What Comes After

Everyone shuffled around in the house and mostly nothing happened. It wasn't until I was heading back to my room to re-read one of my fantasy books, when I heard the big news. I heard Mira and Leon talking, and I was going to quickly dash in and grab the book when I heard what they were talking about.

"Can we talk about the whole leaving situation?" Leon asked.

I paused in the hallway. This seemed like an important discussion, and I didn't want to awkwardly interrupt what they were walking about.

"I've been thinking about it a lot..." Mira said and there was a pause.

"Don't leave me hanging," Leon said. "So have you decided or maybe, are leaning towards one side or the other."

"I—" Mira said. "This— It's so hard."

"Look, Mira. I love you," he said. "And I'm going to be here and support whatever decision you decide to make."

"But we don't have a lot of time left," he said. "And I don't want to pressure you or anything."

"I know," she said. "God! I hate the apocalypse."

"Don't we all," he said. "We've got to just make the best with the world that we've got."

"I just wish we were on a better Earth," she said. "A mirror image of ours except the air is cleaner and the tides had receded, and we'd still be in college worrying about stupid things like our professors and grades and dates—"

"Were our dates really that bad?" Leon interjected playfully. "I'm just joking."

"You know, stupidly, I don't know the word, not unmeaningful or insignificant, but it's like we used to worry about things that never meant life-or-death. It's like everything before was stupidly unserious when you put everything in context to what's happening right now."

There was a moment of silence.

"This might seem random," Mira said. "But, what's your biggest regret?"

"I mean I have a lot of them," he said. "I regret not meeting you earlier—"

"Leon. I'm trying to be serious."

"Okay, okay," he said. "I guess, my biggest regret, or actually it'd be better to call it a 'would be' regret, was with my Dad. You know that a couple of years back he had a heart attack."

"Really?" Mira asked. "I thought he was all into the wellness eating program. You know, no refined carbs and fresh vegetables every day"

"That happened after the heart attack," Leon said. "Same thing with his obsession with exercise."

"So what happened?"

"Well my Dad and I got into a fight over something stupid. I don't even remember," he said. "And I just ignored his phone calls for a couple of days. It wasn't until a phone call from Phillip that I realized that Dad had a heart attack."

Leon continued, "You know, at the moment, I thought that Dad was going to die. You know all those people that seize up in the hospital movies."

"Yeah," Mira said.

"Well, I thought Dad was like that, seizing up in a stretcher, with the EMTs trying to resuscitate him," he said. "Well, that day was the day I found out about the difference between cardiac arrest and a heart attack."

"There's a difference?"

"Yeah," Leon said. "Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops. Heart attack is when your heart is clogged or something like that. Biology was not my strong subject."

"But how was this your biggest regret?" she asked. "Your Dad was alright in the end though."

"Yeah," he said. "But for those couple hours, I thought he was dying, and my biggest regret was just leaving everything unfinished with him. My last talk with him couldn't be a stupid argument over nothing."

"And that's what makes it a would-be regret because my dad ended up being alright in the end, but those couple of hours of just thinking that Dad was not alright was just scary."

"So, why did you want to know?"

There was a bit of silence, and I could hear Mira take a deep breath. "Leon."

"Mhmm," he said.

"I— I think I'm going to stay," she said.

"Why?" he blurted out and quietly added. "Sorry. You don't need to answer that if you don't want to."

"No," she said. "I should."

"It's just that ever since I've gone to college, I feel like my relationship with my family has gotten worse," she said. "I mean, it's gotten better these few months. May doesn't hate me. Mom and Dad and I aren't arguing as much. Neal has at least opened up a little more, but I just can't leave this behind. I have to fix things up with my family. I'm sorry."

"Hey, there's no need to be sorry," he said. "Come here."

There was some ruffling of sheets and I think they hugged each other. "You know I'll always love you."

"And I'll always love you too," she said. "And you're not mad about this?"

"I— I mean I would've liked it if you came with me," he said. "But I get where you're coming from, you know. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to mend things with our families."

"And you can't stay?"

"I wish I could," he said. "But I've got some family that needs me, and I just can't leave them behind. I'm sorry."

There was this silence, and I think both of them were crying. I was going to awkwardly sneak into the room to grab the book when Mira said, "I think we should get married."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Maybe we should do this some other time when—"

"I'm sure," she said. "Let's do this. Let's get married."

