A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “Billy?”

  “My ex,” I said. “I wouldn’t have even gone to Dick’s for the milkshake and burgers if I hadn’t run into Billy at Target. I should’ve gone to the one at Northgate, but all I needed was face wash and I didn’t want to have to take the bus. It was my fault, really.”

  DJ said something, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about seeing Billy standing in front of the notebooks, examining each one like it was the most important decision he would ever make—and for him, it probably felt like it was. How I froze when I saw him, and the moment before he saw me, when I could have taken off but didn’t. The hurt that morphed into anger in Billy’s eyes when he finally looked up and realized it was me standing at the end of the aisle.

  “Noa?”

  I tried to shake Billy out of my head. “Have you ever been in love, DJ?”

  “Once.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because love is a lie. It’s not some deep and meaningful connection between two people built over stolen moments and awkward glances and hot chocolates. It’s not a holy expression of the profound understanding you have for another person or a sign from the universe that you’ve found the one human being in the world that you’re fated to spend the rest of your life with.

  “Love is chemical warfare. It’s your body responding to their pheromones by juicing you with feel-good hormones and then spraying your own cocktail of pheromones into the air. It’s serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin. You can get the same high from eating a bag of chocolates, did you know that?”

  DJ cleared his throat. “Uh, I didn’t.”

  “Well, you can,” I said. “And the longer you spend with someone, the more addicted to them you become. Your body craves the chemicals their body churns out.” I laughed bitterly. “Love turns us into junkies.”

  I suppose if I didn’t have a one-way ticket to a long, drawn-out death in outer space, I might have been embarrassed by my rant, but I had run out of energy to care what DJ or anyone else thought of me.

  “That Billy guy really hurt you, huh?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I snapped, even though I was the one who’d dumped my trash out there for DJ to pick through.

  “Sorry.” And he sounded like he really, truly meant it, which made everything worse.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I just… let’s talk about something else. What about you? What’s the last thing you remember?”

  There was a three-second delay before DJ answered, and I worried in that short time that he’d shut off the comms so he didn’t have to stay with me until I died. I was scared of dying, sure, but I was terrified of dying alone.

  “I was in the shower,” he said. “I think.”

  “You were kidnapped from the shower?”

  “I think.” He definitely sounded distracted. A small part of me wanted to believe that DJ was going to find a way to rescue me, but I couldn’t afford to let hope in. Hope was even more dangerous than space. “I’d gotten home from running, and I was sweaty and covered in gnats.”

  “Gross.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You learn pretty quick not to breathe through your mouth.”

  I didn’t want to think about all the bugs DJ had swallowed to reach that realization, and quickly changed the subject. “Who’s missing you at home? Parents? Friends? Siblings?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Look, these are probably the last minutes of my life. I know you didn’t ask to spend them with me, and I sure as hell didn’t think I’d be spending them with you, but this is where we are, so can you please just humor me?”

  The weird thing was that while I would have liked for my mom or Becca to have been on the other end of the comms, I wasn’t upset that it was DJ instead. I barely knew anything about him—I didn’t even know what he looked like—but, so far, he was the only thing about space I didn’t hate.

  “It’s just me, my dad, and my older brothers,” DJ said. “My mom died when I was born.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, but it’s tough for me to miss someone I never met, you know?”

  “Kind of,” I said. “It’s just me and my mom at home. My dad took off when I was three. Drugs, though my mom said he had some mental problems and that I shouldn’t hold it against him.”

  “Couldn’t he have gotten help?”

  I shrugged even though DJ couldn’t see it over the comms. “There was a homeless guy I used to see everywhere in my neighborhood. He was always sitting at one of the bus stops I had to pass on my way to and from school. For a while when I was in sixth grade, I got it into my head that he was my dad, which was silly, seeing as we didn’t look anything alike. It was just… it made me feel better to think he was there, even if he wasn’t.”

  I didn’t give a lot of brain space to my dad. Most of the time he was little more than a ghost who haunted me and my mom around the holidays. There was a small part of me that thought I’d find him one day. I never expected us to have some big reunion where he apologized for leaving, but I thought, at least, I might get the chance to know him.

  Now I never would.

  “Hey, DJ?”

  “Yeah, Noa?”

  “Do me a favor,” I said. “Figure out who did this to us, find them, and kill them for me.”

  “Can’t do it,” DJ said. “I’m a pacifist.”

  I balled my hands into fists. “You’re a pacifist? Like, you won’t even fight to defend yourself?”

  “To defend myself, yeah, but I’m not just going to walk up to a person and murder them, no matter how much I think they deserve it.”

  This was a ridiculous conversation, and it was even more ludicrous that it was pissing me off. “I’m dying here, DJ. Are you seriously going to deny me my dying wish? Can’t you at least lie to me?”

  “I could,” DJ said, “but what would be the point? You’re not going to die.”

  I was sure that I’d misheard DJ. That he’d said something entirely different from what my brain thought he had. “Say that again.”

  DJ’s laugh was as bright as a supernova. “You’re not dying today, Noa. Now hold on tight. I’m bringing you in.”

