My Heart and Other Black Holes

by Jasmine Warga

  I wonder what my energy will do after I die. I wonder if our energy will really outlast us.

  He reaches out to touch my arm. “Aysel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You look like you drifted away.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Okay, well, I’ve been thinking . . . ,” he says.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want to go to the zoo with you. You should bring me when you go with that other guy.”

  Before I can respond, Roman’s mom calls up to us. “Guys, dinner is ready! Come on down.”

  He stands up slowly and offers me his hand. I take it and he pulls me up. I know he’s waiting for me to tell him about the zoo, but I pretend like it never happened. He mock bows, signaling for me to go down the steps before him.

  Roman’s mom is waiting for us in the foyer. She grabs my face in her hands and pulls me close. “I’m just so glad you were able to make it. I really hope you enjoy the food.”

  I should probably tell her I’m not an expert on Turkish cuisine, that I know nothing about it, that she could have cooked me a cheeseburger and it would have passed as authentic. But I sort of like being the center of attention. I’m starting to understand why Georgia thrives on it so much. It’s nice having people wait on your every move. I fold the feeling up and tuck it away. I’m glad I got to have it before April 7.

  “Aysel,” she says, pronouncing my name perfectly, “meet Mr. Franklin.” Roman’s dad is tall like him, almost bald, with a long, narrow face. He sticks his hand out and I shake it.

  “Nice to meet you,” he says, and I do my best to look friendly.

  “Aysel and Roman met at the old playground,” she tells Mr. Franklin, clutching on to his arm.

  Mr. Franklin turns to face Roman. “You’ve been playing ball again?” There’s a touch of surprise in his voice. My eyes dart from Mr. Franklin to Roman to Mrs. Franklin and back again. Mr. Franklin might be onto us.

  “I’m starving,” I say in hopes of avoiding any more questions about how Roman and I met.

  “Me too,” Mr. Franklin agrees. “Let’s eat.”

  Once we’re seated at the table, Roman’s mom leads us in prayer. I don’t close my eyes, but I notice that Roman does. The whole room smells like oregano and cumin, and my head fills with the image of my father’s friend’s wife, who cooked dinner for us one night when they’d come to visit. She’d held my face in her hands, much like how Mrs. Franklin did a moment ago, and she’d whispered to me in Turkish. I didn’t understand any of it, so I’d pretended she was saying, “Everything will be okay, Aysel. It’s all going to work out.”

  I know now that she probably wasn’t saying that. And even if she had been, she was wrong.

  Mrs. Franklin passes a warm casserole dish to me. “This is kuzu güveç.” She looks at me as if to ask if her pronunciation was correct. I have no idea, so I weakly nod. “It’s sort of like a lamb stew.”

  The table is crowded with other dishes—stuffed grape leaves, lamb and chicken kebabs, a rice pilaf, and a yogurt sauce. There’s also a small dish of jalapeños for Roman. It must have taken her hours and hours to prepare, and it all looks fantastic, but as I stick my fork into the lamb, ready to take a bite, I feel my appetite disappearing. I stare at Mrs. Franklin, her smiling, eager-to-please face, and know that Roman and I are about to break her heart.

  This whole dinner, her effort to connect with me, is more than my own mother has ever done. Mrs. Franklin keeps smiling at me, wanting to know my opinion on everything. Her eyes are bright and I recognize the spark in them—hope. She thinks Roman is getting better, that he’s made a new friend, that he’s showing interest in a girl.

  I slide my fork across my plate, pushing the lamb into the rice. I do my best to swallow my guilt.

  “This is really good, sweetheart,” Mr. Franklin says as he wipes his mouth with his napkin. “I have to admit I was nervous at first.” He glances over at me. “Not that I didn’t think it would be good, but I’ve just never had food like this before.”

  I nod at him to let him know I’m not offended. I don’t know enough about Turkish cuisine to have any vested stake in whether Mr. Franklin likes it or not. I wonder what it would be like to actually know something about the place my parents came from.

  Mrs. Franklin bobs her head up and down with excitement at Mr. Franklin’s compliment. “And you like it too, Aysel?”

