by Allie Martin
Anything to put off the inevitable moment when she and I and our perfect infinite universe ends.
"Which is your favorite?" I ask when she finally breaks.
"My favorite what?"
"Your favorite story about the stars."
She spins in my arms and pulls my arm around her, sliding my sleeve up. Taking my pen, she places a series of dots on my skin and draws shaky lines to connect them. It looks a bit like a wobbly W.
“What’s that?” I ask, and she turns to point to the hazy cloudless black sky.
“Cassiopeia. My favorite constellation.”
“What’s Cassiopeia?” I ask leaning back against Lane’s SUV.
“Not what. Who.” Evan clips my pen back into its cap and tugs the sleeves of her hoodie over her fists. “Cassiopeia was a vain Queen who was so bold as to proclaim herself the most beautiful woman in the world. She even made the claim that she was more beautiful than sea nymphs. Mermaids. For her arrogance and narcissism, the gods decided she needed to be punished. The god of the sea, Poseidon, offended by Cassiopeia’s claim, had her and her daughter, Andromeda, forever placed in the stars. It was ironic because they were to be immortalized and admired forever in the sky on a throne of stars. The problem is that Poseidon placed the throne upside down. In order to claim her throne Cassiopeia must cling to it for all of eternity.”
Evan rests her head on my shoulder, and I jump, having no idea how tense and invested I had become in her story. I shift her and tuck her under my arm. “Why upside down?”
“So that she would fall.”
“If she let go?” I see the dots of light in the sky and imagine her, sitting upside down, gripping her throne.
“Yeah.” Evan curls herself tighter into my side.
“Why wouldn’t she let go?” I ask and my chest constricts at the fear I see in Evan’s eyes. Her truths are so close I can see them against those bars that lock up her eyes. She watches me; the only sound is a car that speeds by the diner and kicks up a tornado of air.
“Because it’s too scary,” Evan finally says. “It’s too scary to fall and not know where you’ll land. It’s easier to struggle to hold onto what you already know. If she lets go, she'd lose the only thing she’d ever deemed truly important. Her throne.”
Somewhere inside me I hear her words as more than words. I feel them as truth. Annie is my throne. She’s all I’ve ever known. All I’ve ever loved. If I let go of her, I don’t know what I’ll become. Who I’ll become. That terrifies me.
I study Evan’s features as she scans the sky once more and wonder what her throne is. What is the thing she’s so desperately holding onto like I hold onto Annie? Maybe I can help her. Maybe she can help me.
"But I believe Cassiopeia would cling to the throne out of spite. I don't think she'd want Poseidon to believe that he won," she continues.
There is more to Evan's story than some constellation. This isn’t really about a mythical queen. I wish she'd tell me.
I pull the pen from its cap, putting the tip to my skin under her drawing, and write. When I’m done, tears cling to her eyelashes like Cassiopeia clings to that throne.
“Evan? What’s wrong?” I cup her cheeks in my hands, and she grips my wrists, raising up on her toes to press her mouth to mine. Her silent response to my written words on my flesh...
Let go, my Queen. For we may not know where we’re meant to land, but at least we’ll fall together.
My heart is racing by the time she ends probably the most amazing kiss in history, but my skin is wet with her tears.
“I can’t do this to you...” She steps back, and I see her shaking. “I’m so sorry.”
“Evan?” I can’t say anything other than her name. No other words come to me. None that matter anyway. Her secret touches every feature on her face, and I want to take it all back. All night I’ve wanted to know. I’ve wanted to know what she keeps hidden inside, but as it seeps out through every tear and every breath, I want to take it all back.
“Jordan, I’m sorry, but I lied to you.” Her voice quivers. I want to force it all back inside her. I don’t want to know. Knowing means we’ve reached the end.
She takes a moves back, and I fight the urge to grab her and wrap her up. I shouldn’t feel this way. It shouldn’t bother me to see her walk away. I knew she was going to walk away.
“What are you talking about?” I step slowly toward her, and she steps back, but the same distance stays between us.
