Read Online This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang - Free Book Online Page B

says he lost that credit card before wrestling regionals. But nobody knows whether or not they should believe them yet.
    I don’t remember wrestling regionals, but Dewey tells me we lost.
    The less fat detective tells me that it took less than ten minutes for the house to burn.
    Gibbs tells me that it started on the second floor. It didn’t spread from the bonfire like everyone thought.
    He tells me that someone spilled and spilled gasoline there, so much gasoline that there is nothing left of her room at all.
    He tells me and watches me for a reaction, as if these things will help me remember.
    He also tells me that I’m a good kid, but I figure if I really did start the fire, that won’t matter much.
    He also asks me what I knew about Ander and Janie.
    â€œNothing,” I tell him. “I knew she liked him. She had this plan to get the two of them together. It worked, huh?”
    â€œWas he ever violent? Specifically with Janie,” he asks me.
    I blink. “I don’t know. Was he?”
    Gibbs shifts and looks uncomfortable. “We talked to some of her friends. You know, Carrie Lang, Katie Cross. They said—” He pulls out a notebook and flips through it. “They said that she was upset. Maybe afraid. They think he might have hurt her.”
    â€œOh,” I say. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
    Gibbs sighs and closes the notebook. “Her parents don’t know anything, either, so we can’t do anything if he did.”
    He watches me for a reaction. I don’t really have one. I just don’t remember.
    Eventually he sends me back to class.
    I don’t go back to class. I go to the art room instead. If anyone asks, I’ll say that I forgot which class I was supposed to go to. Or that I forgot how to get there.
    The art room is in the workshop wing. The senior studios are a series of closets next to it. Down the hall, Dewey is probably smoking in the metals lab with other slackers. Janie skips class all the time here too, but not really. She just bats her eyelashes and tosses her hair and teachers write her passes to wherever she wants.
    I go to the art room, but I don’t remember how I get there.
    Her studio is empty. I’ve only been here one other time, at the beginning of the year. I stepped inside and filled it; it was tiny and dingy and badly lit and had no windows and she must have loved it, because I had barely been there for five seconds when she started shrieking that I was bumping into things and ruining it all. Back then it was already full to bursting. I remember. Her weird-ass crap spilled off the shelves.
    There’s only dust here now.
    I close the door. The movement stirs the air, and I smell her. The room still smells like cinnamon and vodka. Likelemons and sleep. Like her shampoo and the overpriced tea she ordered from a website that gave her computer viruses. I keep telling her that she’s probably drinking bong water, and she keeps ordering it.
    It’s so empty.
    I wonder if she brought it all to Nepal with her.
    I wonder if she is happy in Nepal.
    I wonder why she will not text me back.
    I sit down and the dust puffs up. I cough. My eyes water. I blink and blink. Maybe I blink for a few seconds or maybe I blink for hours, but when I stop, I see rocks in the corner. Rocks from the Metaphor, and they are in my hand though I don’t quite remember reaching for them. I have to blink a few more times. It’s very confusing. I keep thinking that I’ve finally gotten used to it and then I forget again and it’s confusing again.
    I turn the rocks over and over in my hands and think about how she only left rocks in places she’d probably never see again.
    I sit there with the rocks in my hands until the lunch bell rigns.
    It rings and keeps ringing. I put the rocks in my pocket and go to the cafeteria. I don’t remember getting there, either. I guess it doesn’t matter much. The