Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  But not this year.

  This year, it just hurts too much to sit around the table. All those empty places. And knowing that, this year, maybe Dad’s place would have been empty, anyway. Even if there hadn’t been a wave.

  I can’t think about him. I can’t. When I do, everything inside me goes completely dark. I become a black hole, too.

  I wonder what Rebecca Chen is doing. And the wondering grows, because I think about my baby sister or brother and how it’d be really unfair if they were punished for what Dad did.

  So I do something that surprises me, something spontaneous. Rash, even. I go to my room and send the email I’ve been writing and rewriting since my birthday, since I found out the truth about Dad and Rebecca, since Aunt Nora said, You don’t have to worry about that.

  My Brother or Sister 3:17 PM (November 28th)

  Mae Winters

  Rebecca Chen

  I know what happened. My sister found all your emails with my dad. I’m writing you because I don’t want this brother or sister I’m going to have to be punished for the poor choices of adults who forgot about the Butterfly Effect. This child deserves to know they have two sisters and that he or she or they are not alone in the universe. I want to be very clear: I think you’re a bad person for what you did. I think my dad is, too. My family is hurting right now even more because of this. You should know that. Also, my mom knew about the two of you when she died. She was found in a mass grave earlier this month, alone.

  I would like to be notified when my brother or sister is born. And I’d like to have updates and be part of their life in some way, because they deserve that, and Hannah and I do, too.

  Mae Winters

  I don’t think I’m being disloyal to Mom by sending this email. I think she’d understand. She’d never want a kid to be hurt over something they can’t control.

  In the late afternoon, we make our plates and sit in front of the TV. Just me and Aunt Nora, Uncle Tony, Nate. We don’t watch Harry. We watch White Christmas. A little early in the Winters holiday calendar, but I’m glad we do. Bing and Danny and “the girls”—I like the little cobbled-together family they decide to make at that Vermont inn. Strange, how a building falling down in a war zone can bring lonely people together. The Sisters bit makes me sad, though.

  Ben went home for the holiday—he wasn’t going to. Wanted to stay with me. But I can feel those three words between us. The ones he had the guts to say, and I didn’t. I can feel him wanting more from me than I can give. Right now, everything is for Hannah. So I kissed him and told him to go to Brooklyn. Told him I’d see him when he got back. It wasn’t what he wanted.

  When it gets dark outside, I grab my coat and head down the stairs, ignoring the closed door to my sister’s room. I say a quick goodbye, then head toward the T.

  I’m on the Dharma Bums email list now, and they’re having a special meeting tonight, so I’m going. I want to look for the secret in the silence. My dad was always saying that you learn more when you get quiet. I need to learn more. I think maybe I have too much specialized knowledge. I know a lot about astrophysics and theoretical physics, but I don’t understand people. They are so different from theorems. So much harder to figure out. It’s possible that the hardest person to understand is myself.

  I need the silence to tell me what to do. To tell me if it really was the right thing to cancel that interview. To tell me how to help my sister in the best way I can.

  It’s cold tonight. No snow. Just banks of it left over from the storm. The D train rumbles behind me, a few blocks away, toward Boston Children’s, and I look over the houses and trees to where Nah is waiting for us to pick her up tomorrow.

  My eyes flick up to the sky, but the sight of the moon tonight doesn’t make me feel better. It just reminds me how fast everything goes. The moon’s one light-second away, so every time you look at it, you’re actually seeing into the past. You’re time traveling. And I just want to keep going back. Not forward. Back. And back. And back. But I can’t.

  I hurry down the sidewalk toward Beacon, to the T stop at Washington Square. The doors open and it’s pretty empty inside. Everyone with their families.

  I don’t see him until I’ve transferred to the Red Line. He’s sitting across from me, staring at nothing. Maybe he’s seeing her. Trying to look past the stations that fly by, all the way back to Boston Children’s.

  Drew Nolan couldn’t be more different from Micah if he tried. Micah was a sun god, bursting with light (even though he did turn out to be a horrible boyfriend who Nah refuses to ever speak to again), but Drew, he’s all night. Late night. When you should be safe in bed night. His face is cut like stone. Sharp. Black, wavy hair. Paler than me. A perfect manga villain.

  He feels my eyes on him and finally looks up. Goes paler, if that’s possible.

  From the look of him, he hasn’t gotten any more sleep than the rest of us. But I don’t care. The moment the seat next to him empties, I take it.

  I keep my voice low, and he has to lean in to hear me above the roar of the train. “If you ever talk to my sister again, I’m calling the police. And informing the school administration that you’ve been selling drugs to students. I know you’re on scholarship, so I really hope you make the right choice.”

  Drew turns to me, broken and desperate, and I do not care. I do not.

  His voice is a rasp, a fraying rope. “I love her.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I cannot believe I just said that. Or how good it felt.

  I lean close to his face.

  “You sold her drugs. Do you have any idea what she’s been going through these past few days in detox?”

  “She’s in detox?” Relief and hurt wash over his face.

