How to Become a Planet

by Nicole Melleby

  They were almost at the top, and Pluto looked out toward the beach, where some swimmers splashed in the water and sunbathers sweltered in the heat. Keansburg wasn’t the nicest beach—you could sometimes hear some parent yelling, “Don’t touch that!” at their child—but it was home. It was familiar. The sand wasn’t always smooth, and the water was never clear, but it was still theirs, just like the boardwalk that surrounded it.

  Pluto breathed in the familiar scents and familiar sights as they finally made it to the top.

  “Hands up!” Harper yelled.

  They all did, both of Pluto’s hands still held by Meredith and Fallon.

  And when she looked out, ready to fall, everything again felt . . . wrong. The flutter of the pulse in her neck felt wrong. The ringing in her ears felt wrong. The way she couldn’t seem to take a breath felt wrong, and her head was pounding and her heart was pounding and she was sweating and were they falling yet? Were they going yet? Were they just suspended at the top, waiting for disaster like in those seconds before the Challenger fell, before it split and burned and ruined everything?

  Pluto was absolutely positive that they were going to crash and burn and everything was wrong and she needed to get off, she wanted to get off, but they were at the top, and they were leaning forward, and they were suddenly going down, and fast, and she had no choice but to go with it. She pulled her hands away from Meredith and Fallon to hold the bar in front of her, to steady herself. Everyone was screaming as the wind whooshed in their faces and the coaster went faster and faster, and Fallon and Meredith were shouting and laughing and Pluto was sweating.

  Black holes were created when a massive star collapsed in on itself, destroying and sucking in everything around it. Pluto felt like that star, like she was collapsing in on herself and she was going to take everything—everyone—down with her.

  When the ride finally stopped, Pluto practically pushed Fallon out. “Whoa, hey, what’re you doing?” Fallon asked.

  “Pluto, what’s wrong?” Meredith added.

  Pluto shoved them both away. “Leave me alone. I just need to go home. I need to go.”

  “Wait, we’ll take you.”

  “Just leave me alone!”

  She ran. Ran away from the roller coaster and the rides and her friends. She ran even though her breathing hurt already, burned even more as she pushed herself to run faster. Her arms and legs had pins and needles, and her head was pounding when she finally reached the pizzeria, finally pushed open those glass doors and heard the bell jingle.

  “Pluto, what . . . ?” Her mom was at the register, and there was a restaurant full of people, and college-aged employees, and Pluto didn’t want anyone to be there. She wanted to be alone. She wanted her mom to know that, to have brought her home in the first place, to leave her alone.

  “Take me home.”

  “I gotta finish up here, Plu, go sit—”

  “Take me home!”

  She was screaming. And she was crying. She was crying so hard she could barely gasp for air, hiccupping a bit as she tried to ignore the fact that everyone must be looking at her. She wondered if they were looking at her with as much fear in their eyes as her mom was. “Pluto, you need to stop. Right now. I need—”

  She needed to listen to Pluto! She needed to listen to Pluto and take her home and not tell her to get a move on, unless she was going to take her own advice and get a move on to take her home!

  Pluto felt completely out of control. She couldn’t control her tears or her anger. She couldn’t control anything as she ran toward the register and hit it. And hit it again. And again. And it hurt, because it was so heavy and hard—but Pluto hit it again and again because her mom was not listening, and Pluto was mad, and Pluto’s hands were hurting, her knuckles were bleeding, and her mom was wrapping tight around her, so tight, too tight, trying to pull her away.

  Months before, when Pluto still had a bedroom door, she and her mom had gotten into a fight. Pluto’s mom said Pluto had been cranky for weeks, and it was true. She had been cranky and had been unable to stop feeling that way. Her mom smirked and made a comment about Pluto getting her period, but Pluto still didn’t have her period. That wasn’t it.

  The weight on her stomach hadn’t been cramps; it was something else, something Pluto couldn’t explain. It pulled at her like a black hole, and she kept thinking about black holes all through dinner that night. And something about that had felt good. It was the first good thought she’d had all that week, that thought of absolute nothingness.

