Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  “Nothing to be sorry about.” He leans against the counter, blows out a breath. “So … tonight was my last night as a dealer.”

  I pick at the label on my bottle. Try not to panic. He’d said he wasn’t giving me any more anyway. I shouldn’t care.

  “Why?”

  He looks down at his scuffed-up leather boots. When he speaks, it’s so soft, I almost don’t hear the words.

  “I want to do right by the miracle.”

  “What … what does that mean?”

  A ghost smile. His eyes, those gray-and-gold swirls, meet mine. “This famous scientist was giving a talk a couple years ago—I saw it online last night. And he said that we have a responsibility to be the best version of ourselves we can be. Whatever that is. Because it’s so insane how a very specific set of circumstances brought the atoms that make you together. All the things that had to happen for you to exist. You know? And he said, ‘We have to do right by the miracle. The miracle that is us.’” Drew shrugs. “I looked at the pills on my desk and … I was done.”

  “My dad would have really liked you,” I say. His eyes widen, and this expression I can’t make out flies across his face, but it’s gone before I can name it. “Apart from the selling-me-drugs thing.”

  He nods. “Yeah. I’m a bastard for that.”

  “Drew. No. No. It’s been my choice. I’ve practically forced you to sell to me.” I try to smile, to not look shattered. “So your question. For the tarot. I’m guessing it was about, like, the rest of your life, right? Life after dealing.”

  He takes in a shuddering breath, then his eyes slide to mine, hands gripping the counter. The way he looks at me—suddenly I know his question. The shape of it. What he wants.

  “Hannah, I—”

  Micah. Micah.

  “I should go soon.” I glance at the clock on the stove. “It’s … late.”

  He watches me for a moment, then nods. “So this is the last time we hang out.”

  “What?”

  “Because I’m not, you know. Fulfilling my role. This is it, right?”

  The vacuum No Drew suddenly opens up inside me is like being held in a glacier’s hand. And I realize: He is the only deep breath I take.

  I close my eyes, squeeze away the new set of tears. “Yeah. Totally. I mean, I knew that.”

  Drew starts forward. “Wait. I didn’t—”

  “Thanks for … I’ll see you. Around.”

  I burst into tears. Jesus fuck, can I just be emotionally stable for once in my stupid, pointless life? I reach, blind, for my coat, my purse.

  “What did I do? Just. Hold on—Hannah.”

  “I’m fine! The beer—emotional. Ignore me.”

  “Ignore you.” He’s standing there, looking at me like Micah looks at me, like I’m too much, too much.

  I can’t carry you.

  I nod. “I get it, Drew. I do. You want to … be the miracle. Do right by it. Like you said. And I’m just. Just. Just Hannah. Right? You want to, like, be something now.” I start laughing, I don’t know why. “Not the kind of person who’d steal their dead father’s Vicodin.”

  “That’s not—”

  “You can’t carry me. I get it.”

  My fingers are numb and it’s impossible to get my coat on and I drop my purse and now everything’s on the floor fuck and I get on my knees and then Drew is there, surrounded by lipstick and tissues and pens and gum wrappers, and his arms are around me and he is holding me together.

  “I wish you could see what I can,” he whispers. “You’re great. Just Hannah is my favorite Hannah.”

  “That makes zero sense. All you’ve seen me do is get high and ditch school and buy drugs.”

  “No. That’s all you see. I see someone who’s keeping a horrible secret about her dead father so that her sister doesn’t have to hold that. Someone who is delighted by the world, when she lets herself enjoy it—who sees how beautiful a leaf or an old statue can be. Who isn’t afraid to say a party is lame. Who is like some tarot sorceress. You don’t pretend to be someone you’re not and couldn’t care less about your fucking brand on social or what anyone thinks of you. You’re basically a revolutionary in the making! Do you know you’re the only person I sell to who actually talks to me? Sees me as a person?” He tips my jaw up with his fingers and I look into his eyes and I know he’s telling me the truth. “You’re fucking awesome.”

