What Comes After

May 11

Sometimes, I just want to dive into the deep blues of the ocean and disappear. Today's one of those days. I got my math test back, and it wasn't good. I'll have to do much better on the finals than I did last time, which is unfortunate. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this to my parents, so, hopefully, they won't check my grades.

Mira face-timed me today, probably to avoid talking to Mom and Dad. Last time they talked, it ended with some argument about making responsible life choices. She had dyed her hair blue. I'm pretty sure that's what their whole fight was about.

"Hey little brother," she said.

Her hair was red this time. I'm not sure why anyone would change their hair color only after a month or so, but I've never dyed my hair, so I probably wouldn't understand.

"How's college?" I asked, placing the phone against a stack of textbooks on my desk as I attempted to multi-task and get some math homework done.

"Oh, the usual. Boring classes and terrible professors," she replied. "How's high school going? Have you done anything fun since the last time I called?"

I shrugged. "High school is alright. I guess. There's nothing much going on. The most fun I've had in the past few weeks was finishing the last book in the series I've been working on for a year."

"Books? C'mon is there anything actually interesting that you've been doing?"

"If you mean getting drunk at some high school party or getting high in some dark alley, no thank you."

She laughed. "I mean something that doesn't involve breaking the law. Like actually going outside and having real fun with your friends. Not sitting inside all cooped up. Do you even have a girlfriend?"

"No!"

"Boyfriend?" she implored. "I wouldn't mind."

"If you don't stop talking, I'm hanging up the phone," I said, only somewhat seriously.

"Fine, fine. Geez, you can be so uptight sometimes, you know," she said with a bit of a laugh. "So how's May doing?"

"She's doing fine," I said. "Mom and Dad are proud that she's made the softball varsity team in her freshman year."

"Oh," she said. "That's pretty cool. I didn't know. Is the team doing well?"

"They've only won one game," I said. "They lost the rest, but May doesn't really care. Our team has been the second worst in the district for the past decade, so everyone's just playing to boost their extracurriculars for when they apply to colleges."

There was a pause. "Have you tried calling May?" I asked.

"I mean I've tried," she said, looking down for a bit. "But she just keeps hanging up. It's probably because she's busy all the time with softball and stuff."

But both Mira and I knew that wasn't true. Mira and May never talk to each other even though they'd get along perfectly. Both are popular and outgoing and are social butterflies, unlike me. But for some reason, May still thinks that Mira is our "druggie older sister," even though that's completely false, so you can see why they don't have the strongest of sisterly bonds. And I guess this is where I come in, Mira's key to check in with our family.

We talked a bit more after that, but just as she was going to hang up, she broke the biggest news of today. "I'm coming home to watch the asteroid crash into the moon."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I don't think that's going to end well."

I know that Dad is into astronomy, so it might be a good time to have them bond over watching this spectacular event. But at the same time, I'm worried that they're just going to continue to argue all day long for her whole trip.

"Trust me," Mira said.

"Okay," I replied. "I have to hang up. I've got to study for my math finals."

I didn't really hang up because I needed to study for math finals. Talking to other people is exhausting. But that's a good reminder that I should try to crack open my math book to get started. I wish it was summer already.

May 13

It seems like everyone is making a big deal about the asteroid hitting the moon. I've got to write a literature essay about the symbolism of the moon in a series of short stories that we've read. There's a chemistry project about the composition of the moon's surface, and in history, we're learning about the space race. It seems like the only class that isn't doing anything moon related is math, but that could change quickly.

May is at a softball game with Mom and Dad right now. I told them I couldn't come because I had a lot of homework, but really, I wanted some time to myself. They're pressuring me to join some of the school clubs. "It's good for college apps," they would say monotonously, like robots on repeat.

I told them that it was the end of the year, and all the clubs are closing down or have shut down. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year though. I know that I have to be involved with school, but I just can't. I don't know why, but I just can't.

I went over to Charles' house to study math this afternoon. We're both in the same honors course, but we've got different teachers. I need to ace the upcoming quiz this Tuesday to give me a cushion in case I do badly on the finals.

