Dear Universe

by Florence Gonsalves

  “Please, Universe,” I say aloud, my fist still by my ear as I clench and unclench it.

  “Not that. I do not want to dip into the dark shit of hurting myself. Please. Not. That. However my dad does it, help me do it too.” I pause. It’s a little creepy whispering to myself in the girls’ bathroom. My hand twitches and I keep going because I don’t really have energy to be self-conscious right now. “I know these are just stupid blisters and he’s been stuck in a body that’s been getting worse and worse, and I know it sucks to be one of those people who only relate to something when they personally experience it, but as you know I kind of suck, so please help me.” I sigh. I keep clenching and unclenching. “I’m truly sorry for interrupting you with my presence when I’m sure you’re very busy with other, more worldly affairs, but show me how he does it so I can do it too. Help me do it and help him do it and help all of us do it.”

  I clamp my eyes shut and clench and release my hands until eventually the pinball gets smaller. It’s the size of a punctuation mark when I can open my eyes and look at myself: frizzy hair, two asymmetrical eyebrows, a nose that’s never been pierced. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with air the quality of the bathroom. Somehow the anger has passed, as if the universe is holding it for me.

  I sink against the wall and slide to the floor. This is the exhaustion that always sets in after the anger. Everything has been sucked out of me to feed the fury. I’m just so tired. Like so so so so so tired. How is everyone else not fucking exhausted? How are we not all exploding all the time, Mentos-in-Pepsi style? How does everyone just walk around being a person, while I’m so confused?

  A girl comes into the bathroom and takes a pair of scissors out of her bag. She starts trimming her bangs. I watch from the floor, liking the sound hair makes when it’s cut and how the clumps of hair scatter and fall at their own pace. Maybe all I need is a good haircut. A haircut that means business, one that says I am a boss child who will pass English class. “Can you do that to me too?” I ask. “Not bangs, just like all of it.”

  “Um, you should go to a hairdresser for that. Besides, like head lice.”

  Asshole, I mumble to myself, but I walk out of the bathroom secretly relieved that I didn’t accidentally end up with a mullet. Of all the things I need right now, a popular haircut for guys in the seventies isn’t one of them.

  Dear Universe,

  Wanted: A fuck

  Just kidding. Keep your fucks. I have too many: how Hilary and Abigail are gonna forget about me, what people think about my dad, whether or not my boobs really exist at all, what I could’ve done differently to keep Gene from falling for someone else. Could all the fucks get lost, please? Like take a sick day, a holiday, a vacation. Just once I’d like to get through school not feeling like a chicken in the world where the egg came first. The good thing is, I’m getting so strong hauling around all these fucks every day. The bad thing is, I feel weaker.

  15

  Days ’til graduation: 31

  WEEKEND SCHEDULE OF A HIGH SCHOOL SOCIALITE:

  1. Start English essay.

  2. Finish English essay.

  3. Find a brilliant excuse to get out of the Brain Degeneration Walk without also going to the Breast Cancer Polar Plunge.

  4. Procrastinate doing all these things by doing something of greater importance, i.e., spending time with my ailing father before he kicks the bucket and I forever regret being the worst daughter ever.

  5. Yeah. Let’s start there.

  “Hi, Dad, coming in!” I call, rapping on his door and uncapping the protein shake. I’m not a doctor, but since my dad is having a hard time eating, maybe we should be giving him real milkshakes, not these impostor shakes that come in plastic bottles stamped with FortifY-um!

  “Come in,” he says wearily.

  “How are you?” I say, putting the tray on his table and sniffing the bright pink drink before I hold it out to him.

  “I hate that stuff,” he says, not looking at me. He’s eaten maybe twenty total bites since he’s come home from the hospital, and his face is sunken in.

  “I know, I’m sorry. Can I get you something else?”

  “Just sit with me,” he says, turning his head toward the window. “You and your mom and the aides always get me things, but you never just sit with me.”

