What Remains Here

Chapter 10

November 14

It has been a long day, but I think we managed to outsmart the Shepards, assuming that they've got not-so-pure intentions, at least for today.

Mom and Dad woke all of us up early in the morning, so early that it was pitch black outside with the dull light from the Moon, filtered through the thick haze of ash, as our only light source. All of us were exhausted, but I guess the adrenaline of the situation snapped us out of grogginess as Mom explained the admittedly complicated plan that she had concocted overnight.

The first step was hiding around half of our food supply since we've got to contribute something to the food pantry otherwise we'd look far too suspicious. Obviously, if we get caught, then we're absolutely screwed because everyone would lose respect for our family, and if the community doesn't work out, and we've got to sacrifice someone's family, ours will be the first on the chopping block. But we just can't donate all the food away, not without exactly what the night watch group wants.

The real issue would be where to hide the food. With the night patrol, we're trapped inside our community, so hiding it outside is impossible. If we put it in the house, we're almost guaranteed to get caught. The safe is an option, but it's far too small. We also don't have any pryable floor boards, and common hiding spots, like air vents or the attic that we've never used, will almost certainly be searched, and there's a high risk that someone could accidentally stumble upon them. One of Mom's initial ideas was hiding the cans in our mattresses, but I doubt that anyone would want to sleep on a very hard mattress and gutting it would be a massive hassle.

She ended up stumbled upon a plan that was a bit simple, a bit ingenious, and very much dependent on luck. We were going to hide the food in our backyard, specifically underneath the soil and ash piles that had formed in the corners of our yard, around two feet tall. It made a lot of sense to go with this plan. For one, the only people that visit the backyard are our family and the Coopers, and that's only to clean the solar panels or the greenhouse walls. Another is that it's like camouflage and doesn't stand out a bunch. Plus, with limited time, it's not like we could bury the cans.

There are of course big risks. If they go into the backyard, well, we're dead since there's no plausible deniability. Another risk is the wind because if it were to be a gusty day, the ash covering the cans would get blown away, exposing the bags of cans underneath, again dooming us. Obviously, our plan required a ton of luck and for everything to go right, but that uncertainty is a consequence of embarking on such a high-risk, high-reward plan.

So that's what we did in the morning, huddling in the corners of the backyard, shoveling out ash and filling the empty space with canvas bags filled with cans before covering the food up in a thick layer of ash. We didn't talk much because we didn't want to attract unwanted attention from the night patrol, and the only light we had was a tiny, very dim Hello Kitty flashlight. Shoveling the ash, barely half-awake and starving, was exhausting, but we had to get as much food hidden as possible. Every can that we hid underneath the piles of ash meant another day that we'd be able to survive, and I guess that thought, a sort-of primal fear of starvation, powered me through the task as the sun began to rise.

By the time that the sky was bright enough to see properly without the flashlight, we had buried our food underneath the piles of ash in the corning. It looked a bit suspicious since the ash cover near our house was oddly thin while the ash piles in the corners grew substantially, but I think it was pretty easy to brush off as yard maintenance, especially since we're planning on building a second greenhouse.

"Should we spray the ash down?" Mom asked. "To make sure the wind doesn't carry it away and expose the cans underneath."

"No," Dad replied. "It's too risky since it might cake the bags shut, and we can't afford to lose more food."

"We'll lose it all if this plan doesn't work," Mom said. "Maybe it's better to deal with future problems right now and figure the rest later."

"Just trust your plan," Dad said. "I'll be keeping a watch on the Shepards when they come here, and I'll figure something out if things go badly."

"Good," Mom said. "Let's head inside now before the sky starts getting brighter.

We all shuffled into the living room, and after removing our clothes, all coated with ash, we all collapsed onto our beds and couches except for Mom and Dad who were going around triple checking that we didn't accidentally hide or misplace cans in random places. We couldn't risk getting exposed by the Shepards because then, there's a decent chance that the rest of the night watch would turn on us.

"Are you doing alright?" Mira asked as I was drifting off while sitting on the couch, surprising me.

My eyes snapped open, and I said with a yawn, "I'm just tired. I wish we didn't have to wake up so early to do this."

"You want me to take care of the greenhouse stuff?" Mira said. "And you can go ahead and get some rest for the afternoon–"

"Ah, I totally forgot," I said, scrambling to go to the greenhouse to check on the water pots, nearly tripping on the mattress on the ground and slipping on a blanket.

"Let me help," Mira replied as she followed me into the greenhouse. I guess because I had been shoveling ash all morning, my arms felt like jelly, and I was barely able to lift the pot of water, leaving it dangerously tilted towards. Luckily, Mira grabbed it from my hands and began carrying it towards the fireplace.

"You ready to do some idea pitching today?"

"I wish," she said with a bit of a rueful smile. "It's just that I feel like a hypocrite to preach about community and trust when we're hiding food from the others. Like, don't you feel like it just feels wrong?"

"Not really? I don't know," I replied. "I guess it's just that you shouldn't get caught up in making sure that your actions and values are pure because it doesn't really matter, at least not for the important stuff. The things we're doing don't fully go with the whole trust each other thing, but I guess this is our verify step before trusting, you know?"

She nodded and then asked, "What if they find out what we've been hiding?"

"They won't," I said. "We've gotten it hidden well enough for today."

"Not today, but sometime in the future," Mira replied. "If we're transforming the greenhouse into a community space and memorial, what if there's a day when the winds are extra strong and then they find out–"

"Don't worry about that stuff," I said. "I'd figure out some way to handle it."

"I just want this to work out so badly," Mira said. "Well, whatever's left of the dream, even if it's not perfect because we're all compromising our values. I can't help but think about the consequences–"

"I mean, I feel like the first step is that you have to get the idea around," I said. "Whatever consequences, I guess I'll deal with it, okay? Just do the stuff that you're good at: hope and dreams and all of that schmaltzy stuff."

"It's not schmaltzy," Mira said with a bit of a smile. "It's the real deal."

"I mean, we literally just call it a dream, not like the water collection and distribution act or greenhouse renovation and expansion project–"

"I have no idea how I'm supposed to inspire people with those," she said jokingly.

"Well, there's a reason that I'm not pitching the ideas," I replied as I continued replacing the warm water, the worry of dealing with the Shepards making my hands tremble. I don't even know why I was so nervous because I'm usually decent at lying, but maybe it's the pressure or maybe it's the memory of that awful day with the Shepards that's getting me.

Around the middle of the afternoon, there was a loud knock on the door, and my heart rate spiked as Mom and May and I all exchanged glances with each other, knowing that we had to just keep doing what we'd normally do. I know that sounds like an easy task, but with the prospect of losing our position in the community at stake (along with our food supply), it's hard not to focus on the consequences.

When Mom answered the door, she and Mrs. Shepard greeted each other, both of them radiating this faux cordiality, before cutting straight to business.

"Alright," Mrs. Shepard. "I believe that it's time for us to examine each others' homes. I assure you that we will not leave a mess, and we'll keep this brief."

"I'd expect that," Mom said. "But before you begin, I'd like to sort out the initial logistics for the pantry. I think it's only fair that our family's garage holds the food pantry because, after all, we have the greenhouse and have the least incentive to skim off the supply, not like that will be an issue."

"I have no issue with that," Mrs. Shepard said. "Though if we were to do that, it'd be best if someone else's family is responsible for the food planning charts. It's best to divide control so that no one person will succumb to greed, not like your family will."

"Of course not," Mom said with a smile that didn't seem all too friendly. "Well, come on in. We've put all our food in the garage, except for a handful of seeds that we'll be growing in the greenhouse. Those we've left in the plastic bag near the greenhouse."

"Thank you for letting us know," Mrs. Shepard said. "I promise that I'll make this quick."

But my goodness, it wasn't quick at all, and they were hyper-vigilant, shuffling through cabinets and stepping over every inch of our house to make sure that we had no loose floor planks or hidden trap doors hidden underneath drawers or underneath comforters. All of the hiding spaces in the house that I had thought would've been decent spots to store food ended up discovered by the Shepards. They ripped off the sheets to our mattress and patted it down for any hard objects while using a flashlight to shine a light through the air vents, watching for any glint of metal in there.

After an hour and a half of tearing through our house, searching every nook and cranny, from the attic that we've literally never used to the old baskets of toys and closets filled with old files and documents that we'll never use again, I saw the Shepards approaching the greenhouse. I tried steeling myself for the conversation, but I nearly botched it immediately.

"You mind if we check in here?" Mrs. Shepard asked, her eyes carefully watching mine for any movement to the sides that'd reveal our hidden stash.

"Yeah– I mean, no, I don't mind," I said. "Yeah, go ahead."

The Shepards squeezed in through the narrow gap between me and the shelves filled with sprouting plants, some of them now reaching a couple of inches high while others, sitting on warm, damp paper towels were just sprouting. Even though they were there to tear apart the greenhouse for any hiding spots, I could see that they were in awe, even if it lasted for the briefest moment. As they looked through the rows of empty cans that were functioning as pots and prodded at the ground for any loose soil underneath the tarp, I tried my best to focus on my work.

As I was replacing one of the water pots, I saw that Mrs. Shepard was wiping the condensation forming on the clear sheets, and my heartbeat spiked for a second because it'd give them a clearer view of the backyard. But I knew that I couldn't afford to look nervous, so I just looked downwards and moved a bit quicker to hide how my leg was twitching a bit from the anxiety.

"Neal," Mrs. Shepard said, and I turned around a bit too quickly. "I just want to say what your family built, it is truly splendid."

"Uh, thanks," I said, though my voice cracked a bit.

"I mean it," she said. "It reminds me of my gran's garden when I was younger, the sweet scent of dewy earth and compost. It's certainly better than the lifelessness outside."

"Yeah," I said, nodding along and bobbing my head a bit too aggressively to distract them from the fact that my leg was shaking. It's like I can do high-stakes lying without much anxiety, but when it comes to high-stakes small talk, I'm a complete disaster. To make things worse, I noticed that Mr. Shepard's eyes were staring directly at my trembling leg.

"There's no need to be nervous... Unless you've got something to hide," Mr. Shepard said before breaking out in laughter. "I'm just kidding around."

"I'd like to apologize for my husband's poor taste of humor," Mrs. Shepard said, shooting a withering glance at him and his self-satisfied smile. "It's good that both of our families are upholding the rules of our community. It's a rare thing nowadays."

