leaning heavily against the solid oak door. “I'm so glad that worked.”

Rat did not appear amused; he was hunched over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He had a knife in one hand which, for some reason, got me started laughing uncontrollably.

“What, were you going to stab the poor guy?” I asked breathlessly between giggles.

“If I had to,” he answered defensively.

“Okay, Putin,” I said.

I knew the adrenaline was wearing off because he allowed a small chuckle. “Did you know there were still bears?” he asked, tossing the knife carelessly near his backpack.

I shook my head. I stared at him for a moment, a complex cacophony of feelings squirming around my gut.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just. Cockblocked by a bear? I'm definitely putting that on my bucket list, just so I can immediately cross it off.” I finally made myself step away from the door, half-convinced the bear had changed its mind and would immediately break through. I was trembling as I walked over to Rat and pulled him into an embrace that we were both reluctant to end.

“Thanks for saving my life,” Rat muttered into my chest.

“I guess I did, didn't I?” I said, releasing him to stand up straighter.

“Oh, no,” he said.

I put my hands on my hips and said, “I'm a hero.” I was trying hard not to laugh.

“Okay, Mr. Quixote,” Rat said, rolling his eyes.

“Nope,” I said, “And you're definitely not calling me Don.”

. . .

The literary pissing contest between myself and Rat was probably my favorite thing about us. There were certainly books that I had read that Rat hadn't, and vice versa, but the overlap was vast.

Returns

Jack vaguely regrets not getting laid earlier when he returns home to a much more agitated Dex than he left. He is exhausted, having completed an overnight shift after waking up early (for his schedule) yesterday to drive to the city. This, perhaps, explains his muted reaction as Dex explains the events of the night.

“And I haven't even heard from Stell in weeks! For all we know she's actually dead.”

Reluctantly, Jack explains his attempts to see her before work. “No one was home,” he says.

“That’s worse.”

“Yeah, no, I know,” Jack says wearily. “I'll go down there again. Will you come with?” Before Dex can say it pessimistically, he adds, “The worst she can do is turn us away.” He yawns, trying to suppress the sound.

“What time is it?” Dex asks.

“Two-ish.”

They sigh. “It can wait until daylight, I guess,” they acquiesce.

. . .

Eatelle’s mother comes home some time after midnight and spends a while clattering around the kitchen before stomping back to her room. She remains silent as Joanne drags her out of the room by her arm and demands she start cleaning.

“I spoke to your ‘real mom,’” she hisses, “She still doesn't want you. She doesn't even want to talk to you anymore, now that you know.”

“They,” Estelle mutters under her breath. She is rewarded with a sharp slap on the back of her head.

“She said she still wishes she had gotten an abortion.”

Riley had once called one of Estelle's friends a failed abortion, which is really the main reason she knows what her mother is talking about; Dex’s occasional blog post about women’s rights and her constant doomscrolling have further cemented the meaning in her mind. She cleans in grim silence. As she is doing the dishes, she slips a butter knife up her sleeve. When she is finally relieved of her chores and returns to her room, she waits for the sound of her mother’s apneic snores before wedging the thin, flat blade under the window and prying it open.

Joanne is still drunk when she wakes after only an hour or so; a sliver of the sun’s rays peeks through the curtains, focusing straight on her face, and she rolls over and vomits off the side of the couch. She stands and stumbles back to Estelle’s room, not knowing entirely why until she opens the door and discovers the window, standing wide open, screen popped out into the back yard.

“You little bitch,” Joanne mutters to herself. Despite everything, despite all Dex’s attempts to get rid of her and abandon her, Estelle still prefers them over her. Fine, she thinks; they can have her. Let them deal with her nasty little attitude, her constant eating, her sloppy messes. I quit, she thinks with some satisfaction.

The revelation calls for celebration; Joanne climbs into her car, eyes blurring with tears as she backs out of her driveway, through suburban streets and onto a wider highway. She doesn't understand why she is crying, having just made the happiest decision of her life. Her nose is running, and she glances down into the passenger well, digs through the accumulated trash for a second to find a napkin. She remembers nothing else after that.

. . .

It is midmorning by the time Jack finally emerges from their bedroom moderately well rested, at least moreso than Dex, who has spent the hours fretting over their next steps. Steps - plural and unknowable - which are fundamentally incompatible with their other plans. Letting Joanne take Estelle away to Texas is unacceptable. Leaving Stell in her care at all has felt increasingly unacceptable over the years. On the other hand, living this half shell of a life, eternally alone and lost and in pain, is also unacceptable. Dex's book is nearly done; their publisher was positively delighted by their latest progress and had some rather helpful suggestions for their ending. And on top of everything else, now Estelle knows they have been lying to her for her entire life.

“I don't even know how to talk to her. What do I say to her?”

Jack has made the executive decision to insist on breakfast before confronting Joanne, and he is quiet as he slowly chokes down his yogurt with fresh berries from the garden outside. That he has been holding back this secret is weighing heavily on him, as are Joanne’s behavior and Estelle’s absence; and what can they do, besides convince her - one way or another - to let them take the girl home? Are they going to need a lawyer? The idea of affording one is almost laughable. He also doubts they could afford a child. The red-marked bills scream at him. He does not know what their bank account looks like and he does not want to find out.

“Jack,” Dex implores, “What are we gonna do?”

“We’re going to go visit your mother,” he says gravely. It is only semi- in jest.

Dex holds his hand as he drives, except when he needs to shift gears, which is how old that truck is. Jack is the only person they know who can drive a manual. A warmth passes between them, all their arguments temporarily forgotten in the face of this new, well, not quite emergency, necessarily, but urgency, perhaps.

Joanne’s car is absent when he pulls up to the house, and Jack leaves Dex in the truck as he tries the doorbell, the front door locked. He hops over the back gate to find the back door similarly locked. Estelle's window, however, was wide open, the room empty beyond.

“Are you trying to break in again, Jack Woods?” Naomi's mother, Ruth, calls from her back porch.

Jack turns and strides over to the fence separating their yards. “Again?” he asks, amused.

“I seem to recall catching you sneaking around that house quite a few times when you were in high school,” she says, not unkindly.

He grins, leaning against the low chain link. “Once or twice. Have you seen Star lately?”

Ruth's jovial attitude falters slightly. “She was here early this morning. Loaded herself up on strawberry muffins and set off like she was on a mission.”

“Was she okay?”

“She seemed in decent spirits. Are things okay?” Her neighbors have been eerily quiet lately, the girl never playing outside anymore. Ruth had assumed she was busy with school.

“Can you call me if you see her?”

“Of course, dear.”

Jack bids farewell then crosses over the fence. As he approaches the truck, he notices Dex is talking on the phone. “Thanks, bye,” he hears through the open window. He crosses around to the driver's side and climbs in.

“What was that about?”

A strange series of looks crosses over their face; grim, disappointed, amused, satisfied? “Mom was in an accident,” they say, “She's okay, but she's probably gone and ruined her life.” She'd been drinking, and Dex had let her drive away. She was in the hospital with a concussion and a broken nose.

“Estelle wasn't with her?”

Dex’s expression solidifies to concern; Jack's question confirms their suspicion of Estelle's absence. “She was supposed to be at home.”

“Her window’s wide open,” he explains, voice strained, “Ruth says she took off this morning.”

“Fuck,” Dex says.

“Yeah.” Perhaps if Jack hadn't been so responsible - sleeping and eating instead of going out and finding her - Estelle would still have been here.

Dex talks to the police on their phone - in a perfectly polite and courteous tone, Jack notes with respect - as he drives slowly around the town, looking out for Estelle. “Did Ruth say if she's on foot?” they ask.

“Her bike was out front.”

“Oh.” They return home, half hoping Estelle is waiting for them there; but the house creaks and groans in its emptiness. Jack searches the property, the trees, the garden. The scent of smoke gathering in the air adds to his anxiety; there are no fires nearby, as far as he knows. “Could she be coming up along the back way?” Dex asks.

The back way is a service road - or, rather, two parallel dirt tracks in the grass - that cuts through the variously owned and public land about half a mile behind their property. The land is used primarily for grazing and is therefore mostly wilderness; they have taken Estelle on hikes along it before. There are dozens of spots along the path where kids and teenagers have made their hang out zones; there is a clearing along the way where Jack and Naomi, and later Dex, spent a large chunk of their childhood summers. It runs mostly parallel to the highway, dropping off in an empty lot at the edge of town. Jack leaves Dex at the house, alone, to walk back there, increasing dread in his stomach. The late summer air is hot, windy, and dry - perfect fire weather - and the smoke in the air only grows thicker as he approaches the service road.

Where Is Estelle?

Estelle hobbles painfully through shrubs and prickly pear cactuses, leaning on a crooked broken branch for support; her ankle is swollen to the size of a grapefruit, hot and tender to the touch. She is running, slowly, away from a brush fire that is growing terrifyingly rapidly behind her; hot winds blow orange flames and showers of sparks through the tall grass and dried sagebrush. She coughs in the smoky air, eyes watering, head throbbing where a knot the size of an egg has formed on the back of her head. She just needs to find her way back to the service road. Then, she just needs to find Jack’s house. Then, find Jack. And Dex, who doesn't want her.

“Just another step,” she mutters to herself, ankle screaming in pain as she puts her weight on it. A gust of wind, hot like an oven from the flames behind her. “Just another step.”

She thinks perhaps she is going to die out here.

Estelle is in this situation, naturally, because of Riley and his goddamn fireworks. She was nearly at the narrow trail that leads to the house when she heard the characteristic popping sound behind her. She would have thought they were gunshots if she had not also seen the green sparkling, barely visible in the daylight, somewhere in the hills beyond. There were more pops as she ran, foolishly, towards them. She was climbing up the steep hill that concealed their activities when she ran into Riley and his goons; they were fleeing through the thick sagebrush, faces panicked. This is the last thing Estelle remembers.

Smoke was thick in the air when she regained consciousness some time later, head throbbing against a hard, flat rock. Nausea swam through her as she sat up; she nearly vomited when she tried to stand and discovered her ankle with a sharp, searing pain. There was a small, paddle-shaped cactus stuck to her arm, its barbed needles still clinging to her skin by the hundreds.

“Just another step,” she mutters again. And again. And again.

When she reaches the service road, she hears her name, and she wants to laugh, because it is clearly a hallucination. Then she hears it again: “Star!” It's Jack, she realizes. Her throat is swollen and raw from the smoke, and when she tries to about back, only a pathetic mewling comes out.

“Star!” Jack shouts through the smoke, again and again, voice hoarse.

“Jack?” he hears, no more than a tiny squeak. It comes from a shape buried in the brush beyond the road. Estelle. He races through the thick overgrowth to reach her, jumping over mounds of sagebrush with ease.

“There's a fire,” she whispers needlessly, gesturing towards the source of smoke somewhere behind her.

Jack moves quickly and efficiently, hoisting the injured Star onto his back while looking up the GPS coordinates on his phone and jogging back along the service road while talking to a dispatcher about the fire. Sirens scream along the narrow tracks behind them as they approach the house, crossing under fruit trees almost ripe to eat.