But instead, we talked about random things and complained about our teachers and then we talked about summer dreamily, hoping that it'll come soon.

"I'm getting a summer job," he announced.

I put down my pencil. That math problem was giving me a headache. "What type of summer job?"

"I don't know. I'll figure it out," he said. "Maybe become one of those summer camp counselors in those movies we used to watch in elementary school."

"You'd make a terrible counselor, you know."

"Better than you."

"True," I said. "Plus, I wouldn't want to spend all day talking to little kids. It's one of my worst nightmares."

He laughed. I'm not exactly sure how we became friends. I'm terrible around other people, and he's somewhat of an extrovert, but here we are. "You doing anything over summer?"

I shrugged. "Maybe? I don't know."

"You should try to find something, like an internship or—"

"Do you understand these integrals?" I blurted out.

"Yeah," he said and gave me a weird look. "Those are pretty easy. Weren't you working on harder ones than these?"

"Maybe," I said and pointed at the math book. "But I don't understand these."

"Okay," he said with a note of skepticism. "Here's how you do it."

I already knew how to do those problems, but I had to make him stop talking seriously about summer and jobs and internships and whatever else that he was going to say. I don't know why, but it's just hard for me when I'm thinking about the future. Everything feels just so overwhelming, like you're making a choice right this second when you're only fifteen percent of the way through your life that will affect the other eighty-five percent of your life. It makes me feel sick.

After a productive hour of work, his mom asked if I was going to stay for dinner, but I declined. May needed some help with her own homework, and I had the household duty of being her tutor. It was going to be a painful night. She had a biology quiz about the digestive and circulatory system tomorrow, and I don't think she knew anything.

"What does the liver do?" I asked for the hundredth time.

"Isn't it the one that stores the blood?" she said.

I sighed. "I give up."

"No giving up," Mom shouted from her desk as she stared at her computer.

"The spleen stores the blood," I said. "The liver is the one that produces..."

"Bile?" she said.

"Thank goodness," I replied. "That's your first right answer."

"Third," she said. "I got the functions of the stomach and esophagus right. Maybe you need to go back to algebra since you can't even count."

"Goodbye," I said. "Good luck on your bio test."

"Fine, fine," she replied. "I only got one right. Happy now?"

"Very," I said. "Let's keep reviewing."

We reviewed the questions for about an hour or so. She kept getting the functions of the liver, pancreas, and small intestine mixed up. Hopefully, her brain starts working tomorrow and she actually gets them right because right now, that "A" Mom and Dad are looking for is not to happen.

I'm counting down the days until summer. Every single day the sun seems to rise earlier and earlier and set later and later. Hopefully it comes soon. School is driving me crazy!

May 16

Today was the school's annual trip to the beach and it was fun, I guess. Our school is too stingy to spend money taking us to the beaches down in Southern California, so we're stuck with our local beach. To be fair, it wasn't that bad.

We walked down the cracked road to the beach. It was gusty today, so I wore a heavier jacket, but in hindsight, I should have brought heavier pants too. I spent most of the beach day talking to Charles.

"Have you chosen what you're going to do after high school?" he asked.

It was one of the things that he can't stop talking about lately. Well, that and future colleges.

"No," I said.

"Well, you should start deciding soon. Junior year is only a summer away and about two years from now, you'll be getting ready to graduate from high school."

"I know."

"Then you also know that it's important to choose something you're interested in soon."

"Can we talk about something else?" I asked.

We talked about other stuff after: video games, amateur philosophy, the latest politics, but everything felt different. I sat in the sun, basking in its golden rays, and shuffled the sand with my toes. I knew he was right, of course. But I can't force myself to make a commitment that'll affect my whole life right now, especially when I'm only in high school. And with everyone talking about it all the time, I just couldn't stand listening to any more lectures about a future that seems so far away.