  I’m surprised she didn’t tell him. Maybe that was supposed to be a secret. But I’m done with secrets.

  “Yeah, after a whole night out with you.”

  “She wasn’t using with me that night. She drank, and I was watching out for her. Mae—”

  “She could have died—she still might die.”

  I say this louder than I mean to, and an old lady a few seats down glances at us over her copy of the Boston Globe. I never realized how lucky you are, if you get to be a senior citizen. I used to feel sorry for old people; I don’t anymore.

  “These three days in the hospital—it’s only the beginning.” I am trying very hard to use my inside voice. “When she comes home, the doctors said she’ll likely be depressed. Craving. Sensitive to pain. There’s a higher risk of suicide. And if she relapses again and takes the same dose as she did before, her chances of overdosing are greater. You die from respiratory suppression. You stop breathing. You drown.”

  His voice is low, urgent. “I’ve been trying to help her. She just—”

  “How? How have you helped her? By getting her high? By helping her forget who she is? You never talked to me. Or my aunt and uncle. My cousin. You could have told us. How bad it was. You didn’t. And I know why. You didn’t want her to be mad at you. To push you away like she pushes away anyone who tries to help her. So you’d rather have her like you than have her healthy. You’re a fucking coward.”

  He flinches. “I know you don’t believe I’ve been watching out for her, but I have. It’s all I do these days. I’m not dealing anymore. I’m not giving her pills. She promised she was going to stop. If I try to bring it up, she pushes me away. You’re right, she does that. But I can’t help her if she doesn’t let me in. She can’t break up with you. But she can with me. If I’d lectured her, or if I’d told you—she’d have shut me out. For good. I thought if I could just show her she didn’t need the pills—”

  “So, what, you thought you could kiss it better?” I shake my head. “God, you’re one of them.”

  “One of who?”

  The train lurches, and I have to work very hard not to be pushed up against this creep.

  “Guys never paid attention to me until my parents die
d. I never knew that was a factor in male attraction, but apparently it is. Suddenly, boys at school who are not my lab partners are talking to me. It’s not because I’m the new girl. I think they like the idea of saving me, of being some knight in shining armor. They want to swoop in and get a little rush of oxytocin. I think they like the drama of it. We’re these tragic figures to them. Being with us is like starring in an indie movie.” I stare him down. “In your case, though, I bet you thought she could validate you somehow. Right? Like maybe you could be good again if you got her clean. Either way, it has nothing to do with Hannah and everything to do with you.”

  I’ve never said this out loud, and I’m suddenly wondering: Is Ben one of those guys, too? Because Riley was the only boy who ever showed interest in me all throughout high school, and yet suddenly a brilliant, MIT version of Ichigo Kurosaki meets me and wants to be with me after one night of astronautical engineering. Carl Jung would call this synchronicity, but Jung was a mystic more than a psychologist, and his reasoning is therefore suspect.

  Drew shakes his head. “So you’re suggesting that the only reason I’d be with Hannah is that I want to use her to feel better about my own piece-of-shit self? Because there would be no other reason to want to be with her, is that it?”

  “You are misinterpreting my analysis—”

  “I don’t think I am. Not in this case. I think you got an A in AP Psych and you think you know everything. You’re the smartest person on this train, and I’m a lowly dealer. I get it, I do: I don’t deserve her. Maybe if I were like Ben, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But you’re not accounting for the fact that someone might want Hannah for other reasons. Because she’s beautiful and she sees the world in a way no one else does. She walks her own path, even when it’s confusing and hard. She actually takes the time to get to know the kind of people the rest of the world writes off. No. All those things are irrelevant in your calculus.”

  “Don’t tell me about my sister. You’ve known her for two seconds. You’re not the expert on her.”

  Drew’s eyes flash. “And you are? You live with her. You supposedly know her better than anyone, right? But here’s what I don’t get, Mae: If you’re the expert, then how the hell did she get on the pill train to start? Because when I met her, she’d been on that ride for a while.”

  The T jolts to a stop. I can hardly breathe. My coat, sealing me in, a straitjacket. I feel like Mom, this enclosed space taking out all the air. All those elevators she hated getting into. I understand now, why she wanted to take the stairs.

  I hate him. I hate him so much. I hate him more than climate change deniers.

  “Except for when she was sober this summer, your sister’s been swallowing pills for a year and a half,” he says. “I’ve only known her since October. So how is this all my fault? Where have you been? Where have any of you fucking been? I’m the only person in this whole city who sees her. Who can’t stop looking.”

  His words hit me with the force of the wave. He’s right. I didn’t do anything until it was too late, and even then it was Mom and Dad who figured out what her problem was. This is my fault. My parents drowned, and there was nothing I could do about it. My sister has been drowning for months, and I’ve been standing on the shore so close—but instead of looking out for her in that water, jumping in and pulling her out, I’ve had my eyes on the stars.

  Selfish. I’ve been so selfish.

  Maybe I didn’t try to save her because a part of me knew that I’d have to give up Annapolis to do that. I’d hoped flushing her pills or calling Micah would do the trick. I was trying to pass her off to him, wasn’t I?