  “It’s delicious,” I say like I’m some kind of expert.

  “Oh, good.” She squeezes her hands together and beams.

  I really don’t want to break her heart.

  SATURDAY, MARCH 23

  15 days left

  Georgia and I are sitting at the kitchen table and she’s peering out the window. I think she’s hoping to catch a glimpse of Tyler before we take off.

  “Who’s the cutie?” She presses her face against the windowpane.

  I take a sip of my black coffee. I keep trying to teach myself to like coffee, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t get past the bitter taste. “I thought you knew Tyler?”

  “Don’t mess with me,” she says. “That boy isn’t Tyler. He’s taller and his hair is shorter.”

  I look out the window and see Mrs. Franklin’s red Jeep pulling out of our driveway. The doorbell rings and I get up to answer the door, but Georgia beats me to it. She flings it open, puts her hands on her hips, and in her sweetest voice says, “Hello, nice to meet you.”

  “Uh, hi,” Roman says as he walks into our house. I’ve never been embarrassed by anything at Steve’s house, mostly because I spend all my time embarrassed about being me, but the second Roman enters, I start noticing everything that is wrong. Our carpet is stained and there’s a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. It looks nothing like his immaculate, spotless house.

  I know I shouldn’t care what he thinks. It’s not as if he’s going to decide that he doesn’t want to jump off the cliff at Crestville Pointe with me because my house is a disaster zone, but I don’t like the idea of him feeling sorry for me. I wish the black slug would go ahead and eat my self-consciousness along with my happiness.

  He sticks his hand out to greet Georgia like he’s a statesman. Southern manners die hard, I guess.

  “I’m Roman,” he says. “I’m a friend of your sister’s.”

  I’m surprised he was even able to deduce that Georgia was my sister, considering our lack of sibling resemblance. “Half sister,” I blurt out before Georgia can say anything.

  A flicker of annoyance washes over Georgia’s face, but she ignores me and turns her attention back to Roman. She steps closer to him and tugs on the back of her shiny ponytail. “So how do you know Aysel?”

  Roman looks down at the floor and shuffles his feet. “We met a few weeks ago at the basketball court out in Willis.”

  Georgia spins around to face me. “What were you doing in Willis?”

  “Why do you care what I do?” I motion for Roman to come take a seat at the kitchen table. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  As I watch his eyes scan the room, I want to put my hands over them and lead him out of our house before he can see anything else. “My mom works,” I say, trying to come up with any excuse for why the house is a mess.

  “Yeah, she works down at Swift Mart,” Georgia adds, skipping into the kitchen. “Six days a week, poor woman.”

  Poor woman? There are worse things in Mom’s life than the fact that she works at Swift Mart. Try: Her first husband is a convicted murderer. Or: Her firstborn daughter is a depressed freak.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Cheer practice or something?” I ask, opening the refrigerator. Roman didn’t answer if he wanted something to drink, but I’m going to give him orange juice anyway. I pour it and put the glass down in front of him.

  “Thanks,” he says absently. His mind is elsewhere. I notice the glass is foggy with dust. Gross. Sometimes it takes watching someone else observe how you live to realize exactly how you live.

  Georgia takes
a seat next to him. “I don’t have cheer practice today. I was thinking that I might tag along with you guys.”

  I try not to gape at her. What? “Um, but it’s for a physics project.”

  She turns to Roman. “Are you working on the physics project?”

  He gives me a slight smile before he says, “Nope. I just like the zoo. The sense of adventure, the animals.”

  She props her elbows up on the table and grins at me. “I like the zoo, too. And I’m all about adventures.”

  The doorbell rings again and I walk to the front hallway and open the door. Tyler Bowen is standing on the doorstep, his hands shoved in his pockets, wearing a white baseball cap that shades his blue eyes. “Hey, Aysel.”

  “Want to come in for a second?”

  He shrugs. “Sure.” He follows me into the kitchen.

  “Tyler!” Georgia springs up from her seat. She darts over to him and gives him a hug.

