7. Ava
SEVEN
AVA
My eyes burn and my vision is blurry. Not because I’m crying—I’ve cried all I can since Mavey passed in the night—but because I haven’t closed my eyes to sleep in over twenty-four hours.
At first, she looked like she was only sleeping, tucked snuggly in her bed with her painted fingernails lifeless at her side. But as the morning ticks by, and the sun rises higher in the sky, something about her appearance changes. Or is it my perception of her? My head yells at me to stop standing in the doorway, staring at her.
Mavey loathed the idea of anyone seeing her in nightclothes, so I dressed her in her favorite gardening top and braided her hair back. Now, waiting for the paramedics to come take her body away, I feel empty. Listless.
I glance at the digital clock at her bedside and realize it’s been nearly two hours since I called for someone to come. It’s only then I consider the quake early this morning might’ve had more ramifications than I realized. Had it even broken a five on the Richter scale? Or had I been in too much of a daze to fully grasp how big it was? It took four tries to reach an operator, and considering Mavey is already gone, I question whether she’s a priority right now and if they are coming at all.
A pounding at the door makes me jump.
Exhaling, I glance at Mavey one last time before I allow the paramedics to take her from our home forever. My heart squeezes at the thought. This is real. She is really dead.
Barely able to breathe, I wipe an errant tear from my cheek, and bracing myself, I open the door. Immediately, I straighten. “Scott?”
He takes the sight of me in and his face crumples.
“I know this is Texas,” I start, running my hand over my nose, raw from wiping the snot away. “But why is there a pistol holstered at your hip?”
“Because I don’t trust anyone,” he says. Glancing past me, the wariness in his gaze prickles over my skin. “Is she gone?” he asks solemnly.
I nod, my brow furrowing with concern. I don’t like the tension creasing his brow and deepening the lines webbing his eyes. “What happened?” I step aside for him to come in the trailer. I have no idea if that’s a weird thing to do with Mavey’s body in the adjacent room, but if Scott minds, he doesn’t say anything.
“We need to get out of here.” He scans the living room. “San Antonio is gone.”
I balk at that. “Gone? What do you mean, gone ?”
“That quake this morning was from the growing sinkhole that swallowed the whole damn city.”
I don’t know if the color drains from my face, but whatever numbness I was feeling is replaced with anxiety instead.
“People are fleeing Fredericksburg, Junction—even Austin,” Scott explains, running his hands through his shaggy hair. Had he any family here, he would be worrying about them right now, but he doesn’t. Scott’s here, making sure I’m okay, and I’ve never been more grateful because I’m not okay—not in the slightest. As my mind swims, trying to catch up, I feel like I might throw up. Or break into pieces. Or both.
Scott helps himself to a glass in the kitchen. “We’re getting inundated with people passing through, and terrified people are dangerous.” He takes a gulp of water, then sputters and practically drops the glass as if it punched him in the face. “Sulfur,” he murmurs, and when his eyes meet mine, they are grave and weary. “Ava, if you have a place to go, you need to leave. Now.”
Unbidden, my eyes shift to Mavey’s room.
“She’s gone,” he says gently. At least as gently as he can, given the circumstances. “She wouldn’t want you to stay here and put yourself at unneeded risk. Things are going to get worse.”
“How do you know?” I breathe.
“Two tours in Afghanistan, and having a veteran father who spent the last twelve years of his life panicked about scarcity, that’s how.”
My vision blurs. If I leave this trailer, I won’t ever see Mavey again. Even if a distant part of me screams that I wasn’t going to anyway.
“Ava.” Scott gently takes my upper arm, and I squeeze my eyes shut to hold back the tears. They eke out anyway, and a cry bubbles from my throat. “I know,” Scott whispers, pulling me into his arms.
It’s a gesture I didn’t realize I’d needed so desperately, and I grip Scott’s t-shirt in my fists. “It hurts,” I tell him as the emptiness threatens to swallow me whole.
“I know it does,” he whispers, leaning his cheek against my head. “But you’re going to be okay.” He says it with such certainty, I huff a laugh and let go of him. “Do you have a place to go?”
Wiping more tears from my eyes, I take a deep breath and think about Julio. He’s all I have left now. “Yeah, I do. But—” I shake my head, wondering how long of a bike ride that will be. Then I realize I can’t leave yet, and panic starts clawing into place. “I need my prescription.” I imagine hordes of people between me and the pharmacy and my pulse races. “Scott, I have to get my meds.”
He rubs my arm. “We’ll go get them,” he promises. “You go to the Pharm House, right?”
I nod.
“Good. We’ll take the back roads to get to the plaza. The militias are out. I’ve heard them all over the radio, so the fewer people we see, the better.” Scott’s words are tinged with more than caution, they’re filled with fear. I tilt my head, uncertain I want to know why. Still, I ask. “What happened, Scott? What did you see out there?”
“Other than swarmed gas stations and more traffic than I’ve ever seen through the center of this town? Road rage. A man trying to break up a fight and getting knocked out with a tire iron. People with guns strapped to their hips and across their backs. None of it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside,” he says. “We’ll get your prescription and supplies and get out of town.”
