Swansong by Rose Christo Read Free Book Online

down.  The three of us were left behind.  That doesn’t mean we’re alone.
     
    * * * * *
     
    The alarm wakes me at six the next morning.  I shut it off with the smack of my hand.  I bolt out of bed, confused.
    School , reads the blue post-it note to my left.  It’s sticking to the edge of a glossy white calendar.  September , the calendar reads.
    One by one, I take my pills, a bottle of water as my alleviant.  I mark the date on the wall with their names.  I shuffle out of bed, dress, and shunt outside, stuffing the post-it pad in my jacket’s woolen pocket.
    It’s dark in the apartment, which makes me think Judas must be sleeping in, which makes me think he hasn’t found a job yet.  I can’t imagine picking up the pieces of your life after your life’s been cordoned off for ten whole years.  When I think about it, maybe Judas and I are alike, in that regard.  I can’t say that I’ve been suffering anywhere near as long as he has—or that he hasn’t done anything to deserve his sentence—but the both of us are broken, unrecognizable shells, maybe past repair.
    Why did I have to lose my parents to gain my brother?  I think I would have liked all three of them at once.  Beggars can’t be choosers.  I’ve got to remember that.
    I fry eggs at the stove.  I cover them and leave Judas a note with instructions for the warmer.  I can’t remember whether the microwave’s working; something in this kitchen is broken, that’s all I know for sure.  Rebelliously, I drink cold orange soda.  Mom’s not here to yell at me to drink milk.  It doesn’t have the same effect.
    The apartment lobby is as brown as coffee grounds.  The carpet is stained.  Kory Cohen leans against the mailboxes, waiting for me.  He waves impassively when I descend the stairs.
    “I don’t have to sit with the sociopaths, do I?” I ask cautiously.
    We step out the doors.  “I’ve outgrown them,” Kory declares.  “I would be insulting myself if I tried to limit my capacity to their standards.”
    Blustery gray winds chap my face.  The cars are noisy when they race down the asphalt, traffic lights obscenely colorful amidst their plastic white prison.  I follow Kory north through the urban labyrinth.  From there we snake west, under the grime-encrusted overpass, under the faded banners strung limply between crumbling, abandoned apartment complexes and a 24/7 laundromat.  Kory rambles to me about state-of-the-art energy, and how everything is meaningless anyway, because the universe is slowly dying a heat death, or a particle death, or whatever, but it’s not going to be here indefinitely, don’t you know.  He tells me he’s been sculpting something top secret, nobody’s supposed to see it, but maybe he’ll let me see it, but it’s going to change the course of human history whether I see it or not.  These aren’t the conversations I used to have with Joss before the school day, that’s for sure.  I’m so busy nodding and trying to act interested, I almost don’t notice it when the school towers before us.  But there it is.
    Cavalieri School of Performing and Visual Arts strives to look every bit as pompous as it sounds.  It’s a matchbook fortress as delicate as the Eiffel Tower, as sharp as the Burj Khalifa, panes of glass stitched together like an unwieldy trellis, the whole sorry expanse reaching for the smoke and the grit that call themselves a sky.  It doesn’t belong in The Spit.  Or maybe it does.  This city feeds off of the lives of the humans that enter it.  Cavalieri’s the same, in a way:  It devours you with its coursework, its competition, its echoes of You can do better than that , a glass oven disguised as your future.
    We step through the front doors.  A water fountain rages in the lobby.  The students are louder:  They sit on the bronze basin, chatting, laughing, one girl screaming while the boy nearest her eats ketchup straight out of the package.  Spindly staircases wind