"Yeah, we're just doing our part," I replied.

"Oh, before we leave, I was just wondering what's with the ash piles in the corner of your yard," she said. "It looks like it's been piling up awfully high, certainly higher than the ones in our yard."

"We've been clearing the area out for the new greenhouse," I said. "Yeah, the supplies that you guys got have been super helpful in planning our future expansion."

"No need to thank us. We should be thanking you all for stepping up to begin growing food," she replied as they began to leave the greenhouse. "Well, I hope things go well with the greenhouse."

As soon as they left the house, the door clanging shut, I let out a sigh of relief because I thought that I had blown it. May mouthed to me if they suspected anything, and I mouthed back that things went well and flashed her a thumb's up, and she went back to sewing up the net. Still, I couldn't help being paranoid about the Shepards storming our home and uncovering the cans hidden in the backyard any time. Even now, at the middle of night, I'm still waiting for the knock on our door that would seal our fate.

In the evening, as the sun began setting behind the shroud of gray, the Shepards and Johnsons began moving whatever meager food supplies that they had into the garage, and I guess we're really in a worse position than I had imagined. The Johnsons had a couple of boxes of jars of nuts and dried herbs and plants mixed with various preserved foods. The Shepards had significantly more, around four or so of those giant rice bags and a large tub of canned and boxed goods, but even when combined with our family's supplies, everything could fit into a small corner of our garage. Writing it out, maybe it's not that bad, but still, there was just a lot of empty space.

Even though it was getting dark, the Shepards pretty much insisted on staying so that they could gauge an accurate count of the amounts of cans that we were contributing, preventing us from hiding even more underneath the ash piles. I know that the Shepards wrote it down on some paper and handed it to Mom and Dad, both of whom stashed the note somewhere, and if I look hard enough, I could probably find it. But I guess the thing is, with everything looking so hopeless, I don't want to add more to the mixture.

I will note one thing, though. May had mentioned that the Shepards had gotten dog food, bags and bags of them supposedly, but the strange thing is that they never added that to the pantry. The more optimistic part of me would say that the reason they didn't put pet food in the pantry is because, well, it is pet food. I'd imagine the prospect of eating animal food would be a massive morale loss because we're edging closer to more desperate food measures, like eating insects or worse.

That being said, Mom and Dad did carefully check the Shepards house, and I feel like if they saw even a smidgen of something that had resembled food, they'd want it in the pantry, so it's likely that the Shepards are hiding the food, just like us. Of course, the easiest solution would be to tell Mom and Dad that fact, but that would open up questions of how I knew, and I can't backstab May like that. Not to mention how it'll completely destabilize the community.

So I'll keep my mouth shut and just keep everything the way it is. I don't want to be the guy to mess it all up.

November 15

My hands are in pain (right now I've got my left hand dipped in a bowl of cold water as I'm writing the entry), but it was worth it. I guess today was one of those rare good days that just seem to appear out of nowhere nowadays, like the brief moments when the tangerine glint of sunlight flashes over the horizon.

I suppose I'm being too poetic for my own good, but I don't know. Right now, I'm just awash with these upbeat feelings, so much so that reading over the entries about my lowest moments a week or so back, I can't help but feel a bit stunned at my despair. I know that things will get worse in a day or two as the memory of today fades, but I'd like to keep a portion of it alive in these pages.

Funnily enough, it all started with a wacky suggestion that Caspian made as we met up before heading to the car wall to help Mr. Xiao secure it with reinforcements.

"You want to play volleyball?" he asked

"Huh?" I said, a bit confused because that came out of nowhere, and I was almost certain that I had misunderstood what he was saying. Even though we wear masks all the time, I still haven't gotten used to how everyones' voices sound a bit muffled.

"Volleyball," he said. "I've got a ball, and we don't need a net to hit it around for a bit just for fun."

"You want to play volleyball?" I asked with a note of skepticism. I didn't really want to rain on his parade because it wouldn't be a totally insane suggestion normally. But with, well, do I have to explain it more, it sounds like an absurd idea, and I guess I just found the fact that I was so shell-shocked a bit funny and depressing in hindsight.

"Now you're making me feel weird."

"No, sure, I'll play," I said. "It's just, I guess, are you doing alright?"

"Doing great," he replied. "But I'm just tired of working all day and stressing all night. It's no fun bumping the ball with myself, and because you've been teaching me everything, I thought I'll teach you a couple of tricks."

"Yeah, sure," I replied. "Might have to head home a bit early just to help with the greenhouse so that my mom can work on the net, but if we finish early for the car wall, I'd be down."

"Whatever works for you," he said and started walking faster before facing back at me. "C'mon, let's get this done quickly."

When we got the portion of the car wall currently being reinforced, Mr. Xiao was already working on securing the wall, shoveling ash into the curbside trash bins to add a bit more weight and fill in the gaps between the cars. So far, only a small section of the wall had been fortified, and even then, much of these fortifications were a bit sad, only standing around five or six feet high, easily vaultable by people with any athletic ability.

I had also noticed that the design of the car wall had changed over these past few days, the perimeter of cars that were encroaching upon our home being pushed outwards to instead utilize the abandoned homes as much of the wall, with the cars plugging in the gaps of the street. While having an uninterrupted car wall would be the best, I guess the Shepards must've realized how impractical it'd be since it'd take weeks to complete and months to fortify. Fortifying select entrances saves time, and all we'd need to do to the surrounding homes is nail the windows and doors shut with plywood along with securing the fences with something sharp. I doubt that we'd be able to get barbed wire since I've only seen those near cattle grazing fields, prisons, and car storage lots, but I'm sure that we'll figure something out.

"You two ready to work on the wall?" he asked. "I know it's not the most exciting thing, but–"

"Don't worry about it," Caspian said. "Neal and I are excited to do whatever."

I nodded awkwardly and flashed a thumbs up at Mr. Xiao, and he began giving us instructions on what we'd need to do to fill up the gaps in the wall. As he was talking, for some reason, I guess I just realized how young the Xiaos were because I guess I've always imagined people having kids when they're fourty (even though I know that Mom and Dad had Mira when they were in their early thirties). But they were in their late twenties, and I can't imagine how they're even navigating raising a baby when they're only half a dozen or so years older than Mira.

Essentially, we were shoveling ash into the bins, but being especially careful to mix a little bit of water with the ash before we began disturbing it because otherwise, we'd be inundated in a haze of ash and left a coughing mess. Already, several bins had been filled with a combination of ash and stones, though precariously unsupported from the back. Hopefully, someone will make some sort of wooden support system to prevent the bins from being pushed over because once they fall, well, they're going to be stuck there forever.

As I was raking damp ash towards Caspian, who was dumping it into the bin, he began talking with Mr. Xiao. "How's Adrian doing? Hopefully, he's doing better than he was a couple days back."

"Much better," Mr. Xiao said. "That scare turned out to be nothing much, just my wife and I overreacting. Adrian's tough, a real fighter, and maybe he's got what it takes to make it."

"He's lucky to have parents like you," Caspian replied.

Mr. Xiao laughed a bit. "You're being too nice. Truth be told, we have no idea what we're doing. I thought I'd have more time to buy guides and books to figure out parenting... It's just things weren't supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to do all the normal things that my father and I did: play ball on the weekends and go to every single baseball game–"

"Well, I'm sure I can find an inflatable beach ball," Caspian said. "It's no baseball and mitt, but it's at least something for right now."

"Thanks for the offer, but my wife's going to kill me if he gets hurt, and I'm sure you know how protective she is with Adrian. I don't want to risk it, not even with a beach ball," he said. "And there's still a long way to go before he's old enough to do those things. And a great deal of uncertainty."

"Look, if you're ever in need of some volleyball lessons for your son, you'll know where to find me," Caspian said. "We're going to make this work, so I'm sticking here for the long run."

He chuckled a bit. "I don't want to go 'kids these days' because I already feel old, but you all are so damn optimistic. Certainly more so than I was in college when the economic crisis hit. I got so caught up in studying and preparing my career that I do regret not seeing more of the world before this all happened. Hell, I'm even lucky to have stumbled into my wife."

He continued, "Anyways, you two don't need to worry about this now. Most of this isn't relevant anymore, and the rest is future sh– stuff that you'll worry about later."

We continued working, though our pace began to significantly slow down as dust kicked up by us shoveling and raking ash around began clouding our vision. As the winds picked up and lifted more ash into the air, Mr. Xiao decided that it was time for us to take a long break for the wind to settle down and give our arms a rest to recover. Sitting on a porch of an abandoned house nearby, Caspian and Mr. Xiao continued their conversation while I sat on the edge of the stairs quietly eating lunch.

"You want us to bring Adrian some toys or stuffed animals?"

"He's got more than enough toys, maybe even too much," Mr. Xiao said. "It's tough out here, and when he's old enough, I want him to learn the practical stuff, even if it's not glamorous, so that he'd have a chance if things go wrong when we get older."

"What about books?" Caspian asked

"That's not actually a bad idea," he replied. "It might help him get started on reading, just to prepare him for the future since hopefully, the things that we've built will last until then."

"I don't have many books, but Neal has got a bunch on his bookshelf."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I think I've got a bunch of old picture books that he might enjoy. I mean, there's also the library, but I'm not sure if it's still open."

"I could make a request to the Shepards to swing by the library on their next scavenging trip."

"I mean, the library is pretty close by," I replied. "And I think the area around should be pretty safe because my friend and I used to meet up there a lot, and we didn't run into many people, especially since I think there aren't really any stores near it."

I suppose this was the only moment that I regret today. I don't really know what I was thinking. I guess I was trying to pull a Mom or May and try to subtly dissuade the Xiaos from getting too dependent on the Shepards, which would weaken their influence and give our family an opportunity to make inroads. But because manipulation isn't my strong suit, and this completely backfired.

"I know," Mr. Xiao said, a bit firm. "I just want to be extra cautious. I don't want to risk leaving my son fatherless, especially not in a world like this."

"It's alright. I get it," I replied, nearly too embarrassed to add. "When do you want me to bring the books?"

"You can drop by anytime," he replied.

"Yeah," I said and went back to quietly eating my lunch on the porch, gazing into the street as the air began to clear up.

