Farah Rishi - I Hope You Get This Message

“Wait.” She resisted the urge to wipe her lips when he pulled away.

He frowned. “I thought you wanted…?”

The rest of his words were lost beneath a surge of music. Around them, bodies undulated to the beat of some annoyingly repetitive dance song, and the bass thumped in uncomfortable syncopation with Cate’s heartbeat. The floor, tables, and every available surface sprouted empty red SOLO cups. Someone—Ivy, probably—had set up a fog machine, cloaking the inside of Krysten Meyer’s basement with a thick layer of white that swirled and shifted against the dancers, ghostlike.

A couple of days ago—a few seconds ago, even—Cate might have drunk it all in—literally and metaphorically—reveling in the freedom of just being here. But now it looked gross. Tacky. Like everyone was trying way too hard to look like they were having fun.

“Sorry,” she said. “I—I’m not feeling great.” Which was at least partially true. She hadn’t thought kissing would taste so much like Bud Light.

“What?”

“I’m not feeling great,” she shouted.

“Talk louder.”

“I’m not feeling great!” This time, at maximum decibel levels.

The hunger in Jake’s eyes vanished. “If you’re going to puke, go outside,” he shouted back at her matter-of-factly. “The upstairs toilet’s clogged.”

She stared at him in amazement. This was the guy she’d even told Mom about, who’d listened eagerly, excitedly . And she’d stared at him so many times—fleeting glances in the halls, in third-period Honors English and seventh-period World History—that she was startled to realize she had never truly seen what he looked like before. Maybe sad-puppy Jake from class had only existed inside her head. Now, up close, she noticed not one, but two thick hairs protruding from his nostrils like spider legs, and the noxious beer-and-cheap-cologne fumes wafting from his neck.

What would he say, she wondered, if he knew about Mom’s condition? She didn’t want to think about it.

“Thanks for the tip,” Cate said. When she pushed past Jake, he didn’t try to stop her.

She needed air. The music was giving her a headache, and she was dizzy—she’d only choked down a few crackers for dinner before the party. Her mom had thrown out the Chinese food she’d been planning to eat for dinner because she swore she “saw a camera hidden inside the lo mein.”

She felt a bead of sweat roll down her back. It was too hot, too damn hot. She should never have snuck out in the first place. She should never have let Ivy convince her. Usually, she knew better.

Listen, Babe , Ivy had said, wrapping her arm around her. The world is probably ending. Aliens on the march and all that. So why are you holding yourself back?

It was typical Ivy exaggeration—the bunch of radio static or signal or whatever it was from the newly discovered alien planet Kepler-88a hadn’t even been decoded yet, and for all they knew it was nothing more than an alien butt-dial, or maybe a simple Hello, little Earthlings! Mind if we borrow some sugar? Nothing to panic about.

Cate couldn’t help but feel that this time, though, her best friend was right. Why else would aliens ever bother to contact Earth? And if it really was harmless, why bother encoding it? At this rate, the world probably would end before Cate’s life had even begun.

And if that meant tonight would be one of her last memories, she really had to rethink her life decisions.

As Cate pushed her way toward the stairs, Ivy’s voice reached her from across the room. “Cate! Get over here!”

Ivy glowed against the fog, and the way her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes made her almost painfully gorgeous. A girl in her element. A girl with no regrets.

And why would she have any? The girl knew how to live, how to grab everything she wanted; despite dealing with parents who argued more than they breathed, she was named captain of the debate team, snagged an early acceptance to Stanford, and had 100 percent certainty in her future career as an attorney just like her mom. She made it all look effortless, too. Soon, Ivy would be free . She’d deserved it.

When had their paths diverged so much? Cate was happy for Ivy, and proud as hell. But she couldn’t help but feel left behind. Then again, it wasn’t like Cate had much of a choice. She had to be there for Mom. Mom, whose tired eyes always held a glint of guilt whenever she looked at her, who always insisted that Cate stop holding herself back because of her.

But she had to. It was stupid to imagine, if only for one night, she could have anything resembling a normal life. How could she, knowing Mom would be home alone, fighting demons in her own head?

What happened? Ivy mouthed, flashing an all-knowing grin from across the room.

Cate smiled weakly. Bathroom , she mouthed back.

Ivy fake-pouted. “Fine, but hurry!” she shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth so Cate could hear her above the music.

Cate took the stairs two at a time, grabbed her jacket from the couch, and flung it over her shoulder. She dove through the crowd of classmates clustered in the front hall—some she didn’t know; some she didn’t care to know—reached for the doorknob, and plunged outside.

She wasn’t going to the bathroom. She was going home .

The September chill made Cate grateful for the jacket she’d brought. Light gray vegan leather, on sale. A certified Ivy Huang pick, like most of her best clothes, like her newest haircut, a cute bob. But she still couldn’t shake off the cold that had crept on her skin when Jake touched her. She’d imagined her first kiss would give her a rush of butterflies, that it would feel sweet, like liquid gold.

Stupid.

She shot a text to Ivy to let her know she’d left the party, and took a deep inhale. An afternoon rain had brought out the scents of metal and oil and earth from the veins of the city. The night was unexpectedly clear, and the fog had rolled off the bay, leaving the stars intact, glimmering against the dark.

She used to like looking up at stars. She’d even talk to them, too; on nights Mom couldn’t listen, Cate knew that at least they would. But ever since her Environmental Science teacher told her that by the time their light had reached Earth, the stars had already died, the night sky creeped her out. The stars she saw were shining corpses, echoes in a hollow sky. She might as well have been venting to dead people.

She wondered if the aliens on Kepler-88a had seen the same stars, before they had died. Were they even prettier back then, up close and brimming with life?

Immediately, she tried to quash the idea of alien planets and their stars. She had enough to think about, and until the little green guys showed up with neutron guns, she still had to go to school every day and grab groceries for her mom on the way home, still study like hell just to catch up, make sure Mom took her pills, make sure that she ate, make sure that she slept, make sure Mom held on to her receptionist job at Health First Medical, which she’d managed to keep for an entire nineteen months (and four days). As long as Cate helped her mom stick to their routine, things could be normal, stable . Otherwise, her mom would stay glued to the TV, absorbing every bit of information about the weird signal from the new planet, melding news with the false thoughts and memories that seemed to grow in her mind like fungus. Ever since talk of aliens had become the topic on everyone’s lips, Mom’s condition threatened to spiral out of control. While the rest of the world buzzed with excitement, Cate had fished softened peach-colored pills out of a toilet bowl with a pasta spoon strainer and begged her mom to take one, just one pill.