“Your brother was right. It’s not fair. You're too sweet. I should go.” She backs up more, almost at the door. My friends are all getting ready to leave, making their way toward us. I can’t think.
“My brother? What the hell, Evan. What did you lie to me about?” Visions of all the times Annie stood in front of me like this, her big eyes filled with tears, telling me it was over, weighs me down into the pavement. Twice in one day. This was a bad idea. I didn’t think I’d get in this deep.
“I’m sorry, Jordan.” Evan spins around as Hector uses his ass to shove open the diner door. The bell clangs loudly as the metal frame hits Evan hard in the shoulder. I can hear the wind knocked from her lungs, and she stumbles back.
Hector’s wide eyed as Evan presses her hand to her chest. She sucks in small loud breaths, and her eyes go unfocused like they did when she fainted earlier.
“Shit, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Hector steps toward Evan while she slides her hand into her hoodie. Her hand comes back out, her palm stained red with a small smear of blood.
“Holy shit,” Hector reaches for Evan as her eyes roll back, and her body goes limp in his arms.
“Evan!” I’m on them in seconds. Before Hector has her laid out on the ground I’m ripping at the zipper of her hoodie to find the source of the blood. Her body spasms in an attempt to take in air but nothing is going in. It’s as if there’s a glass wall at the back of her throat.
Frantic and scared, breathing enough air for three people, I pull down on the neck her shirt to see a thick silver scar running vertically along her breast bone disappearing who knows how far down. Under her collarbone is a strip of bloody gauze and something bulging out from under her skin. It’s almost alien, and my stomach lurches as I scramble backward. I stare at her until a ragged breath shatters the barrier to her lungs. The sound she makes steals all the air from the sky and replaces it with thick acrid fear.
“Lane!” I yell through the glass as Sarah pauses in the doorway, shock across her face. My brother is talking to Natalie, still deep in the diner, but I need him here. He’s a nurse, he’ll know what to do. “LANE!” I yell again. Everyone turns to me, both inside and outside the diner. Nat’s face goes pale, and she almost jumps straight over a booth to get to the door.
Lane is close behind her. Evan sucks in another painful breath. Her desperate gasps for air sound out into the blackness of the night, travelling upward to block out the stars.
Nat shoves me and Hector out of the way and expertly adjusts Evan as if she’s done this a thousand times before. She grabs Evans wrists as her body begins to shake violently. Lane slides his hands under her head and together the two of them turn Evan on her side.
“What the hell is happening?” I scoot backward away from her but don’t get up.
“She’s having a seizure, Jordan.” Lane doesn’t look at me, but his voice is calm. “Her condition causes them sometimes if she stops breathing.”
“Her condition?” My body goes cold. Her secret. I sit on my heels while Hector and Sarah help Nat and Lane hold Evan.
It’s over almost as fast as it started, and Evan takes in lung-fulls of clean air, as if she’s never taken a breath before. Nat holds her head and talks to her softly while Lane tugs at the collar of her t-shirt, picking at the bloodied gauze under her collarbone. Nat blinks at me once before her lip quivers, and she turns back to her friend. Evan’s eyes are open, but she’s unfocused, confused, and mumbles to Nat, who explains to her what happened. Evan tries to hit Lane’s han
ds from her chest, and he holds her wrists until some of the focus comes back, and she stops struggling.
“What’s her condition?” I ask again, and Lane furrows his brow.
“She didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head, tension building in my chest and gut, pressurizing my whole body. Lane sighs like a frustrated parent, and an overwhelming urge to punch him overtakes me.
“Evan has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with bradycardia arrhythmia.” Lane peels the gauze back to expose an incision cut into Evan’s skin and a flat object about the size of the heel of my hand against her skin from the inside. My stomach jumps, and I fall back to the pavement, rubbing my hands into my eyes. Nat is forcing some pill down Evan’s throat. The whole world stutters and tilts as if trying to throw me off into space.
“What does that even mean?” I ask. I don’t understand. A strong hand grips my shoulder, and I know it’s Hector.