  He returns her hug, squeezing and lifting her off the ground. She giggles, and Roman and I exchange a what-the-hell look.

  “What’s up?” Tyler says, and I’m not sure if he’s asking the entire group, but only Georgia answers.

  “I just asked if I could go to the zoo with you guys.” She gives Tyler a pleading look, like he can be the tiebreaker between my adamant no and Roman’s indifference.

  “I didn’t know you two hung out,” Tyler says to Georgia in a completely serious voice. Now I almost want to give Tyler a hug myself.

  “I think Georgia should come,” Roman volunteers. And now he’s apparently switched his vote from indifferent to yes.

  “I’m Tyler, by the way,” Tyler says, sticking his hand out to greet Roman. “And you are?”

  “Roman.” He grips Tyler’s hand. Firm. Way to go, FrozenRobot. “I’m a friend of Aysel’s.”

  Tyler tries to hide his shock, but it’s obvious to everyone what he’s thinking. It’s the same thing any of my classmates would think if they saw Roman and me out of context—a good-looking basketball player and the dark girl from school with the murderous father. I guess everyone sees us out of context, though.

  “They met at a playground in Willis,” Georgia interjects, beaming at Roman.

  “I see,” Tyler says. “Well, should we get going, since the animals are sleepy later in the day? We need photographs of them moving, right?”

  “Are you driving?” Georgia asks.

  “Yeah,” Tyler says, dangling his keys in the air. “We can all fit in my car.”

  “I call the front seat!” Georgia says, jumping to her feet.

  I run upstairs to our bedroom and dig through my backpack to find the camera I borrowed from the school library. I find it and put it into a smaller purse I borrow from Georgia’s closet. It’s baby blue, shaped like a seashell, and made of fake leather. It’s not something I would buy in a million years, but it fits the camera perfectly, and who cares about the stupid color. Fashion is the least of my concerns right now.

  I sit on the bedroom floor and take a couple of deep breaths, humming Mozart’s requiem, mentally preparing myself for what’s about to happen. Just as I’m about to head back downstairs, I hear a shuffling behind me.

  “Today is going to be interesting,” Roman says. Way to follow me upstairs without an invitation, FrozenRobot.

  “You’re telling me. I don’t get why you wanted to come in the first place,” I say.

  He holds out his hand and helps pull me up from the floor. “Don’t lie, you’re now real glad I decided to come or else you’d have to suffer through the Tyler-Georgia show all by yourself.”

  “You’re the one who told her she could come,” I mumble as we walk down the stairs.

  “It’s better this way.” He opens the front door for me.

  I grab my jacket off the coat hook and pull the house keys out of the pocket and lock the door. “I doubt it.”

  “It is,” he says. “Trust me.”

  The air outside is crisp and the sky is clear and you can smell spring’s moist, floral scent in the air. It’s a perfect day for the zoo. As we walk toward the car, I look up at Roman. I don’t know if it’s trust I feel for him. I guess I have to trust that he’s going to jump when I do, not that it really matters as long as I go. I know that’s an awful thing to think, but that’s one thing where the trolls on the internet are maybe right: It’s a selfish act. It’s all about you, which is what makes the Suicide Partner thing so weird.

  You only need your partner. Until you don’t.

  SATURDAY, MARCH 23

  15 days left

  We arrive at the zoo after about two hours of driving. The drive wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be—everyone was pretty quiet, we spent most of the time listening to Georgia hum along with the radio. Occasionally, Tyler would ask her a question and she’d answer him in her animated-Georgia way.

  She interrogated Roman and he handled it pretty well. She all but asked him if we were dating and he managed to keep her guessing. Having met his mom, I’d bet he’s had a lot of practice at answering rapid-fire questions.

  Tyler parks the car and the four of us make our way to the entrance. We wait in line to buy tickets. There’s an awkward moment when I can tell Tyler is considering buying Georgia’s ticket for her, but then he’d feel obligated to buy mine, and let’s face it: Tyler Bowen doesn’t want to waste his money on me.

  Roman shoulders past me and hands the woman working at the counter a wad of cash. “Four student tickets, please.”

