We Are the Ants (22 page)

When the food was ready, Diego and I loaded our plates. Viviana cooked burgers and hot dogs and steak and ribs. I grabbed a little of everything; Diego focused his attention on the meats. While his back was turned, Viviana nudged me and smiled. “I'm happy you came.” She was wearing one of those joke aprons that said
I LIKE PIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE
and had practically been chained to the grill all afternoon, but she still managed to carry on conversations with everyone within a five-foot radius and not burn the food.

“Really?”

She glanced at Diego as he served himself a preposterous helping of ribs. “Really.” The way she said it sounded like I was doing Diego a favor by coming when he was the one who'd saved me, but before I could question Viviana further, Diego finished filling his plate and waved for me to follow.

We found a quiet spot by the hammock, where the music was loud enough to hear but didn't drown out our conversation—though we were both too focused on eating to talk much. Everything tasted amazing except for the potato salad, which had competing flavors of curry and celery. It
was
difficult to believe anything could taste so repulsive. Diego tore into the ribs with zeal, and his lips and chin were soon slathered with barbecue sauce. By the time he finished, which he announced with a belch loud enough to draw Viviana's attention from the other side of the yard, he looked like he'd devoured them with his hands tied behind his back.

“Did you get enough to eat?” Diego asked, motioning at my empty plate.

“I'm stuffed.”

“If you say so.” Diego whipped a handful of napkins from his back pocket and set to cleaning his hands methodically, scraping the sauce from under his fingernails. When I laughed, he said, “If you're not going make a mess when you eat ribs, you may as well not bother.”

I looked at my clean hands. “Now I feel like a failure.”

Diego dipped his finger into a puddle of leftover sauce and smeared it down my nose. “Better.”

It took everything to resist reaching for my napkin to wipe it off. “If you say so.”

He stared at me, and for a moment it reminded me of the way Jesse would watch me when he thought I wasn't looking, like I was the only person in the world worthy of his attention. Except Diego wasn't Jesse. No one was. “Why a Thanksgiving barbecue?” I asked.

Diego balled up his napkin and tossed it onto his empty plate. “What comes to mind when you think of Thanksgiving?”

“Turkey and stuffing. Gravy. Disaster movies. My mom drinking too much wine. Green bean casserole.”

When I'd finished listing off all the regular Thanksgiving things I could recall, he said, “Oh. For me, it's cat piss and Devil Dogs.”

I waited for Diego to elaborate, but he didn't. He just sat across from me, running his finger around the edge of his dirty plate, refusing to look me in the eyes. “Come on,” I said, “you can't leave me hanging like that.”

“It's not important.”

“You know all kinds of stuff about me. Hell, you and half the world have seen me naked. You won't tell me anything about your life before you moved here, you won't tell me why you're living with your sister instead of your parents. I don't get you.”

Diego clenched his fists. “Would you let it go, Henry?”

“No.”

“Fine,” Diego said. “If you tell me more about the aliens, I'll tell you why I was sent here.”

If he was betting I'd drop it rather than discuss the sluggers, he was going to lose. “Sometimes I ask the sluggers to take me with them instead of sending me back.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate it here.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm a joke, that's why! I'm Space Boy, and I'll never be anything else.” I hadn't realized I'd raised my voice until a couple of Viviana's friends glanced in our direction, but I didn't care. Diego wanted answers, and I gave them to him.

Then Diego said, “But I like Space Boy,” and all the anger drained out of me.

“Your turn.”

Diego shook his head and leaned back in the grass. “I want to hear more about the aliens.”

“That's not fair.”

“Fine. Ask your question.” His voice was flat.

“Did you smash the windows in Marcus's car?” Up until the moment the question left my mouth, I was planning to ask why he'd been exiled to Calypso to live with his sister, but at the last second I changed my mind and immediately wished I hadn't.

Diego's mouth hung open, but he didn't answer. And the longer he remained silent, the more nauseated I felt. I'd gone too far. I'd accused him, and I had no right. Diego had been nothing but nice to me, had given me no reason to suspect him, but that hadn't stopped me. I should have kept my stupid questions to myself. I ruined everything. I should have stayed home. I needed air. “I have to go.” I ran inside to Diego's bedroom and locked myself in his bathroom. The moment I was alone, I sat on the edge of the toilet and buried my face in my hands.

How could I have been so dumb? Despite knowing Diego wasn't capable of reciprocating my feelings, I needed to know if he'd busted the windows of Marcus's car, and what it meant if he had. I don't even think I would have been upset if he were responsible.

I never thought I'd have feelings for anyone after Jesse, and I wanted to carve them out of my brain. I wanted to shove an ice pick through my eyes and give myself a transorbital lobotomy, scrape Diego from the inside of my skull. The best thing for me to do was go home and forget about Diego Vega.

When I'd pulled myself together, I stood at the sink and washed my face. The barbecue sauce was still on my nose; it looked like dried blood. I wet some toilet paper and used it to scrub the stain off.

Diego's bathroom was messier and more disorganized than his bedroom. Inside the medicine cabinet were three kinds of deodorant, shaving cream, a razor, and two bottles of face wash. Globs of spent toothpaste were stuck to the side of the sink, and the shower was covered with a soapy film. My mom would have beaten me with the toilet brush if I ever let our bathroom get so filthy.

When I opened the door, I crashed into Diego. We hit the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. His elbow dug into my stomach, knocking the breath out of me.

“Sorry!” Diego said, laughter tingeing his voice.

“Just . . . It's fine.” I disentangled myself from Diego, but he didn't move.

“I came to find you so I could apologize.”

