The Universe Is Expanding and So Am I

by Carolyn Mackler

  “I like the idea of us having a later,” he murmurs.

  I pull the sleeping bags over our shoulders, and we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  It’s weird to wake up next to Sebastian. Not bad weird. More like cool weird. His eyes are a little puffy, and he has a sheepish smile on his face as he kisses me good morning.

  I go into the house and get us some cereal and milk and glasses of orange juice. We sit on the back porch eating breakfast, and then I wash the dishes and put them away. When I get outside, Sebastian has taken down the tent and he’s loading our stuff into the trunk.

  “We’re doing this, right?” he asks me.

  “We’re doing it,” I say.

  Then we hop into the car and take off.

  “What are we going to tell them?” Sebastian says once we’re on the road. “Like, are we going to say we’re not returning home unless they accept that we’re together, and maybe it’s awkward but they’ll have to deal?”

  “Something like that. And let’s hope they accept it quickly, because I have to be at work at six tomorrow morning.”

  Sebastian grins sideways at me. “The towel hero is needed.”

  “That can be your next picture book,” I say, laughing. “A superhero called Towel Woman.”

  “Purple-haired, of course,” he adds.

  It’s a short drive to Lincoln Township, and we find parking right away. We walk along a cobblestoned path through the town green. There’s a cell signal in this town, which is the primary reason we’re here.

  “Ready?” Sebastian asks. He’s sitting next to me on a bench, holding my hand. He offers to take a walk while I make my call, but I say I need all the support I can get.

  I scroll through my contacts, trying to figure out if I should call Dad or Mom or even Anaïs. Then I see Byron’s name, and I remember how he stood up for me yesterday. But it’s not just that. I’m thinking back to how close we were when we were younger, before he grew up and I grew up and a million forces pulled us apart.

  “Gin?” Byron asks after I dial his number. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I just—”

  “Is it Virginia?” I hear Mom’s voice say. “Mike, it’s Virginia! She called Byron’s phone.”

  Dad gets on. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “Connecticut,” I say. “We just drove into town.”

  “She’s in Connecticut,” Dad says to whoever is listening. Then, to me, he says, “How did you get there? Did you take the train?”

  “I … uhhh.” I pause. “I took the car.”

  “You got the car out of the garage?” Dad says, his voice rising. “Without telling me? Those are some major highways. We haven’t practiced—”

  “Sebastian drove,” I say quickly.

  “She’s saying that Sebastian drove,” I hear Dad say in the background.

  All of a sudden there’s a squeal. Two squeals. I recognize those voices. But what are they doing in my house?

  “Is that Shannon and Alyssa?” I ask into the phone.

  Sebastian raises his eyebrows at me. I shake my head like, I have no idea. But before I can ask Dad what’s up with Shannon’s and Alyssa’s voices being there, my sister gets on the phone.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Is that Shannon and Alyssa?” I ask again.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Hang on … I’m walking into your bedroom … I’m closing the door. I want to talk to you in private.”

  “What are Shannon and Alyssa doing there?” I ask. I’m utterly confused. It’s in the realm of possibility that Alyssa could come to my apartment on a random Sunday morning, but Shannon is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Just a few days ago I mailed her a letter to someplace called Truckee, California.

  Anaïs explains that my parents didn’t actually have a play to go to this weekend. That was all a cover. The real reason we weren’t supposed to go to Connecticut is because Shannon was flying into New York City last night. That’s why they said yesterday that the tickets were coming. The tickets were Shannon. It turns out she’d had enough of the Pacific Crest Trail, so her parents called my parents from a pit stop and arranged for Shannon to stay with us for the rest of the summer while they finish the hike. They brought Shannon to the airport in Reno, Nevada, and she flew in last night and took a car service to our apartment, and Mom planned the whole thing as a surprise for me.

  Anaïs is a little less clear on what Alyssa is doing at our place. Something about how when Shannon arrived last night and discovered I’d run away, she texted Alyssa, who convinced her uncle to drive her into the city this morning to help find me.

  The whole time she’s talking, I’m shaking my head in disbelief. I can’t imagine my parents and my siblings and Shannon and Alyssa all in the same apartment, trying to manage a crisis. I actually love that image, like maybe it’s the start of something new and much more real.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t have your back yesterday,” Anaïs says. “I feel awful about that. You’re completely right about how you love who you love.”