  “Roman,” Georgia says in fake outrage. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Seriously, dude,” Tyler says. “I can pay for my own ticket. It’s no problem.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Roman flashes me a smile. The woman at the counter counts out his change and hands it back to him. I notice that her hands look much older than her face. I look down at my own and don’t know if I feel happy or sad that I’ll never see them wrinkled.

  Once we’re inside the zoo, I whisper to Roman, “What was that?”

  He shrugs. “You can’t take your money with you.”

  Tyler raises his eyebrows when he sees me leaning in to Roman’s ear. “I didn’t know you were turning our science project into your personal date.”

  Georgia loops her arm through Tyler’s. “That’s why I came along, Ty. Now, you won’t feel so left out.”

  He pets Georgia’s arm as he turns his attention to me. “The zoo was your idea, Aysel. Where should we go?”

  “Why don’t we go to the nocturnal house? We can photograph the bats. They hang upside down. Potential energy.”

  “Right. Bats are like living hangmen,” Tyler says, an edge to his voice. Roman and Georgia give Tyler questioning looks, and I do my best to also act confused. Which turns out to be pretty easy since bats are nothing like living hangmen, but now doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to push the subject with Tyler.

  “It’s this way,” I say, and dart ahead of the group. I basically have the Louisville Zoo memorized. When I was younger, Mom used to take me here on the weekends a lot. She thought it was good for me to have alone time with her. She gave up on that when I was about eight since Georgia was getting older and Mike was a handful of a toddler. She’d never admit it, but she was busy building her new family and happy to leave me to my father. It took him finally snapping for her to really notice me again. And no one wants to be noticed because of something like that; it’s like being an invasive species that no one pays any attention to until you’ve strangled and ruined all the beautiful native plants.

  The inside of the nocturnal house is how I remember it. It’s dark and smells like rotting fruits and vegetables. I hear Georgia giggling behind me, which must mean the group managed to keep up with my quick pace. I rush past the cages of opossums and raccoons and find the vampire bats. When I reach the exhibit, I see the bats hanging from the ceiling, their black, leathery wings wrapped around their bodies.

  Roman comes up behind me and puts his hand on my sh
oulder. I jump.

  “It’s just me,” he says.

  “I know.” And that’s exactly why I’m skittish. I pull the camera out of the purse.

  “Thanks for asking if you could borrow my purse,” Georgia says.

  “You should really keep your voice down,” I say. “You don’t want to scare the animals.”

  Georgia glares at me and she curls her upper lip, her white teeth glinting in the dark room. “That’s funny. You telling someone else not to be scary.”

  “Georgia,” Tyler hisses at her.

  “What?” she says as she tosses her head back. Her barb lingers in the air like smoke from a bonfire.

  “Uh,” Roman says, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left. “How about we just let Aysel take the photo?”

  “Fine,” Georgia says. “Let’s leave her to it. Wanna go see the armadillos? They’re so cute!”

  “Sure. Whatever you want,” Roman says, and they head down the hall.

  I turn the camera on and look through the viewfinder. I snap a few photos and then scroll through the images. “Here,” I say, holding the camera out to Tyler. “I think this is a good one.”

  “Yeah, I think Mr. Scott will like it,” Tyler answers.

  Too bad I won’t be around to see his reaction. I shove the camera back into my purse. “So should we go meet them by the armadillos?”

  “She just wants to be your friend, you know,” Tyler says.

  I close the purse with so much force that I almost break the zipper. “Um. I don’t think so.”

  “Yes, she does. That’s why she came today.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s pretty obvious.” I give him a blank stare and he continues, “She’s always trying to get your attention, trying to make you laugh. She’s not so bad, you know?”

  As we walk down the dark hallway in search of the armadillos, I consider what Tyler said about Georgia wanting to be my friend. I’m pretty sure it’s complete bullshit. Georgia came to try to cozy up to Tyler. Dating Tyler Bowen would skyrocket her social standing: freshman cheerleader dates junior basketball player. It’s like an awful teen movie. “I think you’re wrong about the reason she came today,” I say. “It’s not me. It’s you.”