Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  I wish he’d hit me instead. I really think I do. Who is this boy?

  Mae makes a startled, choked sound. “Micah—”

  Drew starts to say something, too, but I beat them both to it. “If that’s the kind of person you think I am, then there’s nothing more we need to say here. So you can turn your ass around and go back to Logan Airport.”

  “I…” Micah shakes his head. “Fuck.” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he looks back up at me I see what I feel every morning, when I first wake up, flash across Micah’s face—all that shame and regret, all those what-ifs. “I’m sorry. I’m just—baby, what the fuck is happening right now? We … you’re my … I don’t understand.”

  “Is it true?” Mae says from behind Micah. She’s staring at Drew. I have never seen violence on my sister’s face before. I think she might hit him. “Are you the one giving her the pills?”

  Her eyes, they are so big. Ringed with shadows. I hadn’t noticed the shadows before.

  “I … was,” Drew says. “I’m not anymore. That was a mistake. A huge mistake.”

  He doesn’t know what’s in my pocket. Just because he’s stopped dealing doesn’t mean I’ve stopped buying.

  “You asshole,” Nate growls, stalking toward Drew.

  Micah pushes in front of Nate, shoves Drew, his palms splayed across Drew’s chest. Drew’s hand falls out of mine and he backs up, his hands raised, as Micah stalks after him.

  “Fucking right it was a mistake,” Micah snarls. He has become one of the mountain lions that live in Malibu Canyon. “So you saw Hannah and thought, what, that you could take advantage of her grief? Get her high and then do whatever you want with her?”

  He launches himself at Drew, but Drew’s faster, dodges those tan fists.

  “Stop it!” I scream. “Micah!”

  “You’re scaring her,” Drew says, his hands at his sides. “I’m not doing this with you.”

  “Oh, we’re doing this,” Micah growls. “You drugged up my girlfriend—”

  I grab Micah, turn him to face me.

  “I sat in that room with my mom,” I say, “and I kept hoping you’d walk through that door, Micah, and you didn’t. You didn’t.” I close my eyes. “It’s not about pills. It’s not even about Drew. Or the wave. It’s about you and me and her.”

  I open my eyes, look at him. At this boy who broke my heart. I have finally, finally told him the truth. About the acorn. About me. The three of us.

  “Her,” he says, his voice suddenly dull, all the fight gone out of him.

  I nod.

  Micah turns to Mae.

  “I thought you said you didn’t tell her.” He steps closer to her. “That you’d give me a chance to make it right. Why the hell did you bring me out here?”

  “Hey.” Ben is there, next to Mae, pulling her away from Micah. He’s so tall, his arms wrapping around her like the wings of a protective bird. “This entire thing is a shit sandwich, but you don’t get to talk to Mae like that. Ever.”

  I look from my sister’s stricken face to Micah. “Tell me what?”

  Mae is so pale I can see the veins that snake down her neck. She turns to me.

  “I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice is small and trembling, kicked to the curb. “I was so scared. The pills and … I didn’t want to lose you, so I didn’t tell you … I should have, but … I didn’t know what you’d … I thought it would be another wave, Nah, another wave if you knew, and he said he loved you and it was a mistake and the wave made everything wrong and we all react in different ways to grief, which is true, you know, and I thought if he came, if you two … You said he was the Temperance card. Balance. I was trying—I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Her chin wobbles. I have never seen my sister cry. Ever. “I was trying to work the problem. I … failed. I should have told you.”

  “About what?” I am yelling. I am yelling because I know. And all I can do is yell.

  “About Cathy,” Micah says. “You said her. You said it’s not about the pills, why you’re with this dude. That it’s because of you and me and her.”

  “I was talking about the baby,” I say. “So who’s Cathy?”

  Micah’s tan disappears.

  I walk past Micah. When I reach my sister, I stop.

  She looks up at me, so small.

  “How long have you known?” I ask.

  “A month,” she whispers. “Thirty-seven days, actually, but—”

  Nate steps forward. “Cuz. We didn’t know what to do. She thought you might kill yourself, okay? Seriously.”