Jack spots Dex on the porch from the trees. “I found her!” he shouts, “She's safe!”

“The smoke?” they ask, face wrinkled with concern, as they approach the house.

“It's pretty close,” he says, “we should get going.”

Estelle is too exhausted to say anything; she clings to Jack as he carries her to the truck, depositing her carefully on the seat, then trots back towards the house. He passes by Dex, lugging an oversized duffle bag; another is stacked next to the door, waiting, next to Roger in a cat carrier. Dex had dragged them into position after noticing the smoke growing stronger. They leave the bag by the truck and climb into the passenger seat to sit next to Estelle.

“Stell,” they say, reaching out to where they think her arm is. Their fingers brush skin and she flinches away. “Are you okay?”

“I fell into a cactus,” she mutters hoarsely. “There's, like, a hundred needles stuck in my arm.”

“Can I see?”

“See what?” she scoffs.

“Stell,” Dex says, disappointed. She sighs and relents, holding out her arm. Dex takes it gingerly and delicately runs their fingers along her skin, plucking out the needles with a pinch and depositing them in the shallow cup molded into the plastic of the door. “What happened?” They ask.

Estelle sighs and huffs, “Riley.” She watches Jack out the window, casually lifting the duffel bags into the back of the truck, as she stoically explains hearing the pops; chasing after them; Riley and a bunch of other kids racing through the undergrowth. Jack climbs into the driver's seat, dropping a soft cat carrier containing a very concerned Roger on her lap as she concludes, “I think he pushed me. I hit my head.” Dex curses under their breath, and she rushes to add, “I'm okay though! My ankle hurts worse than my head does.”

“Your ankle?”

“I'm worried it's broken,” Jack explains, “Probably a concussion. We'll go to the ER.”

Estelle jumps in, frantically protesting. “No, I don't think -”

Dex interrupts. “Stell,” they implore, “please don't be like me.”

Unloveables: 20

We quickly got dressed and packed up the rest of the clothes, keeping an eye out for the bear, then set off for town just before sunset. It was well after dark by the time we got to town, which is why I didn't see the guard on the highway until it was too late.

“City’s closed,” he said, shining a blinding flashlight in my face, then Rat’s, then mine again. “We ain't taking any refugees.”

“No, um,” I said, “We live here. I was born at that hospital, ‘cause my mom couldn't make it to Steamboat.” I gestured vaguely west, towards the old hospital. I tried to make out the guard’s face past the shining light spot in my vision from the flashlight.

“Who's your boss?” he asked cautiously.

I hesitated, and Rat spoke up from behind me. “Unaffiliated,” he said, and I was glad he'd been practicing away from the absurdly deep voice he used when I met him.

“Uh huh,” the guard said.

“I think I know you, actually,” I offered. “Didn't I share some candy with you?”

“Huh?” He shined the flashlight in my face again, and I winced.

“Yeah,” I said, “Your favorite flavor is blue raspberry.”

“Right, beaver butts!” the man exclaimed, remembering.

. . .

Blue raspberry flavoring used to be made from components found in the anal glands of beavers. This guy was simultaneously thrilled and revolted to learn that; but also, beavers were probably extinct. Or maybe they're not; bears and deer are still around, apparently.

. . .

“Hey, have you ever had real blue raspberries?” I asked the guard. I gave him one of the jars of blackberries we brought from the cabin; he didn't know the difference. He let us through, telling me to stay away from the east side of town, so I led Rat in the direction of the old mall. It was one of my least favorite places to sleep but one of my safest food stores, because there's no clear reason to go into the ceiling unless you know it's there.

Rat was oddly quiet after the encounter and at the mall, as we feasted on stale oatmeal cookies and canned “fruit” cocktail; not that I believed there was any actual fruit in it.

“What's up?” I asked, nudging his knee with mine.

“How is it you always know what to do?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You claim to be invisible, but you know everyone, and you are not even afraid of their guns,” he said. “You know how to scare away bears.”

“Well, yeah, I grew up here. I've been doing this for years.”

“That is terrible, though.”

“What?”

“You were bribing men with guns while I was playing with teddy bears.”

“You had a teddy bear?” I asked, grinning.

“Bears. Plural.”

“That's cute,” I said, “why didn't you bring one of them with you?”

Rat gave me a look. “I would have been killed weeks ago if not for you.”

“You made it all the way here, didn't you? You walked eighty-two freaking miles to get here, alone, foraging for food from the ground based entirely on information from a book.”

“There were no people, though.” We were quiet for a moment, then he asked, “Why do you keep me around?”

“Keep you around?” I repeated incredulously, and he nodded. “Am I preventing you from leaving?”

Rat shook his head. “That is not what I meant.”

“Then why don't you leave?” He frowned, and I continued, “Yeah. I don't want you to leave, and you don't want to leave. I don't know what love is, but maybe it's just that.”

There was a long pause, then Rat said, “Maybe you are right.”

. . .

You would not believe how hard it can be to get two guys to just admit they love each other.

Consequences

Dex is quiet as they wait with Estelle in the small, curtained-off bed in the emergency room, and she watches them, sitting cross legged on a plastic chair and rocking slightly. Their mother, she learns, is also at this hospital - in somewhat more serious condition than Estelle - but Jack assures her she is going to be okay. He keeps jumping in and out of the room, his flustered distraction a perfect contrast to Dex’s impassive calm.

Dex is trying very hard not to start screaming or crying right now. The familiar odors - bleach, medicine, blood, stress, sick, decay - of the hospital are overwhelming, and the ER is noisy and chaotic on this late summer day. Every time Jack disappears - to hand over Roger to a co-worker who has offered to watch him, to go talk to Joanne, to talk to social workers, to get drinks for them all, to listen to his radio in the truck for snippets of information on the fire - Dex feels a little more lost. They sip at their bottled water and refrain from making a comment about microplastics. They do not know what to say, so their tongue feels stuck.

Estelle would have appreciated a comment about microplastics. Or a comment about their mom, or a question about how she's doing, or any words at all. At one point they lean into Jack and whisper something in his ear, and he disappears again, leaving them alone together in silence that is more painful than the concussion, the sprained (not broken) ankle, the tiny cactus pinpricks, and the rough, raw, sandpapery feeling in her lungs combined. A sick, churning feeling grows in Estelle's stomach, her mom’s words repeating through her head. She doesn't want you. She never wanted you.

Jack returns and passes something over to Dex, which they slip into a pocket as they stand and stretch and tap their white cane needlessly on the floor in front of them. “Third door on the right,” he says, “Do you need help?”

“I've got to figure this out somehow,” they mutter, and they shuffle through the curtains into the corridor beyond.

“What was that about?” Estelle asks, once they have left.

Jack gives her a curious look. “That is none of your business,” he scolds lightly.

Estelle shifts uncomfortably on the bed, her ankle, throbbing. She is waiting for someone to come in and wrap it. She wants to go home. “What's going to happen to me?” she asks.

“You’ll come home with us,” he winces, “or, a motel, for now.”

“Are you sure they'll let me?”

Jack hesitates. “Your mom is in a decent amount of trouble. She was drinking before she caused the accident.”

That wasn't the question she was asking, but she lets that slide for now. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“Driver of the other vehicle. It might be serious.”

“So maybe in, like, a ton of trouble,” Estelle says.

Jack only nods; he is distracted by his phone, tapping and scrolling. He sighs and rubs his hand over his face, his cool and collected mask slipping for a fraction of a second. Estelle, watching him, catches it, but Dex returns before she can interrogate him further. They are being guided by a nurse, who proceeds to squeeze and prod at Estelle's ankle while they find their chair next to Jack.

“Everything okay?” he murmurs quietly.

They nod, an amused look on their face. “There's this pull cord thing in there,” they explain, grimacing. “Don't pull it.” Dex hadn't intended to call for help in the bathroom, but the nurse had at least taken the mistake in stride and helped them find their way back.

Jack laughs and grasps their hand, squeezing gently, and they lean over and rest their head on his shoulder. He smells like smoke, the unique sooty smoke of sagebrush fires, and the fear of loss.

The Morning After

Dex wakes up after a deliciously long period of sleep in an achingly familiar position: curled up against Jack, who sleeps on his back, an arm and leg strewn over his chest and thighs. If they keep their eye closed, they can almost pretend that everything is normal; but then the illusion is broken, by the singular eye. The ache in their back where a kidney once was. The scratchy motel sheets and the smell of old smoke, acrid and bitter, still clinging to Jack’s skin. The smell is at once disturbing and arousing; he used to come home late at night - exhausted more from traveling than from fighting wild forces of nature - and slip into bed, wake them up to make love before showering together to rid themselves of the pernicious, lingering odor. Now, they don't have sex, and he doesn't fight fires, both for the same reason: Dex is broken. They roll away from Jack, reminding themselves that Estelle is in the next bed over. Their diaper, damp, rubs uncomfortably against their skin and they feel a sudden urge to cry. It's no wonder babies cry so much, they think.

In the bathroom they find a backpack with replacements, as well as a toothbrush they're only pretty sure is theirs and the organizer full of pills they need to take to stay alive. None of them would be effective in an overdose; they've checked.

Jack is awake when they emerge, digging through a duffel bag. “Morning,” he says, quietly; Estelle must still be asleep.

“What time is it?” they ask.

“Just before eight.”

“Really?” No wonder Dex feels so well rested. The conversation feels stilted, things unsaid piling up in a corner somewhere. They sit on the edge of the bed, feeling lost. Jack drops a neatly folded and stacked pile of clothes next to them.

“Clean clothes for you,” he says, “I'm going to take a shower real quick.”

“Can I sit in there with you? I need to talk to you.” The quiet part: they don't want to be alone with Estelle when she wakes up. They sit on the grooved tile flooring, head leaning back against the wall, and listen to Jack wash his hair. That he is naked somewhere in the void to their left feels isolating; that they can no longer picture it even moreso. Though they said they wanted to talk, they do not know what to say.

“Dex?” Jack says, finally breaking the silence.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Jack.” They do not say it very often anymore, even though it is true; it always has been true, even when he broke their heart and they spent that long, tense year apart. Even when they were dating Tara; so they probably did deserve that slap, at least a little, they think. It will continue to be true until they die, and the reverse is probably true too, despite all their best efforts. Dex wants to die; they hate absolutely everything about their life now. Except for Jack, and their plan to leave him to deal with everything alone is looking more and more like an asshole move.

Looking. Ha.

The water turns off and Dex tries to imagine Jack drying himself off, standing in the tub so he doesn't drip all over them. He is large, and hairy, and they picture a dripping bear in a bathrobe and grin. “Why don't you ever touch me anymore?” they ask.

The swishing sound of the towel pauses for a second. “Seriously?” he asks. Dex frowns; they can't read his tone. “You flinch, like, every time I try.”

“It scares me. I never know where you are.”