  Before I could process what was happening, the back of my suit began to vibrate. Soon, my entire body was shaking, and I seemed to be slowing down. I didn’t know how far I’d traveled, but Qriosity was little more than a tiny dark blob in the starfield.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, equal parts terrified and exhilarated.

  I came to a complete stop, and the vibration in my back ceased for a moment before starting up again, only this time it was pushing me forward. I felt a gentle nudge against the inside of my suit as I sped toward Qriosity. “How… ? DJ? Did you… ?” I was having difficulty forming words and organizing them into coherent sentences.

  “When I was digging through the computer’s operating system, I remembered seeing controls for the spacesuits. Turns out those controls allowed me to remotely activate your thrusters. Once I figured that out, all I had to do was program in a firing pattern that would stop your flight away from Qriosity and put you on a trajectory back to the ship. Nothing to it.” DJ really did make it sound simple. Like my life had never actually been in danger.

  I barked out a laugh. “Oh yeah, sounds super easy.”

  “I’m good with math,” he said. “Math and computers.”

  “I’m good at using a calculator.” I had convinced myself that I was going to die in space, and now that I wasn’t, I could hardly believe it. I didn’t know what to do or say. “How am I ever going to thank you?”

  “There was some mention of cake?” DJ said.

  “As many cakes as you can eat,” I said. “I’ll stuff cakes in you until you beg me to stop.”

  DJ’s gentle laugh filled my helmet. “Suddenly this is sounding less and less like a reward.”

  Now that I was returning to the ship, a small ember of hope flared wit
hin me, and I nursed it into a flame. “How long will it take to reach the ship?” I asked. “I can’t wait to get out of this suit and to meet you, and I have to pee so bad I can taste it.”

  “Let me see,” DJ said. “You’re moving at a speed of…” His voice faded in and out as he talked himself through the problem, and I wasn’t paying attention because… math. “Twenty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds.”

  I hesitated, glancing at my hud. “Can you fire my thrusters again and speed the trip up a little?”

  “If you really have to go, I bet you can go in the suit.”

  The flame flickered. “That’s not it. I mean, yes, I am almost definitely going to pee in this suit, but DJ, I only have sixteen minutes of oxygen left.” I checked the readout on my hud twice to make sure.

  Nothing from the comms.

  “DJ?”

  “I… Noa, I used the last of your propellant to set your course back. There’s nothing left.”

  The flame died.

  I began to laugh. A full-throated belly laugh that filled the suit. I laughed so hard that I absolutely peed a little. I hoped DJ was right about the suit being equipped to handle it. I didn’t want to die drowning in my own urine.

  “Noa, don’t. I’ll work something out. Breathe shallowly, okay? We’ve still got time.”

  I laughed because, if I didn’t, I was going to cry, and I had no idea what would happen to tears in zero-G. “This is perfect,” I said. “I’m going to make it back to the ship; I’ll just be dead before it happens.”

  “Stop talking,” DJ said. “Talking uses oxygen.”

  “This figures, you know?” I said, ignoring DJ. “My entire life has been one disaster after another.”

  A bang echoed through the comms, followed by DJ’s choked voice. “You’re not going to die, Noa. I won’t let you!”

  “It’s fine,” I told him. “It’s not your fault. You don’t even know me, okay? For all you know, this is exactly what I deserve. Don’t waste any more energy trying to save me. Save yourself, okay?”

  “Noa—”

  “Just…”

  “What?” DJ said.

  “Don’t leave me alone out here?”

  I could hear DJ breathing, so I knew he was still there, but he didn’t speak for what felt like forever. A second is a second no matter what, right? It’s a measurement, and those are kind of absolute even if they’re made up. But time is also relative to the person experiencing it. That’s why the last minute hugging your best friend before they leave for LA to spend the summer with their grandparents feels shorter than a heartbeat, and why the last minute before the last bell rings on the last day of school feels like an hour.

  Those seconds between my begging DJ to stay on the line and him answering were the longest of my life. They stretched out like they’d been sucked into a black hole and spaghettified. A second is a second, except when it’s forever.

  “I promise I won’t ever leave you,” DJ finally said.

  I had nearly suffocated in the waiting, and now I could breathe again. “Still wish we could trade places?”

  DJ’s laugh was wet, like he was crying, which I tried not to think about so that I didn’t start crying too. “I would, you know?”

  Strangely, even though I’d never met DJ in person, I got the impression that he was sincere. He wasn’t just saying he would take my place to make me feel better. He would actually do it if given the opportunity. That’s the kind of person he was. And I was the kind of person who would have let him.

  “If you make it back home,” I said. “Do me a favor and tell my mom what happened. Her name’s Emma North—”

  “Please don’t do this, Noa.”

  “And tell her it was me and not the cat that knocked down her little Christmas tree with the crystal ornaments on it that Gamma had given her. She’s hated Jinx ever since, and the poor cat doesn’t deserve it.”

  Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to unload this crap onto DJ, but someone had to make sure my mom didn’t spend the rest of her life wondering where I’d gone the way I knew she wondered about my dad. She needed to know that both of us hadn’t abandoned her.

