White Space Season 1

from the warm blanket of sleep. He could have slept until morning. It felt after five, so his dad would be home soon. Though he shouldn’t give a half-shit or otherwise, Milo didn’t want his dad to think he’d moped the day to nothing.
    He went to his bathroom, turned on the faucet, then waited for it to get warm since he hated splashing cold water on his face. He soaked his cheeks in the basin of his palms, rubbing his eyes bright before flipping off the light and heading downstairs.
    Milo hit the bottom stair and rounded the banister, seeing a slip of blue paper, half-wedged beneath the doorframe on his way by.
    He bent over, heart beating fast, wondering if it were some message from Cody. The sheet was face down, blank on the back. On the front, it read:

    SURVIVOR’S MEETING —WEDNESDAY 6 p.m. at HAMILTON K-12 AUDITORIUM. CONNECT. DISCUSS. HEAL — TOGETHER.

    Milo crumpled the paper, then opened his fist, flattened it out, then folded it in fourths and slipped it inside his back pocket instead.
    He went into the kitchen. The red light was blinking on the phone. He touched the button and heard his father’s voice:
    “Hey Milo. I’m really, really sorry man. I’m caught up at work. Just go ahead and order a pizza or whatever you want, assuming Dani’s lunch is already gone. Get started without me. Be home soon. Sorry Milo.”
    The message ended.
    Figures.
    Milo pulled the flyer from his back pocket and unfolded it.
    I should go.
    Milo was happy to be mending things with Alex, but was still angry, fat with feelings he couldn’t even find a place for. A group of survivors would give him an intersection of pain and honesty, and the crossroads to see clearly.
    But that wasn’t why he felt he should go.
    He had to go to the meeting because the hush inside him was screaming.
    Something weird was happening on the island, and the survivors group might be a great place to see more of the pieces, maybe even fit a few of them together.
    Milo scribbled a note to his dad, then went to the garage, grabbed his bike, and pedaled furiously toward the meeting, racing the dark clouds gathering overhead.

    **

    Milo locked his bike on the rack just outside the school auditorium, then zipped up his hoodie, climbed the stairs, and entered the dimly lit auditorium, with seating left for around 460 or so of the 500 people the room could hold.
    A few chairs were scattered across the stage, without shape or pattern. Most of the attendees were sitting in the first few front rows, though there were others dotted across the theater, as well. Milo took a seat in the second to last row, pulling his hood over his head, as if it would make him invisible in the dark room.
    Milo listened as survivors took the stage, and considered the difference between the general anonymity of LiveLyfe and the world in front of him, filled with red eyes and sad faces.
    Milo wasn’t exactly sure what he expected a survivor’s group to be like, but he did think he’d see some of the students from the recent shooting. But none of these survivors were telling tales about Mr. Heller, or Hamilton K-12, despite the location.
    The last thing Milo thought was that he’d be the youngest person in the room by at least a decade.
    The moderator, a rail-thin woman with a fat braid of silvery white hair, thanked Jenna — the tiny blonde mom with the missing husband — for sharing. She reminded the room that the group was “a place to share and connect with others going through similar struggles,” then told her story, like Milo was sure she must have done to open each meeting.
    The silver braid was named Connie Fawcett. Connie never had children when she was younger, and thought she couldn’t. She was even more surprised than her husband Tom when the blue line lit the white plastic just three weeks after her 42nd birthday. She about had a heart attack. Tom did. Though it took him another four years to have it. He died at 59, just a few months shy of retirement from Lab E at Conway, where he worked most of the past three decades.
    Connie raised her son, Nathan, as if the moon would dim if he wasn’t smiling. At least for the first seventeen years, until Nathan vanished into thin air.
    Others were vanishing, too. So Connie went to the police, but they didn’t care. No one did.
    The police said they were runaways. All of them.
    Words from the stage echoed the pamphlet in his hand. Milo slowly turned the narrow glossy pages, moving his eyes from the type to