Once the gray haze had disappeared and the oceanic gales billowing through the streets calmed down, we continued shoveling the ash into the giant garbage and recycling bins and lining them up behind the cars, slowly building a barricade. Caspian and I ended up creating a system to make the process more efficient by using the wagon to carry garbage bags that we could fill up with ash and compact soil instead of attempting to rake ash towards the bins and shoveling it.

Although we were only half-done with securing a small part of the wall by mid-afternoon, we ended up calling it quits as the light sprinkle of ash that had been dusting our clothes turned into a flurry. I ended up walking with Caspian back to his home to wait out the ashfall, and because I had promised him that I'd play a game of volleyball with him. The clinic was empty, except for Caspian's mom and dad, both of them giving me a wave, though I could tell that his dad's was far more enthusiastic than hers.

"You back early?" Caspian's dad said.

"Neal and I were going to play some volleyball. I thought that I'd teach him some moves," Caspian replied.

"You're not going outside, not with that storm," his mom said.

Caspian rolled his eyes. "Obviously not, Mom. We're just going to play in one of the empty bedrooms."

"Well, just make sure you don't exert yourself too much," she replied with a stern look. "I know you haven't played in months, so you might not be where you used to be–"

"Ignore your mom," Caspian's dad said jokingly before receiving a glare that softened into a more worried look from his wife. "You boys just have fun."

After Caspian grabbed a slightly deflated volleyball from underneath his bed, we ended up walking down the hallway into the large bedroom that had been completely emptied. There was only a thin layer of dust in the corners of the room and thin curtains that let in just enough light to allow us to be able to see the volleyball and rally for a bit. As Caspian shifted the ball in his hands, I could see a smile emerging on his face from the repetitive motion that seemed all too familiar.

"Alright, what are we going to be doing?" I asked.

"Just bumping the ball around," he said. "You know how to bump, right?"

"Probably," I replied. "I don't really remember much about volleyball, except that I flunked out of middle school volleyball tryouts–"

"I'm sure that you weren't that bad."

"I wish," I said. "But I was literally the second person cut from tryouts. So yeah... I'm pretty bad at volleyball."

"No need to put yourself down. You should be confident," he said, and I scoffed a bit on the inside because for people like him, confidence isn't something that is needed to be earned but is gifted by the universe. "Looks like I have a lot of coaching to do to spice up your game and that starts with removing that jacket. We can't play volleyball in long sleeves."

"But it's pretty cold."

"You'll get warmed up pretty quick," he replied and began stripping off his thick jacket while I faced away from him to also take off my jacket and thick sweater underneath. I wasn't going to risk anything embarrassing happening, like my eyes drifting towards his chest or abdomen when his sweater gets caught on his shirt while taking it off.

When I turned around, I guess I was pretty embarrassed because even though Caspian wasn't looking great, I looked far worse, my arms a lot smaller compared to his. I don't know why I've started caring so much about appearances. I used to never particularly care about how I looked or how I dressed, and given that the world is ending, it should be the last thing that I should be caring about.

But it's like no matter how hard I try not to think about it, I guess I care about his approval or, like, care about what he might think about me, even if muscles and appearance are probably not on his mind. I don't want something so trivial like those things to be something that'll harm our friendship or whatever we may have.

"You good?" he asked as I was staring into space, consumed in my own thoughts.

"Yeah, let's start," I said, averting my eyes away from him.

When he served the ball for me to bump, just to see where my baseline was, the instance that my forearms made contact with the ball reminded me why I hated playing because my goodness was that painful. Normally, I'd be able to shrug off the pain, but it was too unbearable now, and my hit veered sideways, sending the ball flying to a corner of the room. I was shaking my arms as Caspian went to check with me.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's just that it hurts," I said. "Must've just hit my bone funny."

"Maybe we can do some setting instead because–"

"I'm doing fine," I replied.

"Let me see how you're hitting the volleyball," he said, and I outstretched my arms and clasped my palms together, like how I was taught in PE. "Ah, I see the problem here."

He adjusted my forearms, gently twisting them so that the bottom of my forearm would be hitting the volleyball instead of the sides of my forearm, where the ball would just hit bone. To be honest, I was struggling to pay attention to what he was saying, no matter how hard I tried to ignore the feeling of his calloused hands on my arms or the feeling of his breath on my shoulder or the way that I wanted him to just lean fully into me.

As you can see, I get way too caught up in my imagination, and I'd be so embarrassed if May or Mira or Mom and Dad or especially if Caspian read this (That might be the day where I actually disappear into the deep blues of the ocean). But I guess I was captivated by the contact, entrapped in the experience of something I'd never experienced before.

"Alright," he said, snapping me out of my crazy fantasies as he stepped back. "Let's give this another shot."

Although I winced a bit when I hit the volleyball, the pain was nowhere as bad as it was before, so I gritted my teeth and rallied a bit with Caspian as he gave me pointers about my stance and how I shouldn't widely swing my arms but use my legs instead. Even though by the end of it all, my arms were sore and throbbing with a dull ache, I could tell that Caspian was genuinely smiling so I think a bit of pain was worth it. We even had a bit of a scrimmage at the very end, as the sky began to seriously darken, where Caspian promised that he'd go easy on me.

Obviously, his definition of going easy was a complete lie because I got completely thrashed. On the last point, he sent the ball flying towards the side, and, caught up in the competition, I dove for it but completely missed and accidentally punched the wall. Caspian swore a bit and raced towards me. "Are you alright? I didn't mean to hit it that off to the side. I can get an ice–"

"Save that pack for someone who'll really need it," I said, looking at my reddened knuckles. "I'm good. Might have a bit of bruising, but I'll be fine."

"Alright," he said, extending his arm, and I grabbed it to pull myself up as he looked closer at my hand. "Yeah, there might be bruising, but that was a badass move you did there."

"Uh, thanks," I replied, a bit embarrassed and flattered. "I had fun."

"This was amazing," he said. "I– I haven't really played any volleyball in forever."

"Really?" I asked. "Like you didn't even hit with yourself?"

"It's just something that I thought I needed to leave behind," Caspian replied. "It's that survival feels more important, and volleyball feels pointless when there are more productive things to do to make sure that we'd make it past another day."

"And what about now?"

"I realized that volleyball is so damn hard to let go. It's like I'm cursed to be obsessed with this cheap styrofoam ball," he said jokingly with a laugh. "I had fun, I really did. It reminded me–"

He suddenly stopped, and I tentatively asked, "Remind you of what?"

"Well, when I tried teaching Gabe the basics of volleyball. He was the star player on the team but was god awful at volleyball. I mean, shouldn't it be easier because the ball is much bigger and you don't have to deal with a bat?" he said with a chuckle as he reminisced about the past. "I guess I must've forgotten what it felt like to play with someone else, even when it hasn't been that long."

"Maybe we can try again another time when we're both free," I replied.

"I'd like that a lot," he said. "You need me to walk you to your house or–"

"I've got this," I said. "No need to worry."

Even though I walked home pretty normally, shuffling through the thin layer of ash that had built up on the sidewalk, I just wanted to skip down the street, high on all the energy from our game, even if my hand was throbbing. Obviously, my family would be giving me weird looks, not to mention the rest of the community, and I definitely would not have the energy to even keep up for one minute, but I guess I was just feeling great.

I mean "Badass." No one's ever said that about me. I've gotten a bunch of quiets (sometimes positive, sometimes negative), an occasional smart or neat, and maybe, once in a while, a fast during PE when I'm running around the track or in ultimate frisbee. But no one's ever thought that I was cool.

I suppose that's my greatest insecurity (or at least one of my greatest insecurities) because when people say that about you, it means that they truly respect you. Not in the transactional way that people respect smart people, where they value the knowledge and ideas more than the person. It's like, in this situation, I have his respect as a person because he genuinely thought I was daring and brave and a bit crazy at that moment.

I suppose that I'm a bit weird for overanalyzing a basic compliment, but it's like this has never happened to me. I can't think of another person outside of Charles who has thought about me like that.

November 16

I suppose that if I had to describe today in one word, it would be awkward.

While I was freed from working with the Shepards and don't constantly need to dodge their innocuous but very prying questions, May, who had gotten a day off from sewing up the still-tattered net, and I were forced to work with the Weavers to set up water gathering equipment. Even though it hasn't rained even once since the beginning of our rainy season, it's probably better for us to be prepared as it really begins to pick up in December and January.

"Hey," Mr. Weaver said. "How are you kids doing?"

"Alright," I said with a bit of a shrug while May, putting on her high-pitched, sweet talking voice said, "We're doing great Mr. Weaver."

"Glad to hear that," he said. "Let me call my wife over, and we'll explain what we're going to be doing today."

When he turned and walked away from us, I rolled my eyes at May and attempted to sign out the letters to ask her about what her plan was. But naturally, she had forgotten the alphabet in sign language, and when the Weavers were out of earshot as they went into their home to gather the tarps and other supplies, she asked, "What?"

"What are you doing?" I asked. "I know you're thinking about doing something."

"Literally nothing. I'm just gathering information," she replied. "I mean, they literally attempted to overthrow us, so, like, don't you want to figure out if they actually want to kill us or if they are just mind-controlled by the Shepards."

"I don't think they'll just admit anything."

"We'll see," she said. "Just don't say anything dumb, and, like, don't get in the way and mess everything up–"

"I don't know why you have to do this all the time," I said. "Can't you just sit back, and, like, let things proceed the way it should."

"If I did that, we would literally be all dead," she responded, and we stopped talking as we noticed the Weavers carrying out a large tub filled with tarps, crafts supplies, and miscellaneous pieces of wood and bricks.

"Alright, here's the plan," Mr. Weaver said. "My wife and I, we're going to be in charge of hammering nails into the walls and make the hooks for the edges of the tarp, and what we want you two to do is gather lots of large stones–there's lots of concrete tiles around here–so that we can weigh down the center and allow water to pool there."

"Actually, any of you two good with pliers and metal wire?" Mrs. Weaver asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "We both worked with some in art."

"Good," she said. "I'll show you two how to make some DIY hooks after you gather the stones."

Even though May nodded enthusiastically, as soon as we turned away from the Weavers to gather some large stone tiles, she visibly groaned and said, "Why does the world do this to me? I literally hate art."

"That's life," I replied, and she shot me a glare.