  This sort of guilt feels like being stabbed to death with a take-out knife. I pull a chair up to his bed and look around the room. I don’t know what to say, so I put a straw in the drink and hold it out to him. “How about just one sip?” He shakes his head and I set the drink down. There are flowers on the table and get-well cards, and sunlight is coming through the window for the first time this spring, but it feels like it should be raining.

  “There’s a book somewhere on the shelf down there,” my dad says, pointing behind me. “It’s an old paperback with a bright purple spine. If you can find it, will you read it to me?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I say, getting up. “I thought you hated reading.”

  He smiles. It’s the first smile I’ve seen since before the hospital. “I do. That’s why I want you to read it.”

  I get down on the floor to look. After a few seconds I pull out a softcover book with its purple hues slightly faded.

  “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?” I read.

  “I was on a trip up the West Coast, trying to find myself, and I got this book, but then I was too busy riding and messing around to read it.”

  I laugh and read the back cover. “‘An inquiry into values’?” I flip through the pages.

  “Let’s see if we can get into it,” he says. “Put that light on.”

  I do as I’m told and start reading. Every so often my dad twitches and readjusts himself in bed. The shaking in his hands has lessened, but it’s been replaced by these fast, jerking motions. I want to know if he’s comfortable, but I don’t know what to do if he isn’t. There’s only so many times you can fluff up a pillow. And what if he’s bored? I can’t juggle, and I don’t know any dad-appropriate jokes. I guess reading is fine, but if this isn’t the most slumber-inducing book to ever make it to a printing press…

  “Wow,” I say after a few minutes have passed and all the spit in my mouth has gone on hiatus. “This guy really has a lot to say about motorcycles. And parts of motorcycles. And how different kinds of weather affect different parts of motorcycles.” I read the back cover again. There’s no way the book could go on like this for three hundred pages. There must be something else here. “So he takes this trip and tries to work out like his life philosophy?”

  “Kind of.” He takes the book from me, and his hands are almost steady as he turns it over a few times. “Nope, still doesn’t interest me,” my dad says abruptly, handing the book back to me.

  “What?” I laugh.

  “Inquiries into life. Philosophy. I’m just not interested in thinking about living. I’d rather just live.” He sighs. “Get my keys, will you?”

  “What keys?”

  “For my bike. It’s been a long trip, and I want to go home now.”

  I swallow, trying to process how we went from there to here. How do you know you were in the same world with someone? When it ends. “We are home, Dad,” I say.

  “Come on, Cham, I’m not stupid.”

  “Dad, we’re home. I promise.” He glares at me, and his distrust settles into my stomach like cement. I look around the room for proof. “See? There’s you and mom at your wedding.” I point to the framed photo on the wall. “And your service award when you retired from the post office back when snail mail was still called mail. And look at the flowers from Aunt Bridget. It’s all right here.” I give his hand a squeeze. “I’m here.”

  He closes his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says quietly.

  I rest my forehead on his arm. “Me too.”

  Sitting there in the warm, quiet room while my mom is finishing a shift at work, I want the days before the hospital back, when he was happier and movi
ng around and eating. I know it’s a trap to think like that, though. During those days I wanted the days before the diagnosis back. With a sickness that gets sicker, it’s just another type of sickness to keep wishing for what came before.

  I feel myself drifting off. My head droops toward my chest, then snaps up at the sound of my phone ringing. Abigail is talking before I’ve even said hello.

  “Come get your nails done with me and Hilary!” she shouts over some pop music. It sounds like they’re driving, or having a dance party in the middle of the road. “We’re getting acrylics now so we get used to them before prom.”

  “Always good to plan ahead,” I say.

  “What?” my dad asks, opening his eyes and looking disoriented. I mute the phone to keep Abigail and Hilary out of our world.

  “One sec,” I tell him. I step into the hallway, where it’s cooler and doesn’t smell like artificial strawberry. Hilary is singing in the background of the phone, but they sound farther away than the distance two phones can cross. I don’t know that they’ll be able to properly hear me, even when I press unmute.

