“Pfft.” He snorted. “Humans and their morality. They really don’t have a leg to stand on, with how terrible they are to each other every day.”
“I guess that’s true,” Maria said as the first rays of light cast through the buildings and onto the water.
“Maria?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for a great last night.”
She closed her eyes. “You’re welcome,” she said, and held him tighter, afraid to feel his jaw go slack or for his skull to fall to one side. She held her breath and waited for the golden light to show through the backs of her eyelids, all that color she could still see, and all the warmth she could no longer feel.
It seemed to take a long time, but the sun rose like it always did, bright and terrible.
“I won’t put you in the garden,” she promised. “I’ll put you in the graveyard we found. The one for survivors.”
She placed her hand atop the canvas of the bag and rewound and replayed the sunrise. She should have thought of something better to say. Some better last words thanYou’re welcome.
“That would be great, but maybe later?” Ethan said, and she was so surprised that she bobbled him and nearly dropped him in the drink.
“Ethan! I thought you were dead!” She turned him aroundto face her and he was smiling—a big lopsided grin.
“We’re both dead,” he said. “But I guess I was wrong about sunrise.”
“You asshole. You were buying time!”
“I think the term you’re looking for is ‘stalling.’ But I wasn’t, I swear. It really felt like I would die when the sun came up. I felt really stupid when I didn’t. I almost made some gurgling noises and stuck my tongue out of the side of my mouth just so you wouldn’t be disappointed.”
She laughed. “I’m not disappointed.”
“Really?” he asked. “Good. Because I’m not either.”
She held him up, cradling his jaw in her hands. She wanted to kiss him, but that would have been going too far. He was still, after all, just a head.
“Baby,” she said, and grinned, “we’d better go find you a body.”
A Thousand More
byCHLOE GONG
THE GATES TOGlenfield Academy loomed ominously in the distance, looking like something right out of a Gothic painting. Winter was thick in the air today, the January temperatures biting and terrible. They were only a month into the new semester, and Tally Qiu already wanted to throw herself out of her sixth-floor dorm window—not to die, maybe just to break a few bones. It would make a rather good story for her college applications.
“Sandwiches,” she said. She leaned against the tree behind her. “Maybe I’ll write the Common App about sandwiches.”
“Are you talking to yourself?”
Tally jolted with a start. Having succeeded in her jump scare, Ilene Jiang was cackling as she slunk around fromthe other side of the tree, dead leaves crunching under her heavy boots.
“The bell is going off in five minutes,” Tally scolded. “You’re cutting it close.”
“We need, like, one minute to get from the dorms to the school,” Ilene replied. “It’s not exactly a commute.”
Her best friend folded down, cross-legged. Ilene’s uniform was, as always, in violation, but Tally was a repeat offender as well. Their pleated navy skirts could only be described as outrageously frumpy, unsalvageable unless they were rolled up far past the knee. Tally had never taken a disciplinary infraction for anything other than uniform, and for the sake of not looking like a potato sack, she would keep taking them. She could afford to; every other aspect of her academic life was pristine in compensation. After classes ended each day, she went straight to her room and finished her homework at the earliest moment of convenience. Weeknights were then organized by the extracurriculars she took part in: Mondays for debate, Tuesdays for tennis, Wednesdays for choir, Thursdays for volunteering, and Fridays for film club. With her parents constantly traveling for their jobs, Tally had attended boarding school all her life, and she had put a strict routine in place for herself to make sure each assignment came back in tip-top shape and her résumé shimmered.
She had been an aspiring Ivy League student since she was seven years old, after all—she needed to work toward success appropriately.
Tally heaved a sigh, then grumbled, “Well, now we may as well start walking in.”
Ilene hopped to her feet in a flash. She extended a hand to help Tally, who was making a much slower task of clambering off the ground despite being the one grouching.