  I stare at him. “You knew?”

  “We were trying to help you,” he says. “That’s why she flushed your pills. Why she invited Micah here. To help. To make you happy. She didn’t know things had … changed for you.” He gestures toward Drew. “You’ve been in a bad way, cuz. Bad.”

  “So you both knew that my boyfriend was cheating on me and you let me think he … You let me keep planning to move back to LA and … What? Marry a cheating bastard because I’m too weak or—what? What?” I grab at my hair. “Why the fuck is everyone in this family a liar?”

  “We’re not. We … we love you, Nah,” Mae says.

  “No.” I shake my head. “When you love someone, you have their fucking back, Mae. You don’t let them stay with some asshole who is screwing some other girl.” My eyes fill. I think about Mom. Did she know? She knew. I think she did. She died knowing. Oh God, she did.

  “I’ve had your back,” I sob. “You don’t know it, but I have. You think I’m weak, that I’m upset about Mom and Dad dying—well, yeah, I am, but that’s not all of it, okay? That’s not all of it, and I’ve been protecting you so that you can fucking get out of bed in the morning. I’ve been watching out for you, and you … you were going to let me stay with someone who betrayed me, someone who told me to get rid of my baby. Why am I protecting you, Mae? Why? WHY?”

  I shake my head. Don’t. Don’t. It will kill her.

  “What are you protecting me from?” Mae steps forward. “Nah … tell me.”

  I turn away from her, wrap my arms around myself. Drew steps closer. I stare at the toes of his worn sneakers, the cuffs of his faded black jeans. I wish I could tell him that I broke my promise to him about the pills the day I found out my mother was in a pit. Because I’m in that pit, too.

  Micah is behind me. I know it’s him, so familiar. The endless churning energy of the sea. He kissed someone else. Someone named Cathy. He slept with her. Maybe more than once. Because he didn’t love me enough. Or at all. I wasn’t enough for Mom and Dad. Not enough for Micah. Just Hannah. If the wave had taken me, would anyone have felt this empty about me being gone? Mom maybe. But she’d have Mae.

  I think the world would be okay without me.

  It doesn’t need me.

  Just Hannah.

  Just.

  I wish the wave had taken me, too. I wish I’d been swept away.

  Micah touches my shoulder. He’s wearing the watch my dad bought him when he turned eighteen, a twin to his own—we’d called them Indiana Jones watches because it made them look like gentleman adventurers. My gift had been a photographic flip book I’d made out of all the years I’d been watching him surf, my camera pointed at the sea. Hundreds of pictures that showed him devouring wave after wave over the past three years. We liked waves then. Thought they were fun.

  “Nah,” he whispers, “I love you so much. The grief, it … I’d been drinking and I missed you and I’ve been losing my mind. I know you have, too. Like way more than me. But I swear, this is not … it’s not me. I know that sounds like an excuse. It’s not. But, please. Please. Don’t be mad at Mae. I begged her not to tell you and she only agreed because she knows us, knows what we are. I ended it. Got my head on straight. I promise I will never fuck up like this again.” He pulls me toward him, and he is so shattered that I forget to push him away. “You’re my family. From day one, I told you that. I know if your dad were here he’d kick my a
ss, and I wish he could because I deserve it—”

  And that. That does it.

  “If my dad were here?” I look at him. Mae. Nate. Coconspirators. Liars. Betrayers. Can’t fucking trust anyone. “If my dad were here, he’d be telling you he understood, Micah. You want to know why?”

  “Hannah…” Drew says, soft. Giving me an out, a chance to do right by the miracle.

  I don’t take it.

  This wound: It’s for me. And for my mom.

  “Because. He was just. Like. You.”

  I turn to Mae. I hate her right now. Knowing, all this time what Micah was doing to me, keeping it from me on the train, at the dinner table, in the bathroom brushing our teeth. Knowing about it and letting me stay with him. Letting me trust someone who was hurting me so bad. How could she? How could she let me stay with him?

  “Dad was cheating on Mom. For over a year. With his research assistant. Rebecca Chen. Who is pregnant right now with his baby. Dad was going to leave Mom, Mae. As soon as we graduated. He was going to leave her. All of us.”