Charles is literally perfect. He's much more future oriented. He's got his job and his colleges chosen already, along with being prepped for the SAT and ACT. What have I got? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

We stopped talking after a while and just stared out into the ocean. Everything that we talk about except colleges and jobs feels empty now. I feel like our friendship is drifting apart piece by piece.

May 17

Today was a crappy day. I think I failed my math quiz. I had a hard time understanding derivatives and integrals. I knew I shouldn't have taken an honors course for math and just gone with a physics honors course even though I have zero interest in it. Right now, I'm praying for a decent score on it. Hopefully, it's an A, but I doubt it.

Mom started bothering me about driving again. She says I have to drive for at least three hours this weekend, and I told her that driving wasn't good for the climate. She didn't buy the environmental argument, so I said that I had to prep for finals over the weekend. Now, she says that we'll be catching up on all the hours I'm missing in the summer. Mom is more excited about my driver's license than I am, probably so she can slave me away to take May to softball practice. Summer seems a lot less exciting now.

Only one good thing happened today, and even it ended disastrously.

Mira came home, and she and dad immediately began fighting over the stupidest little things.

"Hey guys! I'm home," Mira said when Mom opened the door.

It was just before sunset, around seven at night. "Mira?" Mom said. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at college studying for your final exams?"

"Our college gave us a week off to spend with our families to watch the Mooncrash," she said. "So I decided to come back home."

Then Dad came down to investigate all the drama at the door and everything went downhill from there. "Why aren't you studying for your final exams?" he asked.

"Dad, I know you love astronomy, so I came here to watch the Mooncrash with you," she said cheerfully, despite the frosty atmosphere.

"Well, you should've told us, so we could've prepared things for you," Dad said stiffly. "Where do you plan to sleep?"

"I'll just take the guest bedroom," she said.

"Hey!" May yelled. "That's my room."

"Neal, you never told me that May moved into my room," Mira said to me. "I thought you two were still sharing the room."

Everyone looked at me for a moment before a heated argument broke out.

"You've been talking to Neal and not to us!" Dad shouted.

After that, I retreated to my room and propped open my binder to write my literature essay. It wasn't due until Friday, but I was trying to get out of the habit of procrastinating. I didn't hear very much of the argument downstairs. I turned up the speaker of my tablet to drown out the voices.

I still heard little scraps of arguments, along with a couple of swear words being thrown around. "You're always so controlling... make better choices... that's why I can't talk with you... going behind my back... betrayal of trust... why can't you accept... we're not having this conversation now."

May got to keep her room. Mira is sleeping on the couch. Mom is yelling at Dad to not have such a temper and that it's their daughter, not some stranger. I feel like my head is going to explode from all this shouting. I hope that the world does end, so I don't have to deal with school and all this fighting.

May 18

Today started as an average day. Everyone at school was talking about the asteroid and the moon. There were rumors that there was going to be a party at Tommy's beach house today to celebrate the Mooncrash, and that there will be no parents and lots of alcohol.

In math class, if we took a picture of the moon as the asteroid hit it with our phones, we'd get some extra credit to boost our test grades. Turns out that my math teacher is secretly fascinated with astronomy. I think his passion might save my grade.

It was a bit windy today. The palm fronds lining the beachside boardwalk were rustling as Charles and I walked home today. Most of our homework was due Friday or had to be turned in today, so it was a relatively homework-free afternoon for both of us. We decided to take a detour and follow the beach path home.

"Are you excited to watch the Mooncrash tonight?" I asked.

"Not really," Charles replied. "I mean there's nothing special about it. The moon has thousands of craters on it. One more crater won't make much of a difference. And I've got to prepare for SATs too, so there's no time to watch it."

"C'mon," I said. "You're going to miss one of the biggest astronomy events of your lifetime."

"I'm still not buying it."

I sighed. "When we're old and shrunken and wrinkled and half blind, you're going to look back at this and regret that you didn't choose to spend a couple of minutes of your life to watch this spectacular event."

"Fine, fine," he said. "I'll watch it. Stop with your guilt tripping."

"So it worked?"

"Don't push your luck," he said, and we continued on in silence.