  I never knew a dirty kitchen floor could feel like a temple or that a boy wearing a faded Dropkick Murphys shirt could be its high priest.

  I tighten my hands around his shoulders because it feels like the planet is off balance, which Mae would say is impossible, but I can feel it, I can feel the center sliding away. “I don’t know what to say.”

  I think he really means what he said. But that doesn’t sound like me at all.

  “You don’t have to say anything. It’s bullshit that you had to wait seventeen years to hear it. From me, of all people.”

  “Right now, you’re all the people.” I swallow, the right words stuck in my throat. “I think you might be the only friend I have, Drew.”

  He sucks in a breath, and I sag against him, and I say the thing I haven’t been able to say to anyone, not ever. Not even to myself.

  “I had an abortion in March, and I didn’t want to.”

  Drew looks down, his eyes dark, like what I said has filled them with midnight-blue ink.

  He looks in me. Not at me or through me. He sees all of me, and he doesn’t turn away.

  He keeps looking.

  And that look is medicine.

  Not a pill. So much better.

  He sees me.

  When I start to shake, Drew slides an arm beneath my knees and sweeps me up into his arms as he stands.

  “What … what are you doing?” I say.

  “Carrying you.”

  some people are mirrors that

  let you see yourself

  Junk Mail

  Nolan Residence

  Dorchester

  22

  Hannah

  We go upstairs. To his room. It isn’t the room of a drug dealer. There are two bookcases stuffed with books, the bed is made, the desk free of clutter. There’s a Miles Davis poster.

  He eases us down on the floor, so we’re leaning against the bed. He takes my hand in his.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks quietly.

  “Drew, you don’t want—”

  “I do.” He curls his fingers around mine.

  I can’t look at him while I talk. I trace the half-moons of his neatly trimmed fingernails. Mae would approve of his unexpected tidiness.

  “In the waiting room, my mom, she asked if I was sure. Said she and Dad would support whatever I chose. I mean, really, they would have. Whatever I wanted. I know that. I knew it then, too. There was no pressure or judgment. Totally my choice. You know? And the counselor, she was great, she said I could do what I wanted, said it was possible things were okay, that maybe the pills hadn’t—like, I could get some tests, if I wanted, to be sure, but … I knew it wasn’t fair, to any of us, to not do what I did. I mean, yeah, Mae turned out okay even though her mom was … but, like, what if she hadn’t? Had had brain damage or … I mean, how fucked-up would that be, to do that to a person, from day one of their life, you know? And the look on Micah’s face when I said that maybe we should think about it, not rush the decision … He didn’t want that. Not yet. And he said, you know, the pills, he said I should…”

  I take a breath and Drew tightens his hand around mine. “I don’t think it was wrong of me to do it. I’m seventeen. Way too young to be a mom. And, Jesus, I can’t even imagine right now, with a kid—after the wave. You know? And I was on a lot, I mean a lot, of stuff. I just think if I hadn’t been fucked-up, maybe I would have—considered it. Having a baby. I don’t know. It was earlier than I planned, but I wasn’t going to do the college thing. I really do just want to be a mom and a yoga teacher, which maybe makes me basic, but …
it’s totally possible I maybe would have been like, no, I’m not ready to have a kid and that’s that. If Mae got pregnant, it’d be such an easy decision. To go to the clinic. And I would have totally supported that. But it’s all so fucked-up for me because I wasn’t certain. It isn’t simple, like, no drugs equals baby. Drugs equals no baby. If I were sober, I still might have done it.

  “The worst part is I don’t know because of where I was at, at the time. I was so depressed—Dr. Brown said that’s part of why I started using in the first place. I mean, fucking duh, right? And because for Micah there was just no discussion, none. Maybe he would have left. And without him, by myself? How would I…? He should have come. Maybe if he’d been there, he would have, could have seen, could have felt … I know we’re young, but … He should have come.”

  “He let you go there alone.”

