Read Online Heartbreaker by Maryse Meijer - Free Book Online Page B

seats. I dropped from the side of the van onto the tarmac and looked at the sky to see if what I’d heard was true.
    Behind me, coming from the south, crept a blanket of low gray cloud.
    Sweetheart, listen, I said.
    What? she asked. What now?
    I took a deep breath. They’re saying it’s going to rain.
    Rain? How much?
    I don’t know. It could be a lot, I whispered.
    She thought for a moment, and I could feel it, her thinking, the way her mind reached through the tips of her, feeling the sky for information.
    A few days, she decided. At most.
    They could be wrong, I said, black snot trembling on my lip. They’ve been wrong before.
    No, John, she said, and her voice now was quiet, firm. There was nothing we could do to help each other. All we could do was wait for it to begin.
    *   *   *
    Ribs of white light cracked through the sky and we screamed. The clouds gushed; she sizzled like raw flesh slapped on a grill. A fire truck drove past on the road behind me, its sirens quiet, gloating. You fucking murdering fuckheads, I whispered, chin to my chest, my legs giving way. You bas tards.
    It was the sixty-seventh day of her burning; I’d been awake for forty-eight hours, lying on my side on the ground somewhere in the foothills, the rain slashing through the soot on my skin. She blinked at me from the husks of trees, embers like eyes, a million of them, blinking, blinking, before going dark.
    It’s so cold, John, she hissed, so faint I could barely hear her. I’m so cold.
    *   *   *
    The next night a small, hushed group gathered at the lookout, umbrellas open, hoods up and dripping. I was slumped on the other side of the guardrail, my back pressed against the cool metal. The fresh air slicing through the haze was hateful to me, as was the smell of coffee from the cups the others clutched; but even they could see how terrible it was. We stood like pilgrims beholding the body of a dragon, sober-faced; for a long time no one spoke. We watched the glitter of water falling in slow stabs from the sky. The hills were fireless as far as the eye could see.
    Finally a child asked Is it over?
    Yes, its father answered.
    Thank God, someone else added. Then silence again. I held my head in my hands. I was dry inside, so dry I could burn. And I am burning still.

 
    FUGUE
    The girl works nights. In the middle of nowhere. She drives an hour to get to her job, an hour back. She can stand through her entire shift in silence, the way she is standing now. Dim white light spills down over her. The dessert freezer builds up ice. She is allowed to help herself to some chips or beef jerky or a cold drink. She likes how quiet it is, how dark it is. It is the quiet that brought her here.
    *   *   *
    The boys are driving in the young one’s black car. They know all about girls like her, girls who are alone, girls not beautiful, but not unattractive, either. In her uniform like a mechanic, blue, no name tag: hair like thick silk. No makeup.
    Did you know testosterone is just, like, a drug? the tall one says.
    Major drug, the youngest one says.
    Turn the music down, the dark-haired one says. I can’t hear anything.
    Shut your mouth, the young one replies, and turns the music up.
    *   *   *
    The storefront is humped concrete and plate glass; they can see the girl from the road, her ponytail in the window.
    Hey, the tall one says, slapping the young one’s arm. Get off here.
    What? the young one says, focused on a smear of road kill just beyond the steering wheel.
    Don’t we need gas? the tall one asks, and when he points they all look.
    Fuck yeah, the young one says, and pulls the car around. Three slow smiles stretch inside the car.
    *   *   *
    They pull in alongside the gas pumps. One of the overhead lamps is broken. They get out of the car in slow motion, like gangsters in a movie; in their heads music is playing. They