"Do you miss it?" he asked suddenly, and I looked at him weirdly.

"Miss what?"

"The summers when we were younger."

"Of course."

"I miss it too."

I was surprised. Charles always seemed so focused about the future. I figured he didn't really think about the past.

"I miss the sun-soaked days on the beach, building sandcastles and having fun. It seems like there's no time for anything anymore," he said.

We made it to his house and waved goodbye. I made him promise me that he was going to watch the Mooncrash tonight, and then I left for my house. I braced for shouts and yells from inside the house, but I was pleasantly surprised with silence.

Mira and Dad seemed to have made a temporary truce today. Dad even brought out an old telescope from the garage to show Mira how to view the moon properly. Even Grandma and Grandpa, who normally hang out in their retirement center, came to watch it. They cooked dumplings and noodles for our family, and soon the house was filled with delicious smells of Taiwanese food.

I turned on the TV to watch CNN. They had a panel of scientists out with all kinds of charts and graphics plotting out the trajectory of the asteroid as it neared the moon. Apparently, there have been similar events in the recent past, including a small meteor that disintegrated before it hit the moon in 2006, but there has never been anything of this scale in modern history.

They had a whole countdown going on in the background as they cut to clips of how people were preparing to watch the Mooncrash. In New York City, where there was great visibility, thousands of people crowded around Ellis Harbor, some waving signs while others just clinked bottles.

The most striking thing was a group of people huddled together. Some kind of apocalyptic cult. They believed that this event was going to be the end of the world, so they sat in a circle and prayed for salvation or something like that. They seemed very convinced of their beliefs and very delusional.

When there was ten minutes left, I sent Charles a text, reminding him that he better watch the Mooncrash. He sent a thumbs up back. May and I opened the freezer and took out a couple of ice-cream bars for everyone to share, and Mom and Dad brought out some old lawn chairs from the garage and placed them in our front yard.

Mr. Hunter invited a whole bunch of his friends over and had a grill out to cook some pork chops and burgers, while Mrs. Gupta had set up one of those inflatable pools and filled it with water for the younger kids in our neighborhood to play in. The whole neighborhood was glowing with excitement as everyone set out deck chairs and telescopes in their yards to catch a glimpse of the asteroid hitting the moon. It seemed like everyone in the neighborhood was taking the evening off to watch this event.

Even though it wasn't dark, I could see the lights from the massive bonfires on the beach and the loud shouts of high schoolers that were already drunk. It seemed like everyone in my grade at school was over there except me. I didn't mind though. Drinking illegally wasn't my type of fun.

As the timer ticked down, the energy in our neighborhood seemed to kick up a notch as people frantically began adjusting telescopes and grabbing binoculars from dusty shelves. The sun set at around 8:20, but it was still bright enough that the moon was a pale reflection of itself, bathed in crimson and pink.

As the timer hit one minute, at 8:29, the whole neighborhood went silent. Dad was craning his neck to get a better look at the night sky through his telescope while Mom stopped chatting with Grandma and Grandpa in Taiwanese. Mira, May, and I fought over the binoculars. Mira won because she had older sister privilege, so May and I had to watch the sky bare. I had my phone out to snap a photograph for math class.

And then you could see it, a bright, white flare in the sky, shooting to the moon. There were echoes of cheering from the beach, but our neighborhood was silent except for a dog barking. Our neighbors, the Hunters, had their hands clasped together. I wonder if they were praying to God or wishing upon the massive shooting star in the sky. I guess I'll never find out.

The asteroid smacked into the moon. You could almost imagine the roars as rock slammed into rock. People started cheering and clapping like it was the end of a show. Only it wasn't. The half-moon in the sky began to tilt, penny sized moon becoming nickel sized and then quarter sized and then half dollar sized and then much bigger until it filled the whole sky. A massive silver rock smack dab in the middle of the sky.

"What the hell!" someone yelled, and half the people in my neighborhood began to scream.

"We're all going to die!" another person shouted. "The moon is going to crash into the Earth!"

