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Auggie stopped under a restaurant awning in San Luis Potosí on her way back to the motel, staring in disbelief at her phone.
She’d turned off notifications as soon as she arrived back in Mexico, not wanting to be contacted by anyone. Not for a lack of people trying—or one specific person, rather. Saul kept sending calls through the emergency line, which she always declined. Her old boss also still sent her furious texts, likely legal threats, which were similarly ignored. What could he do this time, deport her? The only reason Auggie was on her phone at all was to look for anything actually important to clean out before changing her number for good.
What she didn’t expect was this: three voicemails from Jin, the first from three weeks ago and the newest two days old. Her friend hadn’t phoned her in months, probably out of anger or devastation. Auggie would understand those reactions. She’d cried herself to sleep for the entire first week away, reverting back to liquor more than once, but she promised herself that she’d stand by her initial choice. There was no going back for her.
The messages hadn’t been sent through her Do Not Disturb, so no one had died, but they must be important enough to be sent in the first place. What did Jin have to say? What would break those long months of silence?
You have: 3 new messages
Auggie swore. She really missed the sound of her friend’s voice. Surely she was strong enough to hear it now, despite how difficult it was to leave. Every person she talked to and every community she helped filter water and eliminate diseases helped strengthen her resolve that this was the right path to follow. Surely a few voicemails couldn’t change that. Right?
With a flicker of hope in her heart, Auggie pressed the play button.
“Hey, it’s Jin. You didn’t pick up, so here’s my message. Figured you must be busy, or maybe you just don’t want to hear from me. If you don’t, then why are you even listening to this, but in case you do, uh, here.
“It’s been awhile. Don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the news. If you haven’t, don’t, and maybe stop this message right here. If you have, you know what happened. Saul told me it wasn’t my fault, it was just a tragic accident. It feels like someone’s fault, though. It’s fucked up. I know Will chose it, but what sort of choice did he even have? It’s like we’ve all been put on some, some goddamn train tracks of fate and we can’t get off of them. You didn’t do too badly, though. The best any of us could’ve done given the circumstances.
“I miss you, Auggie. I know it hasn’t been that long, but…yeah. It’s just me and Saul around now. He’s great, don’t get me wrong, but we’re all tangled up in stuff bigger than us. It feels like yesterday and yet a million years ago that we were all together that night after Vera’s funeral. ‘The Oxford Five.’ Heh. How times have changed.
“I saw how you leaked everything about your nanofibers to the public, by the way. That was fucking awesome. Maybe not the most sane thing ever, but yeah, awesome.” Laughter spilled from the other end of the line. “Some awful man might get ahold of that, you know? I know you’re worried about that. Maybe not, though. Even if they do, a lot of good people probably will too. So good job at changing the world forever, or something. God knows that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Auggie smiled, eyes watery. Thanks, Jin. I’m glad you get it. I’m glad you can still laugh, and you will. You’ll change the world no matter if I’m there or not.
“Auggie, I know you can’t come home,” Jin said as if reading her mind across time. “Won’t come home. Same thing. But it gets awfully boring with just the two of us left. Maybe if I’m lucky we can abuse Saul’s not-Wallfacer powers to fly out to you. Not unless you wanted to, of course, and there’s probably a lot we couldn’t talk about, but. Just putting it out there.”
Maybe, Auggie allowed herself to think for a self-indulgent moment. Maybe.
“Speaking of Saul and not being a Wallfacer, I’m sure you’ve heard all about it, and I’m sure you know he rejected it. But everyone’s acting like it’s all part of the plan. Everyone but me looks at him with this awful mysterious smile whenever he says anything. It freaks me the hell out. I have no idea what he plans to do about it, though, if he does anything at all. He said you always decline his calls by the third ring. I don’t know if it’s better or worse that you let mine go to voicemail.” She sighed heavily, static pouring out from Auggie’s speakerphone.
“Uh, sorry about that, Auggie. You don’t have to pick up, I hope you know that. I know you’ve probably got better things to do. I hope you’re listening, though. I hope you know someone cares about you, wherever you are.”
“Thanks, Jin,” Auggie said out loud. Her voice came out more ragged than she’d expected.
“That’s all I have for you right now. Bye, Auggie. Love you. I hope everything is going well.”
There was a long stretch of faint static before the message ended, as if Jin had something else to say. But she seemed to have changed her mind last minute, because there was nothing else before the click.
You have: 2 new messages
This one was dated a week after the first, so two weeks before today. The first message had been…nice, despite the ache it pulled from deep within her soul. It was almost as if she was right in front of her, ready to catch up after a long few months. Surely the second one couldn’t hurt any worse.
She was wrong. When she hit play, Jin’s voice floated scratchily from the phone speaker, significantly lower in sound quality than before. She sounded as if she’d been crying and possibly knee-deep in several glasses of wine.
“Auggie, we killed Will. The Staircase Project failed and now he’s a brain floating out in the void of space with no one to find him. You’re…you’re a fucking coward, Auggie. Why would you ever say yes to helping if you were just going to leave? Why couldn’t you stay and own up to what we did?” Jin sobbed quietly for a few moments. Auggie’s own eyes burned in turn. Fuck you, she wanted to cry out, but she knew Jin hated what they’d done just as much as she did. In any other universe, she’d be there now, because God knew she deserved to have to face it. “ No, I’m sorry,” Jin continued, sniffling. “I shouldn’t have said that. You wouldn’t’ve done it if I hadn’t asked. I’m sorry.”