  “I am?”

  “Of course you are.” Anaïs pauses. “Mom and Dad know that, too. That’s why Mom didn’t bust you last night. I think it wasn’t as much that they were mad about your boyfriend as they’re worried about how it all could affect Byron.”

  “Anything new on that?”

  “It’s the weekend, so things are slow, but it looks like nothing has changed with the plea bargain deal. The district attorney told Mark Levy that he doesn’t believe you were coercing the Mills family.”

  “Hang on,” I say. “What did you say about Mom not busting me last night?”

  Sebastian raises his eyebrows again. Again I shrug. I definitely didn’t expect my call going in this direction.

  “Mom knew that you and Sebastian were at the house,” Anaïs says. “I have no idea how she knew. She didn’t tell Dad, which was probably for the best.”

  “I thought you said secrets aren’t good.”

  “Dad would have flipped. He would have driven up in the middle of the night.”

  “But the car wasn’t there …”

  “Yeah. Well. I think you’re going to get in trouble about that one.”

  “Better that than about Sebastian,” I offer.

  I hear a knock in the background and Shannon’s voice saying, “Can we talk to her?”

  “I better hand you over,” Anaïs says. “More later, okay?”

  A second later, Alyssa shouts, “You’re on speaker!”

  “Hey!” I say to both of them. “What’s going on, Shan? You left the PCT?”

  “The thing about the PCT,” Shannon says, “is that on paper it looks good, right?”

  “Not exactly,” I say.

  “No way,” Alyssa says.

  “Okay, well, to some people it looks good,” Shannon says, “all the hiking and mountains and scenery. And it is amazing. But imagine being with your parents twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I started wanting to get eaten by a bear.”

  “So you came home,” I say.

  “Well, I came to your home,” Shannon says. “But you’re too busy running away and smooching it up with some cute boy.”

  “I’m here, though!” Alyssa says. “And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me who Sebastian is, that he’s her brother.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s—”

  “I’m just giving you a hard time,” Alyssa says. “I totally get it. It was too scandalous. But maybe we should try to, you know, talk about things more.”

  “Definitely,” I say.

  As Shannon jokes about how they’re going to try on my makeup and dig through my drawers, I notice she’s not stuttering. She rarely stutters with me, but she does with most other people. The fact that she’s not stuttering around Alyssa means she’s comfortable, which makes me excited for fall because now I’ll have two good friends who like each other, too.

  “Hey, girls,” Mom’s voice says. “Can I say
hi?”

  “Of course,” Shannon says. “W-w-want us to leave?”

  Mom always makes Shannon stutter. It’s been that way since the first time they met.

  “No, that’s fine. I’ll just take it off speakerphone if that’s okay with you.” There’s a pause and then Mom says, “Are you okay, honey?”

  Color me shocked. Mom never conducts family business in front of outside people.

  “How did you know where I was last night?” I ask.

  “Remember Divya? From the golf club?”

  “I think so,” I say. “The one with the daughter who wants blue hair?”

  “Exactly. She lives nearby, so I had her drive by the house last night. She saw a light on in the bathroom.”

  Enter another shock: Mom not only involved a friend, but a golf club friend, in a family crisis?

  We talk for a few more minutes. Mom tells me that she’s proud I’ve cultivated such amazing friends who come through for me when I need them. She also tells me that Dad wants to make sure Sebastian drives the car back to the city, something about a rule from the driver’s ed course. She briefly mentions that Dad is upset I took the car, but we’ll figure that all out when I get home. And then Mom delivers one final, earth-shattering shock.

  “Can you please tell Sebastian to call his parents? I talked to his mom last night. She’s quite worried.”

  “You talked to Sebastian’s mom?” I ask, hunching forward in disbelief.

  Sebastian whips his head toward me. I listen, stunned, as Mom explains how, when I didn’t come home last night, she guessed I was with Sebastian, so she checked if Byron still had Annie’s number in his phone, which he did. Then she majorly sucked it up and called Annie and explained who she was and asked to speak with their mom.

  I’m practically falling off the bench by this point, not to mention that Sebastian is gaping at me with a shocked expression on his face.

  “It’s not like we’re going to become friends,” Mom says. “But we both care deeply about our kids and want to make sure they’re safe. Once the legal stuff is over, Byron is going to send Annie an apology letter. He’s already started it. He knows he has a lot of repair work to do, both with himself and with the people he’s hurt.”