But it didn't. It just lay there in the middle of the sky, crowding out all the stars, affirming its dominance of the darkness at night.

"I'm going to check the TV," I said, and Mom and Dad just numbly nodded.

I went inside, but when I tried turning on CNN, it didn't work, nor did NBC or other major broadcasting centers. I even tried Fox News. Dad would rather die than watch even a second of it. Our internet was down, and I couldn't get a good cellular connection. Some people were shouting outside that they couldn't access their cellphones.

Grandma and Grandpa brought in the lawn chairs, oblivious to what had just happened and began to pack up the leftovers to bring to their senior center. Eventually Mom and Dad came in along with May and Mira.

"Do you think something happened?" I asked.

"I don't know," Mom said. "Did you check the TV?"

"Yeah, it wasn't working," I said.

Mom went over to the TV and clicked a few buttons, but nothing showed up. I wanted to walk to Charles' house to see if he knew what had happened, but I decided against it. It was probably too dangerous to do so.

Dad told us that we needed to go to bed for school, but I didn't feel well. Then, I remembered that we had some hand-cranked radio in one of our drawers for rainy days when the power would go out. I grabbed the old thing and gave it a few cranks, fiddling with the knob until I reached a news station.

"I got it!" I yelled, and everyone in our family crowded around the dining table. There was a lot of static, but you could hear a faint news announcer's voice.

"The scientists at NASA say that the meteor was much denser than they anticipated and may have altered the trajectory of the moon, pulling it closer to the Earth. Wait. We're getting unconfirmed reports of massive flooding around New York City and Boston. The scientists are now warning that the gravitational influence of the moon is much stronger now, leading to an increase in tidal strength and distance since the moon controls the tides."

"The beach..." I said. "There was a party at the beach."

"Oh my god," Dad said and turned another shade of pale. He ran outside and began yelling about the beach party. There were panicked shouts outside, people yelling about their kids and how they're at the beach. A couple of people grabbed flashlights and some people tried to organize a rescue team. I'm not sure if they were successful since it sounded like chaos outside.

The radio signal was coming and going, so I tried the TV again. No luck. The radio began blaring loudly, drawing all of us back to the table. May was sitting in her chair in shock with Mira while Mom tried making 911 calls for the beach, but all the lines were down. Grandma and Grandpa were confused, but I think they understood what was going on.

"This is the governor of California. Under the advisory of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, I am sending out an emergency broadcast for all coastal counties."

He then listed out all those counties, including ours and others that have major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

"All those living under 30 feet above sea level must evacuate immediately. I repeat. All those living under 30 feet above sea level must evacuate immediately. There will be tidal surges of 20 feet in most areas and individual areas can reach up to 30 feet of tidal surge. All residents living in at-risk areas must evacuate immediately to higher ground."

"How high above sea level are we?" Mira asked.

"Eighty feet," I said. "I remember learning this in middle school."

The governor continued, "If you are unable to evacuate, move to higher ground in your area of residence like rooftops and wait until help arrives. The National Guard has been deployed and will be conducting rescues. Make sure to stay calm and may God bless America."

Mom took her phone and tried calling her sister in Taiwan, but there still wasn't a good cellular connection. I don't think they live close to the ocean, but with the massive tidal surges expected, who knows. Then she went into her room.

May was just silent the whole time, and then spoke up and said that she wasn't feeling well, so she went to bed. I think some of her friends were at the beach party. I told Grandma and Grandpa that they could stay here tonight. May moved back to my room while they moved into the guest bedroom. I clicked on the TV and got some reception. The news announcement was grim.

"The damage has been devastating to the East Coast of the United States with estimated casualties in the tens of thousands. New York City and Boston are completely flooded as the national guard struggles to rescue the many in need. But the situation is much more dire in the Southeast. Major cities, including Mobile, New Orleans, Corpus Christi, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, Savannah, Charleston, and Chesapeake are all completely submerged as the governors in 22 states declare states of emergencies."

I turned down the volume of the TV. "Do you think everything's going to be alright?" I asked Mira.

"I don't know," was all she said.