  I’m sure it was my imagination, but the air in my suit felt thinner. DJ didn’t say much as I babbled on about nothing. I told him to find Becca and make sure to tell her that she did not look good with a perm and I should’ve been honest with her, but I’d had a crush on Sanjay too and I’d hoped her hideous perm would make him lose interest in her.

  I told him about Mrs. Blum and her bakery where I’d learned to bake. How she’d watched me after school, when I was younger, on the days when my mom had worked late at the hospital where she was a nurse. Mrs. Blum had given me dough to knead to keep my hands busy at first, but eventually she began to teach me for real.

  I told him about the musical I starred in when I was in fourth grade, and how I stood at the edge of the stage to perform my first solo, opened my mouth to sing, and threw up all over the audience in the front row.

  “You said you had a boyfriend?” DJ said. “Want me to tell him anything?”

  “Ex,” I said. “And no.”

  “I’d be happy to break his arms if you want.”

  “I thought you were a pacifist.”

  DJ said, “For you, just this once, I’ll make an exception.”

  The air was definitely getting thinner. My eyes were heavy and hard to hold open. I hoped I would simply fall asleep and that would be the end. But I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live even though I wasn’t always sure why. I wanted to live despite my missing dad and my broken heart and all the thrown milkshakes. I wanted to live because, sure, life sucked a lot, sometimes it was unfairly horrific, but it was always worth sticking around for to see what came next.

  “Noa?”

  “Yeah, DJ.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, and I tried to make sure he knew I meant it.

  “Someone owes you an apology for this,” he said, “so it might as well be me.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And I know we’ve never even properly met, so you’ve got no reason to believe me, but I think you’re wrong about love. Love isn’t war. Life is the war; love is a truce you find in the middle of all that violence. And I bet there’s someone out there who loves you, even if you don’t know them yet.”

  I wanted to tell DJ he was wrong. I knew what love was and what it wasn’t. If love wasn’t war, then why had it hurt so badly? Why did the idea of it still give me nightmares? I had survived falling in love, and I had the scars to prove it. But this wasn’t the hill I wanted to die on. DJ was trying to comfort me in my final minutes, and I appreciated that more than he would ever know.

  “I wish I could’ve met you in person, DJ. You seem all right.”

  “Me too.” DJ exhaled, and the sound of it over the speakers was like a breeze I could almost feel. “How much air have you got left?”

  It was becoming difficult to catch enough breath to talk. “Just a few minutes. You’re not going anywhere, right? You promised.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m staying right here until the end.”

  QRIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

  ONE

  I SAT UP GASPING BECAUSE the last thing my body remembered was dying. A deep ache lingered in my chest like someone had used my ribs for a trampoline, and though breathing hurt, I took one sweet breath after another, clearing the fog from my brain.

  “DJ?” His name felt strange on my tongue. Strange that he was the first person I thought of upon waking, but it also felt as natural as breathing. If I strained, I could hear DJ’s voice in the dark, like he was just on the other side of a door talking to me, telling me jokes to keep me from freaking out, reassuring me that everything was going to be fine with his barely-there Southern twang.

  Soft blue lights flickered on. I shielded my eyes with my hand, blinking until they adjusted. The air was humid and sticky and smelled sharply of antiseptic.
It reminded me of the hospital where my mom worked. For a moment, I expected her to walk through the door and tell me that I hadn’t woken up in space, that the experience had been nothing more than a fever dream.

  But she didn’t. Because it wasn’t.

  I was lying on a cool white table in a sterile white room that was only slightly larger than my bedroom back home. A second table, empty, sat to my left, and there was a counter across the room that was clean except for a pile of clothes. I peeled back the silver blanket draped over me and swung my legs around to stand, but a glossy white cuff wrapped around my left bicep jerked me back. Tubes and wires ran from the cuff into a port on the wall. I touched the smooth surface, looking for a seam or a latch so that I could pry it off.

  The cuff shrieked, and a gender-neutral voice with a vaguely British accent said, “Removing the MediQwik Portable Medical Diagnostician and Care Appliance while it is treating you for cracked ribs and hypoxia-related brain injury could result in complications such as internal bleeding, memory loss, and death. MediQwik, health redefined. MediQwik is a trademark of Prestwich Enterprises, a subsidiary of Gleeson Foods.”

  Out of all the garbage the computer voice spit out, I zeroed in on one thing. “I’ve got brain damage? How the hell did I get brain damage?”

  “The cause of your brain damage was death.”

  “I died?!”

  “You were clinically dead for seven minutes and thirteen seconds before your successful resuscitation and repair. You’re welcome.”

  I had died.

  The last thing I remembered was the sound of DJ’s voice. Not what he said, just the last note of it repeating on a loop until it faded entirely. I recalled no bright light. Gamma Evelyn and Grandpa Andy hadn’t been waiting to welcome me home. There had been no chorus of angels, no fluffy clouds. There’d been nothing. At least, nothing that I could remember. All those years of Sunday school had been a lie.

  I didn’t have time for an existential crisis, so I gently set aside the question of life after death and focused on a different question. I could guess how I had died—I’d run out of oxygen and suffocated—but how had I survived?