What Remains Here

Chapter 1

September 30

Charles should be in Texas right now.

He has to be. That's the wish that I made, and if the universe has any sense of justice, it would grant me this one simple wish. That's all I ask. I don't want the internet or power or food or water or eternal life, just for Charles to stay safe from the bandits and snow and the creeping death that the ash storm is bringing now.

It's been snowing heavily since he left. Two days ago, the sun was out, its rays shining bright and filling the air with gold, but now, the air is just a flurry of ash. The cerulean of the sky has morphed into a swirled of ominous grays, and the constellations are blurred away. Charles told me to look at the North Star to find closure, but I'll never even be able to see it again. It's just too faint to cut through the blizzards trapping us. I've lost another piece of him.

I'm not talking to Mom and Dad. They tried to bribe me with a nicer breakfast, even breaking out a hidden stash of chocolate cereal puffs they must've stored away somewhere in their room, but you just can't bribe away the loss of my only friend. Charles is worth more than just a handful of stale cereal, so I just took my standard lima bean breakfast and sat alone.

"You alright?" Mira asked me, even when she knew that I wasn't alright.

I wasn't in the mood to talk, so I tried moving away from her, but she just followed me. "You are not going to pull away from me. Not again. Please talk to me about it. Maybe it'll help you move on."

I guess I was angry at all of her pestering, so I said the most hurtful thing that I could say to her, "I don't want to move on. It's all your fault! You should've tried harder when Dad found out. You killed Charles and his family. You took them away from me."

She was at a loss of words. I was too since I instantly regretted everything that I said, but I couldn't apologize at that moment because, to be truthful, I wanted her to hurt. It's cruel, I know, and I shouldn't think like this because none of this is Mira's fault, but for one second, I was just so sick and tired of her full emotional honesty policy that I weaponized it against her.

But she's right, at least a little bit. I should move on from him and turn a new page in my book (or go to the next book in the series). I even wished that he'd move on, so it's pretty hypocritical for me not to be able to move on.

At the same time, I'm wondering if it's the other way, and I'm moving on too quickly. I still haven't cried about him being gone. I thought I would when I finally accepted that he was going to be gone forever, but I just can't. And I feel guilty because that's something I owe to him, to feel sad because that's how you feel when the apocalypse rips the person you cared about far away.

Excuse the "cared" in the last sentence. I meant to say "care" in the present tense. Charles isn't someone long gone in the past. He's still alive and in this world and probably enjoying the internet in a better (not heaven) place.

Is that just a story that I'm trying to tell myself because it's easier than the hard truths, that the South is just as cold and desolate as the West Coast? I've been trying to avoid thinking about this because I didn't want to accidentally make the universe make the South as bad as I'm imagining it to be, but what if the rumors are really wrong? The Gulf of Mexico can only stay warm for so long before it starts cooling down, bringing down temperatures all across the Gulf Coast. Not to mention all of the volcanoes dotting Central America that must be spewing volcanic ash into the air. Hopefully, the wind currents will bring them away from Texas, but if not, they're just as screwed as we are.

I've got to keep clinging to hope. That's what I wrote in my last entry, the hope that Charles will never die because my words will keep him as alive as possible in my mind, but I wonder if that's another nice story that I'm just telling myself. Or worse, it's this nice story that's keeping me from crying because I'm too hopeful to feel despair. Why can't I just feel like a normal person?