Page 86 of The Compound

I wondered if Andrew really didn’t know that Tom loathed him. His face was pinched and forlorn, and I was reminded of how he looked in the throes of fever, his face so warm under my hand. Despite what I had told Tom, I hadn’t really believed that Andrew would be back. I was sure that he had died, and they were only telling us otherwise so that we could keep up the charade that we were safe and looked after.

“He told me to tell you goodbye,” I said. “He was sorry to go, but it was his time.”

He nodded, resigned.

“I thought you were going to die,” I said.

He smiled, soft and kind. “Didn’t I say they wouldn’t let us die, Lily? Didn’t I say that all along? They took such good care of me, you wouldn’t believe it. Really, you wouldn’t. They nursed me back to health. I feel strong again, and excited too, to be back.”

“I’m glad you’re back, too, Andrew.”

“They looked after me so well, Lily. Was Tom very upset? I wish I had said goodbye. He said to tell me goodbye, you said?”

“He said that he’d miss it here, and that he appreciated everything that you did.”

He came forward and hugged me, holding me tight. He smelled clean and fresh: not like the desert scent that we’d all smelled faintly of for so long. His breath tickled the back of my neck and lifted my hair.

“I knew they were looking after us,” he said.

I went back to bed, and he went outside to watch the sunrise.

Nineteen

The bedsheets were ripped offme, wrenching me from sleep. I screamed, but it was only Andrew.

“Time to wake up!” he cried. He was leaning over me, his eyes bright, freshly showered and smiling. He handed me a coffee, made in the mug I had won some months ago. Looking at it, I saw that it turned pink in hot water. I hadn’t realized, as I hadn’t actually used it. I had this idea that it was too nice to use. In my hand, the purple disintegrated into pink, dreamlike and fantastical.

“It’s still early,” I said, glancing out of habit at the slant of pale gray filtering through the skylight. I made a grab for the sheets, but Andrew threw them to the floor. He sat next to me, and I sat up so that my back rested against the headboard.

“There’s so much to do,” he said. “Another day, another dollar.”

“I don’t want to do anything,” I said. “I want to sleep.”

“Sleep!” he laughed. “No, no, no.” He was still smiling broadly. I shifted uncomfortably.

“Aren’t you tired? You were so sick, before…”

“Oh, they fixed me right up. I feel fantastic, now. Fantastic.”

When he had first arrived back, he had seemed strange, but I figured he was maybe loopy on medication. Now, in the light of morning, he seemed manic, frantic. I reached for the throw that had pooled at my feet. I pulled it up to my chin and cradled the mug of coffee in my hands. From the smell alone, I knew that it was a luxury brand. It was Andrew’s coffee. When he did a task, he nearly always received a luxury item.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Andrew said, shifting closer to me. “All night I’ve been thinking. And you know what I’ve been thinking about?Legacy. I want to make sure that people remember us. We need to put our mark on this place.”

“It’s a television show,” I said. “They’ll remember us.”

He looked at me with mild distaste. “I mean the future residents. The people after us. I want the people who live here next to think: wow. Those guys really lived.”

I decided to humor him. “Okay. How are we going to do that?”

“I think we should build a monument. Something impressive. Something that screamslegacy.I think it will impress a lot of people. And I think it will impressthem,as well.”

“Who’s them?”

He gestured around us. “Them.The producers. The people who make all of this possible.”

“Andrew,” I said, “are you okay?”

“A monument would make a great impact,” he said. “People would really get a sense of the life that we have here. So I think I’m going to make the monument, and you should work on getting the house in shape. And you could probably do the cooking and things, too, right?”

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