Once we gathered the stone tiles, Mrs. Weaver showed us how to make an impromptu hook by twisting the metal coils tightly together for support, and then curving the wire into a U-shape. Honestly, the process was a lot easier than I had expected, but creating the hooks from scratch took forever, not because it was particularly complicated, but because my hands were cramping up and the wire wasn't malleable. But, truth be told, the most likely reason it took forever is just because neither May nor I have the strength to bend wire as easily as before. And that's a scary thought because bending wire is easy compared to what we're going to face next.

Once we had finished making the hooks, the Weavers began spreading open the tarp, looping the hooks through the small circular openings on the tarp's corners before connecting the hooks to the nails in the wall with a bit of metal twine and plier work. May and I mostly just held the tarp taut, making sure that it didn't crumple in random locations, and after they finished attaching the tarp to hooks in the four corners, all of us piled the stones into the center to create a depression at the center, creating a sort of inverted cone, admittedly one that was quite wide and fairly shallow.

To be honest, it was a fairly smart design. It has a massive surface area, allowing us to capture as much water as possible compared to something like an inflatable pool or just random assortments of bins scattered around. Centralizing water makes it much harder to lose water to evaporation, not like that's a massive concern though, and using a tarp to gather water means that it's fairly easy to move it around since it's lighter and more compact versus, say, fifty plastic buckets.

We basically did that for about five or six homes, repeating the same process of setting up nails, creating hooks, gathering stones, and setting up the tarp and depression. While we were doing this, we talked a bit with the Weavers, though it was mostly them beginning the brief conversations and either me or May shutting it down, on accident for me and most definitely on purpose for May.

"You two excited for the tarps finally being set up?" Mrs. Weaver asked, standing on top of a ladder as she hammered a nail in.

"Of course. It'll be so important for our community," May said, so saccharine sweet that she sounded frankly ridiculous and a bit sarcastic (which I'm almost certain she was).

"I can imagine you must be excited to not have to go down to the creek to fetch water," Mrs. Weaver replied, and May's eyes did light up a bit. "My husband and I, we've both been working on creating contraptions to help make life better here. We were actually thinking about coming down to the greenhouse to see if it'd be possible to upgrade some features–"

"Unfortunately, my parents– I don't think they'd be comfortable with that," May replied, trying to shut down that avenue of conversation because they probably would begin guilting us into accepting their deal.

"Of course. I apologize if I've overstepped," Mrs. Weaver said. "I know I haven't seen your parents in a while, but both of us would like to apologize for putting your family under the spotlight at the last council meeting. It wasn't our intention to do so."

"Oh, no, that wasn't a big deal," May replied. "That's not the reason that my parents aren't comfortable about the greenhouse proposal. It's just that, and I mean no offense, we just met you guys."

"Well, that's a relief," Mrs. Weaver said. "I'm glad that we got the group pantry issue out of the way. It'll be a big help with community engagement and help us avoid future conflicts. We don't want any civil wars."

"Yeah," May said and then (quite sarcastically) added. "Strength in powers."

"Strength in powers. That should be our new motto," Mrs. Weaver said with a bit of a laugh, taking her motto literally and May faced away from them to roll her eyes at me. "Well, just let your parents know that we've got some designs that we'd love to share with your family."

"Yeah, totally. I'd let them know right away."

"You any good at crafts?" Mr. Weaver asked.

May shrugged and pointed at me. "Not really. That's more of my brother's thing."

The Weavers' gazes shifted towards me as Mr. Weaver said, "We've been making baskets that you guys could hold plants in, and tons of rope that you guys can use. If you want, we can give a little demonstration to show your family how to make them."

"Yeah, maybe sometime later," I replied. Even though baskets wouldn't be particularly useful since we've got more than enough containers to hold the plants and really just need more room to grow crops, I guess I was a bit surprised by their "can-do" attitude.

Maybe I'm being naive, but it's like they also want our community to work. In fact, I guess I'm wondering if I was being too cynical because even with all the seemingly shady moves that the Shepards are making behind our back, it's like every single person here wants to make sure that we all have a future here.

I mean, obviously no one would flat-out admit that they just want to steal our food and watch us all fall into pieces, but I don't know. Even the Weavers, who I've been a bit skeptical about since their food pantry stunt, seem to genuinely care about the community's well being. It's clear from the water tarp design to the fairly intricate water collection design that we installed in three homes this afternoon that they've invested a lot of time to ensure that we've got enough resources to be secure.

At first, I was intrigued but confused by their roof water collection device, which consisted of a smaller tub, filled with what appeared to be layers of sand, charcoal, and cloth, stacked on top of a larger tub with holes cut into the lid of the larger tub. But as they assembled the device, cutting a hole into the gutter pipe and inserting a cheap PVC pipe into it before sealing the gap with glue and duct tape and then positioning the pipe above the tub filled with the layers of sediment before plastic wrapping the open top, I began to figure out how it worked.

The pipe would redirect some of the roof water into the water collection device, where the top layer would act as a filter to prevent tons of ash and detritus from getting into the water supply while the tub underneath would store water. Obviously, there's the issue of being able to get water easily from the tub underneath, and it appears that they've installed the top of an empty soda bottle at the base of the tub, sealed with what appeared to look like pine sap resin, to circumvent this issue because it would act as a sort-of spigot that you'd need to cap. And all the plastic wrap surrounding the device is to just prevent excess ash from blowing in and unnecessarily clogging the filter.

"Isn't it incredible?" Mr. Weaver remarked after we had finished installing the makeshift rainwater collection barrels before looking at his wife. "We had a bit of an epiphany when coming up with the design, especially with the soda bottle part. Carrie was a big help in getting us the pine sap to seal the whole thing up."

"Yeah," I said, genuinely impressed. "It's pretty cool."

"Well, once we get more supplies, more plastic tubs from Home Department or Lowes and more pine sap, I'll be sure to have your home at the top of the list, especially with your greenhouse."

"That would be amazing Mr. Weaver," May said. "We'd be really appreciative."

"Hey, we're just doing our part," Mrs. Weaver replied. "I know we've been pushy about our designs. It's just that we want you guys to know that we're not just going to take your family's handouts for free."

"You don't really owe us," May responded. "Our family isn't doing the handouts. I mean, we literally did not have that much to contribute to the pantry."

"Of course," she replied. "But what you contributed... We'll be eternally grateful for that."

After we helped transport the remaining tools and other miscellaneous supplies that we didn't have the opportunity to use, May and I briefly waved goodbye to them before heading back home, our hands sore from gripping the pliers tight to twist the metal twine.

"They are literally so fake," May said when we were out of earshot from everybody.

"You were even faker than them."

She ignored me. "When they said that they didn't mean to put our family under the spotlight, it was so obvious that they were lying."

"I don't know," I replied. "It's a bit suspicious, but they could be good people, you know. I mean, it's pretty obvious that they care a lot about building up–"

"Well, you only believe them because you're not a people-person," May said. "Trust me, they're just pretending to be nice so that we'll let them off the hook for backstabbing us."

"Then, if you distrust their group so much, why can't you do something else other than going on scavenging with the Shepards?"

"How many times do I have to repeat this? I need to keep an eye on them. Plus, there's literally nothing to do and no one to hang out with that I'm not related to," she said. "And I'll literally die if I have to spend a bunch of time talking with these old people or the baby."

"What about hanging out with Caspian?"

May shot me a withering look. "Are you dumb? He literally only wants to hang out with you. I mean, we've talked but like, he's obviously not the type of person that I'd want to go and break into abandoned malls with to go shopping. Look at my clothes, they're literally turning gray."

I ignored her tangent at the end because it's clear that she just tacked that one so that I'd forget what she was really saying. "Really? I thought you two would be good friends."

"Yeah, maybe if the apocalypse hadn't happened," she replied. "But I'm not dumb. It's pretty obvious that stuff has happened to him and that he's not looking for that type of friendship anymore. Whenever we talk, it's super awkward because he's always talking just to fill up the space."

"I don't think it's–"

"Whatever. Now I'm the loner loser now," she said. "You actually got lucky. Like, you don't even like talking, but you've actually got a friend, and now, I'm literally the friendless sibling–"

I guess I was going to poke a little fun at her because this role reversal that she observed was genuinely a bit surprising, but I stopped myself because I could hear the hurt in her voice. Sure, it was mixed with sarcasm and jealousy and insults, but all of those harsh layers felt empty in that moment, as if it were just to disguise the loneliness and make things seem like normal.

I attempted to make her feel better, saying, "Don't say that–"

But she cut me off immediately. "Whatever, you can have Caspian. He probably wants to marry you or something–"

"What does that mean?"

"Ugh, you really are hopeless in social situations," she responded. "I have literally no idea what he sees, but it's, like, obvious that he, and this is extremely gross, has a crush on you."

"Just because he's gay, it doesn't mean that he'll like any first guy that he stumbles into–"

"Well, the apocalypse makes people weird and desperate," she said. "Anyways, you should probably tell him that you're straight because I've literally seen this in movies, and it will be extremely messy, and, like, if you've got only one friend, do you really want that to happen?"

"Whatever, I think that'd probably offend him," I said. "And we're going to meet new people anyday, so–"

"I'd rather be alone forever than die because these new people eat all our food," she said. "You better come up with a good excuse the next time I head out with the Shepards."

"Have you figured out what happened to their pet food?"

"I'll see next time," May said. "It's probably somewhere nearby, just in case they need to make a quick escape in a car, so, like, near the scavenging roads that are cleared and not blocked."

"Alright," I said, and we continued walking home, albeit drifting away from each other with May speed walking home under the excuse of being too cold. But I think she only did it because I could tell that her voice was cracking up a bit, sounding a bit like she was going to cry.

I guess it's weird that both May and I don't really cry given that Mira's so open with her emotions. I mean, both of us used to cry a bunch when we were younger, but it's like as soon as we hit middle school, we both just stopped and began hardening our shells. I guess for May that must've been her massive friend circles and sarcasm and "I don't care" attitude, but with one layer stripped away, the loneliness and sadness is seeping through the cracks.

The weird thing is that even though she's always mad at me, I wished I knew how to help her. I don't know why, but I guess it's just because I can't stand when other people around me are hurting, especially when they're trying their hardest to hide their pain. I just don't want her to do something reckless while scavenging, taking massive risks in search of herodom or purpose or whatever is going on in her mind.