I already felt like an asshole for accusing Diego of smashing Marcus's car windows and then running off, and now he was apologizing when he had nothing to be sorry for. “I should go.”

“You don't have to.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Henry, I'm sorry.” Diego grabbed my wrist when I tried to stand, and pulled me toward him. I opened my mouth to tell him to let go, but he swallowed my words. He pressed his lips to mine and wrapped his arms around my waist. Diego tasted like root beer and barbecue sauce. He smelled better than summer. Bigger than the ocean.

“Is this okay?” Diego whispered. His lips grazed my ear. All I could do was grunt.

The first time I'd kissed Jesse was the first time I'd kissed anyone, and it had felt like remembering the name of a song I'd forgotten but had been humming for days. Marcus was the second boy I kissed, and it was best described as frustrated mouth wrestling.

When Diego kissed me, I forgot about every kiss that came before. His kisses were impatient but cautious. They teetered on the edge of losing control, and I imagined him painting with the same kind of frenzy—stripped to the waist and covered in smears of more colors than the human eye was capable of detecting. My arms trembled, I could barely breathe, but I pulled him closer than a blanket on the coldest night.

I lost track of time, but eventually Diego rolled onto his back with a contented sigh. “I've been dying to do that.”

I leaned on my elbow. “I thought you had a girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend.”

“Okay,” I said. “Ex-girlfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“In case you haven't noticed,” I said, motioning at myself. “No girl parts.”

Diego winked impishly. “Oh, I noticed.”

“So, when you said you liked Space Boy, you meant you
liked
Space Boy.”

“Definitely.”

Tangles of my hair were plastered to my forehead, and I brushed them out of my eyes. “I'm so confused.”

“Don't be,” Diego said. “I like people, not the parts they have.” Diego frowned. “Well, I mean, I definitely like the parts; they're just not why I like the person.”

“It's . . . whatever.”

Diego laughed and reached for me again, but I pushed him away. “What?” he asked, like I'd physically hurt him.

When Diego was kissing me, nothing else had existed, but now that there was space between us, Jesse rushed in to fill it. My breath came in gasps. I tried to put into words what I was feeling, but every time I tried to speak, my tongue felt leaden and dry. It was a worthless chunk of meat in my mouth.

“Jesse?” he asked.

“I miss him, and I wish he were here.” I couldn't look Diego in the eyes, but I felt him looking at me. Looking into me. “In a way, he is. He never leaves. Jesse never leaves. And how can I kiss you while Jesse's here?”

“You're not the one who died.”

I bit back a laugh. “Maybe I should have.”

“Don't be stupid.”

I leaned my forehead against Diego's, and all I could think about was kissing him again, and Jesse. Two thoughts that couldn't coexist. “What if I'm the reason Jesse killed himself?”

“You're not,” Diego said.

“But what if I am?” I closed my eyes, and I expected Diego to have disappeared by the time I opened them again. But he hadn't. He was still there. “Sometimes I think it's my fault. Other times, Audrey's. Or maybe his parents'. I just need someone to blame. Might as well be me.”

“Sometimes things just happen, Henry, and they're no one's fault.”

I pulled back and looked into Diego's eyes. They swirled like slugger skin. I wondered what they were saying. I didn't know what to do. I wanted Diego and I missed Jesse and the world was going to end, and I didn't know what to do. “I . . . Do you think I could have a drink?”

“Done.” Diego hopped up and headed for the door. He darted back and stole a kiss before disappearing into the kitchen.

There were only so many ways this could end. Jesse had said he loved me but hanged himself, Marcus had claimed to have feelings for me but then beat me up in the showers. I couldn't see Diego doing either of those things, but I didn't really know
what
Diego was capable of. There were so many ways I could screw this up, and even if I avoided them all, the world was still going to end in sixty-four days.

Yet I found myself wanting to see what could happen next. Diego managed to keep surprising me. I wasn't exactly having second thoughts about the end of the world, but I was glad I had a choice.

Diego had been gone awhile; he should have been back with the drinks. When I opened my eyes, the room was draped in shadows. I couldn't move my arms. I tried to yell for Diego, but I was voiceless.

The shadows creeped. The darkness collapsed.

I don't want to go.

But the sluggers didn't hear me or didn't care.

It's unveiled at the Commercial Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where it is hailed as the greatest technological advancement in entertainment since the television. Its inventors, Nate Duggin and Taylor Bray, call it Mind's Eye. Mind's Eye promises to deliver entertainment directly to your brain through its patented NeuroFace technology.

Smaller than a pack of gum, Mind's Eye attaches to the base of the skull and inserts microfilaments into the brain. It is painless, harmless, and worry free. That's the Mind's Eye guarantee™.

The pornography industry is the first to embrace Mind's Eye, followed by gamers. People don't play games anymore; they live them. The experience is so realistic, few people can tell the difference, and many consider Mind's Eye better than real life.

Within a year, people hardly have a reason to leave their houses. Mind's Eye devices allow them to visit their friends, work, and relax from the comfort of their couches. Crime falls to its lowest levels in recorded history, while airline corporations and automobile industries across the globe collapse. People no longer need to travel to see the world.

On 29 January 2016 the South Korean government passes a law giving incentives to citizens who use Mind's Eye for a minimum of sixteen hours daily. The program reduces pollution and conserves natural resources. South Korea becomes the model for the rest of the world. The first Mind's Eye is introduced that can be used continuously, and it is quickly adopted.

Other nations rush to pass mandatory Mind's Eye legislation, and in a matter of months every person on Earth is living in a fantasy world.