The Book of M by Peng Shepherd Page B

for sure.
    She laughed. It didn’t sound much like a laugh. “Rob and I separated,” she finally said. All the air went out of me. “Two weeks ago. Hallie doesn’t have the flu. I was going to tell you at the reception, once we were drunk enough. But then Boston happened.”
    â€œMarion.”
    â€œI know it’s not karma,” she interrupted, cutting me off. “That would be—stupid. But I just can’t help but . . .” She took a shaky breath. “You and Ory, Paul and Imanuel—happy. Here we all are at the end of the world, and you guys are here together. I’m the only one with marriage troubles—and look at where I am, where he is.”
    â€œIt’s not karma,” I said, desperately. “Karma doesn’t exist.”
    â€œI know,” Marion replied. “But it sure seems like it, doesn’t it?”
    I didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter. I knew what she wanted me to know: that if she’d known somehow that it really was going to end now—not in some far future time, but now, right now—she never would have left him. She would have cherished all the moments. We waited in silence for what felt like hours.
    â€œI’m going back now,” I finally said. I couldn’t think of anything to comfort her. There was nothing to say, without looking at the truth of it head on—no way to offer hope without also reminding her that she might never see them again.
    â€œI’m going to stay,” Marion answered.
    When I reemerged from the woods and sat down beside you again at the fire, Rhino was standing, stating to the group that he was going to drag his blankets out onto the grass after we put the fire out, because now that there was no electricity and therefore no air conditioning, it was going to be disgustingly hot in the ballroom where we were all camped out.
    He wasn’t really announcing it, I knew as I watched him. It was more that he was trying to ask the rest of us to join him without begging outright. For comfort in numbers. I realized that none of us had even tried sleeping in our individual guest rooms once. After the wedding reception had been interrupted by the news about Boston, we’d all banded together in the ballroom and never left, save to retrieve our suitcases and bring them back down. The courtyard where Rhino wanted to sleep was a couple hundred feet from where the rest of us were still set up inside. Nine days ago, that wouldn’t have beenenough distance for me to be from a random stranger. Now it felt terrifyingly far.
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” you said. “Let’s all move out here.”
    Over the top of the flames, Rhino looked at you so gratefully it made my eyes tear again.

Mahnaz Ahmadi
    THE NIGHT NAZ CONSIDERED KILLING HERSELF, SHE SAW HER sister again.
    It was a few weeks after she finally took the Bluetooth headset off. She wasn’t sure of the exact date, but it was snowing outside, which meant she’d been in the studio for four or five months by then. Hiding, talking to herself, and beginning to starve. She’d rationed well, but there was no food left in the entire building anymore, or in the duffel bag. She’d gone out a few times to the roof, but all she could see beyond the vast, empty parking lot was darkness and the glow of flashing police lights, and all she could hear were the echoing sounds of people crying or being killed. She had her bow, but it was no good in situations like that. In the open or one-on-one, she might win. But against a crowd, in a city, a bow was almost useless. In close quarters, she’d never stop every single one of a gang before one of them reached her and took her down.
    She planned to jump. Or at least think about jumping, soon. Before the hunger made her too weak to find a quicker, more dignified death than starvation. Her mother had almost starved once, she’d told her. When