Instructions for the End of the World Read Online Free PDF

our orders to arrive, then linger over our food and drinks?
    Bliss.
    â€œThat would be awesome,” I say, beaming. “It can be my treat!”
    I have money from helping Pauly with his bike business, but she waves away this suggestion as if it’s ridiculous. There have always been unconfirmed rumors of Annika having a massive trust fund. “Don’t be silly. I’m buying. Just let me get myself pulled together.”
    In a few moments she emerges from the bathroom, dressed. She sweeps her long hair up into a messy bun and slides on a pair of sandals. She smiles at me.
    â€œI’m so glad you stopped by,” she says, and my disappointment vanishes.
    She is my Annika again, exuding beauty like some rare species of animal.
    We go to her car, a biodiesel Mercedes that’s probably twice as old as I am and that smells of incense on the inside and french fries on the outside from the cooking oil it burns, and we ride to town talking about nothing much, small talk. Who has come and gone from the village, and so on. She tells me about traveling around Europe and Asia after her stint in rehab, but this is not what I want to talk to her about.
    I have the panicked feeling that this time alone with her is being wasted, that it will pass without my ever getting a chance to say what I want to say.
    I’m not even sure what I want to say.
    I’m curious about her year away, but mostly I want her to be curious about what’s happened to me since she’s been gone. I want to tell her my plans, and I want her to give me advice. Should I go to college? Travel? Keep working with Pauly?
    I don’t know. I need a crystal ball, or a parent, to tell me what to do.
    The last option—working with Pauly—feels safest, but also is the most depressing. I have spent nearly my whole life at the village. I want to leave, but I have nowhere to go, no family to visit, no sense of how to be anywhere else in the world. Sometimes I imagine going off to find my parents, who will feel terrible for having left me here to be raised by strangers and who will then try to make it up to me. But I’m not even sure if they’re alive, and if they are, I’m not really sure I want to know them.
    I want Annika to take me by the hand and tell me what to do. Maybe tell me she will go with me on a trip to Europe, pay for the whole thing herself, show me the world I haven’t seen yet, introduce me to her family as her daughter. This last bit, if I am being completely honest, is what I most want. What I could never ask for.
    We go into a little restaurant that’s known for its herbal teas and vegetarian breakfasts, and Annika glances at the menu before ordering a jasmine green tea and a Greek vegan scramble. I say I will have the same thing, though I would rather have something with cheese and bacon and lots of sour cream.
    â€œSo tell me,” she says when the waitress leaves, “what have you been doing with yourself?”
    Now, faced with this moment, I go blank. I don’t know what to tell her that will sound enticing enough to keep her interest.
    I shrug stupidly. “Oh, you know, the usual. School, working with Pauly.”
    â€œYes, the bike business—how is that going?”
    â€œIt’s really taking off,” I say. “My designs have been selling well.”
    â€œSo you’re designing and painting too?”
    â€œI do a few designs, mostly Mehndi stuff Pauly doesn’t have the patience for,” I say.
    Pauly’s business, Art Bike, is pure genius, though I’d never tell him that. He gets old bikes with nice lines, restores them, and we give them artsy paint jobs, then sell them to trendy Bay Area bike shops. Pauly’s style is more art deco–influenced, while I’m all about the intricate details.
    â€œAny boyfriends in your life?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œA pretty girl like you? You must have lots of interested guys.”
    I warm to