  And then I say the thing that took me, the day after we got the call from the Red Cross, to where the weirdos at Harvard Square hang out. The strung-out ones. With pills. I say the thing that hollows me out every morning. Every night.

  “And maybe that’s why she was alone. In the grave. Maybe he didn’t try to save her.”

  Mae has been holding an apple. All this time. It falls out of her hand. Thunks to the ground. Rolls. She stares. Through me. Through … everything. She is not here.

  I didn’t know there was a flame blazing in my sister until it burned out.

  “Mae.” I say her name, a choke. A sob.

  She just stares and stares. Ben wraps his arms around her, but her body doesn’t move. Her eyes don’t move.

  She is not here.

  I don’t know where she went.

  But she’s gone.

  What have I done?

  The tears come, and I can hardly see, hardly breathe.

  The orchard is silent. The sun goes behind a cloud. My sister turns away from me.

  “Mae.”

  She keeps walking. Stumbles. Ben starts for her, but Nate holds him back.

  “Mae!”

  I scream my sister’s name. But for the first time in our lives, she doesn’t come when I call.

  27

  Mae

  ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit

  Earth Date: 24 November

  Earth Time (EST): 20:09

  We make soup.

  Aunt Nora and I. Baked potato.

  The kitchen, the whole house, is silent. Just the sound of knives scraping against the wood chopping boards. Blades cutting into onion, potato. Water boiling. The gas flame hissing.

  It is the last hours of my eighteenth birthday. We didn’t eat the cake. Or the ice cream. I did not open any presents. Or go to the Dresden Dolls concert.

  I don’t know where my sister is. Not with Micah. He’s already at the airport. He wanted to stay, to try again, but Nate said no.

  When I’m done making soup, I will go up to my room and I will lie down on my bed and stare into the dark until the sun comes up.

  And I will wonder, for the first time in my life, if the social worker made a mistake.

  Every time I picture my dad, his face is blurry now. What Nah said, what I know about him—the truth turned every memory of my dad into a watercolor that got left out in the rain.

  I will never leave you, he’d said.

  We searched for truth together. But he was lying all along.

  “Did she know?”

  My words peel at the silence, to the hurt underneath.

  Aunt Nora’s knife goes still.

  Then: She nods.

  Is this what drowning feels like? Knowing your life is ending just before the dying begins?

  “None of us knew … about the baby,” Aunt Nora says. “And from what Nate told me when you all got home today, it sounds like your father didn’t know, either. At least not before he left for the trip.” Her fingers tighten around the knife. “But your mom knew about … her.” My aunt’s voice breaks. “She thought this trip … she was hoping she could…” She shakes her head. “I told her not to go.”

  I stare at the mounds of potato beneath my hands. The skin is still on because Mom says the soup tastes better that way.

  Just how you like it, Mom.

  “Nah said…” I grip a raw potato, squeeze. “She said maybe he didn’t try and save her. That’s why their bodies aren’t together. Because he didn’t … because…”

  There’s a clatter as my aunt lets go of her knife and crosses to me. She grabs my shoulders.

  “Listen,” she says, fierce. “Your dad was doing a bad thing. A horrible thing. But he loved her—not in the way he used to, but he did love her. I believe that. And he was a good man in every other part of his life. Good people make mistakes. Okay? He would never have let her die. You know that. Deep in your heart, Mae, you know he would have done everything to save her.”

  No. From now on, I only believe something, or someone, if the fucking math checks out.

  And this math—it doesn’t check out.

  Add up all the days for that whole year that he was lying to us—about where he was, who he was with, what he was doing. Subtract all the plans we made for the future as a family. Divide that whole family. What do you get? A fraction. Not something whole.

  “What do we do about the baby?” I say. Somewhere in LA, Rebecca Chen is carrying a little piece of my family.

  Her hands drop. “Oh, sweetie. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  I stare at her. “That’s my sister. Or my brother. A person. It’s not their fault. What he did.” Just like it wasn’t my fault that my bio mom didn’t want me. “What do you mean I don’t have to … Of course I have to worry.”