  She hadn’t wanted to eat, and she threw her plate across the room and her mom yelled and Pluto yelled back, and she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door and locked it. She picked up her cell phone and called the Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline, because she wanted to create a black hole. She wanted to get sucked into one.

  She wanted to be nothing.

  “Anna, should I call nine-one-one?”

  “No, just . . . just hang on a minute!” her mom yelled back, and she pulled Pluto into the kitchen, where Pluto continued to fight against her arms.

  “Let me go! I want to be nothing! I want to create a black hole and get sucked into it so I can stop, so everything can stop! Let me go! I’ve failed at everything, I can’t do anything on my list! I can’t! I can’t!”

  “Stop, Pluto. Stop!”

  “I can’t do anything!”

  “Let me call someone. What’s her doctor’s name?” someone was saying. Pluto didn’t know who. She didn’t care who. “Anna, please.”

  “I’ve got her,” her mom yelled back. “I’ve got you, Pluto, please. Stop.”

  She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t.

  “I don’t want to try anymore. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “Yes you do.” Her mom was crying. “Yes you do.”

  Everything felt too heavy. Pluto’s arms, her head, her body—all too heavy. She gave in, and gave up, and sank into her mom’s embrace as her mom sobbed into Pluto’s hair.

  Pluto stopped crying. She stopped fighting.

  She finally just stopped.

  24

  Pluto woke disoriented. It was dark outside. Her bed was warm; her house was quiet. She realized she was still wearing her jean shorts and tank top. There was no note, no medication, no glass of water next to her bed.

  Her chest was on fire, and her hands were sore. Her knuckles were flecked with dried blood, and they stung when she flexed her fingers, and suddenly she remembered.

  Pluto climbed out of bed. Her legs felt like rubber as she walked toward her doorway, pausing to lean against the frame. Had she been sleeping long? Did she sleep through an entire day? She didn’t know, and she hated that. She hated that she could lose time so easily.

  The only light on was the one in the kitchen. Her mom was sitting at the table, papers spread over it, her head buried in her hands. Pluto stayed quiet by the door, watching the rise and fall of her mom’s shoulders.

  Her mom must have heard her anyway. She looked up, her eyes red, her cheeks puffy. She said nothing.

  “What day is it?” Pluto asked, her throat scratchy.

  Her mom swallowed roughly, closing her eyes. “You only slept for six hours.”

  “That’s it?”

  Her mom brought a hand to her mouth, holding back a sob, before pulling herself together. She nudged the chair across from her with her foot. “Sit down, Pluto.”

  She didn’t leave any room for argument, and Pluto was too exhausted, anyway. She took a seat and waited.

  It took her mom a long time to say anything. “We should clean up your hands. I couldn’t . . . you wouldn’t let me when we got home. I . . .”

  Pluto covered her hands with her sleeves and kept them under the table where her mom couldn’t see them.

  Her mom released a long shaky breath, her fingers wrapping around the edges of the table and holding so tight her knuckles turned white. “Where�
�s your list? Do you have it?” her mom asked.

  Pluto frowned, confused, but reached into her back pocket to produce the list. She handed it to her mom, who promptly ripped it clean down the center. “Mom!” Pluto shouted. She stood, and her mom’s eyes immediately went to the bruises and cuts and dried blood on her knuckles.

  “I should have never let you make this list,” her mom said. “I should have—”

  “But I have to do it!” Pluto said, reaching across the table for the ripped pieces. “I have to fix everything. I went to the therapist, and—and I’m almost done with tutoring, and . . . we can . . . I’m friends with Meredith again! I can go to her party. I need to do the list! I need to try, I need to. You need to let me do it!”

  “You shouldn’t have to! It’s making you feel like crap, Plu!” her mom said, and then she rubbed her eyebrow. She took a deep breath. Pluto did the same. “We need to start over. I need us to start over.”

