Chapter 12 #6
“No no no no NO!” Wayward gasped through his fingers. “Oh, poor Bindi . . . poor little guy . . .” He began to silently weep,
his shoulders shuddering like rolling stones. “Fucking A, how could I have lost him?”
Sunbern set Lola down, and she crumpled to the ground next to Wayward, her head tucked between her knees. Sunbern awkwardly
patted both her and Wayward on their heads. “Yo, Shortcake,” he said. “C’mon, man, don’t cry like that . . .”
“Shut up, Sunbern, you cry all the fucking time!” Wayward sobbed. But he leaned against his elder cousin’s legs for support.
“Exactly, and I’m not crying now, so neither should you!” Sunbern reasoned, his voice still flecked with optimism as he petted Wayward’s sticky pomaded hair. “We’ll find the lil homie, don’t worry!”
“Nope,” Lola suddenly intoned, as though snapping out of some horrifying hallucination to train her merciless focus on Wayward
instead. “That dog is dead, tooken by a coyote or a hawk or a snake. Long dead. Currently being digested. Soon will be poop.”
“Lola!” Sunbern groaned as Wayward was sent into another loud wail of despair. “That’s not helpful!”
This entire time, April had been standing a few feet away from this huddle of her younger cousins, looking on at Wayward’s
soul-crushing anguish. At first, she had been somewhat darkly amused by the events of the night: typical Wayward, to have
had everything for that night painstakingly planned out to a T, only to tumble into a trapdoor caused directly by his one
weakness in life. Wayward had meant to recruit them to his cause of fatherhood that night, but instead they were on a wild-pup
chase to the middle of nowhere. April had truly lucked out.
But as she watched the young man she once loved most weep on the cold earth below her, she suddenly felt pangs of sadness
for him. “Weiwei . . .” She reached out, ready to comfort him.
Wayward looked up at the sky, tears streaking down his face. “I can’t even take care of a puppy!” he raged. “How did I fool
myself into thinking I’m ready to be a dad?”
At that, Sunbern and Lola both did an identical double-take at him. “Wait, what?” Sunbern asked, his handsome face scrunched
up with confusion as Lola winced to herself. “What are you talking about, Shortcake?”
April acted fast, determined to quash this explosive conversation before it could be detonated. She rushed up to Wayward,
placing both her hands on his shoulders. “Weiwei,” she cooed to him, “it’s not your fault. These things happen.”
“Yeah,” Lola quickly agreed, also eager to change the subject. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so blunt.”
But Wayward leaped up, angrily pointing accusatory fingers at the two women. “You both should be sorry because this is all
your fault!”
April recoiled in indignant shock. “What the hell do you mean, our fault?!”
“I told you to watch Bindi!” Wayward yelled back at her, his eyes flashing wildly. “How else could he have gotten out if not
because of you guys!”
There was something profoundly triggering for April about the way Wayward was yelling at her, his eyes so messed up that she
could see their extreme dilation even in the darkness of the night around them. Without thinking, April smacked Wayward’s
hand out of her face.
“Fuck off, Wayward!” she spit. “No one here signed up to be doggy daycare!”
Sunbern immediately sprang in between them. “Hey, before you two kill each other, I got an important question . . .” He gestured
around them at the endless dusty terrain in all directions. “Where’s the RV?”
Everyone, including Lola, lifted their heads to take in their wholly unfamiliar surroundings. It was nearly pitch black, but
it was crystal clear that they were hopelessly lost.
“Shit,” whispered April, closing her eyes in defeat.
“Who grabbed their phone on the way out?” Wayward asked, his throat clenched with urgency.
He was answered with shivering silence.
“You’re telling me,” Sunbern said in utter disbelief, “that not a single one of us thought to bring our phones before wandering
out into the wilderness?”
At their feet, Lola began to laugh. “Imagine the headlines,” she cackled. “‘Decomposed remains of the Sun cousins, found in desert. Death by shrooms!’ We are gonna be the biggest punchline in the world! Now if only I could somehow still see Auntie Roses’s face after I’m dead . . .”
“No one is dying!” Wayward said through gritted teeth. “We’ll wait for morning and find our way back when there’s light. How
big is this desert anyway?”
“The Mojave? Pretty fucking big,” April mumbled, palming her forehead. She was so frustrated with herself—as the eldest, she
should have known better. They didn’t even have water.
“Is this a good time to say something kinda freaky?” Sunbern whispered, staring off into the distance at something.
April harrumphed. “We’re apparently going to die out here. What could be freakier than that?”
Sunbern squinted his eyes. “Listen, I know I’m tripping and it’s just the shrooms but . . .”
“But what?” Wayward asked.
Sunbern shivered. “This whole time we’ve been searching for the puppy, every time I look behind, I think I see Big Boss Sun
following us.”
April and Wayward both let out shrieks of terror and involuntarily leaped into each other’s arms, looking all around them
frantically.
“Whoa!” Lola gasped, impressed. “That is legit freaky.”
“Don’t say shit like that!” April warned. “You’ll summon the ghosts for real!”
“Ape, you sound so much like your mom right now,” Wayward whimpered. “But I agree, please shut up, Sunbern!”
“As hilarious as this is,” Lola chimed in, “I swear I’m not trying to scare you all even more, but . . .”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” moaned Wayward, hiding his face on April’s shoulder. “But what, Lola?”
Lola pointed into the black horizon. “I’m pretty sure there’s someone walking toward us right now.”
They all gasped as they looked in the direction of Lola’s finger. Indeed, about a stone’s throw away, there was the outline of a silent figure that appeared to be getting closer by the second.
“Oh, no,” Sunbern blubbered, his eyes beginning to water. “It’s him.”
“I think I just peed myself,” April whispered to Wayward.
“I definitely am peeing,” Wayward whispered back. “It’s happening right now. It’s hot and running down my leg.”
They all held their breaths as the creature approached them, soundlessly and wordlessly. But pitying them, the moon began
to emerge from behind its cloudy blanket, looking like a bright scythe in the sky. Instantly, their world was eerily relit,
and the very first thing that they saw was—
“BINDI!” Wayward cried out, making a mad dash toward the puppy, who upon seeing him began to yip with excitement.
But when Wayward looked above the puppy to see who was holding him, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“It’s you!” he breathed.
“Thank God!” April cried.
Sunbern let out a loud whoop of pure joy. “Holy wow, you actually came!” He shot past Wayward to scoop the new person into
a giant hug, Bindi included.
Once he let her go, the young woman with long straight black hair and deep red lipstick shrugged somewhat timid greetings
at them. She was exceptionally beautiful, and in fact the prettiest girl of her generation by far, but no one ever noticed
it. She did not carry herself like she was.
From Sunbern to Wayward to April, she looked at each of her cousins, her eyes eventually settling on Lola’s.
But her little sister only scowled back at her.
“So . . . Hi,” said Felicia Sun, biting her red lip nervously.
“You’re damn right we are!” Sunbern guffawed, doubling over with laughter.
And with that, all five Sun cousins finally reunited in their desert.