How to Save the Planet 02

Well, except for the bliss I was swimming in and the blush on both of our faces. I felt suddenly selfish, and I stepped forward, putting a hand around her waist. You? I mouthed at Justine, letting my fingers drift downwards to the hem of her shorts, pushing at them just a little.

She pushed my hand away, shaking her head, and leaned in to my ear. "I could never stay quiet," she whispered. "Later."

I felt a wave of guilty relief. Now that I had gotten off, the excitement of getting frisky in the library was much less compelling than the fear of expulsion. I couldn't think what had come over Justine. She had a few kinky fantasies, some of which she'd told me about, but she'd never shown interest in such risky sex in real life. I would never have believed she would get so wild.

Somehow, we got back to studying after that. It went better than I might have expected, with all that we had to think about. Funnily enough, it was the rush of a more-or-less public blowjob that I found most distracting. It seemed like it should have taken more than that to overshadow the end of the world.

"All right," Justine said some time later. She stretched, long and slow, and I admired the way it made her shirt ride up over her waist. "My brain's full and my stomach's empty. Let's get out of here."

She leaned on me as we left, wrapping a hand around my arm and resting her head on my shoulder. "What's gotten into you?" I asked, laughing. As much as I tried to match my stride to hers, I still came close to tripping over Justine's feet.

She shrugged, and I resigned myself to making our way across campus in a kind of three-legged race. We cuddled up plenty while watching movies, or even hanging out with friends, but not very often while walking. It was sweet and all, but mostly it felt awkward. I was grateful the dining center wasn't too far away.

We ate, not talking too much. As we headed out into the beautiful day once more, Justine announced that she wanted to get back to her apartment and take a nap.

"Okay," I said. "Want me to walk you back? I probably need a shower and a change of clothes."

"You sure do," she said, wrinkling her nose at me. I pushed her, and Justine laughed.

"Actually, I was planning to swing by Rutherford Hall first. My professor has weird office hours, and I wanted to ask some questions about that paper."

"I could still tag along," I offered.

"Nah," Justine said. "There's no need. You head on back, I'll see you in an hour or two anyway."

"If you're sure," I said slowly. Something felt odd, but I couldn't figure out what. I wasn't usually clingy, but I felt a strange reluctance to let Justine go. "It's not like it's that far out of the way."

"Go on," she said with a smile. "I don't even know how long it'll take."

I kissed her on the cheek. "Let me know when you're back," I said. "If my roommates aren't around, you can nap at my place."

She turned her head, pulled me back in, and gave me a long, slow, open-mouthed kiss. It was a good one. "Will do," she said, and smiled.

Then she turned, and was gone.

I spent some time cleaning the apartment, wrapped up my schoolwork for the weekend, and threw together a bit of dinner before I went over to the girls' apartment. The whole time I kept glancing at my phone, waiting for Justine to text. But she never did.

Evan and Kate were messaging in the group chat, setting a time for us to meet back up and find out more from Cybeline. Lace and I didn't join in except to agree to their plan. Rosemary must have been at their place already, because Kate said she was on board, but Justine never sent a reply at all. I was starting to be seriously worried.

I thought about texting the girls, asking if Kate had heard from her, but in the end I decided to just head over early. I ran into Evan on the way, coming from somewhere on campus. Apparently I wasn't the only one who couldn't just wait around until it was time to meet with the magic space flower.

"Good day?" Evan asked. There was an ironic twist to his smile.

"Actually not bad," I admitted. "Studied with Justine, lunch on campus. You?"

He shrugged. "Couldn't focus on school today. My grades will pay for it later, but I headed out to the Kearny library after we were done this morning."

"Why --" I started to say. But of course, there was only one other thing that would have been on Evan's mind. "Couldn't you find better science books at the school library?"

"Come on," he said, grinning. "I'm not as smart as you, all that stuff's over my head. I was reading cheap sci-fi and magazines."

I snorted. "Did it tell you anything useful about apocalypses and alien nanobots?"

"Actually, more than I expected." I glanced over at Evan. His voice sounded odd. Almost serious, and almost a little sad. Not sad, exactly, but maybe... wistful?