  “Start what over?”

  “Do you even remember the things you were saying? Do you know what happens when you fall into a black hole, Pluto? I know you know what happens!” Her mom’s voice cracked as she started to cry in earnest. “I’m doing everything wrong. It’s like that night all over again. I just want you to be happy. I just want you to want to live.”

  Pluto did want to live.

  Didn’t she?

  She wanted to stop; she knew that. She remembered that. But that didn’t mean—

  “Mom—”

  “If living with your dad will keep you from . . . I . . .” Her mom couldn’t seem to stop crying. “Just . . . just tell me, Plu. I know now I should never have let you make that list, and I should have . . . God, Plu, what should I have done?”

  “Why did you rip my list?” Pluto asked. “You don’t think I can do it?”

  “You never should have thought you had to.”

  “But . . .” Pluto didn’t understand. “Then how am I supposed to get better? Dr. Collins said that I had to learn how to understand the new me, but how do I do that? I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what makes me Pluto anymore.”

  Her mom was out of her seat and crossing to Pluto, wrapping her arms around her and pulling her close, touching their foreheads together, as tears continued down her cheeks. “I love you. I love you always, more than the entire universe, more than anything in it. You are my everything. That’s who you are, and so much more, and nothing can change that. Nothing.”

  Pluto was crying now, too. “I don’t want to have depression. I don’t want to feel like this.”

  Her mom pulled her into her lap, and they were both sitting on the floor, a tangle of arms and legs and tears. “We need to start over,” her mom said. “We need to start over and understand that no matter what, you are the very same Pluto. You are my Shooting Star.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.” Her mom took a shuddering breath. “And I promise you we’ll figure out how to make this okay.”

  Having depression, feeling anxious and sad and angry because of it, is not something you need to be ashamed of, her therapist had said.

  “Mom?” Pluto asked. “Was Grandma depressed, too?”

  Her mom held her so close, Pluto could feel her tears. “Yeah,” she breathed. “I didn’t understand it then. Maybe I still don’t understand it. I miss her so much, but maybe I should talk to you more about her. It just hurts to.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pluto said.

  “No. No, Plu. You have nothing to apologize for. You’ve done nothing wrong,” her mom said. “You and I are going to start all over. We’re going to figure this out.”

  Pluto’s mom called her therapist, after she cleaned up the cuts on Pluto’s hands. Her mom was on the phone for a long, long time, shut behind her bedroom door where Pluto could not hear her.

  Pluto didn’t think it was all that fair, and she hovered in her bedroom doorway, anxious for her mom to finally emerge.

  When she did, she looked wrung out. Her gray eyes swam with clouds from the storm inside her. “You and I are going to go see your therapist together next week,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “In the meantime,” her mom said, “tomorrow might be a good day to pick out your new curtains and bedspread. And then we can paint your walls. Dr. Collins thinks it might help.”

  “Oh.” Pluto wasn’t expecting that. “Really?”

  Her mom’s smile was tense. “Really.”

  So, the following morning, Pluto and her mom made their way to a department store, walking side by side straight to the bedding aisle. Pluto’s mom let her take the lead once they stood in front of all the bedspreads. “I don’t know how to choose,” Pluto admitted.

  “Think about what you like,” her mom responded.

  “Will you help me?” she asked.

  Her mom looked down, shook her head. “I think you need to do this alone.”

  There were so many—superheroes and Disney princesses and designs in every color. Animal prints, floral prints, and prints of stars and outer space. Too many options. Too many choices. What if Pluto picked the wrong one? What if it didn’t feel right? What if her room always just made her think about that night and black holes and—

  “It’s just a comforter, Plu,” her mom said, interrupting her thoughts. “Just . . . pick one you think is pretty. Or extra soft. Or catches your eye. And if you hate it in a few months, we can get another new one.”

  Pluto nodded and tried again. She brought her fingers up to touch the fabric. She walked down the aisle, trying to find one that caught her eye.