  If my bio mom had decided when she got pregnant that she didn’t want me, okay, fine, have an abortion. I am all for choices. I wouldn’t know if I didn’t exist. But she had me. I’m here. And she turned her back on me. It’d be one thing if she’d given me up at birth, made the right choice, but she didn’t. She just abandoned me to foster homes where anything could have—might have—happened to me. And she didn’t even do that from the beginning. Social services came and found all the meth in her house, the baby with the dirty diaper, and they had to take me away. Because she’d literally forgotten about me. When I think about the things people might have done to me, bad things, things I might not remember until I’m forty and suddenly, suddenly I wake up in the middle of the night and—

  Aunt Nora blanches. “I didn’t mean—”

  “But you did. We’re not expendable,” I say. “Me, that baby. Just because we’re inconvenient. Just because things didn’t work out the way they’re ‘supposed’ to. We exist. Because people chose to bring us into the world. They didn’t have to. But they did. And it’s not our fault. It’s not that baby’s fault that Dad…”

  I’m shaking. This anger rolling through me—I’ll never pass my NASA psych evals like this.

  “Mae, I’m so sorry. Sweetie—”

  I pull away. “You know, I fucking hate birthdays. I always have.”

  It feels good to curse. To be a little like Hannah. To not be a good girl.

  For goddamn once to just stop earning my place here.

  “Mae … I didn’t mean it, the way it came out. You aren’t inconvenient. No! We love you.”

  “Love. What does that even mean? Dad said that to Mom, didn’t he?”

  She pushes back her hair, streaked with more gray than ever.

  “Sweetie, that’s different. Sometimes marriages, they don’t … People change. But your kids—the love between a child and her father … That will never go away. Ever.”

  The look on Uncle Tony’s face: It occurs to me that I’m a dad without a daughter, and you’re a daughter without a dad.

  “He was going to leave us.”

  “He was going to lea
ve your mother. Not you.” She grips my hand. “Never you, Mae. Your father loved you so much. More than anything. Frankly, more than anyone. And I think you know that.”

  I think Hannah knows that, too.

  “I hate him.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yeah.” I grab a towel and wipe off my hands, then head for the stairs. “I really think I do.”

  * * *

  I have been lying in the dark for three hours.

  The only light comes from a moon lamp that Nate bought me when Nah and I moved in. A small little globe that glows white, with craters and everything.

  I wish I were there. The moon. It’d be nice, for a change, to be the one who leaves. My bio mom, my parents, Riley—every single one of them is gone. Mom couldn’t help it, but the end result is the same.

  Everyone I love leaves me.

  Maybe it’s time to be the one who goes.

  I’ve spent months thinking about not going to Annapolis, cancelling my interviews, not doing that final step because of Hannah. Because I don’t want to leave her. Because I’m scared what will happen to her if no one is watching out for her.

  But where is she now?

  Not here, not with me, that’s for sure. It’s my birthday, which she ruined, and she couldn’t even bother to come home. Because it’s all about her. It’s always about her. I shouldn’t have kept Micah’s cheating from her, but I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t want to open my sister’s bedroom door and find her dead from an overdose.

  She should have come home. Made soup.

  It’s my birthday.

  And she should have seen that I was trying to protect her like she was trying to protect me. She didn’t want me to know about Dad. I didn’t want her to know about Micah. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Sometimes it’s not best to know the answers.

  I think I’d like to be the one who packs up the bags and walks out the door for good. Who gets on an airplane and never comes back. Maybe that’s what I should do in June. I’ve been lying to my whole family, and to Ben. Told them I went to my Annapolis interview, even though I cancelled it after they found Mom. I’m not a liar, and that was a hard thing to do. But I knew that if I told anyone the truth, Hannah would know it was because of her, and she’d feel terrible. Shame spirals are not good for recovery. I’ll have to tell the truth eventually, or maybe just say I didn’t get in—which would be embarrassing. But maybe cancelling was a mistake. Because Hannah was right: Our family is done.