Once more I went home alone, skipping the locker room banter, and this time Norris didn’t bother coming after me. I hadn’t spoken to him much this week. I hadn’t hung out with the usual group of friends at all, because Leo wasn’t a part of that group anymore. My best friend in this world, Josh Easley, wondered what was up with me, and yeah, I did have memories of our friendship, but I felt I had to distance myself from them.

When I started my car, that bland music blared at an embarrassing volume. I turned it off. The parking lot was now a crawl of a hundred cars trying to get out the single exit all at the same time. I didn’t see the Edwards. They probably scooted off on their “skateboards.” Or maybe they were still here looking for me. I wasn’t ready to check in with them, because I didn’t want them to grill me. I was in no state for a mental barbecue right now—I just wanted my nice hot EMP bath, in my nice quiet bathroom, because as much as I wanted to know what this world had in store, I also didn’t want to know. I had failed to move things back toward home, and that was enough to grapple with for now. Maybe I could, for once, just sleep on it. Maybe the world would come to me in a dream and I’d wake up without a headache, knowing all I needed to know to make it through this next week.

My car inched along in the crush of vehicles, crippling my smooth escape. There were some spectators in Storks shirts meandering in front of me, taking their time in getting to their car, like they weren’t in the middle of a parking lot. There was a guy in shorts even though it was too chilly for shorts. Nice calves. Probably a speed skater, or some other ballistic sport. Good hair, too. I tapped my horn in a non-rude kind of way to get him and his girlfriend to step aside. I spared a glance at them in the rearview mirror after I inched past just long enough to note that, in spite of the hair and calves, the guy was not much to look at from the front. All zits and Adam’s apple.

Once out of the lot, the drive home was grueling. It seems like I hit every single blue light on the way. Then when I was finally home, even before I could go upstairs, the doorbell rang.