The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse Read Online Free

mind wandered to my apartment and the scattering of gifts from him shoved in a closet that I could have brought with me, but I didn’t think twice about it.
    Poking the person in front of him, he asked, “Save my place, would you?”
    He strode over to me with his stocky legs in dirty jeans.
    “Hey, sweetie,” he said, putting his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek. “What has it been, like a month?”
    It had been a month. I thought back to our last conversation.
    “Traffic’s going to be murder getting back,” he’d muttered back on that day in the break room. “Maybe we can just hang after my rehearsal instead.”
    “But karaoke,” I said. “And Tatiana thought it might be fun to—”
    He’d held his hand up. “Please.”
    And then he’d taken off, heading quickly to the elevator. I knew he had made it back because he texted two days later, asking if I wanted to go to his roommate’s wedding that weekend. I’d looked out and saw dark fiery clouds and had simply responded back, “Let’s see what happens.”
    “You’re here!” I said. “You’re okay!”
    “I know,” he said. “Probably should have texted you. Or you could have texted me. I was around.”
    I shook my head. “You could have called. For all I knew you were buried under that naked girl painting your roommate was so damn proud of.”
    “Oh, I never went home,” he said, then suddenly stopped and looked up at the ceiling. “I wonder how Matt’s doing.”
    “Excuse me?” I asked. “Where did you go?”
    “They wouldn’t let anyone leave your office, so I’ve been hanging out on the tenth floor this whole time.”
    I stared at him. “You couldn’t come upstairs? Didn’t people know you didn’t actually work there?”
    “We were all living in a lot of fear,” he said. “But it’s so good to see you now. So glad you made it.”
    I thought about that pros and cons list Tatiana had made me do and mentally marked that sentence as a con.
    “You know what burns me up the most?” he asked. “I was in play rehearsals too. Opening night was supposed to be two days ago. And I really liked my part.”
    I smiled coldly. “You would have been really great in it as that one guy.”
    I didn’t even know what play he was in. Had the Incident not happened, I would have gone to his opening night and applauded when the show was over, but after three years of his trying to break through the glass ceiling of the acting profession and getting nowhere, all I could really offer was blind encouragement.
    “Thanks,” he said. “Your support is what keeps me going.”
    “Move along!” shouted someone in a hazmat suit.
    “Sorry!” I said. I turned to Bruce. “What are we standing in line for, anyway? No one’s answering any questions.”
    The guards came up behind us and a whole group of others and ushered us into the gym. We were shoved past a wall of lockers, which made me wonder if kids still had their things inside, hoping they’d come back to school to get them.
    He grimaced. “We’re being put in color groups,” he said. “And that’s how they decide which quarantine camp we all get shipped off to.”
    “Quarantine?” I asked. “If they kept our building, they could’ve just left us.”
    He took me by the shoulders. “Don’t say that, sweetie,” he said. “There were mutants or sick people living in your building. You were lucky to escape.”
    I made a face, then felt a tight urgency coming from my bladder. “Mutants?” I asked. “Says who? Which floor?”
    “Everyone,” he said. “Well, I heard it from three people. You’re just lucky they got you out. You could be one now. And then we’d have to break up.”
    “So I’d be available to date other mutants?”
    He shrugged with puppy dog begging. “You know I would still love you,” he said.
    “So what’s the deal with the color groups?” I asked. “Do they mean anything?”
    “Here’s what I can figure out,” Bruce said. “You don’t want