“Shall I get a cat collar, like Roger?” Jack asks. Dex can hear the humor in his voice. Roger’s collar has bells, so on the rare occasion he gets out he can't kill any birds. “I'm going to touch you now,” he adds, before placing a hand on their face. They do not flinch and he holds it there, gazing at the nearly invisible freckles dotting their pale skin; they have barely been outside all summer. “I wish I had thought of that sooner.”

“Cat collars? We could probably make it work.”

Jack chuckles then leans in to kiss them, tentatively at first, then deeper as they respond. He is crouched awkwardly in front of them, and too soon he pulls away, standing, and busies himself with getting dressed.

“Jack?” Dex asks as they climb to their feet.

“Yeah.”

“I want to be able to have sex with you when I'm high.”

He exhales a long sigh. “I think I can arrange that.”

Unloveables: 21

There were two events over the next few weeks that changed my mind into going along with Rat's plan to venture south.

First, as we were exploring the hills outside of town, I watched a launch of the shipment drones as they traveled directly south, almost following the distant aqueduct exactly. The increased elevation of the hills offered a perfect view of the factories, and it looked like a whole swarm of the cargo drones was dedicated to delivering supplies to New Haven.

Second, we were attacked by an old junkie outside the library one morning. He had, correctly, assumed that we were a couple, and decided to let his old school bigotry shine before attempting to mug us. This quickly ended with him on the pavement and me punching him, repeatedly, cutting my knuckles on his teeth.

I couldn't take it too far because Rat was there, his hand firmly grabbing my shoulder and shaking it violently when I didn't immediately acknowledge him.

“Hey,” he said, “not worth it, right?” He had a nasty cut on his forehead; the junkie had chucked rocks at us, hence my willingness to engage. Scarlet blood flowed freely, as head wounds tend to, dripping over his eye and down his cheek. He held his sleeve over it, trying to staunch the flow, as I stood up, stepping on the guy’s chest as he groaned on the pavement as a last warning.

. . .

Look, I don't love violence, but I reserve the right to defend myself and my loved ones against assault, okay?

. . .

Rat had a first aid kit with everything needed to fix up his head and clean out the cuts on my knuckles, which we did in the old RV. Rat seemed nervous and I felt ill about it; I was pretty sure he was afraid of me, now, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do about that. We didn't talk much that afternoon, which was especially awkward in the small space of the RV. It wasn't until that evening that he finally broke the silence.

“What was it like to kill someone?”

My stomach clenched. “I don't know. I wasn't really thinking about it.” I hesitated, and added, “I was... distraught. In pain.”

. . .

After I killed someone, I froze for several minutes then ran away and threw up when I found his blood on my hands, my clothes. I ran and ran and ran and that's how I first found the oasis.

. . .

“I do not know that I believed you, until today,” he admits, “I told myself you were not capable of such an act.”

“Well, I did,” I said, feeling defensive. “I'll do it again, if I have to.” I didn't like the judgment on his face, which was probably actually just surprise; I stood up, deciding to leave without thinking about it. “For the record, even the cop who arrested me said she shouldn't’ve had to do it. The same camera that recorded me stabbing the guy also recorded the several minutes beforehand where he raped me with this knife held to my throat.”

. . .

Probably the most shocking part of this revelation was that a surveillance camera was still running. How things change in just a few years.

. . .

I regretted saying it even as I stomped out of the RV, because that was my trauma and shame and not some pity story or weapon to throw at someone's face like that. Rat didn't follow me, which I was glad for, because without witnesses crying doesn't really count, right?

I didn't want to risk going to town, since I had absolutely nothing on me but a knife and swollen knuckles. I followed the aqueduct south instead, reaching the oasis as the sun set. There were no deer; they were probably long gone, or dead. I avoided the water and sat in the sand under a pillar, letting go as the night darkness consumed the world around me.

. . .

In the morning I started south again, following the aqueduct through the endless badlands, a dumb idea because it was summer, so the day grew hotter and hotter with each step I took away from the vital oasis. I pushed it too far and turned around too late, so by the time I got back the sun had passed its peak and the air was thick with heat. I was sweating and delirious, and I legitimately thought Rat was a hallucination when I arrived. He was sitting in the mud, looking curiously at something at his feet in the water.

“It's you,” I said vaguely, wobbling where I stood. “I love you.”

Rat jolted like I'd surprised him, then jumped to his feet and was at my side, holding my arm like I needed help standing or something. His hand felt oddly firm for a hallucination. He guided me to the water and made me stand under the stream and drink some of it, but slowly, so I didn't get sick. My head, which had felt as though it was stuffed with dry cotton balls, started instead to feel packed with wet cotton balls and nails. I sat in the shade and chewed on a cracker, which was a monumental task for me at the time.

“Cookie?” Rat asked. He was sitting next to me and offered an Oreo cookie. Where did he get Oreos from?

More water; a couple Oreos and some more salty crackers; a long nap later, and I could be pretty sure I wasn't going to die of heatstroke. But it kind of felt like I was going to, for a minute there, and that terrified me.

. . .

Anyway, I agreed to go on an adventure through the badlands and mountains to the New Haven in the south. I wasn't about to let Rat go alone.

Packing

After breakfast at the diner attached to the motel, Jack drives them over to their old house to gather clothes for Estelle. The house is empty, the back room window still open, so Joanne must still be in the hospital, or else in jail; neither Dex nor Estelle care to find out. Estelle unlocks the front door with the key she keeps hidden under a rock in the garden. Dread pools in her stomach as the others follow her into the house. She hobbles on crutches, head down, to the end of the hallway, Jack's eyes burning into her as she slides open the latch that keeps her door secure.

Dex can feel Jack’s muscles tense as they stand in the front room of their old house. He is looking around, but what sights are causing his tension are unknown. There is a sour smell, like vomit, coming from somewhere nearby. “I'm just going to look around,” he murmurs into Dex’s ear; then they are alone again. The house feels foreign now, and they step carefully through it, passing by their old room and towards Estelle's, holding onto the door frame as they listen to her pack her things.

“What do you want?” she asks, sounding hostile, and apprehension twists at their gut.

“How did you find out?”

“I found my birth certificate in mom’s room.”

“How long have you known?”

“Months,” she says, trying to sound casual. “Since before you were shot.”

“You've been holding onto this for that long?”

Estelle wants to cry; she wants to scream at Dex for being a jerk and lying her entire life. This is not how she imagined this conversation going, but fear and anger boil up inside of her. “I've been kind of busy,” she retorts, “You left me with that psycho, remember?”

They swallow. “I'm sorry.”

“You've been lying to me my entire life.”

“Yeah,” they agree. “It was mom's idea, but I went along with it. I am sorry for that, too.”

The sincerity of their apologies derails her animosity, and Estelle finishes packing without continuing her rant. She feels empty, unfinished.

Jack appears in the doorway behind Dex, looking concerned. “Star,” he asks, “When's the last time you ate anything besides Pringles?” The kitchen pantry is nearly bare, except for a half empty box of fruit snacks and a cardboard tube of Pringles. The refrigerator is empty. The trash is filled with empty glass bottles of beer and wine.

“I had pancakes just this morning,” she mutters irritably in response.

“Star.”

“I don't know. Like, last week? We had cereal.”

“You told me you had food at home.”

Estelle swipes at her face; she doesn't want to cry in front of either of them. “I did, then.”

“You never said she was locking you in your room.” As he talks, Jack lifts Dex’s hand to feel the metal parts of a latch on the door frame. They finger the cool metal, speechless.

“That's from when I got grounded.”

Jack disappears into the hallway for a moment; a loud thunk suggests he has hit the wall. It is the most violent display of anger Estelle has ever witnessed from him, not that she actually saw it. Neither did Dex, who seems to be shrinking into the corner of space between her door frame and the hallway wall. They slide down the wall into a sitting position, hugging their knees.

Jack returns into view. “Did she ever hurt you?”

“Not really.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’d just, like, grab my arm or whatever,” Estelle tries to brush it off.

“Or whatever,” Jack repeats, and she shrugs. “Okay.” He walks away again.

“I'm sorry,” Dex murmurs quietly from the floor. They look so small, and tired and broken, that Estelle wonders for the first time what they were going through, when they were her age.

She clears her throat. “Can I have a hug?” This is something she used to do as a toddler, when Dex was irritable or busy or distracted but she wanted attention; who could deny a little kid a hug?

“Yeah,” they grumble, using the wall to support themselves as they climb to their feet. Estelle waits until they have righted themselves before wrapping her arms around them in a tight embrace. “Jesus, you're getting tall,” they remark, but she doesn't respond. She clings to them until Jack returns from pacing off his internal raging.

“Okay, Star,” he says, deliriously calm, “Here’s what we're going to do.” She already has to go talk to the police about Riley and the fireworks, he explains as Dex grimaces. “While we're there, they can set you up with someone to talk to about what your mom was doing to you, here.”

“It's not really -” she protests.

“No, it is. Just putting that latch there is monstrous.” As he talks, he struggles to mask the fury in his voice. “What if there had been a fire? She left you alone in here.” A breeze through the still open window carries with it the scent of smoke, punctuating Jack's statement. She doesn't answer, so he asks, “Were you locked in here when I came by the other day? I rang the doorbell.”

Estelle reluctantly nods. She lets go of Dex and reaches for her crutches. “I don't want to talk to the cops,” she groans, sounding exactly like Dex.

“Well, you have an ethical obligation to stop the serial arsonist,” they reluctantly reason, “The other thing is for your own good.”

“What then?”

“I'll take you out for ice cream.” Jack crosses the room, lifts the bag she has been packing, and leaves the room without another word.

Conversations Held in Secret Between Bits of Paperwork

“This is absurd, Jack. We can barely keep ourselves alive right now.”

“We’re going to have to get better.”

“When has having a child ever fixed any relationship issues?”

“You think we have relationship issues?”

“Seriously?”

“This isn't the same thing, anyway.”

“You are right. This is an unmitigated disaster.”

“Do you have any alternatives?”

“No.”

“Maybe your mom will go to rehab and everything will turn out.”

“Sure, when Hell freezes over.”

“You know more about climate change than I do.”

“We don't even have a house right now.”

“The house will be fine. Or we'll get loads of insurance money for it when it's destroyed.”

“Loads?”

“Well, enough to buy a new house, presumably.”

“Presumably?!”

“Dex.”

“What?”

“If I didn't know any better, I would think you didn't want to do this.”

“Of course I do.”

Things Unsaid

The thing they do not talk about weighs heavily on Jack's mind as he taps his debit card against the machine to pay for their ice cream, holding his breath until the transaction is approved. Every time he uses the card, he expects it to get declined. The red marked bills keep piling up. He needs to suck it up and remember how to login to the bank and see how bad it is. Or ask Dex to, which feels somehow worse.

Estelle is tired of talking so she doesn't ask what temporary custody means, if it at least means she gets to go back to school, if her mom is okay and if she's going to jail. Her head hurts and she focuses on the cold, sweet ice cream.

