You & Me at the End of the World Read online

  His fingers slide along the neck of the guitar, pressing and stretching in patterns. He shifts on the drum stool, swiveling enough so I can see the curve of his cheek. The next time he turns to check what his left hand is doing, suddenly this guy who could have been anybody—an ax murderer or a psycho or the grim reaper—is not just anybody … he’s somebody.

  He’s somebody I know.

  I shouldn’t be playing this song.

  It’s making me feel like exploding out of my skin. My left foot keeps tapping ahead of the beat, trying to speed things up, and my knee bounces like an overcaffeinated rabbit’s.

  This is my life now. Leo Sterling, fighting the silence with a Fender. I’ve been running hot for days, bombing across Houston with my music blaring. I came here to get electric guitars and thumping subwoofers and massive speaker stacks—anything to fill the ringing emptiness.

  Instead of grabbing what I needed and peeling out, my brilliant ass decided to sit down and play my slowest, saddest song. The one I keep all to myself.

  Everyone in the Greater Houston area knows that Leo Sterling, lead singer of the eighties-style rock band Rat Skillet, does not do quiet music. I blame the acoustic guitar I’m playing. I stopped in my tracks when I saw it in the center of the shop, gleaming in the shadows. Dark mahogany wood coated with gloss nitrocellulose. Mother-of-pearl on the headstock, star inlays on the fretboard. The sound is deep and rich and resonant, and my song sounds better than it ever has before.

  It sounds so good that it almost makes me want to let someone else hear it—but there’s a reason I keep it all to myself.

  I look longingly at the electric guitars that surround me. Every shred of me wants to stop and play something faster. Louder. I want to get the hell out of here so I can go back to blissfully ignoring the fact that I’m alone. But I have this weird thing—once I start a song, I can’t stop right in the middle. I have to keep playing, letting it unspool until the end. It drives the other musicians in my band up the wall.

  When I shift into the third verse, my leg jackhammers out of control and kicks the metal dog bowl by my foot, the one I filled up when I got here. There’s an unholy screech and dog food goes skittering all over the floor, but somehow my fingers keep playing. They know the song too well to stop.

  The punk-rock power couple who owns this shop, Sheena and Jett, have a dog named Muttley Crüe (named after Mötley Crüe, which happens to be number five on Leo Sterling’s list of favorite eighties rock bands). I’ve known Muttley since I wandered into the shop at the tender age of twelve looking for a cheap starter guitar. When her little brown puppy body came barreling at me, it was love at first sight.

  I’ve been coming to put food in Muttley’s bowl every day, but there’s still no sign of her. I don’t know what I expected. I haven’t seen anything moving in days. No people, no dogs, nothing.

  But if Muttley comes looking for food, I don’t want her to go hungry. Despite the rock-and-roll name, she’s the least rock-and-roll of all dogs. She’s a miniature dachshund with chronic back problems, and she wouldn’t last five minutes out on the empty streets of Houston.

  Hell, I can barely last five minutes out there.

  I suck in a breath. It’s so dark in here. I should have at least turned on the overhead lights. The guitars hanging above my head are freaking me out.

  This is the first time I’ve sat still since I woke up alone. Images are starting to flash through my head. Empty highways. The abandoned halls of my school, echoing like a drained swimming pool. Waking up sprawled across the king-sized bed in the swankiest room at the swankiest hotel and hearing nothing.

  My heart starts racing. I feel sick.

  Shit. There’s a reason I haven’t stopped going like the Energizer Bunny. I feel it, creeping in at the edges: an empty black despair and all these questions, What happened? Where is everyone?

  Now I know I can’t ever slow down. Any shred of quiet, and all those thoughts are going to crash down on me. I’ve got to keep outrunning them.

  Oh, screw it.

  I’m going to have to finish this damn song early.

  It takes a monumental effort to drop my picking hand, but I do it. The silence that follows sucks the life out of the whole room. I’ve got to move. I have to get the hell out of here. My hands shake as I slide the guitar strap off over my head.

  And then, from somewhere behind me, I hear a voice. A girl’s voice, and it’s—

  Saying my name?

  I jolt. “Fantastic,” I mutter. “I’m hearing voices now. Bound to happen sooner or later, I guess.”

