Chapter 24 Cass

CHAPTER 24 CASS

2005

New York City

Nearly five years without Amanda. That’s 1,825 days. A microscopic number compared to how many times I’d thought of her. She was in every nook and cranny. Each time I sat down to write—always in a cheap spiral notebook, always by hand—I could hear her laughing at my persistent pen-clicking. She’d reach over, steady my hand. She had noticed all my little compulsions. I Writing amplified these tics. I’d click my pens to death. Literally, the spring would fly out the top. Whenever this happened, I thought of Amanda, which was followed by a cold wave of guilt. A potent one-two punch.

She was with me, always.

I infused her into my book, of course. Where else was Amanda going to go, all the little details I loved about her, if not into my book? I had no other outlet for her, and she was taking up too much room inside me; I had to offer some to the universe.

So I wrote a story about two friends, partners, who had a dream together, but are eventually separated by disaster. One loves the other, but the love isn’t returned—not in the same way, anyway. And I made the disaster that would separate my two soulmates big, so big that the world would understand that no one was to blame; it was the universe that had ripped them apart.

I wrote and wrote and wrote. The book was an homage, but also a Hail Mary. Did I think it would ever get published or become a bestseller? Absolutely not. The odds were infinitesimal; and also, yes, it was a certainty. I was of two minds. Other times, I swear it didn’t matter either way—the writing of it was the point. But mostly, I thought of the book as my escape hatch into another life, and perhaps I believed that was possible because I’d already done it once: escaped into another life.

CATE KAY

The Very Last

Roger Riley was ANC’s most famous anchor. He was known for his well-kept salt-and-pepper beard and steady demeanor. He was on-air the morning of the blast, broadcasting from the network’s Atlanta headquarters. Midway through a routine weather update, his producer got in his ear and frantically explained the news coming out of New York. Roger relayed everything to the viewers in real time, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. He knew this was a history-altering event. The death toll would be stunning.

Detonated in Midtown New York. Shockwaves felt in Philadelphia. Cell phone signals down. Broadcast signals down. New York is cut off from help and information.

This last piece is what Roger worried most about. Survivors needed to shelter in place; the air was deadly.

He had been on-air for an hour, no commercials, when his producer came back into his ear with unbelievable news: Two young ANC reporters had survived the blast and so had ANC’s mobile signal. They had a working camera and mic pack—they could broadcast from the ground.

“Will the signal reach New Yorkers?” he asked. Protocol be damned. His producer wasn’t sure, but she thought it was possible. He nodded and looked into the camera:

“We have just received word that two young members of the ANC team have survived the blast and are broadcasting live. Their names are Samantha Park and Jeremiah Douglas. They are risking their lives to share what is happening on the ground. Let’s go to them now…”

“This is Samantha Park with Jeremiah Douglas behind the camera,” Samantha said, eyes level, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “We are broadcasting live from downtown Manhattan. We believe a nuclear bomb was detonated in Midtown at approximately 6:45 a.m.”

They’d been outside for two hours, and Jeremiah was feeling dizzy and cold. Atlanta had just told them they had three minutes off-camera—Roger Riley was interviewing a nuclear expert in the studio. Jeremiah tried to hold steady, but the camera pitched forward and crashed to the ground. He dropped to one knee.

“This is real, huh?” he said. Samantha had been having the same realization. She knew he was talking about all of it—the day, the explosion, the air, which they could feel poisoning their bodies in real time.

Samantha ran over, put a hand on his shoulder. “What do you feel?”

“Kind of like altitude sickness, except way worse: dizziness, headache, nausea,” he said. “But then also this other thing. It’s like my insides are—I don’t know how to describe it exactly.”

Right then, a swirl of wind—the air seemed possessed in those first hours—blew a paper cup into Samantha’s foot and she grabbed it, looked up, was absolutely stunned to see that they were in front of their favorite coffee shop. She spun once around, trying to get her bearings. How?

She looked at the cup in her hand, swiveled it until she was looking at the logo: Spot . She imagined the cup with coffee—enough milk and sugar so it tasted like a warm milkshake.

She was thinking of all the nights she and Jeremiah had stopped here, at first thrilled at their new job, then game-planning world dominance, then complaining about internal bureaucracy. She thought of Jeremiah walking in on a recent Sunday morning, casually wondering if they should go back home—maybe this city living, this big-dream stuff, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be? Samantha had laughed, then abruptly stopped. “Wait, you’re serious?” She had promised him they would talk about it, but they hadn’t.

While Samantha was lost in thought, staring at the empty cup, Jeremiah managed to bring the camera back to his shoulder. Their three minutes were over. A cold sweat was covering his body, but they were coming back on air in three, two, one . He trained the camera on Samantha’s face: She was having a moment. He had noticed, seconds before, the way her face had twisted, the way it always did when she was trying not to cry. Now her chest was rising and falling, and she was cradling the cup as if to warm her hands.

“Sam,” Jeremiah whispered, wanting her to know they were live again. When she lifted her head and saw that he had the camera, her eyes got big before regaining focus.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the sky. “In this moment, more than anything, I want to be professional, for all the survivors who need information, for you at home, for everyone who deserves to know what’s happening here. But we’ve been so disoriented in the aftermath, and we’ve just found Spot, our coffee shop—the best one in New York. And we’ve—I’ve—just gotten knocked sideways for a second.”

Samantha bent down and collected the rest of the scattered white cups, stacking them in her hands. Then she walked through the blown-out front of Spot. Jeremiah followed her, capturing her as she tenderly placed the stacked cups on what was left of the counter.

She wiped her eyes and addressed the camera: “We’re still in search of emergency services and will continue heading toward city hall, where we hope to find more information and answers for everyone about survivors and what to do next. For now, everyone, please stay sheltered. It’s dangerous out here—for many reasons.”

I . Note from Cate: She even knew that if allowed to keep my straw wrapper, I’d fold it into the tiniest square possible.