The rising heat of the afternoon is making Dex feel queasy but they try not to complain, even as the nausea spreads to a rising pressure in their skull, their teeth tingling. They cling numbly to Jack’s arm as they walk down the sidewalk to the bookstore, pace matched by Estelle on crutches. They find a large, plush chair to sit in and listen to the quiet bustle of the book shop. Two people are having a conversation nearby, voices low until one of them exclaims, “No way, that is fucked up!” and they both dissolve into giggles. Somewhere, a toddler cries, exacerbating the pain in Dex’s head. A cashier greets a customer and asks if they found everything okay.

A sudden, sharp pressure in their lower abdomen makes them jump to their feet; they have about thirty seconds to find a bathroom. They walk carefully towards the back of the building, avoiding random display tables and the evenly spaced rows of shelves. It seems like the room will never end when they hear Estelle.

“Dex?” She hobbles up to them, places a hand on their arm and they flinch.

“Stell,” they say quietly, “I am trying to find a restroom.”

“Oh, uh,” she hesitates, “which one?”

Dex smirks. “Whichever one is closest.” She leads them to a door, marked whatever because it was a single bathroom anyway. They get there mostly on time, which means very little in situations such as these. They toss another pair of disposable underwear into the trash and wonder vaguely what the carbon footprint of incontinence is.

Estelle is waiting for them when they exit the restroom. “Can I get a couple books?” she asks almost immediately.

“Sure. I don’t have my wallet, so we will have to find Jack.”

“Oh. He said he wouldn't buy me any books.”

Dex stops walking, grinning. “I don't think you're supposed to do that,” they scold, lightly.

“Do what?”

“Pit two people against each other like that. You're lucky he's wrong. Jack should know better than to deny a kid books.”

“I also said I would take her to the library.” Jack's voice, though amused, startles both Dex, who does not see his approach, and Estelle, whose back was turned to him.

“It's not the same,” she whines, “this is, like, my favorite author.”

Dex shrugs helplessly. Jack sighs, “Just this once.” He chews on his tongue the entire time he checks out, both relieved and confused when the transaction goes through. It's not like Dex brought home a ton of income, but he's pretty sure by now they should be feeling the loss. Especially with the added expense of a motel room; he's not sure what to do if this evacuation carries on much longer than a couple days.

. . .

It is Naomi who offers some relief, at least for a night; in contrast to the studio apartment she rented in town, her flat in the city has a spare room. She meant to find a roommate, but never got around to it; she definitely prefers to live alone. It means driving into the city in the afternoon, when traffic is bad and only contributing to the awful air quality, the hot stink of asphalt melting in the sun, but her company is a welcome relief from the tension of the past days. As always, she is concerned about her friends, who both seem to be putting on a show; for each other, for Estelle, for her. Even Estelle seems to be faking an indifference to her situation; the only time the girl smiles is when she meets the neighbor’s pet pig, Bacon. She spends most of the evening curled up on Naomi's couch, reading, eventually falling asleep with the book perched on her chest.

Naomi leaves for work late at night, leaving Jack and Dex on the balcony and creeping past the sleeping Estelle in her living room. The balcony overlooks a generic city street, towering buildings and orange pools of light that Dex cannot see. They listen to the city noises, almost overwhelming even at night: traffic, sirens, shouting, footsteps, murmured conversations, beeping and ringing they can't identify. They are sitting three stories up; too low to jump, Dex thinks. Not that they would do that to Jack, right now, right in front of him. Or Stell, just inside. What a horrible person they are for even considering it.

Jack interrupts the cacophony outside with his low, hesitant voice. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Dex tries to laugh but the sound is insincere. “Why does that sound so serious?”

“It’s been eating at me for weeks,” he says. The rest spills out somewhat uncontrollably. “I'm worried about our finances. I've been avoiding it so I have no idea what our bank account looks like, but it's not like you're getting paid anymore. So it's probably a disaster. I keep waiting for the card to get declined.”

They frown, looking more confused than concerned. “Has it?”

“No. I'm expecting to find, like, hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees alone.”

Dex shakes their head. “It's set up to replenish from savings if it gets too low.”

“We have a savings?” Now it is Jack’s turn to laugh, this time incredulously. “How much?”

A pause. “I would have to check. Not at any risk of emptying.”

“How'd you manage to wrangle that?”

“Careful budgeting?” This is not entirely a lie; Dex was able to start setting aside something every month - before they got shot - but not nearly enough to compensate for their lack of income now. Their signing advance, on the other hand, was nearly twice what they made annually as an adjunct, and they have barely made a dent in it. It is meant to be something to leave behind, but it can also be something to live off, at least temporarily; yet they continue to keep it secret, their plans still weighing on their mind. They are cynical about their book’s potential future success, despite their publisher's optimism. Dex actually kind of hates their book - the plot is just a bit too revealing, the characters transparently analogous to real people - they kind of hope no one ever reads it.

“I should probably get over my fear of the banking app at some point, though.”

Dex offers an artificial smile. “No worries. I've got it handled.”

Jack knows they are lying, but not what about, so he is free to make his own assumptions. Perhaps they are not in dire straits, he reasons, but it's only a matter of time. Especially with the bills piling up, which he neither looks at nor mentions to Dex. He has already been taking on extra hours when he can, and has even considered picking up a second job; but that just leaves Dex alone for longer stretches of time. A day will come, statistically, when they have a seizure and he isn't home to help them. He has seen firsthand how that can go wrong: they could choke on their own vomit; fall down the stairs and break their neck; the seizure could just never end until their brain is fried entirely. Among other things.

They both go to bed uneasy.

Unloveables: 22

We prepared as well as we could; I focused on grabbing small, nutrient dense foods from the dumpsters, but I was relying heavily on Rat's assertion that we would be able to find food and water along the way, and that it wouldn't be that far anyway. He found a newer, or at least more detailed, map and determined a route involving dirt roads that would likely run parallel to the aqueduct while bypassing the steepest climbs.

“Assuming the aqueduct continues going straight,” I pointed out.

“As long as we stay west of it, we will at least know how to find it,” he assured me.

. . .

The first part of the trek took us down a road I normally avoided; it circled up and around the factories, and it was where the merchants gathered to shoot down the delivery drones, meaning literally everyone was armed. The first gunshot made Rat jump; by the third, it was only a twitch.

. . .

It is my understanding that knocking the drones out of the air is not particularly challenging; the hard part is tracking the downed goods and getting them out of there before reclamation drones do. Like ancient hunter-gatherers tracking down a mammoth.

. . .

We only ran into one of the hunters; a young man only a couple years older than me. He lowered his rifle and squinted at us suspiciously as we passed, then his face split into a wide grin.

“I remember you!” he said jovially. I hesitated; I don't typically interact with merchants, and when I do it is almost always in a negative context. But then he continued, “Peanut butter! Man, you have no idea how happy my kid was when I brought that shit home.”

. . .

Who is having kids these days?!

. . .

Rat gave him a tight smile. “Probably the last jar in the county, you said.”

“Not anymore, it's gone,” the guy laughed. He bent over and fished through a duffel bag at his side. “Here,” he said, offering over two cans of soda, “for the road.”

. . .

Out of sight, I nudged Rat with my elbow. “See?” I said, “You did that one all by yourself.”

A Confession

Naomi arrives home in the morning to find Dex alone, laying on the couch that had been occupied by Estelle when she'd left the night before. They have headphones in, and she's not sure they heard her arrival, but they don't flinch when she says, “Good morning, sunshine” and drops her keys in their spot by the door. They move slowly as they trace the wires down to their phone, pause whatever they were listening to, then remove the earbuds and carefully wrap the cord around the phone.

“Gnome,” they say in lieu of a greeting. “How was work?”

“Fine,” Naomi says, though her voice sounds tired. “Quiet night for an ER. Are those bagels?” She is referring to a brown paper bag on the table, its logo indicating a nearby bakery.

“Indeed. Help yourself.” They laboriously pull themselves off the couch, feeling around awkwardly in the unfamiliar space for the kitchen counter.

“Don't mind if I do.” She takes a blueberry bagel and slices it in half before dropping it in the toaster. “Where's Jack and Star?”

Dex looks uselessly into the paper bag then pulls out a bagel at random. “They went to the aquarium.” They rotate the bagel around in their hands as though trying to decide something. Naomi rolls her eyes and takes it from them, slicing it and putting it into the toaster slots next to her own, which pops up as she presses the slider down. They were considering eating the thing plain, she thinks.

“You didn't go?” She finds the cream cheese in the refrigerator and gets to work.

“I wasn't feeling well.” After a restless night, they'd woken up feeling detached and fatigued, fingers tingling and arms weak. It is a feeling they have come to associate with seizures, though they declined to disclose that information to Jack when he was debating staying here; they wanted Estelle to see the fish. She deserves a good time. They'd waited until they left, popped a couple squares of chocolate mint edibles in their mouth, and laid down on the couch in a way that would, probably, not kill them if they started seizing. Probably.

“You're missing out,” Naomi remarks mildly, “You could pet a stingray.”

“But do they want to be pet?” Dex asks solemnly. She slides a plate in front of them with a cinnamon raisin bagel and a generous smear of cream cheese. Despite their earlier ailments, now they are ravenous, which they attribute to the edibles. Now if they have a seizure, they will have something to vomit and choke on. Maybe they'll take a bath later, too.

Something shifts and their face turns uneasy. To Naomi, it is like watching a switch flip: Happy Dex/Sad Dex. She asks, “Are you okay?”

An internal debate rages inside as they take another bite of the bagel, chewing slowly to delay further. Finally, Dex asks, “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course.”

“As, like, a friend, not a nurse.”

A cold chill washes over her. She can think of a few situations where being a nurse might interfere with being a friend; drugs, murder. Suicide. “Dex...” she starts.

“Please?” Naomi sighs and assents. She knows where this is going - hasn't she always? - but hearing the words “I want to kill myself” out of her friend’s mouth feels like a punch in the chest. There are things she needs to know - any concrete plans, for example, or other red flags - but when she opts to remain silent she finds Dex to be more forthcoming with the details than if she had interrogated them.

“It's not like I have any real plans. I have to finish my book first. I don't even know how I'd do it, because it's not like I can get a gun again.” They offer a wry smile. “I could wander around downtown until someone offers me drugs, but for all my luck it would be Tylenol. And that would be cruel to Jack, I think.” Jack's first night out as an EMT-trainee his team had been called out to an overdose. They were too late for Narcan but he'd still had to attempt CPR on a corpse. He claims to be over it - it's a regular part of his job now - but Dex can't imagine how.

“I think it would be cruel to Jack no matter how you did it,” Naomi says finally.

They nod. “That's why I'm telling you this. I don't know what to do. I fucking hate my life and everything it has become.” Being blind feels unbearable by itself, nevermind the pain, the fatigue, the seizures, the constant risk of pissing themselves. The knowledge that they survived but a kid didn't; that they have killed another man, no matter how despicable he was, no matter how noble their intentions. How they managed to become the center of the fucking second amendment debate. Everything they have lost with their eyesight: photography, research, hiking. Everything they have made Jack give up to take care of them. They can't ride their bike, or leave the house at all without him; they feel lost and scared and irritable all the time. They try to imagine a future: the oceans are boiling and the supply chain has collapsed and they are completely, utterly helpless. “I don't even know why Jack has stuck around this long. I'm a miserable son of a bitch.”