“It’s a chronic heart disease.” Lane is in full nurse mode now, tugging his sleeves up and moving with ginger precision. “The walls of her heart are too thick to pump properly. The arrhythmia causes it to pump too slowly. Basically, her body can’t get enough clean blood fast enough to help her body function. Her heart is dying, Jordan.”
My own air is sucked from my body as I listen to my brother speak.
“And she shouldn’t be out here this late given the procedure she had... days ago.” Lane’s voice turns condescending, and Nat’s guilty expression is blindingly obvious.
“What procedure?”
Nat points to incision under Evan’s collarbone. “Her ICD pacemaker was just put in. It’s not that big of a deal, it monitors her heart rate. She’s not a porcelain doll. Stop looking at her like she needs to live in a bubble.” Nat defends Evan, it’s clear from the glare etched into her features, but Lane isn’t buying it. I don’t know what to think.
“Pacemaker?” My tone is shrill. Unbelieving. I have no clue what ICD means but pacemaker I get. “No. Pacemakers are for, like, old people, and—”
“And teenage girls who have had heart attacks, had invasive heart surgery, and are one tragedy away from a heart transplant...” Lane’s trying to make a point now, but I don't think it's to me. That doesn’t change how hard each word slams into me. How much weight each word carries and dumps on my mind.
My brother’s final words light this overwhelming desire to run, and my body shoots up to standing. Evan’s head snaps up at my movement, and for the first time since she went down she looks at me.
“Heart transplant?” This time it’s Hector who asks the breathy, confused question.
Evan’s eyes fill with tears. I want to run to her and away from her at the same time, causing the very core of my being to feel like it’s tearing. No one has answered Hector’s question. Lane inspects Evan as horror replaces the sadness painting her face.
“Jordan,” she says weakly, desperate. My fingers close around the pen hanging at my neck. I crush my eyes closed, and it feels like years. No sound. No words. My eyes open again and settle on her.
“Are you dying?” I ask. Because no one wants to answer the small questions, I’ll ask the big one and see if my results are different.
Evan’s tears spilling over her confused expression are enough of an answer. My legs begin to shake as numbness floods me.
I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel. Or how to react. Or what any of this means...
“Answer me, Evan.”
“I might be... I mean, I might. It could happen at any time.” Her voice is no higher than a shaky whisper, but it’s sharp enough to cut straight into me.
“So you could have died just now. You could have died when you fainted earlier?”
Evan wins her struggle against Lane and stands, using Nat as a support. More tears pool and spill down her cheeks. She nods.
I feel like throwing up, so I bend at the waist and brace myself, hands on knees. Evan says my name again, but I hold my hand out.
“I...” I say and shake my head, running my fingers through my hair and yanking hard on it. “Evan, don’t.”
“I can explain.” She sounds exhausted and beaten, but she’s trying to get to me. She doesn’t even know me.
I straighten up and throw my hands out. All I see is Annie. I can explain. Let me explain. Annie with tears. Annie with lies. I shake my head, but the thoughts cling to me like hooks in my brain. And I lose it. “Explain what, Evan? How we started this ridiculous charade, and you neglected to tell me the most important thing about you?”
Evan stares at her feet, and I should feel bad that everyone is watching, but I don’t. I know I shouldn’t be losing my temper with a girl who had a seizure, but I’m so full of everything and nothing at the exact same time that I can’t care.
“I told you I had a broken heart...” she whispers, and I finally crack. My back arches as I tilt to the sky and rub my hands over my face to stifle the growl that escapes.
“I have a broken heart, Evan,” I yell and she jumps, her eyes snapping up to meet mine. “My heart is broken. The word broken implies the ability to fix it. Yours is dying. You will need a new one. A new heart. That is what heart transplant means, right?”
Evan nods, hiccupping through her sobs.