  I bend down to open the guitar case on the floor. If I have to leave, I’m taking this gorgeous guitar with me.

  I’m packed up and about to head for the door when something EXPLODES on the floor in front of me.

  I yelp and scan the room wildly, holding the guitar case in front of me like a shield. I look where the thing exploded by my foot. The puff of white dust around it is just starting to settle. Wait—I think it’s a piece of the ceiling.

  I look up. There—one of the ceiling tiles is broken and tilted. Beyond, there’s only blackness. See? There’s no one here. Total coincidence that it happened at the same time I started hearing voices.

  A pale white arm reaches through the gap, long fingers stretching toward me.

  I stumble backward, panic bursting through me.

  Shit. Hearing things is one thing—seeing them is another.

  The fingers wiggle. “See? I’m real,” the voice says, all urgent and muffled.

  I start to laugh. Really laugh. “And why, exactly, are you up there?” I ask.

  She sounds a little sheepish. “There’s a bookstore over here. I was reading when I heard your music, and I wanted to see if you were … well, if you were real.”

  This just gets better and better. She thought I wasn’t real?

  “Okay, okay, Ms. Hand in the Ceiling, maybe you are real. Jump down here and prove you’re not an eight-headed monster.”

  “I can’t jump,” she says. “I’ll break my legs.”

  “If you have legs,” I say, and then I laugh some more.

  “I have legs,” she snaps.

  Now that my fear is fading, it strikes me that her voice is awesome. Raw and a little scratchy, hitting just the right pitch of husky. My ears perk up. I’m a collector of interesting sounds, anything I can hold a microphone to and record.

  I’m going to need to hear this voice up close.

  “If you’re not going to jump down, I’m coming around to the bookstore,” I say.

  She starts to say something, but I’m already halfway to the door.

  Inside, I’m an epic guitar solo. The shred to end all shreds. Like when my hard-rock heroes bust out face-melting, sweep-picked arpeggios, fingers flying at breakneck speed, nee-nilly-nee-nilly-nee-nilly-nee. Uli Jon Roth. Synyster Gates. Zakk Wylde. Slash. Eddie Van Halen. Buckethead. Fans erupting with cheers at their prowess. This is why my band plays covers of eighties hair metal—it’s how I feel inside most of the time. Pumping power chords, raging distortion, blistering speed, excessive whammy bar usage. Dive bombs that make you feel like you’re plummeting down to the center of the earth.

  Okay, so I watch too many MTV rockumentaries. Guys with leopard-print spandex pants and teased-out manes. Sweatbands and glitter and roadies and drugs and hotel trashing. It’s the most chaotic, happy feeling ever.

  There’s no other word for it: This is shredtastic. I’ve got a buddy, a pal, a sidekick, and now we can go on cool adventures and shit. I can’t wait to meet this chick.

  Even if she is an eight-headed monster.

  I’m still laughing as I push through the door and spill out into the bright-hot street.

  Wait, what? He’s coming over here?

  Before I can protest, Leo freaking Sterling slings the guitar case on his back. Then he’s gone, leaving the door banging and the old-fashioned shop bell ringing in the empty room.

  I burst into action, pull
ing myself out of the ceiling and scrambling down off the counter.

  While I wait for Leo to appear outside the bookstore, I chew my lip. I can’t believe I threw a piece of ceiling tile at him. I didn’t know what else to do to stop him from leaving. I didn’t want to miss my chance to talk to him, but as soon as the tile left my fingers, my whole body flushed with mortification. I’ve never vandalized anything before. What’s wrong with me today?

  This can’t be real. I can’t believe the first person I’ve seen in days is Leo Sterling. How can that be possible? He goes to my school, and he’s in my grade. What are the odds that the only other person in Houston is another senior at Grand Willows High?

  I mean, it’s not like I know him very well. I’ve never even spoken to him. There are 862 seniors at our school, and Leo’s not on my tightly calculated locker-to-classroom circuit. We don’t cross paths often, but whenever I do see him in the hallways I can never drag my eyes away from him. He’s always laughing and smiling, looking swaggeringly confident—and undeniably hot.

