This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang Page A

Janie and I.”
    â€œMicah,” says Janie.
    â€œWe did something horrible.”
    â€œMicah,” Janie says again. Her voice is burning. “Don’t.”
    â€œWhat? She told you to do something and you scampered off to do it like her little bitch? Yeah, I’m not surprised.”
    â€œShe doesn’t want me to tell you.”
    â€œThe two of you were so fucked up,” he says, but he isn’t taunting anymore. He takes a long drag on his cigarette and the tip burns the color of her hair. His voice is low and tight.
    â€œShe says that you can’t ever know.”
    Dewey blinks, and then he’s squinting at me. “What?”
    â€œMicah, stop talking. Stop talking now.”
    â€œShe wants me to stop talking,” I say.
    â€œMicah. Micah, hey. Look at me.” He taps the side of my cheek. The cigarette is too close to my ear. I think I can see it burning out of the corner of my eye, but that could just be Janie. It could be her hair. “Micah, man. You’re saying she’s here? Now?”
    â€œYeah,” I say. “She says that she hates you.”
    My legs are over the side of the ledge now. The water is far, far below, probably. The quarry is two hundred and nineteen feet deep. It is the deepest quarry in Iowa. It’s dark. I can’t see. I don’t remember when I got this close to the edge.
    Dewey’s face is so white that it glows in the dark. “Dude, do you want me to—do I need to take you to the hospital or something?”
    â€œNah,” I say, and take another swig. “Damn, Dewey. Isn’t Canadian whiskey supposed to be the good stuff?”
    The bottle is empty. The bottle goes flying. Dewey smacks it out of my hand and it goes flying. Distantly, there is a splash as it falls into the water.
    I squint into the dark. “There’s like a five-hundred-dollar fine for littering.”
    â€œScrew the fine.” He’s in my face. “There’s been, what,fifteen people who’ve died here in the last fifty years? If they can’t find their bodies, you think you’re going to find that stupid bottle? Look, Micah, listen to me—”
    â€œFourteen,” I say. “The last one was Patty Keghel in 1972. I remember. I was looking up local apocalypses and came across her name because she was a big Herbert Armstrong follower. She believed every one of his false apocalypse predictions and once she ran naked through Waldo to alert everyone. She used to fish in the quarry and she made her own rafts, but I guess not good ones because that’s how she drowned.”
    Dewey goes quiet, so I keep talking.
    â€œJanie and I saw her grave. Freshman year, we saw her grave. It’s in the cemetery. Do you want to see? We should go see. We can go now.”
    â€œWhat the hell are you on right now—”
    â€œAnd again,” I say, spitting again, “again this year, we came here. Here.”
    â€œYeah, I know we’ve come here before. We get drunk here all the time because we’re the biggest shits on the planet.”
    â€œNot you and me. Us. Janie and me. Me and Janie. I remember that. I remember now, it was our birthday. We came and there was a boat. You made a treasure hunt and it led to you.”
    â€œMicah. What the fuck are you even saying? Are you talking to her?”
    â€œYeah,” I say, and I turn to Dewey but a little too fast, and his hand is on my arm and I am leaning on him because I can’t feel my feet. “She won’t—she won’t leave me alone.”
    â€œOh, stop exaggerating, Micah,” Janie says. “You don’t want me to leave you alone.”
    â€œShe’s my soul mate,” I say, and I say it again, but I can’t make it clearer. The words are mashed in my head, vomit in my mouth. “My soul mate. Or not soul mate. She said that we shared a soul. What does that mean? She said that we were an atom. I