Still, I can't help but wonder if what she said about Caspian was true. I'm leaning against it because she probably said that as a way to reassure herself that that's the reason why Caspian isn't hanging out with her very often, but still, it is pretty strange that they barely hang out.

But I highly doubt that it's because he has a crush on me. It's probably just because I'm another guy, and that guys hang out with other guys or something along those lines, you know. Normal reasons, not something absurd like a crush.

After May and I had gotten back, when I went to check on the greenhouse, I noticed that Mom and Dad were working on building up the framework of the second one, setting up the frames built out of plastic piping, reinforced on the bottom with large terracotta pots filled with sand and stones that would hold the plastic base still. I guess I was weirded out because Mom and Dad seemed oddly happy. Even though their faces were covered with masks, I could tell that there was an eerie lack of tension, and that might be a strange thing to say, but I've just grown so used to them fighting and stressed all the time that I've really forgotten what things looked like when everything was normal.

After I told Grandma and Grandpa to take a break from tending the greenhouse, I went to refill the boiling water in the greenhouse and caught a glimpse of Mom and Dad's conversation from behind the translucent sheets.

"Your hair is getting too long," Mom said as she ruffled Dad's hair. "You and Neal need haircuts. It's getting out of control."

"I like the look," Dad said. "I was thinking of growing out a mustache–"

"No, you are not in college anymore. No need for ridiculous hairstyles," Mom said and gave Dad a playful hit. "I'm cutting you and Neal's hair this weekend."

"You said you liked my mustache in college–"

"I only pretended to like it," Mom said. "I knew you'd be too stubborn to change, especially if I told you that I hated it. You'd probably be wearing one now."

"No, I wouldn't. Maybe for a couple more years, but I'd change after some time for you," Dad said. "Having a mustache was awful anyways. Far too itchy. I don't know how I made it through college like–"

As I left, I smiled a bit even though I guess I still resent him, or at least can't get out of that phase, for what he did to Charles. Still, just seeing other people happy, even if it's for the briefest moment, made me feel more invigorated, and I was able to finish replacing all the pots of water with new, boiling ones fairly quickly before heading to our garage to get our dinner.

I'll admit, I'm still weirded out about our new system of food management since I was so used to Mom and Dad just picking out a couple of cans from our pantry and whipping up a meal with Grandma and Grandpa. Now, we've got this complicated system involving calorie counting and meal sign-ups that's probably not all that hard to figure out. Still, it just felt different, and not in the good way even though I know that this system will prevent us from devolving into a vicious fight over food if we begin to starve.

Mom and Dad had already planned out our meals for the upcoming week, so I walked into the garage, where Mrs. Shepard was sitting with a clipboard and calculator, making sure that every person's list corresponded to the 800 calories per person allocated for dinner. Obviously, this was a fairly lengthy process, so there was a bit of a line, and I saw Caspian and his family waiting.

"How's your hand doing?" he asked after waving at me.

"It's had better days," I said, looking at some small and faintly purple-ish splotches on the back of my hand. He reached out and held my fist in his hands, getting a closer look at the barely visible bruising on my knuckles.

"That's looking a little rough. I should've gotten you an ice pack," he said.

"I'm good, and they don't even really hurt that much," I said, poking at the purple-ish spots while resisting the urge to wince. "I don't know if it was on your schedule, but are you coming out to the Johnsons' food gathering thing?"

"I wish," he replied. "I've got clinic duty again tomorrow. Everyone's doing their checkups, just to be sure that no one has bad malnutrition or anything serious, and we've got to wash the sheets in boiling water– It's a lot of work, no fun."

"Yeah, it seems like a lot..."

"But it'll be worth it," he said. "You mind if I come after the day after tomorrow to finish checking out the gardening book? I nearly forgot about it."

"Yeah, no, I'll be working on the greenhouse, so I'll be free."

"Great," he replied as his family was leaving with the food. "I'll see you in a couple days."

"See you too," I said as May's words flashed through my mind, causing me to blush for no reason at all. And with no mask on, I was lucky that I was able to turn away quickly so that he wouldn't see the red flush on my cheeks as I went to grab our allocated cans for Grandma and Grandpa to turn into a meal.

When I went to find Mira to tell her that dinner was being made, I noticed that she, for some reason, was in May and I's old room. For a moment, my heart skipped a beat because there was no other reason for her to be in our room except for the books that I had borrowed from the library about guys falling in love (or falling in lust in some cases) with each other. I was beginning to weave together some excuses and lies when I heard her talking to herself.

"So we need to bring ourselves together and not succumb to fear and hatred and distrust. Civilization was built on progress and technological innovation and most importantly, the collaboration that had brought people to share ideas and knowledge. During these dire times, we need each other more than ever, and that's why I urge everyone to take a leap of faith and trust your neighbors, no matter how hard it may seem, because we're all in this together."

Although I only caught the tail end of her speech, I guess all I can say is that it's certainly very grand and ambitious, but I wasn't sure if it was what people are looking for right now. After she had finished reciting her grand speech, or at least the closer to it, I knocked on the door to let her know that I was outside and told her that dinner was basically done. When she opened the door, she almost seemed embarrassed, blushing a bit, and asked, "How long were you waiting out there?"

"Only for a bit," I said. "I didn't want to disturb your speech."

"How much did you hear?"

"Only a bit at the end," I said, and while I wanted to give her feedback, I didn't want her spirits to be crushed so I attempted to muster an enthusiastic response. "I mean, what I heard was pretty inspirational, you know, like big and stuff like that."

She raised her eyebrows, a bit amused and most definitely noting my skepticism. "Okay, what do you think I did wrong? Because you most definitely don't seem inspired."

"I am," I replied. "It's a great closer to a speech, you know. Like, if things were like normal, I'm sure that everyone would cheer and clap because it's big and bold and ambitious. But it's just that I'm worried that other people won't get it because what we're facing right now can't be cured by a grand speech."

"Alright, so you're saying that I should turn it into more of a conversation over a speech?"

"I think it's more than that," I said. "I guess your speech really focuses on the abstract big picture. And works when things are going good and we've got time to think bigger, but right now, we've got to focus on the smaller victories–"

"Like setting up a third greenhouse or creating a centralized water purification system–"

"Or stocking up the clinic with advanced medical supplies or building more fishing nets," I said. "I know it isn't exciting and you were pretty against it, but from what I've seen, it's like we've got to sell the present, so that people will have enough hope to finally look bigger. We all aren't crazy dreamers, at least not yet."

She sighed. "It's tough. It's so damn tough feeling so stuck. After all that we've lost, only to have people dream small..."

"Not everyone's like you," I responded. "I think it takes a lot of courage to keep your eyes on the bigger picture when it's so easy to turn on each other for a bit of food."

"Thanks," she said. "Sometimes, I feel like I'm getting less sure of myself every day. I used to skydive and cliff jump without feeling scared. Hell, I even took Mom's car and drove down to see Leon in the beginning of it all. I don't even know what I was thinking when I did that."

She chuckled a bit, and I let out a small laugh before she continued, "It's just that I miss being fearless–"

"You still are," I replied. "Those things were easy because I guess you were doing them for yourself, but now, standing up against distrust to unify us, now that's fearless because it's the tough choice."

"And you said that you were bad at pitching ideas and convincing people," Mira said with a laugh. "You've definitely convinced me that I'm the best person left in the world."

"Naw, I think that's your ego talking," I said. "Now let's go eat some soup."

As I sipped soup for dinner, savoring the warmth and little bits of oil that floated on top of the water, I thought about the future that would be possible because the Weavers' gadgets inspired me a bit to think about what we could do even with limited resources.

Maybe we could find some mushrooms, maybe from the at-home kits or out in the woods, and because they don't need sunlight we could totally have massive mushroom farms in everyone's garage to compliment the dozens of greenhouses we'd have scattered around. We could even try and create a seaweed farm from the dozens of fronds that wash up on the tidal zone even if I'm not exactly sure how to do it, and maybe, I don't even know if this is scientifically possible, we could wrap fruit trees with clear tarp or plastic wrap and maybe get temperatures high enough so that they think it's spring.

While wind is an option, I know there's such things as tidal generators, and maybe we could figure out a system to create turbines that would be pushed by the ocean currents and wire the electricity back to our community or maybe even create tiny little offshoots. I mean, I don't expect that we'd be able to generate enough electricity to power fridges and dryers, but just having enough to keep the light on in the greenhouse would be invaluable. Maybe Caspian's dad could even find a way to build an electricity generator out of a car engine or something like that.

I mean there are so many possibilities, you know. Growing handmade antibiotics for the clinic or hand-creating a fancy hydroponic system with goldfish or snails that we could find in the rivers and reservoirs, it's like there are so many ideas of how we can make our community work that are both so close and so far at the same time.

But one thing's clear: we won't even be able to get to a fraction of the way there without other people. I just hope that people like the Weavers are thinking the same way as us.

November 17

Weirdly enough, Dad woke me up early this morning, and I was a bit confused because normally Grandma or Grandpa would wake me up, and he usually sleeps in since he never goes to the early foraging expeditions hosted by the Johnsons.

"Why are you up so early?" I asked.

"I'm going with the Shepards down to the tidal zone," he replied. "We're planning on drying kelp to see if it would burn as well as firewood. It could save us a lot of time because it's much easier to gather than wood."

"You're going down the ocean?" I responded skeptically.

"I've got to head out soon, but of course," Dad replied, all faux enthused. "I've never checked out the sights, and it must be convenient to have a beach that's twenty minutes walk closer."

"Okay," I said slowly as Dad gathered a backpack and bucket before leaving home, still extremely weirded out by his behavior. But I didn't let that distract me too much as I tip-toed around everyone's sleeping bodies to put on thicker layers and secure my face mask before trudging down the street to the Johnsons.

"How are you doing on this fine day?" Mr. Johnson asked me when I arrived at the emerging car barrier, the first layer now around halfway complete with the only gaps needed to be filled with the trash can weights.

"Alright," I replied, half-asleep because of how early they insist on beginning the foraging expeditions.

"Just alright?" Mrs. Johnson asked. "I'm feeling jubilant. Can't you just feel the universe calling you to the woods? I know we're going to be blessed with a good harvest today."

"The astrological signs are certainly pointing that way," Mr. Johnson added. "But then again, I don't believe that the charts have accounted for the odd positioning of the Moon."