  “Cham?”

  “Hey, sorry about that, I can’t today, gotta work on my… essay and stuff.” Why would you bring that up?

  “Aw, do you want help?” Abigail asks.

  “No, thanks. This is between Cham and her MacBook. Text you later,” I say, and hang up quickly, pushing the door to my dad’s room back open. “Sorry, Dad, I—”

  He’s asleep. The sun is casting a shadow from the window frame on his salt-and-pepper hair. If I were to write an essay about this minute, I’d say it feels the way coffee tastes, a little bitter in my heart and acidic, but also like honey: sweet, raw, unfiltered.

  Dear Universe,

  What if one of the most beautiful things we can do isn’t Instagram-worthy? What if it means forgoing adventure and bikinis just to keep someone we love company? What if the places we really need to go don’t have gate numbers or foreign languages or program titles with the word service? This whole year I’ve kept a senior year time capsule under my bed because I want memorable, life-changing, yearbook-quality Stuff. But what if I had it wrong? What if the Real Stuff is just a quiet accumulation of moments like these?

  I close the door to my dad’s room with a soft click. I take my phone out and scroll through my contacts until my finger lingers over a certain name. Before I think not to, I hit the call button.

  “Hey,” I say when he answers. I know I’m about to talk way too fast. “I don’t know if this is weird, but do you wanna maybe come over? I heard you’re still doing some tutoring for essays and if it’s not too late—”

  “Okay, yeah,” he says.

  “Okay, cool. Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  “So like when?” I ask with all the nonchalance of a mammal giving birth.

  He pauses. “How about now?”

  In the mirror by the front door I smooth down my hair. The results are impeccable because my hands are sweating. Who knew it was this nerve-racking to write a college essay?

  “Hey,” Brendan says when I open the door. He’s wearing a black tutu over his jeans, his hair still a little wet in the bun on his neck.

  “Hey,” I say, then suddenly, stupidly, I start smiling.

  “What?” he laughs, jamming his hands in his pockets.

  “Nothing!” I hover in the doorway. It feels like spring outside, like cool, new things. “Just like thanks for your help and coming over and stuff. I’m pretty screwed with this essay.”

  “It’s all good. Ready to Susan Sontag this shit?” I squint at him. “She was an essayist,” he explains.

  I sigh. “Poor Susan.” I pull the door open and step aside for him to enter. “You can leave your shoes on, my mom’s at work,” I call behind me.

  He takes them off anyway. “So how’s your dad?”

  I pause in the kitchen making sure I closed the sliding door. “Good? Sick? A little of both?”

  “And how are you?”

  “Mentally, spiritually, and emotionally curb-stomped,” I say cheerfully, leading him up the stairs to my room. Pushing the door open reveals how unprepared I am for company.

  “What’s that?” Brendan asks, pointing to the upside-down cardboard box on my bed. One of the glow-in-the-dark stars has fallen onto my comforter.

  “Oh, that’s embarrassing.” I quickly collect the contents of my senior year time capsule. “Close your eyes!” I shout, and snatch the never-been-opened condom off the bed. I suspect my ears are turning as red as the package: In case things get hot. Brendan sits on the floor and shuts his eyes as I put the notes back into the box, plus the corsage Gene got me for homecoming. I’d wanted to take him out of the box completely, but you can’t replace your history.

  After pushing the box under my bed, I sit down on the floor across from Brendan and pull my knees to my chest. He peeks an eye open, then closes it again. I face-palm his forehead.

  “Ow,” he laughs, jerking back. “Why are your hands wet?”

  My face heats up and I wipe them on my jeans. “I keep an aquifer in my palms for rare and endangered life-forms.” He cocks his head at me.

  “Okay, I’m getting my essay stuff out now so you don’t hit me with your flippers again.” Brendan takes his laptop and a folder full of school supplies out of his bag.

