This Is Not a Test

Chapter 17

"The way you look at things is so uncomplicated."

"Oh, I'm so sorry I've pegged you all wrong." He raises a hand. "I take it back. You're not thrilled we could wake up one day and be totally surrounded."

"I'm not thrilled. I'm not anything."

Rhys drops the cigarette on the floor and grinds it out.

"Wasn't your dad though, was it."

"No."

"You know, if I thought it was mine, like even for a second-even if I knew, rationally, it couldn't be him-" He stops and shrugs. "Fuck it. Never mind."

He takes out the pack of cigarettesagain, but this time he holds it out. I shake my head. He shrugs but he doesn't look away, just keeps his eyes on me until I'm so uncomfortable I feel I have to be the first of us to leave to win this moment between us, so I do.

* * *

Baxter sits in the chair at the head of the table and starts nodding off and then Trace and Rhys help him to his own mat so he can sleep for a bit. We move quietly around him. We don't even talk. He's already leveled our dynamic and Harrison is the only one who seems happy about it. He should be devastated about this new unknown way into the school but instead, he's happy. It's easy to understand why because Harrison is really simple. This is what Harrison thinks: Baxter will remember soon and then he'll recover and he'll take care of us.

I watch Baxter sleep. He moans and jerks awake.

"The radio," he says groggily.

"You've heard it?" Trace asks.

"Once. Has it changed? I doubt it has..."

Trace crosses the room and switches the radio on. It's static for a few minutes and then that woman's voice comes through, loud and clear.

"-Not a test-"

Baxter holds up a hand and closes his eyes. Trace turns the radio off.

Around dinner, we rouse Baxter again. He sits at the head of the table-Cary's spot-and watches as Harrison and Grace bring in two trays of food.

"So you banded together. Got here all by yourselves," Baxter says as we settle around him. I hate the way it feels. This is our place but he's at the head of our table. In the best chair-the one we snagged from LaVallee's office. "You survived."

"Not all of us," Trace says. "Our parents. We lost them."

"I'm so sorry to hear that. How?"

"Excuse me?"

"How did they die?"

Cary is reaching for a bag of chips when Mr. Baxter asks this. His hand freezes over it, totally suspended for the briefest second, and then he grabs it and rips it open. This does not escape Baxter's notice.

"It was-" Trace starts, and I can tell he's ready to lay into Cary something fierce, which is the worst thing he could do. I brace myself but he never finishes and when I look, Grace's hand is on his arm. She's silenced him.

"We were overwhelmed," she says. "That's all."

"Yes. That happens." Baxter reaches for some rice cakes and gazes at them, like he can't believe they're real. "Did you try to get to the community center?"

"Yeah," Harrison says. "We almost didn't make it."

"We thought it would be safe," Trace says. "I guess everyone did. It was the first place we headed, right? First one gone. If we had known, we wouldn't have even tried."