"Oh, have a little faith," Mrs. Johnson said before she began trudging towards the woods. "C'mon, we've wasted enough precious daylight with banter."

As we walked through down the street, the community slowly began waking up, shadows of people moving from behind curtains and the occasional early birds, like the Weavers, out and about taking down the solid wooden privacy fences, probably to use them to reinforce the barrier around our community. When we passed by Dean, who was doing the morning guard shift at the entrance on the road to the woods, we gave him a bit of a wave before leaving the last semblance of civilization behind.

Maybe it's because I was distracted by Caspian last time that I had gone foraging with the Johnsons, but the area around the woods felt more eerie than before. The homes near the woods were bathed in brown leaves, which spilled into a thin layer that coated the streets, as if nature were spreading its roots into civilization. Some of the homes even had large trees that had collapsed on them, leaving branches poking out from the gaps in the roof. Honestly, if they added some crows and creepy music, it'd feel like we were in a horror movie.

The Johnsons chatted a bunch with each other as I wandered through the woods, following their footsteps and hoping that I wasn't going to get lost. We must've picked all of the oak woods near our homes clean, and from the bright red ribbons that the Johnsons had tied around trees every once in a while to mark the direction, it's clear that we're going so deep that there was a risk of getting lost.

"How'd you learn all this foraging stuff?" I asked after a long period of silence in the Johnsons' conversation. Normally, I wouldn't talk at all, but it was so awkward just walking side by side in silence that after five or ten minutes of putting it off, I finally went for it.

"My pops taught me," Mr. Johnson replied. "He was a hunting and fishing guy, all self-reliant. I didn't have a heart for either of those two, still feel a bit faint whenever I see a skinned rabbit hide, but I had a knack with plants, so he'd take me out on his camping trips."

"Oh, cool," I said, nodding.

"You much of an outdoorsy person?"

"Not that much," I replied. "I mean our family did camping with family friends every year, but other than that, I guess I'm usually more indoorsy. I'd like to be more outdoorsy though."

"I'm sure you'll learn to appreciate the outdoors," Mr. Johnson responded. "Admittedly, the sights and sounds are not as vivid as before, and it seems desolate, but we've got to trust that our Creator has got some surprises up His sleeve."

"Yeah, I guess," I said with a shrug.

"I used to be like you, all curled up indoors with my chunky glasses and a book always in my hand," Mrs. Johnson said. "But the universe came along and swept me towards something greater when I realized the obvious: we've got a whole world around us more real than any words in a book. And when I had that epiphany, it gave me purpose to take advantage of every opportunity that He sent us."

I nodded along while she was speaking, but, admittedly, I didn't completely follow her logic. I mean, if I wanted to be obnoxious, I could point out that books are technically real things and stories are products of the various ways that our brains fire chemical signals, which is a fairly tangible thing, but I get what she means. I shouldn't just keep to myself all the time, too afraid to take big chances and enact all of the things I'd like to do in my imagination, creating stories of situations that'd never come to pass unless I went for it.

But still, there's obviously no greater deity guiding us. I mean, if there were, then it'd be really convenient if they could just reverse the Mooncrash because I think we've all gotten the message by now. And I don't know. I can't really explain this well because I don't have the right words to express the mixture of frustration and just annoyance that I felt at that moment.

I guess it's like I could follow what she meant theoretically, but I just knew that she is inherently wrong. And I don't know whether it was her constant mentions of a greater being or a greater purpose or her subtle dig at me that I found to be the root cause of that tinge of frustration that I had felt, but I think I might have a clue.

After walking another twenty or thirty minutes after the Johnsons' ribbon path had ended as they began tying new ribbons onto the trees and occasionally picking up a handful of dead leaves, likely figuring out the species, we reached our destination.

Already, as we neared the area, I noticed a shift in the smell in the air as my boots crunched on the foliage underneath, a faintly minty and slightly herbal aroma that grew stronger and stronger until it got to the point where I knew that I wasn't imagining it. Even before the Johnsons spoke, I knew that we were in a grove of bay laurel trees because I had remembered learning about them in elementary school when we learned about Native American cultures in California.

It was fairly obvious what we were supposed to do. The ground was scattered with nuts covered in a wrinkled dark brown fruit, and because we were so deep in the woods, it was apparent that they hadn't been harvested before, unlike, say, the acorns in the oak grove near the woods edge. The Johnsons explained the same baseline rules as last time before Mrs. Johnson and I began picking up the nuts from the floor and putting them into a bag. Mr. Johnson went to gather some dried bay leaves from the low hanging branches, probably to be used as seasoning to make soup taste better.

"You had any plans before all of this?" Mrs. Johnson asked me as I was hunched over, sifting through the ash and leaves for the nuts.

"Not particularly," I replied. "I guess just get through school and stuff like that."

"Letting life guide you along its webs," Mrs. Johnson replied. "I can respect that."

I was a bit skeptical mostly because she was being far too generous to me. I had no direction and no future dreams, and the worst part was that I refused every opportunity to even begin figuring out those things. I guess I'm still the same way right now because I don't even know where I'd see myself in six months. And I guess my skepticism was far too apparent because she took notice.

"You're looking at me like I'm crazy," she said and laughed a bit. "It's alright. Sometimes, I think I'm a little mad up here. Things have changed so much since I was younger: more pressure, more planning. We could let life guide us knowing that we'll find our places in due time."

"Yeah," I said a bit slowly while aggressively nodding my head.

"I can tell you're still skeptical," Mrs. Johnson replied.

"No. I get what you're saying," I said. "But... I don't know. I guess I really didn't have any plans at all, and I don't really see the idea of the universe guiding everything, you know."

"It's alright to not know the answers," Mrs. Johnson. "Or have no dreams or purpose. I used to even question whether our Creator has a grand plan for our lives or whether that's a nice story I tell myself. The most important thing, though, is not to let the tides of life erode your spirit."

Even though I didn't believe much of what she was saying, I guess I smiled a bit because even if that last line was a bit overly cheesy I guess I liked her optimism. That's one thing that I admire about the Johnsons. Buried underneath their quirky mannerisms and shifting ways they refer to this greater power, they've got this persistent optimism that's hard to resist when things look so tough.

Still, I wonder if I'm attracted to that because of my tendency to look away from the tough facts about our survival. Maybe I'm still doing the same things as before.

"You look like you've been subjected to some 'Crazy Carrie' advice," Mr. Johnson remarked jokingly, butting into our conversation as he started stripping the bay laurel leaves off from a couple low hanging branches that he had broken off.

"And what does that look like?" Mrs. Johnson replied, mock challenging him.

"That look," Mr. Johnson said and pointed towards me. "I think I've seen that look thousands of times–"

"It's not thousands–"

"Oh, most definitely thousands," Mr. Johnson said. "It happens to practically every person you talk with, even the cashier at grocery stores."

"I thought it was pretty interesting," I replied.

"I know," Mr. Johnson said. "My wife certainly has a knack with words, even if they're out there–"

"As if you aren't," Mrs. Johnson said.

And they began a friendly quarrel as I turned away and continued searching for the nuts. The entire process was backbreaking work because I'd have to constantly bend over and sift through the ash to find the nuts, now colored gray from the ash. I just wanted to crawl on the ground and search for the bay laurel fruit to save time (and pain), but that would be too weird, so I mostly sat on fallen trees and kicked around the leaves to uncover the fruit. To be fair to me, that strategy did work. I accidentally uncovered a large branch that had dozens of nuts attached to it, and I wished I could show that to Caspian because he'd probably be a bit envious.

Around early afternoon, we were able to fill up three sack bags with nuts and another two bags with the fragrant dried bay laurel leaves before we decided to head back. Even though we probably could've stayed for longer to collect more food, the amount of nuts that we were able to find had significantly decreased after two or three hours of searching. It's a bit scary how quickly we were able to clear out a small grove because at some point, we're going to run out of foraging opportunities and then what will we be able to do. I guess everything is really coming down to getting the greenhouses working.

After the long and tedious hike through the woods, the swirling ash clouds like ghosts flitting between branches, we reached home again as the sky was darkening. Just as I was about to part with the Johnsons, Mr. Johnson stopped me.

"Just before you go, my wife and I, we wanted you to have these," Mr. Johnson said as he opened his backpack and pulled out a large ziploc bag filled with seed packets and miscellaneous smaller bags filled with bulbs and roots and seeds.

"Wow," I said, genuinely surprised. "That's a lot of seeds."

"The seed packets were our personal stash," Mr. Johnson said. "We foraged the seeds in the plastic bags from the forest floor and abandoned gardens and labeled them as best we could. There should be around five hundred or so seeds there, more than enough for your greenhouse expansion."

"Yeah, that'll be a huge help," I replied. "Thanks a bunch for sharing. I mean, like, wow, this will be game changing."

"We held onto those for a long while because it's our only opportunity to start a future," Mrs. Johnson said. "But I realized that we were guided here by our Creator because this will be our safe haven as we weather the storm battering the world, so we're going to do our damnedest to make sure that we can take advantage of the spare moments of opportunity provided by the universe."

"Thank you," I said, repeating myself. "My parents will be, like, really stoked. We'll get to germinating these right away."

"You better, son," Mr. Johnson said. "Our Creator's most insurmountable test is approaching rapidly, and we're going to have to put in the work and have faith that the universe understands that we put our all in it and has mercy on us."

"Oh, don't be so bleak," Mrs. Johnson replied. "I have faith that we're going to make it."

I wish I had her optimism, but maybe it's like what she said, that her faith that everything is going to end up alright in the end might just be a nice story we tell ourselves. What we're facing, which seems plucked right out of some crazy sci-fi novel, isn't going to be resolved like a story, no matter how hard I wish.

When I came back home, I expected the entire house to smell like the ocean and the distinct sulfurous odor of rotting kelp because I'm pretty sure that the plan was to dry the kelp by the fire before storing it in the garage. But instead, there was nothing except for a small bucket that sat in the corner. When I took a glimpse, all I saw was a couple handfuls of seaweed and nothing more.

I thought that was pretty strange because Dad seemed so committed to going down to the beach, and given how stubborn he is and how he has been acclimating to dealing with seaweed, I was pretty sure that he was drying the seaweed in the backyard to avoid stinking up the house. But when I peered into the backyard from the greenhouse, I didn't see racks of seaweed being dried, only Mom and Dad finishing up the greenhouse expansion in the backyard by securing the clear tarp roof.