  “I do not have flippers!” I laugh, hiding my face in my hands, face positively burning. “Dear College Admissions Person,” I say through my fingers. “I hope you appreciate this essay, because it has been so freaking embarrassing to write.”

  “Great topic sentence,” he says. I look up to find him spreading the contents of his backpack on the floor around us: laptop, pens, sticky notes. This is not how I pictured a boy being in my room for the first time. He has flash cards. But then again, that boy wasn’t supposed to be Brendan.

  “What are those for?” I ask, pointing to the stack in his hand and feeling slightly out of place between my own four walls.

  “Your essay,” he says, clearing his throat in mock formality. I’ve never seen his face up close for this long before. Abigail is right: Brendan got cute. “Let’s start by exploring feelings.”

  Now, in addition to sweaty palms, I have kiddie pools under my armpits. “I’m not very good at feelings.”

  “Cham—” He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I’m surprised by how deep his voice is, not even a hint of a musical note in it. “We’re going to write this essay and you’re going to pass English and things aren’t always going to be shitty.”

  I look away from him, wriggling my shoulder out from under his hand. He turns the laptop so we can both see the essay prompts. Describe a challenge you’ve overcome. Discuss an event that’s sparked personal growth. Provide the measurements of your asshole.

  “Ugh, those all sound terrible.”

  “So what do you want to write about, then?” he asks.

  “I don’t want to write anything.” I roll over onto my stomach, accidentally inhaling a bit of rug lint. “I’m from middle-class suburbia, never had a life-threatening disease or an essay-worthy mental illness or any sort of compulsion to clean bathrooms.” I drone on, voice deliberately Great Plains–like in flatness. “The extent of my hardship was going to anger management after getting kicked out of public school a few years ago, all relating to my dad’s being diagnosed with a disease that basically turns your life into a saga of suck. The end.”

  “Tell me about this saga of suck,” he says.

  I close my eyes. “You’ve seen my dad. You know the symptoms: rigid gait, tremors, loss of speech.”

  “But symptoms aren’t even half of what something feels like,” he says, stretching out on my floor, his tutu sticking straight up toward the ceiling. “What’s it like for you?”

  I smooth a frizzy curl between my fingers. “It’s like being a bee stuck in amber. I can’t move and I can’t think so I just stay frozen there in a world that is not my usual world of flowers and rainstorms and I d
on’t know—” I laugh, feeling suddenly self-conscious. I wish I could turn the lights off and the projector on so that we could see my fake stars, but you can’t just turn the lights off when a boy’s in your room. He might think you like him.

  “Wait, say all of that again,” he says, tapping his keyboard.

  “What? No.”

  “Come on! Let’s just take some notes.”

  I glare at him. “As much as I’d like to milk my dad getting sick for all I can, I don’t see getting an essay out of it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to go there.”

  “Go where?”

  I roll my eyes at him. “What are you, a freaking therapist?”

  He gives me a look. “Do you want to write this essay or do you want to maybe fail English and be kept from Senior Volunteer Trip?” I glare at him. “It doesn’t have to be about your dad. We can switch topics,” he offers. “What do you do that you really love?”

  Besides making out and dreaming about getting the hell out of here? “Running, I guess.”

  “Okay,” he says, fingers poised on the keys. “What do you love about it?”

  “Um, one sec.” I slide the box out from under my bed and unfold something I wrote on a Gatorade wrapper after a run a few months ago. I read out loud: “When I run, sometimes it’s like the world opens up. I lose touch with my feet and my legs and I notice other stuff besides my boring old body. There’s more sky and more horizon and everything is closer but also more infinite. It’s freaking amazing, like the world is unfastening. Gene says that’s just endorphins and that’s why he runs too, but it’s not just endorphins, I promise. It’s not chemical or hormonal or whatever it is that our bodies give off and make. It’s wading through unsolved stars in my heart.”