“But, your store?—”
“Aside from the supplies it allows me to take, it can’t save me, Ava. Not from whatever is coming next. I heard some folks saying the sinkhole is getting bigger,” Scott continues, nodding outdoors. “I have no idea if that’s true, but with the water turned to shit”—he glances at the faucet—“and everyone coming this way, we’re no longer safe here. We need to get out of town as soon as possible. It’s only going to get harder the longer we wait. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
“But what about you?” I shake my head, refusing to be more of a burden to this man than I’ve already been the past three years, between my special medical needs and unpredictable work schedule with Mavey being so sick.
“I have a brother in Missouri,” he explains. “But I’ll take you where you need to go first.”
“Julio’s place,” I confess. “In Sweetwater.” Assuming it will still be there. I don’t say that part out loud though, too worried to give the thought voice.
Scott swallows, his scruffy cheek clenching. “Is that where you want to go, to Julio’s place? You can always come with me.”
I shake my head. “No, I—I should go to Sweetwater. Julio has a small orchard there, and he’s been asking me to come for years.”
Scott stares at me, skeptical.
“He’s the only family I have here, Scott. Even if I knew my mom’s family in Mexico, how would I get there?” I shrug. “I have to go to Julio’s. It feels wrong otherwise.”
Scott knows my determination and must realize it’s not worth arguing about. He lets the matter go and holds up my messenger bag. “Pack whatever you need and say your goodbyes.” He glances toward Mavey’s room.
The tension in my neck dissolves, and my shoulders sag at the reminder. I nod and take my pack from him.
“I’ll wait outside.” Scott turns to leave.
“Thanks, Scott.” Pursing my lips, I try to smile. “For coming. For checking on me.” Gratitude, acute and overwhelming, settles in the longer he stares at me, and I swallow the emotion growing thicker in my throat.
“Of course.” With that, Scott leaves me in the trailer that has been my home for the past ten years.
Striding through the living room, I stop in my bedroom doorway and stare at my things. A bed hastily made when I woke up at dawn yesterday for my shift at the diner. A hamper of dirty laundry at the foot of the bed and a basket of clean clothes beside it with days-old wrinkles. The lingering scent of my shampoo from my last shower fills the air. Or is that only the memory of it?
Scott’s Jeep Wrangler rumbles to life outside, reminding me he’s waiting, and I stride to my dresser and collect the necessities, dropping them into my bag one by one: deodorant, lip balm, hair ties, and hand cream I know I’ll regret leaving behind.
I turn for my bed and kneel down, reaching underneath it for a backpack I haven’t used since high school. Unzipping it, I pull the old loose-leaf papers and a notebook out, then walk back to my dresser. Pulling the drawer open so hard it nearly falls out completely, I stare at my things.
I need underwear , I tell myself, and grab a handful. Then a few sports bras because they’re the most comfortable, socks, and a handful of well-worn tank tops and t-shirts. Already wearing a pair of jeans and my combat boots, I grab a pair of shorts and an extra pair of jeans from the next drawer, then stuff in two long sleeves, praying my pack will zip closed.
What sort of clothes does one need when fleeing the end of the world? What’s the point if we’re all going to die? If I’d had the extra funds and time to invest in bug-out bags, insurance plans, and survival classes, I might actually know what to do. But I have no idea.
When I finally get my pack zipped, I hurry into the bathroom for my comb, toothbrush, minty paste, and razor before I scour the drawers and shelves for whatever meds I can find that aren’t already in my bag. The fact that I only have enough for another day or two at most puts me on edge, so I would gladly take an expired stash at this point. But I find nothing other than expired birth control from three years ago.
I glance at the shampoo and soap in the shower, wondering if I have room for them. Deciding I’ll regret it if I don’t bring them, I grab them from the shower, then snag a fresh bar of soap from under the sink.
As I turn to leave, I catch sight of myself in the mirror and stop. I look more haggard than I ever have, with dark circles under my brown, red-rimmed eyes. My tanned cheeks are smeared with mascara from crying. My hair is a tangled mess. It looks like I’ve neglected myself for a week straight.
I hastily wipe the makeup from under my eyes and do a final scan of my room and all I’m leaving behind. It looks like a whirlwind came through in a matter of minutes, but I’ll never be in this place again to care about that.
I stare at the photo of my mom and me taken on my seventh birthday, a few months before she was shot during the robbery. I don’t care that I never knew my dad, or that I don’t have a picture of Julio, but that I don’t have one of Mavey to take with me makes my heart ache with sadness all over again.
Refusing to slow down or dwell on anything else that will break me, I cross my room in three strides, pry the backing off the picture of my mom, and toss the frame onto the bed. I slip the picture into the outer pocket of my bag and grab my bomber jacket from the closet. The baseball cap Mavey got me two birthdays ago glimmers on the top shelf. Toxic Positivity taunts me in bold, rainbow lettering, and I take that with me, too.
With a final glance behind me, I drape my messenger bag across my chest and shrug into my backpack, don my cap, and then head out of my room.
I don’t look at Mavey’s room, knowing it will only make things harder, and I force myself out the door, locking it shut—for Mavey’s sake, I tell myself—behind me.