  I was willfully ignorant. The biggest crime you can commit.

  Drew stands. “Call the cops. Call the damn mayor, if you want. I don’t deserve her—that’s true. But she’s the one good thing in my life. And I know I can be a good thing in hers. And you’re not keeping me from her.”

  I reach up and grab his arm, squeeze so hard he winces as I pull myself up. He’s tall, taller than Hannah, even, so I have to stand on my toes to say what I have to say properly.

  “You’re right: You don’t deserve her.” I swallow. “But … you’re also right about me. I have to … to recalculate my course.”

  He nods.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” I say. “You almost took her from me. In a way, you already have. Her addiction isn’t your fault. It’s no one’s fault. But easy access to pills—that is your fault. Not talking to my family so we can all keep her safe—also your fault. If you really love her, you’ll stay away.” I drop my hand. “Our family can’t handle one more disaster, and that’s all you’ll be. You’ll hurt her. You already have. And she’ll hurt you. That’s what she does. And then she’ll feel bad about it. And it will make everything worse. We’ll take it from here. Okay?”

  Drew grips the bar above us as the train takes a sharp turn. “The difference between you and me, Mae, is that when I look at your sister, I don’t see a problem. I see a solution.” The smile he gives me is sad, and old. It’s seen a lot of things maybe I haven’t. “She’s so much more than any of you have ever given her credit for.” He leans forward. “And I’ll tell you a little something I’ve picked up as a dealer. The pills, they have nothing to do with the stuff everyone thinks users take them for. Hannah doesn’t take them because of the wave or the abortion or because she fell in with the wrong crowd.”

  “But … why, then?”

  “I think you need to spend some time getting to know your sister better, Mae.”

  The train stops, and Drew turns, folding himself into the trickle of bodies exiting at Harvard Square. I stare after him long after the doors shut and the train starts again.

  I sit on that train and ride it all the way to the end of the line, ride it like my sister did that morning when she was alone and cold and desperate and scared.

  He’s right: I don’t know her. Not really. I thought I did. But I had to ask her what she wanted because I had no idea. And when I think about her now, the only adjective that comes to mind is broken. I don’t know when she stopped being the person who sang along to Hocus Pocus or the fun girl who worked at the coffee shop by our house. The one who went to bonfires with surfers and loved jumping into waves and making goofy playlists.

  I guess I wasn’t looking.

  Jean Cocteau—artist, writer, filmmaker—said of opium: I owe it my perfect hours. It makes me so sad, to imagine Nah’s perfect hours being ones that are all alone, hiding, filled with pills to help her forget the wave and whatever made her start taking the pills in the first place. Covered in vomit, her lips blue from cold. Skin breaking out in a rash. I want to help her see what Ben showed me about time, how it can be a gift. How a minute, if you really let yourself live it, can be everything.

  The past few days, I’ve been kicking my research into high gear. Thinking I was working the problem. I thought maybe if I could figure out why the pills were so attractive, I could provide an alternative. As though it would be a simple bait and switch. What, exactly, are the pills giving her that life isn’t? And then how can I give her that thing in a healthier form?

  But I don’t think it’s that simple. I’ve been trying to give Nah answers instead of asking her questions. It took a drug dealer, of all people, to point out my error. A drug dealer who is probably a lot smarter than I’ve been giving him credit for. Another error on my part.

  I need to find a safe way to help my sister face whatever it is that got her started on pills in the first place. All that sadness she had even before the clinic and the wave. I think the answers might be at Dharma Bums, but I have to conduct more tests until I’m certain.

  When the train stops at Kendall, I step off and walk toward the cushion that’s waiting for me. The silence. The something—or Something Else—that hides in there, waiting for all of us.

  this is what dying looks like.

  Mirror

  Room 365

  Boston Children’s Hospital
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  see what you are made of.

  Toilet Seat

  Room 365

  Boston Children’s Hospital

  sit in a circle

  stay there until

  the beginning has no end

  Door

  Group Therapy Room

  Boston Children’s Hospital

  the miracle can go fuck itself.

  Suboxone Package

  Medication Dispensary

  Boston Children’s Hospital

  diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

  Opioid Addiction Hotline Sign

  Copley Station

  Boston

  31

  Hannah

  Somehow I knew he’d be here. Waiting for me.

  Drew sits beneath my angel like an offering. It’s snowing again, and the flakes swirl around him, around her. It is so quiet here. Day fading to night. The garden empty, too cold for strolling.

  He stands. Slow. He’s afraid I’ll run away again.

  “They won’t let me see you.” His eyes are dark, a night sea. “I came. To your house.”

  “I know.”

  I heard his voice last night after I got back, even through my closed bedroom door upstairs. The one that no longer has a lock.

  His voice, like the last lifesaver on a sinking ship, floating just beyond reach. For just one second, I wanted something more than a pill.

  “Did you … I called.” He laughs softly. “I even emailed you.”

  “I couldn’t have anything in … there.”