  His voice is so soft I almost don’t catch how deeply fucking pissed he is. Horror and anger mixed together, like he took my feelings and made a sound with them.

  “Maybe he felt, like, since my mom was there I didn’t need him to be, too. I don’t know. It’s my … body. My choice.” I chanted that at the Women’s March with Mom and Mae. And I believe that.

  “But it’s your heart, too,” he says quietly.

  Right when he says this, some of the ragged parts inside my chest, all those frayed pieces of my heart, start to fuse back together.

  He smiles, like he can hear that stitching happening. “This is probably the weirdest conversation you’ve ever had with your dealer, huh?”

  “Former dealer.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  We are staring at each other in the way you do when you’ve just hiked to the top of a mountain you thought you’d never be able to climb. It’s hard to breathe. But the view—it’s magnificent.

  “Does Micah ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

  His eyes follow the blood that blooms under my too-pale cheeks. My skin, it can’t keep a secret to save its life. The Karalis curse.

  “Sometimes.”

  “He should tell you all the time. Because you are. All the time.”

  The words come out of me like an acorn, a compulsion. I have to say them.

  “You’re beautiful, too.”

  He is. That wild, raven hair, a face sketched by a sure hand, and those eyes like the stars in Mae’s posters.

  Drew blinks. “No one’s … no one’s ever told me that before.”

  “Well, people should. All the time.” I lean my head on Drew’s shoulder, afraid to look at him anymore. Afraid because I want to kiss him. All over. And I want him to kiss me back.

  I think I have wanted that since the beginning, since that day on the baseball diamond, beneath the bleachers.

  Drew shifts so that his arm is around me, then he gently runs his fingers through my hair.

  “That feels good,” I mumble. We stay like that for a long time.

  Until I remember Dad. And Becca Chen. Like father, like daughter. I pull away, abrupt, cold air rushing between us.

  “I can’t,” I say, more to myself than him. “Micah.”

  “Okay.”

  “My dad … he … I don’t want to be like him. What he did to my mom—”

  “We’re not doing anything wrong,” Drew says gently.

  “But I want to,” I whisper. “That’s the problem, Drew. I want—” I scramble away from him. Because I don’t trust myself. I don’t know how to say no to a high.

  His eyes flare, and he inhales, a long, deep breath, then he reaches over and intertwines his fingers with mine, our palms pressed against each other’s. He squeezes my hands once, then lets go.

  “I’m just your friend,” Drew says. “For now. But…” He leans in, his forehead touching mine. “I want to be more. When you’re ready, Hannah. And if you’re not, okay. That’s okay. Either way, I’m here.”

  And suddenly there’s a choice to make.

  “What was your question—for the cards?” I breathe.

  “How can I be with Hannah?” His fingers trail down my neck. “But I think you knew that already.”

  “Everything’s changing so fast,” I whisper. “It’s…” I shake my head, suddenly overwhelmed. “I’m so scared, Drew. I’m so fucking scared.” My eyes fill again. “I’m so tired of being scared.”

  I thought my problem was that I was invisible to the world. But Drew’s shown me it’s so much bigger than that. I can’t even see me.

  “Hey, I’m here. There’s nothing to be—”

  “Don’t say it.” I pull away from him. “There’s everything to be afraid of! Outer space, for one. Like, the entire cosmos all around us. And if I start thinking about it all, about Dad, and not telling Mae about him, and Becca Chen being pregnant, and did Mom know, did she know about Dad, and then you and Micah … and Mae going to school, and never seeing Mom again, and maybe she’s stopped visiting me because I’m such a fuckup, and the … the b-baby … and the ocean—”

  “Okay, okay.” Drew draws me close. “You’re right. There’s a fucking lot to be afraid of.”

  “I just want it all to go away. For a little bit. I just need a break. It’s been so hard, Drew. I’m so tired.”

  “I want to help.” His lips move against my hair, hot breath running along my scalp. “Hannah, let me help.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.” I look up at him. “I think it will always be this way. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again. Maybe I never was.”