  And then she found an ice-blue comforter that made her stop walking. When she reached out to touch it, it felt warm and soft and comfy.

  “You like that one?” her mom asked. “I’ll hand it to you, that color is great.”

  “I like this color, too,” she said.

  It reminded her of Fallon. It was almost the exact same color as her eyes.

  “Well, what do you think?” her mom asked. “Is this the one?”

  Pluto smiled. “Yeah. I think it is.”

  The blue bedspread and matching curtains were bright against the light gray walls of Pluto’s bedroom. Her mom knocked on the doorframe, getting Pluto’s attention, as she stood there with a can of paint. “I found this in the storage room,” she said. “Same color work for you?”

  Pluto nodded and then turned back to look at the walls. She counted the thirty-two paint chips one last time. “Did you keep them?” she asked.

  “The stars?”

  Pluto nodded.

  Her mom hesitated before admitting, “Yes.” Her cell phone started ringing, and she put the paint can down to pull it out of her pocket. “It’s your dad,” she said, looking at the caller ID. “Here, you talk to him.”

  She looked at the phone in her mom’s hand. It was still ringing, and Pluto was thinking about what her dad would say if she answered it. If he would talk about his plans for her to come live in that busy city, with a new bed in his office, and the promise of takeout and jazz and D&D like last time. A weekend like last time when Sarah understood things that even Pluto’s mom admitted she didn’t, and her dad let her sleep, and nothing went wrong.

  But Pluto didn’t like the New York City pizza. She only enjoyed playing D&D because it made her dad and Fallon happy. She didn’t like that the city had no use for stars, with the skyscrapers reflecting the sun during the day and the lights shining bright all night.

  “Dad worked. I don’t think I told you that.”

  “What?” her mom asked, as her dad’s call went to voicemail.

  “He wasn’t there. I mean, he was. For breakfast and dinner. But he worked.” Pluto shook her head. “But you need to work so much, too. The pizzeria isn’t doing good. You said so. That’s why you hired Donna.”

  “I hired Donna so I could be there for you,” Pluto’s mom said. “And I trusted her to help me hold on to both of th
e things I love.”

  “I thought you only ran the pizzeria because you had to. I thought you wanted to work for NASA.”

  Pluto’s mom shrugged. “Dreams change, Plu. I love that pizzeria. I love dancing around with the girls to old pop music. I love the locals who stop in just to say hi. I even love the summer tourists, with their thick Staten Island accents. I worry about it, that’s true. I worry I’ll let my dad down. Running a business is stressful, and I can teach you all about that someday, if you want.” Her mom held out a paintbrush for Pluto to take. “But you’re more important—than the pizzeria, than NASA, all of it. You know that, don’t you?”

  Pluto took the paintbrush as her mom grabbed the drop cloths to cover Pluto’s furniture. She looked at her wall, at the paint chips they were going to paint over. “Why does Dad want me now? He used to be too busy. He had his own D&D friends on the weekends, but now he wants me to be his D&D friend.”

  Her mom tucked one of the cloths over the edge of Pluto’s desk. “I don’t know, but I do know he loves you. He really thinks it would be the best thing for you, to have that change of scenery. He’s just trying to help, how he sees fit.”

  “Do you think he’s right? How do you see fit?”

  “I thought that I could . . .” Her voice broke off. “But maybe I can’t. I have to be at the pizzeria all the time. He makes better money, and you could see a therapist regularly. He thinks he could give you what you need better than . . .” She drifted off in that way she did when she realized she was saying too much, when she realized she shouldn’t be saying what she was about to. “Do you want to stay here?”

  Pluto didn’t know what she wanted.

  She looked at her mom, really looked at her. Her hair had dark roots the color of Pluto’s that she was usually quick to cover up. She had bags under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in forever. Pluto thought back to the day she caught her crying in bed, to the desperate, hopeful look always present in her eyes. She thought about how hard her mom tried, how much she loved sharing the stars with her.