I shook my head. Everyone sounded weird to me today. And why shouldn't they, with all that had been going on? I was sure my voice sounded strained to Justine a couple of times.

"Maybe I should have thought of that," I admitted. "I still feel like I don't get what's going on."

Now it was Evan's turn to snort. "If any of us already understood this thing, I'd know for sure it was fake. Alien crash lands on earth, already speaking English? Sure, why not. There's lots of radio signals and whatever to intercept, it could crunch through those and figure the language out. But understanding the culture, how people think, how we learn? Not only is it a computer program, it was built by something that has less in common with humans than your average sea sponge. I'm amazed Kate got as far with it as she did."

I blinked. "And you're calling me smart? That's some deep stuff, Ev."

"No, it's not." He smiled. "You've just got no imagination."

I pushed him, he pushed back. It might have escalated from there if we hadn't reached the girls' building.

"Hey guys," Kate said, looking up from her phone. I had half expected her to be talking with Cybeline already, just like this morning. But the flower sat dark and alone on the coffee table where we had left it.

"Hey," I said. "Have any of you guys heard from Justine?"

Kate shook her head, but Lace nodded. "Yeah, she got back a while ago. I passed her on my way out to get food."

I frowned. Why hadn't she texted me? I looked past Lace, towards Justine's room. Maybe she had been too tired. Maybe she just forgot.

"She's not here now, though." Lace sipped her water. "Her car's gone, she went out. I actually thought she was picking you guys up to spare you the walk."

Evan said something, then laughed at his own joke. I wasn't listening. I shot Justine a quick text, whats going on? and started walking down the hall towards her room. I was remembering the kiss she'd given me before I headed back to my apartment. The way she hadn't wanted me to walk her back. There was a knot in my stomach that seemed to keep tying itself tighter.

I pushed open Justine's door, and was greeted by the sight of a stripped mattress and an empty desk. I pulled open her closet, her dresser, and found them both empty too. I looked under the bed, pointlessly, as if everything could have been tucked away as a joke or something, but the room was totally cleared out.

Then my phone buzzed. Justine had replied.

Alex, her text said, I'm sorry. I wanted to stay, to face everything that's happening, to be strong enough. But I'm not. I was pretty sure last night, but after the things we heard this morning, I was positive. I was so afraid I thought I was going to throw up. I almost ran out of the room in front of everyone. Then, I decided I was going to leave. And all the fear went away.

I'm going home. My professors have all agreed to let me finish the semester online. After that, I'm not sure what I'll do. Maybe I'll take another semester that way. Or maybe I'll just find a simple job and enjoy whatever time there is before the end of the world. If it ends, it ends. I hope it doesn't. But I know for sure that I'm not the person who can do anything about it.

I hope we had a good last day together. I wish I could have done this another way. But I just had to go.

Kate poked her head in, after a few minutes, and found me sitting on the floor against the bed that used to be Justine's. "Alex? What's up?"

I couldn't think of how to say it. So I just handed her my phone to read.

Her eyebrows climbed higher and higher as she scrolled down the long message. I thought, dully, that Justine must have typed it up ahead of time and only sent it once she heard from me. Probably she was still driving right now, phone in her lap after sending me that inexplicable goodbye.

"Can I try calling her?" I asked, holding out my hand for Kate to return my phone.

She did, reluctantly, and slid out of the room. I heard her voice, talking to the others, as I lifted the phone to my ear.

It went straight to voicemail. She had turned it off after that text.

I hung up. I dropped my phone and didn't pick it up. What did Justine think she was doing? Sneaking away like this, after telling me she'd see me soon? Was she afraid we would have stopped her? Afraid we would have yelled at her? Or was she just worried that, if she let us try and persuade her to stay, that she might have listened?

For God's sake, would it have been so bad for her to stay?

Lace came into the room. "Hey," she began, putting a hand on my shoulder, and stopped. She was as lost for words as I was.

Evan poked his head in. "Alex," he said, very gently, "why don't you go back to our place? I can fill you in later."

I nodded dully. He was right. If Cybeline had described the secrets of the universe and laid out a simple four-step plan to perfect happiness right then, I wouldn't have heard a word. In all the strangeness that was happening, I'd thought facing it with Justine was the one thing I could count on.

And I'd been wrong.