Before We Go Extinct Read Free Page B

seriously.
    â€œPlease,” Mom says, from the other side of the door. “Please, Sharky.”
    OK ok ok, I type. I hesitate. I stare myself down in the mirror. Suck it up, Buttercup, I think. My cold dead eyes glare back at my cold dead eyes. My lips curl in a sneer. My face has forgotten how to arrange itself properly. I allow it to fall back into flat nothingness, expression free. When did I get so skinny? I can see the bones in my face, the skeleton of me pushing to get through.
    I touch Send.
    I peel my now-blue sock off and slop it, dripping blueness all over the clean tile, into the garbage can. Underneath, the skin of my foot is blue, too, and puckered. My ankle is starting to swell.
    The phone vibrates.
    Daff: I need 2 talk 2 you.
    I type: Je suis indisponible.
    I hear Mom move away from the door, her footsteps slapping the floor toward the kitchen. When I put weight on my ankle, it hurts like something separate from me, with a life of its own. I take a picture of it. #bluefootedbooby It’s almost a funny thing to type right now. LOL LOL LOL.
    My phone buzzes again. Need 2 talk 2 you srsly <3 Daff. I have something from him. U have to c it. Its 4u.
    I almost send her the blue-foot pic. But then I don’t. I hit Delete. I reply to her with my standard, Non merci. No thank you. No mercy. Whichever you prefer, m’lady. I love her so hard it hurts, like all my organs are curling over inside me. But I can’t. Not now. Not ever.
    I put my hand on the door and open it, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. At any moment, I might just faint dead away, like one of those too-skinny girls in my class, folding up against the hall wall like a piece of beautiful paper. The light grays and thins. I pinch the skin of my wrist hard. The feeling passes.
    It always passes.
    I’m okay.
    I’m fine.
    I go into the kitchen and sit down.

 
    4
    â€œHe probably fainted in the air,” the fat cop had said. “I learned that back on September 11, you know, 2001. I was there, like … I was there . All those people, jumping, remember? Falling. Well, you’re too young to remember. But all those people . It was unbelievable. Holding hands. That one woman holding down her skirt. Anyway, they said they all fainted, passed right out, didn’t know what it was like to … Oh, I shouldn’t be saying this, I guess. Shit. I’m sorry. Kid, I’m sorry.”
    He looked surprised, like I had made him say those things, like my friend dying had forced these words out of him against his will. I scowled. I wanted him to stop but I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t find any words. Words were a school of fish flashing in the sun and then vanishing all at once, a hundred thousand bodies departing in one smooth motion.
    He leaned so close to me I could smell that he ate a meatball sub for lunch, washed it down with a coffee and a piece of too-weak gum. He had a gold filling in the side of his front tooth with a hunk of dark food stuck beside it. I wanted to punch him hard, so hard his nose would burst, a cartoon balloon.
    â€œIt’s something like two hundred miles an hour when you fall like that,” the skinny cop interrupted, his face all creased up like rotten fruit. He sounded excited. “What McRory there means is that he didn’t feel anything, ya know.”
    A word burned on the end of my tongue. I opened my mouth. Nothing happened. I tried again. “Screw you,” I croaked, real quiet. And then, just like that my voice was drained out of me, like blood pooling on the ground. I could feel it go, heavy like syrup. I expected to look down and see under my chair a puddle of words I’d never say.
    The fat cop squinted at me. Then, his eyes on my eyes, he reached over and touched my face. His fingertip was soft and terrible. I froze, every part of me clenched up, wanting to fight or to flee. My throat snapped tight shut in a way that made me think of gulls, swallowing. I