  “Did you … or did Sebastian’s mom … say anything about us?” I ask.

  “We did.” Mom pauses. “We both talked about staying out of it. It’s not our business.”

  Maybe I’m reading between the lines, but I’m totally translating that as they’re going to let Sebastian and me be together.

  I give Sebastian space to call his parents. He didn’t ask for it, but he looked nervous when he got his phone out, so I told him I was walking to a café across the town green to get us bagels. He asked if they were going to be the best bagels in Connecticut. I kissed him and called him a snob.

  When I return to the bench ten minutes later, Sebastian’s face is pointed toward the sun and his sea-glass eyes are clear and blue.

  “Well … they’re not going to kill me,” he says.

  “Not being killed,” I say, sitting next to him, “is a good start.”

  “My mom actually liked talking to your mom. She said it was refreshing and even healing to remember that Byron’s parents are people, too.”

  “Wow,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “Did she say anything about us?” I ask.

  “About the same as what your mom said. She also told me that she and my dad are looking into places for Annie to get help. What happened with Byron triggered a lot for my sister. My mom said they want to make sure Annie deals with the trauma of what happened so it doesn’t haunt her for her entire life.”

  “Like an in-patient place?” I ask. Some of Mom’s patients have checked into facilities in Westchester County, and she’s even driven up to visit them.

  “They didn’t say,” he says. “All they said is they’re considering bringing Annie back to Saskatchewan for the rest of the summer. They want to help her remember what she likes, what makes her happy. I don’t know. I’m just glad they’re getting her help. This whole thing has been really hard. For all of us.”

  Sebastian lets out a slow breath, and his shoulders sag.

  I touch his arm. “So what now?”

  “Now we sit and eat the best bagels in Connecticut.”

  “No bagels.” I hand him a bag and a pile of napkins. “Blueberry muffins.”

  Sebastian and I rip off chunks of our muffins and begin eating. Something about this road trip has left us both famished.

  “So what now?” he says when we’re done eating.

  “I guess let’s just be here.”

  Sebastian brushes a crumb from the edge of my lips. “I like that. We are here.”

  “We are here,” I say.

  I rest my head on his shoulder and squeeze his hand. Yes, this is messy and complicated. But it’s happening. Our life is happening. And we are here.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my agent, Jodi Reamer, for saying an emphatic yes when I told her I wanted to write this novel, and then working her ninja powers to make it happen. Thanks to Cindy Loh and the entire Bloomsbury crew for your every bit of awesomeness. This book would not be what it is without: Diane Aronson, Erica Barmash, Hali Baumstein, Beth Eller, Cristina Gilbert, Courtney Griffin, Melissa Kavonic, Jeanette Levy, Donna Mark, Lizzy Mason, Brittany Mitchell, and Emily Ritter.

  Thanks to Judge Kevin McGrath, my guide to arrest proceedings, criminal court, and the Pen. Thanks to my early readers, Dr. Vijayeta Sinh, for lending a psychologist’s eye to my characters’ struggles, and to Barbara Stretchberry for her expertise on all things teen.

  Thank you to my friends and family for being here for me through highs and lows. Thank you to my readers who have written me the most powerful and honest letters about their connection with Virginia; I’m delighted to share more of her.

  And a special thanks to Jonas, Miles, and Leif Rideout for showing me what true love looks like.

  BLOOMSBURY YA

  Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018

  BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  First published in the United States of America in May 2018 by Bloomsbury YA

  Text copyright © 2018 by Carolyn Mackler

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at specialmarkets@macmillan.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mackler, Carolyn, author.

  Title: The universe is expanding and so am I / by Carolyn Mackler.

  Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2018. | Sequel to: The earth, my butt, and other big round things.

  Summary: As New York City teenager Virginia learns to accept her plus-size body and struggles to cope with her brother’s suspension from college for date rape, she finds herself losing interest in boyfriend Froggy and growing closer to new boy Sebastian until a terrible secret threatens everything.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017039209 (print) | LCCN 2017051132 (e-book)

  ISBN 978-1-68119-599-5 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-68119-671-8 (e-book)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Self-perception—Fiction. | Body image—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Family problems—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M2178 Un 2018 (print) | LCC PZ7.M2178 (e-book) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039209

  To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbu
ry.com and sign up for our newsletters.