As I hugged close to the backyard door to listen to Mom and Dad's conversation to figure out what had happened, there was a major gust of wind that sent ruffled the plastic tarp. Even though I was standing mostly inside, the faint herbal aroma surrounding me was replaced by the strong sulfur smell of the ocean. When I peeked through the clear tarp, I noticed that Dad was really shaken up and that they had stopped working, the friendly chatter silenced.

"Let's head inside, and we'll finish this tomorrow," Mom said.

"No, I have to stay outside," Dad replied.

"I don't want you breathing in any more ash. It's not good for anyone, and–"

"I know you're not thinking about the ash," Dad said. "I have to stay out here because that's the least that I can do after failing today."

"Today wasn't a failure. Going down to the tidal zone, that was a big step in the right direction–"

"I don't need you to baby me–"

"What do you want me to tell you?" Mom said. "I get that it's hard for you, but it's hard for me and the kids to see you struggling like this. Go talk with Cora. I don't fully trust them, but they're our closest allies, and she's the expert with dealing with this type of hurt."

"I don't know," Dad said. "Why now of all the times can't let this go? I used to be able to push this fear down, ignore it, deal with it like a man, but now, all of a sudden, I just can't."

"Maybe it's because everything's changing so fast," Mom said. "But either way, you need to talk to someone that can help you."

"Maybe I do..." Dad said, his words trailing off, and for the briefest second, it appeared that he genuinely wanted to change, not in the ways that he promises to change his own way but properly. "But what if the Coopers use the information against us? I don't want to cause us to get betrayed and killed for dealing with nothing–"

"This isn't nothing," Mom said, a bit disappointed. "I don't know how long you'll be able to last like this, especially since we're going to have to depend on the ocean more and more while the greenhouses slowly begin to work. We can't afford a panic attack every time that we harvest food from the ocean because that's the real weakness that the Shepards will exploit."

"I'll think about it," Dad said. "But we've got to keep this away from the kids. I don't want them to get unnecessarily scared of the ocean if they see me like this."

"Don't worry," Mom responded with a sigh. "I won't."

But I think we all know what's happening with Dad even if he wants to keep this facade up for himself.

Even as Dad pretended that everything was alright during dinner, making terrible jokes and threatening us with card games and even telling us that he had a bit of a headache, I think all of us could tell that he was way overcompensating for his inability to go down to the tidal zone. May was mostly annoyed, though her snark was subdued, and she didn't even ask once about Dad's planned trip, while Mira seemed concerned about Dad's behavior, giving weird side glances to Mom, who returned them back.

I guess I probably could've talked with Dad about it, but I doubt that he'd share much, if anything at all. He'd probably get mad that I eavesdropped on his conversation with Mom, and completely shut down like usual. Plus, we've never really talked much about our feelings anyways, even if the reasons are different for the both of us. Dad is far too stubborn and too obsessed with being a manly man, and I don't like telling him that kind of stuff anyways since he wouldn't understand.

But I guess the thing that I was surprised about was that I didn't particularly relish seeing him in pain. It's different from the situations when I made jabs at him about Charles where there was this awful pleasure. Here, I just felt sad too.

Maybe I have a tendency to feel too much of other people's emotions, but I think it's because I had the same realization as Mom. None of the fantastical inventions and dreams to make our community would be possible if everyone's not doing their best.

And that even includes Dad.

November 18

For the first time in a while, it was a fairly quiet and relaxed morning.

In fact, it was so peaceful that I overslept by a bunch, and May had to wake me up for lunch. She said that she thought I was dead because I wasn't moving at all, even when she poked me with the needle she's using to finish up sewing the net, but, well, I guess given the fact that I'm writing this entry, she was obviously wrong.

After I ate some soup, now flavored a bit more with the bay leaves, I began the process of sorting out and germinating the seeds that the Johnsons gave me. Most of the forest foraged seeds in the bags were labeled with names that I wasn't particularly familiar with like "miner's lettuce" or "wood sorrel," though there were other familiar names like thistles and wild blackberry. I mostly put those to the side because I wanted to get more information about them from the Western gardening book.

In the meantime, I began planting the garlic or scallion bulbs that they probably harvested from abandoned gardens, breaking up the bulb into small cloves, along with getting the spinach and broccoli seeds from the seed packets spread out on a damp paper towel. Like usual, there were a bunch of different varieties of tomatoes, and while I took a couple of seeds out to germinate, I left them mostly to the side. When we've got proper heating for the greenhouse and enough electricity to keep it lit up, I'll start preparing the tomatoes and all the other warm weather plants to be grown.

For now, I'm just making sure that whatever little space that we have will not be spent on lost causes. When I checked the random few seeds that I had germinated from the bag of seeds that Mom had collected from the store, the grain ones appeared to be doing daily decently while the chickpeas, brown beans, and kidney beans were doing decently, but it's clear that the lentils, mung, and sesame were struggling hard. Even though they were placed near warm water, only around half of them had sprouted and those that did were pretty small and probably weren't going last.

To be honest, I wasn't too surprised because they were probably tropical or subtropical plants since they're native to South and Southeast Asia. Still, given that we've got a ton of seeds for these crops, it's clear that we've still got a significant amount of work in figuring out a more efficient heating and insulation system that'll keep the greenhouse warm enough for them to thrive.

Luckily, mustard is fairly cold resistant, and it's been growing very well. We've just got rows and rows of plants popping out from the cans with sprigs of green about half a foot or so tall (some of those near the edges even taller). The compost bin also appears to be working because when I stuck my gloved hand into the mixture of soil and wet leaves, it was noticeably warm even if the smell of ammonia still persisted. From the kale and other cold resistant vegetables beginning to sprout to the stalks of onion reaching towards the sky and leafy greens of the potato plants expanding outwards, it's like the greenhouse is finally taking root (A side note: I finally squeezed in a good pun).

I just wish we had more space and time to make things work. I've basically never asked for anything for Christmas before, but I just wish we had one of those fancy hydroponic set-ups mentioned a bunch in the gardening book. But maybe I could eventually as the Weavers for the design for one

Because, as I was filling up the new cans with soil for the greenhouse expansion, I guess I just realized that we'd boxed ourselves into a corner. Two greenhouses that probably have the same amount of square footage as our living room are not even close to enough space to grow crops to sustain twenty or so people. We'd need everyone's backyards to be converted into greenhouses to even have a chance at self-sufficiency, and even then, we'd still have to forage and fish.

But given that the nuts and fish will eventually disappear, as the trees remain dormant from the endless winter and the plankton that supply the ocean dwindle from a lack of sunlight, we'll only have the greenhouses to depend upon. And there's no way that we'll be able to do that, not if we keep our roles separated and distrust each other.

The thing is that I'm a bit scared to see what will happen if we teach everyone to garden. I mean, what if Dad's predictions of being backstabbed are true. But I've got to hope that everyone means what they said over these past few days. If they truly believe in the dream, then we may have a chance.

I suppose the monotony of filling up cans with dirt, leaves, compost, and crushed mulch was disrupted when I heard a loud knock on the door. At that moment, I realized that it must've been Caspian, and I also realized that I was in no position to greet him given that my hands were dirty and smelled like compost and sulfur. I had to dash to the bathroom and scrub my hands with way too much soap, calm down my hair, and by then, his knocking had stopped, and I was worried that he had gotten bored and left.

Luckily, when I opened the door, he was still there.

"Took you long enough," he said. "I was worried for a sec that you had died or something."

"Yeah, sorry about that," I replied before gesturing at the rows of cans filled with dirt. "I was busy with this stuff, you know. It's a bit gross, so I had to clean up, and yeah..."

"You don't need to apologize," he responded. "And it's not gross. I haven't seen real dirt in forever. It's one of those things that I never realized that I had missed."

"Didn't I show you around the greenhouse last month–"

"Oh, you know what I mean," he said with a smile.

"You know, I'm just saying..."

"You know what, if you're going to give me this attitude, I'll remember you as the smartass instead of the volleyball badass."

I was going to give a friendly retort, but my words got caught in my throat because I started blushing. He actually remembered what he said about me a couple of days back, and, not only that, but it wasn't just a throwaway compliment because he actually thought of me like that.

As we sat on the ground and flipped through the pages to find the flower that he was searching for, he kept shaking his head at a bunch of possibilities until we had finally reached the rose section, located close to the end of the gardening book. There, in the middle of the page, was a trellis with clusters of golden roses dangling outwards, and he pointed at it. "That's the one."

"It was a rose the whole time. Lady Banks species," I said, slightly amused but it's clear that he wasn't.

He swore a bit. "It was so obvious. I should've known. I thought it must've been something else because he'd always have some complicated name for it–"

"R. banksiae?" I replied. "It's the scientific name."

"Yeah, that," he responded. "He'd always call them that just to mess with me. And I never knew that roses could be vines."

There was a bit of a pause before he reached into his pocket. "Let's just check to be sure."

He pulled out a photograph from his pocket, the edges smeared with fingerprints and the picture slightly faded from sunlight, and held it in front of me. It was a picture of Caspian and Gabe, their arms slung around each others' shoulders, standing in front of a wall of climbing roses, their golden blossoms in full bloom. Caspian had his characteristic beaming smile while his boyfriend had a crooked half smile, and even though they were supposed to be looking at the camera, it's clear from the slight tilts of their heads that they were looking at each other.

I don't know why, but it's just that I couldn't help but smile when looking at the picture because both of them looked truly happy, not just the hollow face of optimism that Caspian puts on to make everyone think that he's doing great. And I guess I feel awful for saying this, but I guess I felt a pang of envy just for a microsecond, like for the briefest of briefest moment.

I guess part of it stems from the fact that Caspian's boyfriend had always just been the idea that I couldn't put a face towards, but now that I've seen him, I can see why Caspian was attracted to him because he was really handsome. He looked like he was one of those twenty-some actors in TV shows that cosplayed high schoolers except that he was actually seventeen. He had a bit of dark scruff and sharp jawline and was genuinely athletic looking, and I couldn't help but wish I had even just a fraction of his looks.

But beyond the superficial stuff that I had mentioned, I don't think that anyone had given me a look like the way that Caspian and Gabe were looking at each other. I mean the closest that I've gotten was with Charles, but it wasn't romantic, like it is here, and it was tinged with too much sadness and knowledge of finality. Here was a gaze that was coated with the limitless possibilities of summer.