“Um,” Naomi interrupts, “because he loves you?” Dex's ranting, combined with the exhaustion that always follows an overnight shift, is threatening to stir up something dark in herself, and she needs to redirect them.

“I've been trying my best to change that.”

“You can't just undo, like, a decade of the most storybook romance I've ever seen by being an asshole for a few months.”

“How about by becoming a useless piece of shit overnight?”

“That's an awful way to talk about my friend.”

If Dex had two eyes, they would be rolling them; as it is, their expression remains hidden behind dark glasses. “You can't deny I'm a huge burden. I'm killing him slowly as it is. Haven't you noticed how thin he is? He would be better off without me.”

“I really don't think that's true.” This is directed only to the last part; Naomi has, in fact, noticed how thin Jack has gotten, not that Dex is looking any better.

Another grim smile. “On this, we are going to have to agree to disagree.”

“Then come live with me for a while. See if Jack even survives a week without you.”

“And become a burden for you, instead?”

“There's a bus stop in front of the bakery two buildings down, or you can just take a walk to the train station a quarter mile away. Everything has speakers now, even the crosswalks. It's not the most accessible city, but they're trying. You could teach at any of the colleges around.”

“What would I do with Stell?”

Naomi pauses, hesitating. “Maybe your mom will go to rehab and everything will work out.”

Dex snickers and leans back, muttering, “You and Jack.”

“How does Estelle factor into your plans, anyway?”

“She didn't,” they answer bluntly. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

“But it did.”

“Yeah. It fucking did.” The buzz they were feeling from the edibles has been replaced by a deep, drowning dread.

Naomi sighs. “You need to talk to someone, Dex,” she says, imploring. “I'm not a psychologist. I don't know how to help you here.”

“I don't want to talk to anyone,” they grumble.

“I think you don't want to hear what they have to say. You don't want to hear about how none of your problems are insurmountable,” Dex grimaces and she continues, “Or how being blind doesn't preclude you from leaving the house or being independent or even going for hikes. I think the truth is you just don't want to put in the effort to learn how.”

Now they frown. “Do you have any idea how much work it is just to fucking write?” they ask, incredulously. “I can't just reread something I've typed, first I have to use the fucking screen reader to find the right place, then listen to the goddamn robot take several minutes to recite something that should have taken me a few seconds to read. God forbid I accidentally have a typo in there. And I'm supposed to listen out for everything else around me at the same time, otherwise I might as well be lost in fucking space.”

The expletive filled rant is the most passionate Naomi has seen them talk about anything since Before. In some ways, it is promising; they are not completely dead inside. “That sounds really rough,” she says carefully, “I'm sorry.” Dex taps their fingers irritatedly on the table, and she worries she is losing them. “You could always take a break from writing, if it's so stressful. Find a new hobby.”

They frown again. “I have to finish my book.”

“You keep saying that. What is it, the world's longest suicide note?”

Dex tilts their head curiously at the slight. “Do you think they would publish that?”

“Maybe. The media is weird.”

Dex looks thoughtful for a moment, then says, “I have to finish my book because I accepted an advance when I signed on with my publisher.”

“Wait, what?” Naomi scans their face, which is frustratingly impassive. “You have a publisher? Does Jack know about this?” They shake their head. “You're putting me in a really difficult situation here, Dex.”

“I know. I'm sorry. That's why I'm telling you this. I know you'll help me do the right thing.”

A Pleasant Day

Jack gets his first piece of good news in a long time while on the way to the aquarium: the evacuation order has been lifted, the wildfire’s spread halted less than half a mile away from their home. He is riding on the train with Estelle, who looks terribly sad and aged as she wobbles precariously next to him, standing despite her injury just because he is. The good news makes him determined to make this a good day for her. They walk slowly, Estelle on crutches, through the dimly lit building as sharks swim overhead, and Jack wishes Dex was here with them; not that they would be able to identify anything anymore. A dark, secluded tank reveals an enormous octopus; a tentacle thwaps against the glass as Estelle leans in to get a better look, and she shrieks and giggles in shock and delight. She reaches into the cold touch tank to feel the slippery skin of a ray, the hard shell of an ancient looking horseshoe crab. They eat lunch under the distrustful eyes of colorful fish swimming in schools around massive tanks, and she manages to convince Jack to buy her a stuffed octopus, as well, even though she’s kind of too old for stuffed animals.

“Don't make a habit of this,” he pleads as he hands over his card to the cashier.

Jack's good mood is immediately crushed when they arrive back at Naomi’s apartment, where Dex is conspicuously absent but she is still up, past her bedtime, clearly anxiously waiting for him.

“Gnome,” he says as a greeting, “Where's Dex?”

“They're fine,” she assures. She gestures towards the balcony door and asks, “Can we talk?”

Not one to tolerate being left out, Estelle demands, “Where are they though?”

Naomi gives her a measured look. “Dex wasn't feeling well. I took them to the hospital.” Jack’s dark eyes flash, first with fear, then understanding.

“They're sick?” she asks.

A weight like a boulder presses against his chest. “Go watch TV, Star,” Jack says as he numbly follows Naomi out to the balcony. “You didn't think to call me?” he hisses, as soon as the door is closed; it is glass, so not particularly soundproof.

“They wouldn't let me.”

“What the fuck, Gnome?”

“It was the only way I could convince them to go.” Dex had said they would lose the will to go, if they talked to him first.

“They were admitted?” Jack doesn't need to know why. Dex’s words from the hospital - I wish I had died - haunt him in his sleep.

Naomi nods. “It was all voluntary. They probably won't be there long.”

Jack collapses heavily onto a wicker patio chair and buries his face in his arms. “Fuck,” he growls, muffled.

Naomi sits next to him and rubs a hand over his broad shoulders. “I'm sorry,” she says, “They're going to be okay. They're where they need to be right now.”

“I know,” he says. “Fuck,” he says again. He finally lifts his head and meets Naomi's eyes. “We were going to go home today. I have to work.”

Her eyebrows furrow, concerned. “Do you work tonight?” He shakes his head, so she adds, “Me neither. Stay here one more night, and you can go home in the morning. I'll be here.” She doesn't finish the sentence, if anything happens.

“What am I supposed to tell Star?” he asks.

Estelle’s voice comes muffled through the glass. “You better tell me something, because y'all are leaving a lot unsaid right now.”

Unloveables: 23

It was twenty-six miles, more or less, between Craig and New Haven; that's how far we walked, anyway. Roughly the length of the first marathon, when the Greek hero Pheidippides ran all the way to Athens to declare his army’s victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, before promptly keeling over from exhaustion. People used to run the distance for fun, and it usually took far less than a day.

It took us two to walk it, because we were super lazy and spent only a couple hours each day actually traveling; the coolest hours of the morning and evening. The rest of it was spent: chilling, needlessly foraging, eating, exploring. I climbed a tree that stood weirdly tall and alone in the middle of a field. We walked past tumbled down houses and overgrown lots. The remnants of ancient car wrecks. Animal bones and sharp barbed fences. An old burn scar, the ground still black and dusty and dead. The road curved away from the presumed line of the aqueduct, and we debated at what point to turn off the main highway and find it again. Ultimately, the question was answered for us in the form of a small wooden sign next to a narrow gravel road.

“New Haven” it read. An arrow pointed left.

A Week Later

Jack is on his way home from work a week later when he gets the phone call; it is evening, because he had to temporarily switch shifts with a coworker, and he is driving to pick up Star from Naomi’s parents’ house, since they agreed to watch her after school, which Jack was able to register her for with the help of a court order from the same judge that approved the emergency custody agreement. He has yet to talk to Joanne, and when the unknown number claiming to be medical pops up on his screen a part of him dreads hearing her voice on the other end.

He is unfathomably relieved to hear Dex’s soft, cautious voice. “Hey, it's me.”

“Hey! Dex. Hi,” he says, sounding too eager. “It's really nice to hear your voice.” He finds somewhere to pull over so he doesn't cause an accident in his anxiety. It has only been a week, but Jack feels like he hasn't seen Dex in years.

They don't like talking on the phone; their voice is stilted and oddly formal. “Would you be willing to come pick me up tomorrow?” they ask. “I can ask N-”

“Of course I will,” Jack says, interrupting. “What time?”

They exhale in a long sigh. “Is ten okay? I think they are going to want to talk to you.”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course,” he stammers. He feels like he's in high school again. “Ten o’clock pm. Seems late, but I can make it work.”

Dex laughs - a real laugh, not bitter or sardonic or cruel - and the sound makes his heart race. “I love you,” they say.

Now it is Jack’s turn to release the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. “I love you, too,” he says. Dex hangs up without a goodbye; they really hate phones. He finishes the drive to the MacGregors' to get Star then accepts their invitation for dinner - again - because it's easier than trying to stay accountable to himself to make sure he eats. Ruth and Jeff are the closest thing Jack has ever had to parents; they were certainly a more consistent presence in his childhood than any of his foster parents. He is grateful to them for their assistance and feels helpless for it.

. . .

A week apart is hardly anything. They spent a year apart after breaking up in high school. Every summer Jack would go out for weeks at a time chasing wildfires. Weeks could go by without seeing each other when Dex was at college; one year they landed a spot on a research vessel and were at sea for the entire summer.

So there's no reason for his heart to race this fast as he walks through the vaguely familiar hospital corridors - same building, different floors - to find the psychiatric ward. He enters into a bright, warmly decorated waiting room; Dex is already there, sitting rigidly, backpack at their feet.

“Dex,” Jack says, and their posture immediately relaxes slightly, “Hey.” They smile, and all the anxiety that was building up inside him washes away with the revelation that this week apart is no different than the others; it has only served to reinforce his love for them. Dex stands, reaching out, and he wraps his arms around them in a tight embrace. Neither is willing to let go until they are interrupted by a doctor clearing his throat behind them.

“Mr. Woods?” he asks rhetorically, “Thank you for coming in today. There's just a few things I would like to discuss before you take Dex home.”

. . .

“That was excruciating,” Dex says as they are riding the elevator down to the lobby. “I am so sorry.”

“What?” Jack asks, confused, “It really wasn't that bad.” The doctor had gone over the safety plan they'd developed for managing their suicidal thoughts. Dex had agreed to continue therapy and Jack had agreed to continue dispensing their medication, including a new antidepressant to add to the mix, and keep firearms out of the house.

“This whole week has been excruciating. I have missed you.” They are trembling as they cling to his arm, and they don't stop to let him reply. “How is Estelle?”

Jack pauses for a second, deciding how to answer. “She's okay. She got into a fight her first day back at school.”

“Shit.”

“She's adjusting.”

“Is she?”

“I’m sure she'll tell you all about it.” Estelle insists she did not start the fight, and Jack is inclined to believe her, considering the other kids were - allegedly - friends of the little arsonist she identified to the police. The kid’s older brother, meanwhile, is the same young man running around town with hate slogans on his hat, and Jack dreads running into either of them in public.