"Okay," he said. "Okay. You know what, I'm going to find the ring, so we can do this properly."

"And I'll just sit here and pretend that I have no idea about what's going to happen."

"That's cool with me," he said. "You know, we gotta fake it till we make it."

There was a shuffling of clothes and papers, and Leon was muttering under his breath.

"You need any help?" Mira asked.

"No, I think I got this," he said and there was a little more shuffling of things around. "Found it!"

"Great!" she said. "Do you want to start this, I guess, reenactment almost?"

"Sure," he said. "I'm just going to go over there and pretend that I'm walking in."

There were some footsteps on the ground, and I believe that Leon moved to a corner of the room. "Hey, Mira."

"Hey, Leon," she said. "So..."

"Yeah," he said. "This reenactment isn't going so well."

They both chuckled nervously.

"You know what? Screw this reenactment," Leon said and presumably kneeled. "Mira, will you marry me?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I will."

"So your parents are going to be alright with this?"

"Who cares about my parents?" she said. "It's already too late for them to stop us."

They walked out of the room and Mira saw me in the hallway. "Were you standing here the whole time?"

"No," I blurted out, but then I felt bad about completely lying. "Only for a small part. I did want to disturb you guys because you know, the hallway is pretty creaky, and, uh, congratulations."

"Thanks," Mira said. "What do you think Mom and Dad are going to say? Ten bucks that Dad has a meltdown."

"Nah," I said. "They're going to be happy for you. You probably should call them up from the garage."

"Mom! Dad!" Mira shouted. "We have something to tell you guys."

Mom and Dad came out from the garage. They looked concerned, like they really thought Mira was leaving.

"We have something to tell you," Mira said and gave Leon a quick glance.

"I'm not leaving with Leon," Mira said. Mom and Dad let out a sigh. While I think that they made peace with Mira leaving, they just didn't want her to leave.

"Well," Mom said. "I'm glad that you made the best choice for you."

"But, I've decided to get married to Leon," she said. "I love him, and I believe that it's the right choice to get married."

"But, aren't you a little young to get married?" Mom said. "Your father and I got married at thirty and you're barely over twenty."

"You didn't pressure my daughter to get married, right?" Dad asked Leon.

"No, no. Of course not," Leon said. "We both made this decision together."

"You sure?" Dad asked and looked at Mira.

"Absolutely," Mira said.

"So, are we going to be having a wedding tomorrow?" May asked. No one had noticed that she had entered the hallway.

"I'm thinking about something small," Leon said. "You know, maybe a private ceremony in the living room, or something that'll work for you guys."

"If you guys are going to get married," Dad said. "Then we all might as well go big. It's tradition on my side of the family to have massive weddings."

"Yeah," May added. "One of Dad's cousins had an elephant in their wedding. It was pretty wild."

"Well, I guess so," Leon said and looked at Mira. "What do you think?"

"You know what," Mira said. "Let's do it. Let's have the biggest, best apocalypse wedding that anyone could wish for."

"Does anyone know how weddings work?" I asked.

"There are, like, bridesmaids and best men and stuff like that," May said. "I don't know. We'll figure it out. It's the same thing with Indian weddings. There is some ceremony and then some other stuff happens. I'm honestly not sure. Any thoughts, Dad?"

"There's not enough time or resources to have a proper Indian wedding," Dad said. "We can just do what we did in your Mom and I's wedding."

"Which was?"

"We just dressed up and took some photos," Mom said. "Then, we had an American wedding."

"I'm sure we can figure out a way to have a nice, multicultural wedding," Mira said.

'So let's start planning," May said. "I finally actually have something to do other than just dying from boredom. Let's have the best apocalypse wedding that anyone could hope for."

So pretty much everyone went to start planning. Mom and Mira went to go and try on Mom's old wedding dress, with Grandma helping them with the fitting and in case the dress is ripped in places and needs to be repaired. Dad and Leon went to the closet to pick out a nice tuxedo. May wrote stuff down and ordered me around. Right now, I'm cutting up construction paper for paper flowers in between writing in this journal, and I think May is looking for the polaroid camera or something. I've got a lot of work to do, so I'm going to end this entry here.

But all I know is this: Tomorrow is going to be a long day.