I pulled myself shakily to my feet with the help of our mailbox. It was tackily decorated with swirls of sea-green paint, ‘Slate’ spelled out in scavenged seashells. The sight of it filled me with a spasm of disgust that briefly overwhelmed the crushing hollowness in my bones and somehow gave me the strength to push away.

I turned to look at the house. The front windows were dark, but that didn’t mean my parents weren’t home yet. They could be in the basement, looking at slides of dissected sharks, or in Mom’s darkroom developing their latest monochrome photos of beach detritus. If they were there, they would surely hear me come in when the seashell wind chime next to the front door tinkled, as it did at every faint movement within two blocks. I could not bear to deal with their petty reproaches, not now.

Perhaps never again.

Leaving my backpack in the driveway, I pointed myself in an arbitrary direction and started to run. When I could run no further, I jogged. When I could jog no further, I walked with shuffling, indecisive steps. There wasn’t a lot of town to get lost in, but I managed to lose myself helplessly in most of it.

I wandered like a child through the dark streets for hours, with no direction or purpose. Why should I walk with purpose? My existence was purposeless. If everything I’d learned over the past few days was true, the world could still possibly end by Saturday. Black chaos was poised to wash over the universe and submerge everything I knew. Riley denied it, but Neil thought it could be possible. So much for that prophecy…

But possible or not, I could hardly bring myself to care. For me, the universe had already ended. The black had already consumed me. Riley, my beloved, my Great One, deemed me unworthy to bask in his light. And of course he had! How had I been so stupid to believe it ever could have ended up being otherwise? How had I dared to consider myself, my ordinary plain boring vanilla-frozen-yogurt self, worthy of his attention? Let alone his affection?

Stupid, stupid girl, I said to myself with each catatonic footfall. Stupid, stupid girl.

I passed endless dark storefronts, each one catching my pale, slight, insignificant reflection. The sight of it disgusted me. I stood for a long time in front of Henrietta’s, staring at the exact point in space where Riley and I had first spoken to each other. I imagined all the things we would never do, the joys we would never share. I wandered so long and so carelessly that I didn’t notice when the buildings became sparse, the sidewalks and lawns giving way to sandy patches of ammophila grass.

In my state of shattered delirium, I had wandered all the way back to the beach.