Page 107 of Chaos
That’s the song they danced to in the show, Monroe and Cyrus, at the end of the half episode we watched together, the half we didn’t get to see.
The disco light has turned his face blue and his eyes otherworldly.
“You said it was your favorite scene,” he says, closing the door behind us so we’re all alone inside a tiny room lit up like a thousand stars.
His hurt hand slips around my back, his good one taking my hand.
“There’s not really enough room,” I whisper. If we move more than two feet in any direction, we’ll bump into a door or a wall or a shelf.
“We can make it work.”
The music lilts.
Not quite hugging, we sway, slowly turning. I’m close enough to feel his breath and his heart, to smell him.
“What were your parents like?” he murmurs, his lips close enough to my hairline to make me shiver.
“Kinda shitty if I’m honest. My dad was out in California with his new wife and their two kids when the plague hit. He texted me, ‘Be safe, love you.’” My throat tightens at the memory. That was all he had to say as the world ended. NotI’m on my way.Not evenI wish I could come for you.Just empty words from across a continent as the world ended.
“What about your mom?” Shane asks.
“One day, she just didn’t come home.” I swallow. “I think something probably happened to her.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“It happened to all of us, right?”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t still be sorry for one another.”
“Is that something Yorke says?”
“No.”
The song ends.
I step back, I let his hand drop. “Thank you,” I say stiffly, not sure what else to say. “It was a good gift.” Imagining him asking around for a disco ball, and searching through old phones for the song makes me think it’s the nicest gift I’ve ever gotten.
“You’re welcome.”
“Your turn.” I push him gently back against the door to give myself space.
I spread my blanket back out, right in the center, and prop a couple pillows up. Then I use my illegal lighter on a few candles and set them on the blanket between the pillows, leaving the disco ball stars, and pull a pair of folders off the shelves. “Sit.”
He does, cross-legged, looking more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen him, the lazy confidence that has always been so much a part of him sliding away.
For a second, he looks like the scared boy he was when I stood by and watched Ben destroy his dominant hand in a world where a maiming like that is like a curse of death.
“We … we thought along similar lines, I guess.” My voice is very, very hoarse as I sit down opposite him and hand over his folder, watching as he opens it, looking down at the carefully written lines I spent all day working on.
He won’t laugh. He can’t. Can he?
He studies the paper. “Is this … ?”
“I tried to find more episodes. Tani let me into the computer room.” I spent hours in the evening trying and failing to hack into computers looking for downloaded files. “I finally settled on the only scene I could totally remember. It’s ...” I gesture at the lights. “From the same episode. Right after they dance by the creek, they got cold and went inside to warm up. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
In that scene, Monroe and Cyrus, who’ve been flirting but not fully trusting each other all season, take refuge in anabandoned warehouse. He spreads out a blanket and they drink watermelon wine.