“Have you heard from mom?”

“Nope.” Jack is happy to keep it that way; let Joanne sort things out through the social worker, if she chooses to.

“I am so sorry for leaving you to deal with all that.”

“Hey,” he says, stopping in place so abruptly that Dex, clinging to his arm, stumbles. “Can we maybe have a moratorium on apologizing for things for a bit?”

“I have so many things to apologize for.”

Jack starts walking again. “Sure, but we have, like, all the time in the world for that, yeah?” Dex nods. They arrive at the truck, and Jack opens the door for them before crossing around to the driver's side. He starts the engine, then says, “Actually there is this one thing. Because Gnome told me about your publishing deal. You could've saved me a lot of knots in my stomach by letting me know about that.” The weight of what he is saying makes Dex’s chest ache, but before they can respond, he continues. “But I can't be mad at you for three reasons. First, it was my fault for not logging into the bank sooner - it's not like you were hiding it. Second, I've been ignoring your medical bills for months now, and I've been too afraid to tell you about them, so that's on me, too.”

“Medical bills?”

“Getting shot is expensive. But our deductible is, like, a quarter of what your publisher gave you, so we can pay it off all at once if you want.”

“The medical insurance system is a scam.”

“Indeed it is. The third and final reason I can't be mad at you is, I'm actually really proud of you.” Jack’s voice softens. “What a tremendous accomplishment. I wish you had told me about it sooner.”

“I only got it because I was shot.”

“And yet you managed to negotiate the whole process of finding a publisher and writing a book afterwards. You really shouldn't diminish yourself.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Unloveables: 24

The walk along the gravel road to New Haven felt like the longest of my life; partly because I was expecting, at any time, for us to get shot, and partly because I was growing increasingly concerned about the complete lack of people around us.

But, like, they were probably all inside the sanctuary, right? No need to leave when you've got drone delivery.

. . .

The compound was bordered by a tall, black stone wall not unlike the one surrounding the factories; the top ledge was far out of reach even if Rat stood on my shoulders. We circled the entire compound twice; there was no way to enter, at least not on foot. The towering aqueduct crossed over the road and disappeared over the wall. A fleet of drones roared overhead, but it looked like only one landed inside the compound; the rest continued their journey south, to somewhere beyond. There was no sign of human life.

“Maybe they're underground?” I suggested.

We shouted, we kicked the stone wall, we threw rocks over the top to the other side.

Nothing.

I sat uncomfortably on the gravel road while Rat paced around. He ran his hands over the smooth face of the border wall. He circled around one of the pillars of the aqueduct. He stepped back and squinted at the horizon in various directions.

“Okay,” he said upon returning. “It is like a bridge.”

“A bridge?”

“The aqueduct,” he explained, “If we can get to the top, we can walk across the wall like a bridge.”

“Okay, so how do we get to the top?”

Rat hesitated, then pointed north along the line of the aqueduct. The landscape was so flat and barren you could trace it for what felt like miles, all the way to where it disappeared inside a mountain. “We climb,” he said.

. . .

What is the best time of day to cross a narrow, impossibly high bridge over a wall into a secured sanctuary? Morning, perhaps, but the sun would rapidly grow intolerable up there, blazing down on us with no hope of shelter. It was late enough in summer that the afternoons were not so unbearable, but only because of the harsh winds that moved the dry heat around. Crossing the space during the night felt safer for security reasons, but absolutely foolish given the height of the narrow path we would be taking.

“Wait, aren't you afraid of heights?” I asked.

“I am indeed,” Rat answered, his voice sounding thin.

. . .

There aren't a lot of high places where I'm from, but I noticed his trepidation when we were dumpster diving, and the walls of those things can't be more than 10 feet tall.

Trepidation, meaning fear that something bad is about to happen. Like, the feeling I get just trying to survive every day.

. . .

We spent the rest of the evening backtracking along the aqueduct, which meant we were going to be spending all of the next morning balancing along the top of it. We camped in the shelter of one of its towering pillars. Rat built a little fire in the gravel when the winds died down. There were no oases on this side of the mountain, no water at all; the ground was parched, the sagebrush brittle and dry. I watched the sparks dart into the night sky. The glow from New Haven was much more intense here, the Milky Way all washed out, and it made me feel lonely.

. . .

Things had changed between us after my fight with the junkie, my subsequent revelation. Of course they did. I didn't blame him for that, not really. It still hurt.

. . .

“This gravel sucks,” I said, squirming around. “My ass is numb.”

“Sorry,” Rat said, “Fire safety.” He was brooding on the opposite side of the fire as me.

. . .

I think he had already realized this was a futile effort, but I was going to cling onto hope until the end.

. . .

“Are you worried about climbing up there tomorrow?” I asked, “Because I won't let you fall.”

Rat smiled grimly. “How do you intend to do that?”

“Uhm,” I said, “you have rope, right?”

“That would just end with both of us falling down.”

“Come on,” I said, “I'm like twice your size. I'd be a reverse anchor.”

“What if you fell?” he asked, and I groaned. Then he said, “I think it is wider than it looks up there, anyway. I think that will be okay.”

I looked up; the pillar towering above seemed impossibly tall in the firelight. “Probably,” I agreed. “What's wrong then?”

Rat shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I'm so tired,” I said, “My feet hurt, my legs hurt. I'm, like, always thirsty. My skin feels like sandpaper.”

Rat smirked despite himself. “That sounds terrible.”

“You can't tell me you wouldn't do anything for a shower right now.”

“Probably not anything,” he said, looking thoughtful.

It felt pointed, so I dropped the conversation, busying myself with making something resembling a bed with my two blankets.

“Wait,” Rat said. “It will be more comfortable if we share.” He unrolled his sleeping bag and pulled at the zipper, laying it down flat on the gravel next to the fire. He curled up under one of my blankets and I folded up the other one under my head like a pillow.

. . .

By morning we were curled up together under both blankets. It was a cold night.

As a Kite

Dex can smell the smoke and ash still in the air as Jack drives them down the dusty road to their house. He describes the damage: the edge of the burn scar, which stretches across 153 acres, is visible from the porch. “The house is a sort of greyish color from the ash still. It hasn't rained yet.”

“We got lucky.”

“No kidding. If Estelle hadn't been out there, if they hadn't caught it early,” Jack’s voice falters as he turns off the engine. “Tons of things could have gone wrong. That's just life.”

Dex walks alone along the familiar path to the porch steps, up and through the front door. Nothing has changed; the house feels at once foreign and familiar, hostile and inviting. They shiver in an imagined draft. Jack comes in behind them, and they turn to face him as he closes the door.

“Welcome home,” he says. “Nothing's changed except Star’s room is already a disaster. Careful stepping around in there.”

“Is she at school?”

“Mhm. Oh, and I locked up all that Devil’s herb in your office so she doesn't get corrupted.”

Dex grins. “Would it be terribly crass of me to smoke a joint outside now?”

“Better than doing it inside,” Jack says, shrugging. The glass table on the back porch carries little risk of catching fire, even if they were to miss the ashtray entirely. He sits across from them and holds the lighter for them, then leans back grinning as they inhale and immediately start coughing. “Baby lungs,” he says, “Don't worry, your respiratory system will get callouses.” Jack doesn't smoke, but he might as well; wildfire smoke is almost as bad for your lungs as tobacco.

“I think you mean cancer,” Dex says when they can catch their breath long enough to talk. “Should you even be out here?” Aside from when he was hired, Jack has never been drug tested, though technically he could be at any time.

“I'm upwind.”

Their next hit goes somewhat smoother, and they release the smoke slowly as they feel for the ashtray. A warm, relaxed feeling washes over them, and they take another hit. “Do we have any ice cream?”

“Damn, those munchies hit you fast.”

“You don't understand. Ice cream is, like, ambrosia. It heals all wounds.”

“That's time.”

“Sure,” they agree, “Time for ice cream.”

“You,” Jack says, pausing as he stands, “are hilarious.”

Dex has finished the joint and is pleasantly very buzzed by the time he returns with two bowls of mint chocolate chip ice cream. They hear the tinny tinkling of a small bell as he sits down across from them. “Shit,” they say, “Did Roger get out again?”

“Nope, that's me,” he says. It rings again.

“Seriously?”

“You wanted a cat collar.” He gently takes Dex’s hand and places it on a thin strip of rugged fabric buckled around his other wrist.

“It was a joke,” they say, laughing, as they feel the fabric, the metal ring and bell. There is no tag, at least.

“It works, doesn't it?” He wriggles his arm, making the tiny bell dance. “It's all pink and floral. Goes great with the beard.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“Do you want me to take it off?”

“I didn't say that.” They pull their hand away and start eating their ice cream, smirking every time they hear the little bell jingle. By the time they have finished, they are giggling nearly uncontrollably.

“And you say I'm ridiculous,” Jack says, amused.

“The whole world is ridiculous.”

“It's beautiful too, though.” He stands and grabs the bowls to take them inside. Dex follows - his footsteps more than those ridiculous tiny bells - hugging him from behind as he rinses the dishes in the sink. They slip a hand under his shirt to feel his warm skin, coarse hair, the smooth curves of muscle. Textures Dex has never properly appreciated, before; now they're all they have. Jack tenses, slightly, and sighs, turning off the water. “I'm getting better. I promise.”

“That’s not what I was thinking about, but I am glad to hear it.”

He turns in their embrace so he is facing them, their hand now pressed flat against the skin of his lower back. “What were you thinking about?”

“I have been trying too hard to create a mental picture of my surroundings in an attempt to compensate for my lack of visual stimuli,” they recite mechanically, “I need to learn to experience the world with the sensory input I have.” It sounds rote, like something they have heard a lot recently.

The soft ring of the cat bell grows closer as Jack cups their face, rubbing his thumb along the edge of scar tissue that peeks out from under their sunglasses. Dex thinks he's going to kiss them, but instead he says, “You remember that time in high school we went to the river, and you made me sit around for hours because you heard some, like, ultra-rare bird and you wanted to find it?”

“The yellow-billed cuckoo,” they remember, nodding. “You said it still counted that I heard it.”

“I was so wise back then.”

“Too bad you used it all up so young,” Dex teases. Jack’s breath hitches when they trace their fingertips around his hip, then press their hand flat against his stomach. They push his shirt up as they move their hand up to his chest, finding a narrow collarbone which they trace idly, feeling the strange bumps and curves in the bone beneath his thin, fragile skin. There is a notch in the middle, where it once snapped years ago, on a different hike. An unforgettable five mile trek back to the trailhead, his right arm secured against his chest in a makeshift sling, then he'd had to instruct Dex on how and when to shift gears while he worked the clutch and drove them home. “I miss going hiking,” they say.

“Me too.” This is an understatement. Jack misses hiking more than he misses sex; which is to say, a lot. “We should start going out again.” He braces himself for the inevitable refusal or cynicism, but Dex just nods, fingers still gently tickling his collarbone.

“You miss fighting fires,” they say.

“Maybe,” he agrees. Mostly, he misses feeling useful, having a purpose. This is not something he can necessarily admit to Dex, at least not now.