"You know that botanical garden that I told you about a while back. This is where we took this picture with Gabe's old polaroid camera," he said, looking at the photo with a bit of a smile. "I thought it'd be better to take it on my phone, but he insisted because he wanted a physical memory of us on that day, not just a photocopy printed out weeks afterwards."

"That's, like, really sweet," I replied. "I guess I've just never really seen the picture around your house."

"Dad took losing Gabe hard. It left him paralyzed while we were struggling to get by," Caspian replied. "He did baseball in high school too, was a big time pitcher that carried his team to regionals wins, so they'd always be chattering about batting stats and strike averages. It's a whole lot of stuff that I had wished that I had gotten to know better."

"I mean, Dad thought of Gabe as another son," he continued. "He even came up to me and was like 'Thank goodness you're gay because I don't know what I'd do with a daughter in law.' Yeah, it's sexist and was awkward as hell, but he really liked Gabe. He really did."

"You and Gabe were planning on being a forever couple?"

"I don't know," Caspian replied. "We'd only talked about it briefly. Maybe take a break when we go off to college and explore other options and see whether time would change anything. But I'm not sure. I just thought we had more time."

"I think we all wished that," I said, looking at the letter sitting on the bookshelf.

"I've also noticed that you don't have pictures of Charles around," he said. "Are you going through the same thing?"

"Not really. Well, maybe. I don't know," I replied with a shrug. "I've always been really camera shy, you know, and Charles never really liked being in photos, so we've never really taken photos with each other."

"Would you keep photos up if you did have them?"

"I'd like to think so," I said. "I guess I do regret not taking many pictures with him because now all I've got are these journal pages, and I guess I don't want to forget what he looks like because what if we meet again in the future. It's just that no amount of writing will be able to help me now."

"What about you?" I asked. "If your Dad was doing better. Maybe when he does better."

"I wish I'd have the courage to do it," he replied a bit softly. "But it just hurts too much to even look at this photo, and I'd feel like I'm being haunted by him if I see him everywhere. It's like all these pictures of him will never be able to be the real Gabe, so I've always got to look forward not to forget but to just be free and untethered for good."

"Yeah, I get it," I replied. "I guess, then why keep the photo around, you know?"

"You're right," he replied. "I should just burn it in a fireplace. Maybe I should do it right now to just get it over with–"

"No," I said, instinctively snatching the photograph from his hand before apologizing and handing it back to him. "Just keep it for now for the memorial, remember? I just don't want you to regret doing this because someday you'll be able to find the ability to appreciate the past, even if the best memories will never happen again."

"Sorry, I'm just trying not to cry," he said with tears welling in his eyes and his voice cracked up like the night that he knocked at my home drunk. "I'm such a mess. I didn't mean for this–"

"It's alright," I replied, looking at him directly in his eyes after I had been averting my gaze away to make sure that I wouldn't get teary eyed too. I had to be the strong one for Caspian at that moment.

"Could I stay for a while longer?" he asked. "I don't want Mom and Dad to see me like this."

"Yeah, go for it," I replied. "I can leave if you want some privacy and space since I get that it's pretty hard."

"I'd like you to stay," he replied before a long silence descended upon us before leaning his head on my shoulder. "I don't know why this is happening to me right now of all times when things are finally getting better."

The weird thing was that it echoed Dad's words almost identically when he was talking about the resurgence of his fear of the ocean. And I guess I never really said anything back to him, so after a long silence, I responded with the words that I'd say to both him and Dad, "I think it's because instead of having to just think about surviving to the next day, we've got time to breathe and figure out what type of future we want. I think we're just realizing what future that we don't want first before dreaming a bit bigger, you know."

He nodded, but I don't think that he was paying much attention, and that's alright because I didn't say the most profound thing. We just mostly sat there in silence, shoulder to shoulder, both our legs curled up as he wiped silent tears from his face while leaning against me. I think at some point, I leaned against him until the sky darkened and we were swallowed by the darkness.

After a while, Caspian stood up. "I better get going. My parents must be worried about me."

"Are you doing good?" I asked.

"Better," he said. "Thanks for staying, and being around."

"Yeah, no problem," I said before adding. "You're going to keep the photo, right?"

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking when I said that I wanted to burn it. I just got caught up in the emotions," he replied before semi-jokingly adding. "I definitely need to go to a therapist."

"Just get some sleep," I replied. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"You betcha," he said, slowly returning into his confident and bubbly self. "Well, I'm going to leaf now. Is that a pun that Charles would be proud of?"

"A bit uncalled for, but very much so," I said as I waved him out of the door before shutting it. May was staring at me weirdly, so I made sure that I didn't have any tears streaked across my face. It was completely dry.

"Geez, what were you guys talking about," May said. "He seemed like he was crying."

"He wasn't," I lied, trying to keep the privacy around our conversation. "We were just talking about normal stuff, you know."

"Whatever," she replied, clearly knowing that I was lying but not wanting to question it like I had expected since my lie was paper thin and absolutely terrible. I could tell that she was inspecting the net, which was seemingly repaired, before looking up with a massive smile that gave me emotional whiplash.

"Finally," May said, practically jumping with joy. "No more sewing!"

"Hey, you're not done yet. We're going to have to repair this in a couple of days," Mom said, looking at the net, now an even messier patchwork of plastic mesh, yarn rope, duct tape, and grass fibers that haphazardly covered the gaping hopes torn into the net.

"Way to kill the vibes," May replied. "Maybe now I can actually do something fun instead of poking my fingers a billion times and ruining my skin."

"This is fun," Mom responded. "This is how we're going to knock the Shepards down from their leadership perch and create some new friends."

"We're going to knock the Shepards down... with a net?" May said. "So, like, the plan is to capture them in a net and then stab them a bunch of times?"

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Obviously," May said. "I'm not that dumb. We're literally going to bribe people with fish."

"No," Mom responded. "We're going to do more than that. We're going to be hosting a Thanksgiving feast–"

May groaned. "We never do Thanksgiving. We're literally Asian–"

"Well, we're doing Thanksgiving this year," Mom replied. "With all the gratitude circles and other traditions that people do because we need to create a memorable event where everyone in the community remembers that we were the ones that were providing the food."

"So like, we're going to bribe people with fish."

"And fun and games and happiness," Mom said. "We're all tired of the endless gloom."

"It definitely beats whatever this is," May replied. "But fine, whatever. It's something interesting, at least, and we're finally fighting back after literally not doing anything."

Although Mom and May had a bunch of idea of what to do on Thanksgiving, with May thinking of doing a more carnival-esque themed fun-and-games Thanksgiving while Mom was imagining more of an intimate house party with card games and lots of food, I noticed that they were so caught up in brainstorming that they hadn't even began discussing how they'd get the idea around and convince the community to attend. I mean, while a day of eating food and getting drunk and having fun might seem appealing, given how dire things look, people might be skeptical. After all, it could seem like a waste of precious food and time, and people might be more willing to skip a day of fun if it meant a couple of days of more food.

I guess that's why I approached Mira after she had gotten back from her night patrol shift. It might be her opportunity to finally pitch an idea that's both reasonable and outlandish to everyone in the night watch. "When you were gone on patrol, Mom said we're going to try and organize a Thanksgiving feast."

"A Thanksgiving feast?" she repeated back at me, a bit amused and surprised. "We never celebrate Thanksgiving."

"I know," I replied. "But I guess this year, with, you know, everything that's happening, I think it's as good a time as any to give it a shot. Mom is planning on putting up the net later this week to get fish, and I'm thinking of sprouting some bean sprouts for the feast and you–"

"You want me to pitch the idea to other people," Mira said, finishing my thoughts.

"Yeah," I replied. "I mean, this is our chance to unify our community, do something good, you know, and I think it's something easy to get everyone on board with."

Mira nodded. "Tomorrow's my day off, and I could meet with everyone one-on-one to tell them about this. Maybe ask the Johnsons to bake some acorn bread or ask Dean and James to see if they could catch some rabbit or deer–"

"Exactly," I replied. "And maybe have the others plan out some games for all of us to play or something. I don't know. You're the one with the big imagination."

"No, that sounds like a good idea," Mira responded. "I don't know. Feels weird that Mom would be so supportive of this and especially that Dad would go along with this."

"Yeah," I replied. "I think both of them are finally done with being miserable. You know, Mom. She's always wanted us to have as normal a life as possible, and Dad, well, I guess he's had a rare change of heart. He's been trying to change recently."

Even though this is another lie that I'm telling Mira, another moment where I'm breaking her trust, I think that out of all the lies that I've told her, this one is the most unselfish. Just because Mom and May (and probably Dad) are using this event as a way to turn the tables on the Shepards, it doesn't mean that this event needs to be tainted with its less than honorable intentions. And I really want this to be a moment where Mira's dreams come a bit true.

"You sound like you've forgiven him," she said a bit cheerfully as she suddenly switched topics, and I looked away from her.

"I don't know yet," I replied.

"It's alright," she replied. "You take however much time you need. Sometimes, trying just isn't enough."

"Do you think I should forgive him, at least for trying?" I asked all of a sudden after remaining silent for a couple of moments.

"I think you should do what's best for yourself," Mira said. "Because that's the only way you're going to get an honest result."

I think it's at that point that I realized what separated the hurt that Caspian's feeling about losing his boyfriend and the hurt of losing my best friend. Even though I know it's what I'm supposed to do, I haven't properly forgiven anyone, not myself or Dad or even Charles, for him leaving since I still feel like I've failed him. Maybe that's why I'm trapped in the past because unlike Caspian, who's always looking to the future to avoid dealing with the grief and memory of loss, I'm trapped by regret and anger because I failed him.

And I don't think that I'm ever going to feel differently until the community turns into a thriving, bustling hub of civilization within this wasteland. I think I mentioned a while back that I was building this for Charles, but thinking about it now, maybe a part of me is also building this for myself to channel this anger and regret productively. I guess this makes me seem a bit selfish, but every dream is built on failure.

Because I don't want to fail another person, and I don't want to let Caspian down. If things fail, and our family is forced to suddenly leave, I don't want him to be trapped in this same roiling storm of guilt and anger, especially after what he's gone through.

He deserves better than that fate.