  I’ve never seen him without a black guitar case slung on his back, and he’s usually with a guy named Asher, a huge hulking stoner with pretty, pale blue eyes. I had English with Asher sophomore year and he hardly ever spoke, but he radiated calm the way Leo radiates charisma. They’re in some sort of rock band together—three weeks ago the whole school was abuzz after they were stripped of their Battle of the Bands win. Rumors were flying about a drug bust, but no one was suspended, so it was probably something boring like attendance records or a late entry fee.

  I’m nervous. What will Leo think when he sees me? Every time I’ve seen him, he’s been doing things he’s borderline not supposed to be doing. Sipping leisurely from a can of Coke in the auditorium during assembly. Wearing headphones in the hallways. Emerging from a stairwell followed by an unfamiliar rubbery smell. Astrid laughed her head off when she had to tell me it was weed. Basically, he’s like the opposite of me.

  I only know his name because I asked Astrid about him. I asked quietly, late one night when I was sleeping over at her house, when I thought she was too tired to really pay attention to me. She bolted up from her makeshift pillow bed on the bedroom floor and howled with excitement, her fire-engine-red hair totally disheveled.

  “Are you seriously telling me you’ve finally noticed the deliciousness that is Leo Sterling? Absolute scoundrel, from what I hear. Could charm the knickers off a nun.” She sighed dramatically. “Stunning hair, though.”

  She’s right about the hair. It’s thick and dark and a little bit wavy, and always looks freshly tousled. It curls down an inch below his ears, the perfect length for a bad boy rocker.

  “Bet he’s a seriously good shag,” Astrid says. “Rumor has it he has a new bird on his arm every month. College birds, usually, because he’s probably been through all the ones from Grand Willows that caught his eye.” She stopped cold. “Erm, hold, please. Do you fancy him?!”

  My face flamed. “You know I only date dancers.”

  “Mmm-hmm. And you know how much I hate that rubbish rule of yours.” She grinned wickedly. “But you don’t have to date him. Leo Sterling is more ‘steamy fling’ than ‘devoted boyfriend,’ anyway. You could just let him snog your socks off—as long as you’re prepared to get ghosted after.”

  I bristled, suddenly annoyed at myself for even asking about Leo. Annoyed at being just another simpering girl caught in his spell.

  Leo’s the kind of guy parents hate. If they had their way, he’d have a warning label glued to his forehead: BEWARE, ONE WINK WILL DESTROY THE REPUTABLE FUTURE YOU’VE BEEN WORKING TOWARD.

  Some people like boys like that, but not me. My rule about only dating dancers is in place for a reason. Other guys wouldn’t understand—or tolerate—how much of my life ballet takes up. Leo Sterling would be a distraction at best, destruction at worst.

  And he’ll be at the bookstore any second now. I take a deep breath. Thankfully there’s no danger of him being interested in me.

  On the bright side, maybe he knows something about where everyone went.

  Leo’s knock on the glass door nearly makes me jump out of my skin, but I straighten my spine and draw myself up to full height.

  So, even though Leo Sterling is not the kind of guy who fits in my world, there’s currently no one else in my world. I unlock the door and push it open to let him in.

  He looks the same as he did at school, right down to the guitar case always slung across his back. I look at him, this boy I would never have spoken to if he wasn’t the only other person in Houston, and lift my chin.

  His eyes widen with recognition. “Hey, wait, it’s you! I know you!”

  I falter. Not what I was expecting. “You—you do?”

  “Yeah! Ballet Chick.”

  Ballet Chick. Of course. When my classmates look at me, that’s all they see. Hair in a bun, scraped back and sprayed in place. Hard muscles instead of curves. A neck like a goose.

  For some reason, Ballet Chick stings coming from him.

  “It’s Hannah, actually,” I say. “Hannah Ashton.”

  “Hannah? Oh. I thought your name would be more … You know what, never mind. Hannah. Awesome.”

  We take a few awkward steps into the store to let the door close. We’re Houstonians, after all. Trained from birth not to let a single gasp of air-conditioning outside.

  The aisles between the display tables are narrow, and with two people in the space, it suddenly feels too tight. Leo sinks his weight into one hip. His energy takes up more space than his body, sunny and loud. He’s wearing black jeans and a worn gray T-shirt that doesn’t have a seam at the neck, just a ripped edge that dips down low over his sternum.

