This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang

like shit. “Will you just leave? Please?”
    â€œYeah, dude. And you’re going to come with me. Let’s go.”
    So I get up. I go.
    The Metaphor is Janie’s territory. Dewey and I always do our drinking on the far side of the quarry, where people drown. That’s where we go now. There’s a ledge where stoners smoke and assholes dare each other to jump. We are both tonight. Dewey has weed and cigarettes and Canadian whiskey, and I keep daring him to jump.
    He just lights another cigarette. He cups his hands around the tip and shivers. “Dammit, Micah, will you sit the fuck down? You’re making me nervous.”
    I sit. He hands me the bottle of whiskey. I drink until I almost puke.
    â€œGod,” I say, coughing. Some of the whiskey comes backup and sprays the grass, which is already frosty. “Isn’t Canadian whiskey supposed to be the good stuff?”
    â€œThis is the good stuff,” he says. “Just wait until we have to start into the shit wine. You know what you need? A cigarette. Shit offsets shit.”
    I ignore him and take another swig. And another. Dewey watches me. I watch the other side of the quarry, where someone is running. “Is that Piper?”
    â€œHell if I know.”
    â€œShe’s always crying,” I say. “Every time I see her she’s crying.”
    Dewey snorts. “And how often do you see her?”
    Not very. But in school, when I was still in school. Sometimes, she runs by my house and she’s always crying.
    Another swig. After a while, he tries to take the bottle back, but I lean out of reach and take another swig.
    â€œSeriously, Micah,” he says. “How are you doing?”
    â€œI’m cold,” I say.
    â€œMicah—”
    â€œI’m fine. My attitude is as bright as my future.”
    â€œMicah, stop fucking around—”
    â€œI’m not,” I say. “I’m telling the truth.”
    The truth, the truth. I’m a terrible liar. I take another drink. Dewey stares at me for a while, and then he starts talking about shit I don’t care about. He blows cloudsaround our heads and I drink until I forget.
    Drink to forget.
    Janie’s lips in my ear. “Take another shot.”
    â€œ. . . town is going to shit. I love it. You hear about Ander?”
    Her breath soft against my cheek her lips in my ear her body warm against mine.
    â€œAre you listening to me? Suey Park and a bunch of other people told the police that they saw Wes and Ander leaving Janie’s before the fire started, so I guess that idiot really didn’t set the fire. Shame, right?”
    Her breath soft against my cheek her lips in my ear her body warm against mine her eyes colorless and glittering.
    â€œI mean—shit. Don’t listen to me. Don’t worry about it, man. No one really thinks you did it. They just think that she—that you might have known . . . you know what? Never mind—Micah, what the hell are you doing?”
    Her breath my cheek her lips my ear her body against mine her eyes
    her eyes glittering and colorless
    and the only part of her face I can see
    as she tells me to take another drink.
    â€œMicah, Jesus, get away from there.”
    The only part of her face I can see because she is backlit
    by the bonfire that rises higher
    and higher as she tips my cup back
    whispering, “Just drink. Forget this. It’s okay. I promise, just drink, just forget.”
    â€œShe told me to forget,” I say, spitting the words so that they are real and outside my head. Spitting, as if the momentum will push the memory out. “We were on a lawn chair and under a blanket and the cup was electric blue and she made me drink and drink and told me to forget.”
    â€œMicah.”
    Lips breath warmth.
    The whiskey is horrible in my mouth pleasant in my chest fire in my stomach. I take another swig, a long one, and then I say, “I think we did something.