Before We Go Extinct Read Online Free PDF Page A

lunches in third grade before anything bad happened. I put it back in the bowl, one bite missing. A bite I can’t seem to swallow. I chew and chew. Tears are looming somewhere behind my eyes, threatening to struggle to the surface. A fly buzzes from over near the sink, settling on the drain board. I raise my hand, like I’m saying goodbye. Goodbye, fly. Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, New York. Goodbye, The King. Goodbye, Daff. Goodbye goodbye goodbye.
    â€œYou have a few more weeks here,” she’d said as she left the room. “You can get through them. I know it’s hard. I know it’s really so hard. But then it’s summer and…” She’d spread her hands, expanding them as far as she could, like summer will be this thing that is big, big enough to make me forget.
    The King died in the spring.
    I look up at the ceiling. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Bubbles to follow to the surface?
    Or maybe for the light.

 
    6
    Dear Daff,
    This letter is not in French.
    I’m not going to send it, so don’t worry about what it says or what I think or feel because what does it matter anyway? You should think about the stuff you’re good at thinking about now, like how you look better with your hair frizzed out than if you straighten it with that hot-iron thing. You should think about your jeans, which ones make you look the skinniest. (You aren’t fat. I don’t know why I said that.)
    (I am trying to hurt you, because I’m so angry.)
    (You look beautiful.)
    (You look terrible.)
    That’s what you’re thinking about, right? How to look good on TV?
    You do look good.
    I hate you. (Which is why I sound mean.) I love you. When I said that, I really meant it, not in the way you said it back. Someone should write a book about the difference between I love you and love ya.
    Anyway. You can’t tell someone else how to feel, right? You can’t make them feel what they don’t. You don’t get to decide. Yada yada. We’ve seen the shows. I’m basically the second-place girl who just can’t freakin’ believe that Mr. Overly Made-Up Abs isn’t going to drop to his knees and propose and instead he’s saying, “We had a connection right from the start and you’re beautiful and I can’t believe how lucky I am to know you but…” Everything in the world is contained in that but and actually it’s just a stupid TV show and none of them stay married and I wasn’t going to propose. I just thought you should know because it was important and maybe it would have been different if The King hadn’t died the next day.
    Maybe.
    Or maybe that gave me something bigger to hurt about.
    You looked beautiful in that photo on the Internet.
    You used to not look quite as good. At least not, public consumption good. But then again, you also used to think about things that matter. The world. The orphans in Nepal. The elephants being tortured. The way that people stopped connecting and started staring at their phones instead. The way AIDS is still a thing even though it gets less press. The women in the Congo. The sharks.
    You cared about everything.
    Do you even remember?
    Now, I guess, you’re another famous face.
    How did it happen so fast? That’s what I want to know. It makes me feel kind of crazy, how quick you became someone else.
    I guess I did, too.
    But The King wins if it’s a contest because he became dead.
    That’s the most profound transformation. You’re only first runner-up.
    I’m nothing.
    I saw an interview with you on some stupid website. They called you an up-and-comer, but they didn’t say in what. “The scene”? What does that even mean?
    What scene ?
    It sounds like something you would hate.
    Are you even old enough for “the scene”? What do your parents think of that?
    And when did you start drinking in clubs? Was it like the day of the funeral? Did the invites