Auggie clutched her phone, tears beginning to stream down her face. She didn’t think Jin knew exactly how right she was. Do you know what that means, Jin? It’s why I couldn’t stay. I know if you look me in the eyes and ask me to fight aliens with you, I’ll say yes, and it’ll all be fucked up again. It was already taking everything Auggie had in her to not book a flight right back out of Mexico. I know I’m a coward. But going back won’t fix anything. It can’t.
“I miss you, though,” Jin went on. “I know it’s selfish of me. I know you’re doing good things out there. It’s just…everyone is gone. Like I said last time, it’s just me and Saul left, and he’s been swept up in his own stuff. It sounds really stupid when I say it like this, but fighting aliens is fuckin’ lonely. I guess it’s supposed to be that way. We’re all supposed to give up something for the greater good. But we’re not just doing this for the people four hundred years from now, right? I know that’s what I’ve been saying, and I still believe it.
“But I"d like to think I’m doing this for all of us. For everyone in the world, of course. Our future children, and all of their children, because they should have a world to at least try to live in. But I’m also doing it for Jack, to avenge him. For Vera, because she shouldn’t have had to die for what her mother did. For Will, so that maybe someday he can get picked up and reconstructed and survive somewhere even though the project failed. For Saul. For you.”
“The world hasn’t treated us kindly. I’m so sorry for all of it. I know you think that…with everything that happened, nothing could have made it worth it. Maybe you’re right and nothing will. I’m going to try, though. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”
“God, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. It’s not like you don’t know all this. You know me. Guess I’m just making sure. If you understand, then it’s the right thing. I really, really don’t want to be wrong.”
“Bye, Auggie. Love you. See you around.”
If the first message had ached, this one felt like it had ripped her open from the inside out. There was still one voicemail remaining.
You have: 1 new message
From two days ago. Well, she’d gotten this far. No turning back now.
“Auggie. Before we put him up, Will bought me a star. Did you know? Apparently he used a bunch of money he got from Jack to do it, donated it back to The Stars Our Destination. I ran back to him when I found out, I wanted to say something, but by the time I arrived he was already gone.”
Auggie’s back straightened. She hadn"t known about the star, but it wasn’t a secret that Will loved Jin. She was possibly the only person who hadn’t known. How had she reacted?
“I don’t know what I would have said.” Her voice came out hard, as if she’d cried over it too many times to count and run out of tears. “I think I know what I should’ve said. It’s just…I’d never gotten the chance to think about it. He did so much for me, and what the fuck did I do for him? What the fuck have I done for any of you, really?”
On the other end, Jin fell quiet, the stream of background static the only sign that the message was still playing. Auggie’s throat tightened for more reasons than one. Will had done an incredible thing in such a stupid fucking way by buying Jin that star. Why didn’t he just go to her and say something before he gave himself up? Or maybe that was Auggie projecting.
“I do love him, Auggie. I really, really do, and nothing will change that. I’m glad he was able to communicate it in some way, even if it wasn’t to my face. Even so, why didn’t he say anything? Was he hoping to just move on without me ever knowing? I can’t say I don’t get it. He’s stronger than me, though. More selfless than probably any of us. If I was him, I don’t know if I’d be able to keep that in. I’m certainly not doing a good job of it right now.”
Auggie blinked. Wait, what was she talking about?
Jin sighed. “Auggie, I…I’m really confused. A lot of things make sense now, and yet nothing makes sense at all. Raj and I broke up, you know? He thinks I love Will. I do, and I will forever regret how we left things.” She exhaled harshly. “Jesus, why am I telling you this? I’m sure you have better things to be doing and I’m just bothering you with my drama bullshit. Well, if you’ve listened this far, I might as well go all the way with it. I’ve thought about it and if Will had stuck around, if he"d said something earlier, he and I could have tried being together like that. I think it would be worth it to try. He’s like an island in the eye of a storm where everything is calm and safe. But I"m not certain. I have a duty, and Will knows that, and…well. That life was never what he wanted.”
“The only other person who ever understood that duty, the only other other person who"s braved that storm…who I…” Jin’s recorded voice rattled. “It doesn’t matter. They’re not here anymore either.”
Auggie froze. Her phone slipped through her fingers and fell in the dirt road.
She bent down lightning-fast, scrambling to pick it up. The message had paused. She knelt there for a moment, her lip wobbling in a silent prayer, her cell phone cradled in her hands like a lover. Against everything rational in her mind screaming at her to stop, to delete the message right then and there, Auggie pressed play.
“You know what I mean, don’t you? I’m sorry I said it. It wasn’t to make you come back, I know what you need to do. I just couldn’t make the same mistake he did. I had to give you a chance since he never gave me mine. Just…call me back? It doesn’t have to be soon. Just…one day? I love you, Auggie. Goodbye.”
The click at the end of the last voicemail resonated through her bones like thunder. Auggie let her head fall into her dust-covered hands and began to weep.