All of Us Are Going to Hell

SEVENTEEN

3 Months and 6 Days before the End of the World

January 10 – March 20, 2023

That's the problem with my life.

It was someone else's idea.

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE, BENJAMIN ALIRE SAÉNZ

SENIOR YEAR.

    The year dreams and aspirations bloomed under the sun. The vices and caprices were activated in the dark. SATs, GCSEs, Applications. Parties, drugs, virginity loss.

    The pinnacle of teenage rampancy.

    The crossroads that determined our future.

    It all happened that year and Dad wanted to use this opportunity to get me a perfect application for a perfect spot at Stanford.

    See, Stanford has been passed in my family like an heirlooom. Both my parents went to Stanford. It was where they met.

    So did their parents. They met at Stanford, too, I was told. I was supposed to have everything about an Ivy League school for privileged white kids tattooed on the lobes of my brain till graduation, while everyone else had parties, shoplifted from the nearest CostCo and lost their virginities in the back of a dirty truck in their grandparents backyard. My entire life was already premeditated by someone else somehow and that was the problem.

    But. The story. On the second day of senior year, it rained. And it was pretty strange because it was the start of January that year. The sky tore open and a deluge came pouring down, the drops almost horizontal.

    The parking lot got flooded so most of the teachers that weren't already there drove home for the day to wait out the rain. It didn't stop, though. There were almost no teachers to teach, so everyone who showed up that second day were out in the halls, vaping (which was technically still smoking—yes, Lilith, it is) or groping girls (and each other, for the fun of it).

     I remember standing at the doors by the gym, watching the rain through the glass and waiting out the rain, too, when I felt something missing from my jacket pocket.

    “Lip balm, huh?” said Elijah, holding up my Watermelon Shine balm, brandishing it like a trophy. “You’re holding out on me, Lyle.” I reached out to snatch it and he yanked it out of my reach. “Ooh, Nivea. The good, pricey-but-not-too-pricey-and-sold-at-the-nearest-Walmart stuff.”

    I narrowed my eyes, smirking. “General malfeasance pickpocket, male,” I said, reaching out and snatching the lip balm from his grip. “Do I need to contact the school authorities on your account? This isn't strike one. It's not even strike three.”

    “What school authorities?” He retorted. “The rain practically chased all the fuc—I mean, staff, home,” he corrected, remembering that I winced around swear words. (House habit.) “There’s only, like, one teacher here.”

    “Counts as authority.”

    “Totally, yeah. Kinder’ Mr. Oshiro. Real fierce.”

    I shot him a look. Mr. Oshiro, our new chemistry teacher, was a little old-school, as he taught kindergarteners for eight years, middle school for three. That year was his first year in high school and he still left star stickers on the notebook of whoever got an A (aka, me) and spoke like we were hamsters on a wheel, not young adults who committed sex offences on daily basis and harboured materials and substances illegal in six US states and four European countries. Hence, the nickname.