  Shields, Hannah. The last thing I want to do is look like I’m fawning over him, blinking up at him like he’s some god just for being able to play a guitar and having unfairly good hair and a very nice sternum.

  I cross my arms over my chest, channeling my mom’s unflappable ballerina attitude.

  “Listen, maybe we should start over,” Leo says. “What would we say in a normal world? ‘Nice to meet you’?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Okay, then. It’s very nice to meet you, Hannah.”

  His smile is so wide and bright it’s making the corners of my mouth lift in response. Ugh. He really is charming. I haul my shields up a little higher.

  He sticks his hand out for me to shake, and that’s when our eyes lock.

  I’m stuck, frozen and staring. We’re so close. Way closer than the times we’ve passed in the hallways. My thoughts trip over themselves. Because up close, the sight of him is almost too much. I have to look, to drink up every detail.

  He isn’t movie star attractive, but he certainly isn’t plain. Everything is a little … too. Mouth too full. Jaw too cut, but at the wrong angle, and too low. Eyes too large, lashes too thick. It’s the kind of face that belongs in a photography exhibition. The kind that tells a story, the kind you can’t take your eyes off of for whole long minutes.

  Leo doesn’t flinch or huff and look away. He just holds my gaze. It’s rare to find someone who’ll do that, who will let themselves be an open book. His eyes are the blue-gray shade of slate, but on him it’s somehow warm.

  I slide my hand into his, and in the touch of our palms, something changes. The way my hand fits into his … it feels right. Familiar.

  God. I’m that desperate for human interaction.

  “Nice to meet you, Leo,” I croak out finally.

  What does this little scene look like from the outside? The last boy and girl in the world shaking hands like businesspeople inside a dingy used bookstore.

  “I’m seriously so glad you’re here,” he says. “I was starting to wonder if I’d gone around the bend. Unless you’re not real, which is still a solid possibility.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m real,” I say. It comes out sounding more defensive than I’d meant it to, but Leo plows on.

  “Hey, we shou
ld do a pinch test.” He holds out his arm. “Go ahead. I can take it. Same time?”

  I pinched myself a dozen times on my first day alone. Obviously I didn’t magically wake up, but I’m willing to try again.

  I hold out my arm. As Leo pinches the thin skin at my wrist, I pinch his.

  “Holy shit, ow!” he yelps, snatching his arm away.

  “Sorry,” I say, clapping my hand over my mouth, but I think it’s okay because he’s laughing.

  “Quite a pinch you have there, Ballet Chick.” He gives his head a quick shake to get the hair out of his eyes. “So. Now that we’ve established our mutual existence, please tell me you know what’s going on. Do you know where everyone else went?”

  My heart plummets. For a moment, he made me forget the emptiness. He made me forget that I have no idea where my parents are, or the other two and a half million inhabitants of Houston.

  I shake my head no. I hate how it makes his smile slip.

  For a second, I feel like puking, but then I shake it off.

  Who cares if we don’t know what’s going on? Because there’s this:

  I’M NOT ALONE ANYMORE!

  I fidget with a stack of books on a table by my hip, pretending to be interested in 101 Advanced Crochet Patterns when secretly I just want to get a good look at Ballet Chick.

  We go to the same school, but I’ve never been this close to her before. I knew she was tall, but up close she’s statuesque. Poised and gorgeous. She’s this weird combination of willowy grace and hard muscle, and her face is really delicate, with a nose that reminds me of a red fox.

  Now that we’re only a few feet apart, I am not getting the impression that we’re going to click. She doesn’t look like the kind of girl who’d let her hair down. In fact, it’s in this swept-up twist thing, coated with so much hairspray it looks like a hard shell.

  I’ve been within conversation range a few times, but something always stopped me. Anyone looking at us could tell you why—we’ve got nothing in common. With her perfect ballerina posture, she’s a pillar of cool, clean, has-her-shit-together marble and I’m … not. She probably listens exclusively to Tchaikovsky and never cusses. I bet she makes straight As and pays attention in every class, and I hang out with my best friend, Asher, nearly every night, jamming in someone’s garage or slouched on couches smoking things we shouldn’t smoke, and I stay up too late and fall asleep in homeroom. And first period. Okay, and whenever something bores me, which is often.