They are quiet for a moment. “If we lived in the city,” they finally suggest, “you could do it again.” It is a thought that has been festering since their conversation with Naomi a week ago: independence, made semi-possible by sidewalks and public transportation.

“If we... what?” Jack's confusion is evident in his stammering. “You love it here.”

“It's not the same anymore.” The house hasn't changed, but Dex has - inextricably - and the world around them is changing too. They have to learn how to adapt. “I would love anywhere I shared with you.”

“What about Star?”

Only a brief hesitation, their hand pausing on his chest. “Ideally, she would come with.”

“That sounds like a legal nightmare.”

“Probably. It's just an idea.” One to think about - for another time. They push Jack's shirt up more to wrap their hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer and finding his lips with theirs. It is the sort of kiss that demands the attention of the entire body, communicating so much more than words: love, yearning, acceptance, lust. Dex presses closer then instinctively cringes away, detangling their arm from his shirt. “Sorry,” they say, “It's just really hard to feel sexy in a diaper.”

Jack groans in frustration, letting his hands drop to their waist with a soft jingle. “I literally can't tell.”

“Mm.”

He leans forward to kiss their neck. “Take it off then. You'll become infinitely sexier,” he murmurs.

An electric jolt of pleasure runs through them. “How about a shower?” they ask.

“You mean, like, both of us, right?”

Dex doesn't answer, just turns and starts walking confidently out of the kitchen, Jack’s bells jingling close behind.

The Problem Child

Estelle, still sporting a fading yellow bruise underneath one eye from her scuffle last week, sullenly hobbles off the bus across the road from Jack’s house. She is in trouble at school again, not for fighting but for sneaking her phone in class, looking at ‘inappropriate websites’ while her teacher blathered on about the Revolutionary War. There was a time, perhaps, when she actually liked school, but that was before she pissed off a gang of bullies, or maybe even before that; when Dex was shot and she started reading about the futility of it all. Or before that, when she learned that Dex was her birth mom and her entire life was a lie.

Still on crutches, though very much considering giving them up, she crosses the road and up the gravel driveway, past Jack’s truck, up the stairs to the unlocked door. Dex is home today, she knows; Jack had told her this morning before dropping her off at school that he was going to go get them from the hospital, bring them home. If he thought she would be excited, he was mistaken; her stomach has been a black hole of anxiety all day. She doesn't want you, their mother had said, and nothing they have said or done since has suggested anything different; specifically, their disappearing act. Dex’s favorite thing to do with her, it seems, is make her someone else’s problem while they go off and do whatever they want.

Not that she blames Jack for any of this; he's trying so hard it makes Estelle want to cry. But he's a liar too. He said that Dex’s going back to the hospital had nothing to do with her or what happened, but also that they were there for their mental health, and she's pretty sure her existence is necessarily a drain on their mental health. She can't imagine being a teen parent; she hasn't even really thought about sex, except in the academic sense, and it is a topic her school has so far avoided, meaning most of her knowledge comes from the internet.

Hoping to avoid talking to anyone for a while she goes straight to her room, clomping up the stairs and down the long hallway. She had picked the room herself, years ago; for its view - the garden and the open wilderness beyond - and its isolation. They'd let her pick the colors for the walls and trim (purple and lime green) and the furniture, even though Joanne never allowed her to spend more than a couple days at a time there. She slams the door shut, just to make noise.

Jack is only a few moments behind her, knocking softly. “Star,” his voice comes muffled through the door, “I would like to talk to you.”

Estelle yells back, “I don't want to talk.”

Jack opens the door but does not step into her room. “Not optional, I'm afraid,” he says gently, “I got a call from Miss Stamp.”

“Miss Stamp is an idiot,” she retorts.

“Now that was rude,” he says, unexpectedly harsh. “You do not get to speak of others like that in this house.”

“What are you going to do, kick me out?” she challenges, her stomach squirming from the admonishment.

“Is that what you want?”

“It's what Dex wants.”

Jack frowns and shakes his head. “We aren't talking about Dex right now, we are talking about you.”

“Shouldn't they be doing this, though?” she demands, “They're my bio-mom. You're technically just some guy.”

His face drops for a second, a stricken expression that makes her heart lurch with regret, before he composes himself. “I've known you almost your entire life,” he says neutrally, “I would hope you don't think I'm just some guy.”

“No, I mean,” Estelle scrambles to fix what she just said, “Like, legally? I know you're the only reason I'm here.”

Jack shakes his head again, looking sad. “Star, I know a thing or two about being unwanted in a home.” He glances around the large, airy room, hesitating. “It's not somewhere you get your own room, decorated and furnished just how you like it.”

“Just to visit, I was never supposed to, like, live here or anything.”

He sighs. “You should talk to Dex about this, I think.”

Back to lying again, then. “Did they even come home today, or did they decide to extend their vacation for a while longer?”

“It was hardly a vacation,” he scolds. “They're taking a nap. Or, they were, until you started slamming things around.”

“A nap?” Estelle scoffs. The only other grown adult she knows who takes a nap in the middle of the afternoon is her mom. “What, are they drunk?”

His frown deepens. “Miss Stamp told me she confiscated your phone,” he says, changing the topic. “As far as I'm concerned, she can hold onto it indefinitely.” She scowls, and he continues, “We'll be going in early on Monday to have a meeting with her about your behavior this past week.”

“Whatever.”

Jack has to suppress a smirk; at this moment, she sounds so much like Dex that he can almost picture them, genderbent and fifteen years younger. “Where is all this hostility coming from?” They have not had an unpleasant week, he thought. Estelle only shrugs. “Well, you have a while to think about it before dinner. I certainly hope you choose to bring a better attitude.” Then he softly closes the door and leaves.

Unloveables: 25

It turned out Rat was correct in his assessment that the aqueduct was wider than it looked; we ended up being able to walk right onto it like a sidewalk, no precarious balancing needed.

Rat walked behind me, staring resolutely at my feet. The sun burned overhead and I was glad for my hat, even though it was just a baseball cap and about a quarter as useful as Rat’s wide, floppy sun hat.

From the new height we could see inside the compound: a dozen evenly spaced, identical rectangular buildings, their rooftops lined with solar panels. It felt small, given the vast amounts of water flowing beneath our feet needed to supply it, but the generic windowless structures just bolstered my conviction that they were sheltering something underground. There were still no signs of people but as we approached I could see the occasional small drone whirring around between the buildings. The drones ignored us completely as we crossed over the gravel road, over the border wall and into the compound. The aqueduct ended abruptly, the concrete structure diving underground at a steep angle. I stood at the edge, looking down. Thin pieces of rebar were stuck precariously into the cement, forming a makeshift ladder.

“It's just like a ladder. It's not even that far anymore,” I said. Maybe twenty feet.

I knew, ultimately, that Rat was going to have to give in; it was either that or walk all the way back to the mountain. I went down first; if it could hold me, it could hold Rat. Only one of the bars broke, right near the bottom, and I jumped gracelessly down the rest of the way.

He sat at the edge, feet dangling down, face terrified. “Come on,” I said. A miniature drone buzzed, dopplering as it whizzed past my head. “Rat,” I said, and he sighed and turned to start climbing carefully down the slope.

. . .

The buildings were almost all identical up close, too: identically blank white walls with no doors, only narrow windows up near the roof for drones. Signs labeled each building with “NHDC” and a number. We walked around the eerily quiet campus and stumbled into the one anomaly in the structures: a small outbuilding attached to “NHDC-01.”

A white door; a shiny brass handle, unlocked. Inside was a bland, neatly furnished reception area, like a waiting room. A few chairs, a couch, a sink and cabinet. I ran over to test the taps; the faucet sputtered then spat out dirty, rusty looking water. I kept it running until the water ran relatively clear, then let it pour over my hands, my arms. I splashed my face.

Rat had gravitated towards a large, black screen mounted off-center on the back wall. I turned the water off and walked over to join him, hair dripping.

“Do you know how to use it?” I asked.

“I think so,” he answered, running his fingers around the edge of the screen. Then he hesitated and pulled his hands away, turning towards me instead. “Hey,” he said, and then he hesitated again. “Whatever happens,” he continues, “we still have each other, right?”

“Whatever happens?”

Rat sighed. “I do not think this place is what we expected.” He pressed a button and the screen flashed to life, the impossibly white light jarring. It blinked a few times then displayed white text on a black background.

“Hello! Welcome :) to New Haven Data Center. Please scan your ID or press here to login.”

“Data center?” I read out loud, laughing involuntarily. NHDC: New Haven Data Center. I stepped away from the screen and looked around at the bland, impersonable space around me. A little drone had emerged from some hidden door in the wall, and was buzzing irritatingly around the room. I looked back at the screen; the little smiley face snapped something in me. “FUUUUUUUUCK!” I screamed. I punched the screen, snapping something near my pinky finger but leaving the smooth glass unharmed. “FUCK,” I yelled again, kicking the wall beneath it. I felt Rat's hand on my shoulder and I jerked away before registering what it was. He backed away, wide eyed, and I fell to my knees on the ground. “Fuck,” I said.

. . .

All that water, sucked up out of our creeks and reservoir and redirected down here for a fucking data center.

Patience

Dex listens from below to Jack's long, heavy steps across the hallway above and they wonder, not for the first time, why he is even doing this. Somehow, it seems like he always knows exactly what his next step will be; he can go from childless to disciplining a troubled pre-teen in a week. The husband of a promising climate scientist one minute, the sole caregiver for a cripple the next.

Dex is trying to be kinder to themselves; it is a process. They are in bed - the bed that they once shared with Jack and have been avoiding for months - and they were, until recently, napping. They had fallen asleep crying, which is, generally, not a good sign after sex. But, they insisted, “I'm fine. It's just, the last time we did that, I almost died a few hours later.”

They scramble out of the bed because they're not wearing a diaper - or any clothes at all, since they'd gone straight from shower to bed, earlier - and stub their toe on the dresser because they can't see where they're going and have intentionally spent as little time as possible in this room. The delay to search for clothes is too much, and a trickle of hot urine runs down their legs. Dex curses and leans their head against the wall; sometimes it is really hard to be kind to oneself. They grab a discarded towel off the floor and try to remember to be patient as they use it to dry off their legs and soak up the puddle at their feet, suddenly glad for the hardwood floors.

The door creaks open to the right, accompanied by a tiny jingle, and Dex grins despite themselves. “Hey,” Jack's voice rumbles, “You okay?” He steps quickly into the room and closes the door behind him.

“Oh yeah, I'm great,” they say, standing, “Just, you know, mildly inconvenienced by the fact that I can't walk around naked anymore.” They feel around the dresser top for their clothes.

“For what it's worth, I also feel mildly inconvenienced by the fact that you can't walk around naked anymore.” In truth, Jack would never get anything done if Dex decided to become a nudist. He watches them get dressed, slowly, because they have to feel around the seams to orient each piece of clothing correctly; a reverse strip tease that is no less titillating. He clears his throat.