  Drew watches me for a moment, and I pull away, thinking I must be crushing him, because his face suddenly pinches with pain.

  “We’re going to change that,” he says. Then he reaches into his pocket and holds up two pills. “This is all I’ve got left.” He hesitates. “It’s … stronger than what you’re used to these days.”

  “Oxy?”

  He nods. “And, Hannah, if we—you have to promise me, this is it. We do this together, and then that’s it. And we find another way to make it better. Okay?”

  I nod. Just one more time. I can do that.

  “Promise me,” he says.

  “I promise.”

  I take one of the pills. “You’ve never gotten high with me before.”

  “I want to be where you are.” Drew slides the pill between his lips.

  It’s not too long before we are floating on a beautiful cotton-candy cloud. A forgetting cloud. I am lighter than the cloud. Lighter than the moonbeams that pass through it.

  I am the moonbeams.

  I am No More and Nothing and Everything and Good.

  Everything is perfect.

  Everything.

  No More.

  Nothing.

  Everything.

  Good.

  I am getting to go to space before Mae.

  I pull my eyes open and look over at Drew. He’s beside me on the cloud, his eyes half-closed, one hand curled around my ankle.

  “I want to do right by the miracle, too,” I say.

  Or maybe I just think it.

  “You are the miracle,” he breathes.

  Or maybe I just imagine it.

  23

  Mae

  ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit

  Earth Date: 31 October

  Earth Time (EST): 13:07

  You don’t need dark magic to bring the dead back to life: You just need a freshly carved pumpkin.

  I run my hand over the blood-orange five-pounder Nate hacked into before going in search of better knives. Its tangerine guts have been laid bare, filled with white jewels. I don’t know why pumpkins make me poetic, but they do.

  The sour, earthy scent hits me, and suddenly I’m in the quantum realm, leaping into the past. No rules here in Quantum Land, remember? One minute I’m in Nate Russo’s dining room, the next I’m back in Venice.

  Joni Mitchell is playing in the kitchen. Pumpkin spice soup. Mom humming along.

  “I’m thinking Einstein.” Dad holds up a knife. “And we use the leftover cobw
eb decor for the hair. I bought mini battery-powered fans so it’ll blow constantly. What do you say?”

  “That’d be sick,” Micah says, approving. I nod.

  Mom sticks her hand into the gourd, pulling out seeds. “Ambitious, Professor. You think you’ve got what it takes?”

  Dad glances at me. “We’ve got a naysayer, Winters. Help me out here.”

  “It can’t be harder than researching extreme particle acceleration.”

  He grins. “Girl after my own heart.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “You two.”

  “Someone did Einstein for the NASA pumpkin-carving contest last year,” I say. “The Jet Propulsion Lab doesn’t mess around. I could look up some stuff and see how they—”

  “Amuck! Amuck! Amuck!” Hannah squeals from the living room. “Why is no one watching this with me?”

  I glance into the living room. “Because we’ve seen it ten thousand times!”

  It’s quiet, and then I hear the beginnings of Nah’s favorite part. She’s fast-forwarded. We all know what’s coming.

  “Don’t do it!” Micah yells, already laughing.

  “I put a spell on you, and now you’re mine…” Hannah slides across the hall’s wooden floor, wearing the witch’s hat that had been sitting as a decoration in the living room window.

  “Oh God, she’s gone full Hocus Pocus on us,” Mom says.

  Hannah strikes a pose, more Lady Gaga than Bette Midler, but it works. “You can’t stop the things I do…”

  Mom grabs the broom leaning against the fridge and uses it as a mic, and now it’s a duet. “I ain’t lyin’ …”

  Dad holds his hands up, trying not to look amused. “Ladies, please. We have serious work to do if we’re going to get this thing in by the deadline!”

  “Hello, Salem!” Nah shouts. “My name’s Winnifred. What’s yours?”

  Mom does a snazzy—

  Coffee.

  Bitter and sweet.