Chapters (79)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Praise for Destroy All Monsters
- Books by Sam J. Miller
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
“You’re so focused on this project,” Cass said. “Forget the project. Focus on getting the truth. That’s the photographer’s job—and it’s the hardest thing for her to do.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked. “Everything a photograph captures is the truth.”
“I’m not talking about truth as in, simple reality.” She kicked the coffee table. “I don’t mean this table was here, this person smiled. I’m talking about truth with a capital T. Something honest and real.”
“Cass, are you okay?” I asked. “When I came in—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, though she smiled when she said it. “That never happened.”
“Right,” I said. And I was glad. Because I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want Cass to become any more human. Didn’t want to know what might be making her miserable. Me, Solomon, Cass . . . Was everybody in the world this alone?
I could already feel it opening up: the hole inside me, the faulty plumbing that let the cold, dark water in. I had to do something about it.
I knew exactly what I needed. “Shit, Cass,” I said. “I’m so sorry. But I really have to go.”
“Of course,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “The Oracle dismisses you.”
In her big black robe, with her oversize eyeglasses, she had never looked so small. And then she tried to smile, and it just made it worse.
“I could—”
“Go,” she said, picking up a remote control on the table. “My dogs adore Citizen Kane. And they’re way more fun to talk about cinema with anyway.”
In the car, I called Connor. And twenty minutes later, I was at his house.
“Hi,” he said, looking as pure and sad as a Roman sculpture of Apollo. Broad shoulders, inscrutable expression, classical nose. Though he could be melancholy, Connor never got upset about the things that bothered almost everyone else. He was a god, far above the petty hardships of mere mortals.
Yet he deigned to hang around with us anyway.
He hugged me hard. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, and didn’t ask, Why? Because I already knew the answer: You only come by when you need something.
“Come on,” he said, and took me by the hand and led me upstairs.
It was exactly what I needed.
There was only now. Only us. He was good at it. And when we were together, I wasn’t angry or sad or scared. I was just . . . alive.