“If you came in here for round two, you should've said something before I went to all this trouble,” Dex says, pulling on a plain purple t-shirt, covering up their pale, scar-covered torso.

Jack makes a non-committal grunt, and they smirk. “I have to get started on dinner,” he says.

“A shame,” they say, sweeping their hands uselessly over the dresser. “Do you know where my sunglasses are?”

“Bathroom, probably.” A gentle ringing warns Dex before they feel his grasp on their arm and he pulls them into an embrace. He misses seeing their face - their entire face, scar tissue and missing eye and freckles and all - but he doesn't know how to say that. He also wants them to get a glass eye, an eye patch, blindfolds, a bajillion different pairs of glasses, just so they have the options; but those are all aesthetic choices, and what use does Dex have for aesthetics? He gently kisses the top of their head, soft hair that smells like citrus; then again on their forehead, an eyebrow, their scarred cheek bone, then, finally, their lips.

Dex returns the kiss hungrily; lips parting, tongue darting out to meet his. Their hands drop to grab his butt, squeezing suggestively before pulling away and grinning. “So, what's for dinner?” they ask.

Jack pulls them back with a jingle. “You?”

“Nope, sorry,” they say reluctantly. “We have a dependent now.”

He groans. “Fuck.”

“Were you not listening?” they say, deadpan, "We have responsibilities, Jack.” They step back again, bending down to pick up the towel on the floor. “Food now, we’ll have to save the fucking for later.”

Conversations In the Garden

Estelle sees Dex out her window; they are wandering through the garden, everything still dusty looking from the ash. They walk through the narrow, overgrown pathways, running their hands over the tops of the plants. From the distance, they look unchanged; but the way they move, slower and cautiously, breaks the illusion.

From the other direction - downstairs - she hears Jack’s voice. “Star! Dinner!” She trudges downstairs, her ankle twinging, but she's tired of the crutches. He is in the kitchen, stirring something in a pot. “Can you go help Dex in the garden?” She trudges out the back door, without an answer, down the porch steps, towards the garden. In summers past, she could spend hours out here, snacking on peas and berries pulled randomly off the plants as she pretended to be wild, foraging, hunting. Now the garden is tangled and overgrown, weeds grabbing at your ankles as you walk through it.

She finds Dex kneeling underneath an archway that is covered with vines, long bean pods dangling off the shoots like icicles. They carefully feel through the vines, picking the green beans when they find them and dropping them in a basket; it is not an efficient process, and they pass by most of the vegetables. “No crutches today?” they ask as she approaches.

“I hate them.”

Dex nods, understanding. “Can you help me?”

Estelle sighs and reaches up to start pulling bean pods down. They are coated in a fine grey dusting. “They're covered in ash.”

“It's a good fertilizer, at least,” they say.

“There’s a lot of weeds everywhere,” she remarks, “Loads more than last year.”

“I haven't really been keeping up with it.”

“I thought it was supposed to be self-sustaining.”

“Ideally, sure,” they agree, “There’s supposed to be a balance.”

“Equilibrium,” she states confidently.

“Right,” they say, surprised. “Where'd you learn that?”

“You.”

Dex tilts their head curiously, then continues. “Sometimes the equilibrium nature gives you isn't the balance you are looking for, so you have to try to tip the scales in your favor.” The idea, they explain, is that you work with nature, not against it; encouraging growth without being greedy. Some weeds are beneficial, others are invasive; too vigorous in their proliferation, too resource-intensive, much like humans. “But really, we're the ones ascribing morality to plants. They're just trying to grow.” Much like humans.

Estelle allows herself to relax, somewhat, as she listens to them talk and falls into the soothing routine of harvesting. They already have more than they need, at least for dinner. Last year after their harvest, they had such an abundance of produce, mainly apples, that they’d had to load up crates in Jack’s truck and drive them to a food bank. She looks over to the apple trees, where overripe fruit is starting to accumulate on the ground beneath them. The peach trees are already bare, their fruit devoured by deer and bugs.

“Stell,” Dex says, interrupting her thoughts.

Not sure she wants to hear what they have to say, she asks, “Why do you call me that?”

They smile grimly. “Mom has a thing against nicknames. ‘Stell’ was a sort of compromise.”

“Jack still calls me Star,” she retorts.

“Yeah, well, Jack isn't a coward,” they mutter. The word coward hits Estelle uncomfortably; it is not an insult she is accustomed to hearing. “Would you rather I call you Star, too?”

Estelle shrugs, but Dex has no way of knowing that. She could throw something at them, and they wouldn't even duck. She could run away - if she could run - and they wouldn't be able to chase her. She stares at them in that open, curious way that everyone says is rude, and they don't even flinch. It all makes her feel really, really horrible.

“Dex?” she says.

“No, that's my name,” they respond mildly, “That would get too confusing.”

“Where did it come from?”

They pause, trying to decide what to reveal. “My dad used to call me Dexter. I was a little nerd.”

“Did he know you were trans?”

“Nope,” they say, shaking their head, “I was just a tomboy for the longest time.”

“What's the difference?”

“Tomboys are still girls. I'm not.”

“Have I ever met your dad?” Estelle doesn't say, my grandpa, which is what she is thinking.

“No.”

“What about my dad?”

“No.” This time, the answer comes too quickly, harshly.

“Were you raped?”

Dex cringes - first, because she knows enough to even ask the question, and second because they still don't know how to answer it; especially not to an eleven year old. Naomi would say yes, because of the age gap. Jack, who knows the details of Estelle's conception - a broken condom, the involuntary continuation of the act - wouldn’t even hesitate; but Dex's attachment to nuance makes them waver. “He wasn't a great person,” they answer instead. “I would rather not talk about him, if you don't mind. Maybe when you're older.” They are relearning how to filter what they say, to think through their thoughts before just blurting them; a consequence, according to their therapist, of their trauma, both physical and emotional.

“Is that why you didn't want me?”

A sigh, and Estelle tenses to run away, already regretting the question. “I was fifteen, Star,” they say, carefully, “I wasn't exactly qualified to raise an infant.”

“You left me with her,” she grumbles. “You knew what she was like and you didn't care.”

“I did what I could to give you somewhere safe here. I recognize it was not enough, and for that, I am sorry.” Estelle doesn't answer, watching as they stand painfully, leaning on the arched lattice for support, and pick up the basket of green beans. “I think we have enough.”

“There's still tons more,” she points out.

“For another day, then.” They start walking towards the house; the overgrown pathway is easy enough to navigate, but they pause at the edge, where nothing but grass stands between them and the porch stairs. Estelle follows, watches them as they try to remember the vector to take; but without any clues to orient themselves Dex is, truly, lost. They take a few steps forward, starting out nearly correct but then curving off too far to the left.

“Turn right,” she says, and their next steps line them up properly, but then they overshoot it. “Left more,” she tries again, and they turn just slightly. “Okay, I think you're good.” A few more steps. “Nope, more left.” She continues guiding them through the grass until they reach the porch steps, a surprisingly exhausting effort.

“It is ridiculously hard to walk in a straight line,” Dex says.

“Apparently.”

“Dex has never done anything straight,” Jack says from above, and Estelle groans. He reaches out for Dex as they pass, cat bell ringing, and kisses them. She groans again.

“Why do you have a cat collar on your wrist?” she asks.

“Think about it for a minute,” he suggests, shaking his wrist so it rings again.

“Dex is afraid you're going to hunt the local birds to extinction?” She says it in exactly the same dry, deadpan tone as them, and Jack wonders, not for the first time, if there is a genetic component to humor.

“Precisely.”

Unloveables: 26

Rat stood by as I threw my fit, even as the violence of it clearly scared him. When I was done I stood up and he wrapped his skinny arms around me, holding me tight until I returned the hug with one arm; my right hand was cradled against my chest between us, already swelling. We stood there long enough that the little drone disappeared back inside the wall.

“I'm sorry,” I said finally, “I shouldn't have done that.”

Rat released me, sniffing as he stepped away and wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Yes,” he said, “You should know better than to punch a glass panel with a closed fist.”

I held out my hand, examining it; my pinky finger felt loose. “I think I just dislocated it,” I said optimistically. I grasped the digit and winced.

“Do you require assistance?”

“Nope.” I inhaled, then pulled; through the steering pain, then a loud pop followed by near instant relief. I exhaled a sigh and moved my fingers around. The joint was stiff, but nothing was broken. Lucky.

. . .

We filled our water bottles from the sink and lounged around the mildly uncomfortable waiting room furniture, waiting out the afternoon heat in the cool, air conditioned space. I found an entire box of instant coffee packets in the cabinet above the sink, the expiration date over five years ago. I made some anyway, with lukewarm water from the tap, and it tasted fine, so I packed the rest in my bag. Rat tapped around on the touch panel for about an hour, trying unsuccessfully to login or make it show anything but the welcome screen. I caught one of the little drones out of the air; it was about the size of my fist. Its propellers spun harmlessly inside a plastic cage as it seemed to struggle to get free. They kept whirring until I slammed it against the concrete ground, shattering the cheap plastic exterior.

“Hey, look,” I said, “a barcode.” It was tucked away inside a hinged panel; it looked like it could fold out to be scanned.

Rat walked over, picked up the panel and examined it. “Do you really think it will be that easy?” he asked, glancing back at the touchscreen, the words, “scan your ID.” I shrugged; everything else up to that point had been. If not this barcode, then another that we would eventually find.

Instead of trying, he sat down next to me on the couch. Two drones came in to replace the one I snatched, getting to work cleaning up the leftover shards of plastic and electronics. He rested his head on my shoulder as we watched them loop around the room. “Do you think they have cameras?” he asked.

“Probably,” I said, “But no one's watching.”

“How do you know?”

“We're still here,” I said, “No one has come out to stop us.”

“I wonder why they're not armed.”

“Me too.”

. . .

This is my theory: security by obscurity. Who besides a couple of teens could be bothered to come all the way out here to rob a data center?

. . .

“I am sorry for dragging you all the way out here for nothing.”

I thought about that for a moment. It had been Rat's idea to come here, and I had been resistant at first, but after losing the library - first as a room in the basement, then as a safe place to go entirely - I was actually pretty eager to do it. Perhaps I had always seen the lights, glowing in the distance, as some sort of beacon of hope. The last vestiges of humanity, right there on my horizon. I thought maybe there could be a place for us here.

. . .

“I think it's better that we know now,” I said. “We need to do something about this.” This data center was just sitting here, sucking down water from miles away, water that people desperately need up north. There was no sign that any humans were involved with it; what does a data center even do, anyway? Few people in town had computers, and certainly no one had access to the internet.

Rat carefully grabbed my hand and began examining it; the swelling had gone down but bruises were forming around the base of my pinky finger. He gently ran his fingers over my knuckles and asked, “What do you propose we do?”

“We're gonna have to destroy the aqueduct.”

“Obviously.” He looked down at the barcode, turning the panel around in his hands. “And then what?”

“I dunno,” I said.

Rat kissed the back of my hand. “One day at a time,” he said, “Bae.”

“Nope. Definitely not Bae.”

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Unloveables

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