Nat plays with Evan’s sweater sleeve, making sure she doesn’t fall over. Lane has locked eyes with Sarah. Both of them are uncomfortable. Steve and Nate study at their feet. But Hector and Rick are focused on me. Hector and Rick, my two friends who have been there through everything. They have seen me at my worst, but anger isn’t something I let out often and soon it’s taken over the entire parking lot. I’m pissed at them for looking at me like this. I’m pissed at Evan for not telling me. I’m pissed at Nat for dragging my story out of me in the bathroom knowing that Evan wasn’t going to tell me hers. I know I’m overreacting. But I can’t stop it. The force of everything is too strong, and I can’t stop.
“What are you even doing here tonight? Why aren’t you home? With your family? Not chasing some band like a little girl, and...and...” but I can’t say the last part. Why are you wasting your time with me when you know you have to walk away... when you know we might not ever see each other again? That we might not be able to see each other again.
“I just wanted to be different!” Evan’s voice matches my volume, shocking everyone, including herself. She lowers her voice and her head. “For one stupid night I didn’t want people to look at me like I was going to shatter. I wanted someone to look at me the way you did. Like I am just a person. No, I didn’t tell you. I didn’t have to tell you. I didn’t have to tell you because I’m leaving. Because you aren’t supposed to be part of my life. Don’t lay your bullshit broken heart story on me because you can’t stop going back to your crazy ex-girlfriend. This was supposed to be fun. I get on a plane in a few hours and this...?” She waves her hand between us. “This will be over.”
I scan the parking lot and everyone has scattered except Nat and Lane, who are working to get Evan to calm down. The truth of her words is a slap in the face, but my pride can’t let me admit it out loud. I knew this was only one night. I knew she was leaving, but hearing the words takes my heart and crushes it with disappointment. I don’t know what to do, or how to fix it, so like the acceptance letter to London, I need to put it in the drawer and let it collect dust.
“I think it is over, Evan. I...” I run my hands through my hair one more time and let air hiss slowly from my lungs. “I can’t deal with this.”
I turn around before I can see her reaction and head the opposite direction. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore.
Saturday, April 20 • 1:43AM
Evan
I wipe at my wet cheeks with my sweater sleeve, but my arm is so tense I can barely move it. I want to run after Jordan, but I can't move. If I let go of Nat I'll fall on my face. Sarah is standing on the other side of me now, and I finally realize that all of this
happened in front of everyone. Maybe they didn’t look, but I know they heard.
"I..." I was going to say that I'm sorry for having a seizure, but I can't take my eyes off Jordan's back as he’s swallowed up by the darkness. The familiarity of the situation weakens my knees, but at the same time they twitch like they're ready to run. Run after him like I ran after Mom until I collapsed as her car disappeared into suburbia. To apologize for being me. For being broken.
My legs move me forward even though every single muscle on my body is sore. Nat grips my shoulder and points to the curb like I’m a dog who won’t sit.
"Let him go, EJ." Nat helps me down and Sarah takes my other hand so I go down slowly. It hurts. All of me hurts, inside and out. I think of those words written on the car window. Let go. Fresh tears run down my cheeks, and I know my face is swollen.
Sarah rubs my back. "He'll be back. If Jordan is anything, it's devoted to those he deems worthy."
My tongue feels sticky, my mouth dry, my brain like it's too big for my skull. "I’m not sure he thinks much of me right now."
Sarah purses her lips. "He'll be back."
Lane crouches down in front of me. "We need to get you to the hospital, Evan."
My head starts shaking wildly. "I'm not going to the hospital."
His head drops, and he runs his hands through his hair like Jordan. It's a gesture that really makes them brothers. "You ripped a stitch. You had a seizure. You should be observed, Evan. Especially with the ICD implant."
I glare at him. "I don't want to talk about the stupid pacemaker right now. What are my other options?"
"EJ, maybe he's right. Maybe we should go." Nat looks almost as tired as I feel.
"They'll call my Dad, Nat. Do you want him to find out you scalped tickets to a concert we were not supposed to go to?" I'm grasping, but I can't go to the hospital. I've had this heart condition long enough to know I'm not in any immediate danger. The door winded me and split my stitches. The pain made me hold my breath and cut oxygen to my brain. I know that's what happened. Other than a headache and stiffness, I feel fine.