by Nicola Yoon
That’s the thing that gets to Joe even now. All the plans they’d made. All the saving. All the waiting around for the perfect time.
And for what? For nothing.
The girl is right, of course. He shouldn’t smoke. After he lost Beth, he took himself out of retirement and took up smoking again. What did it matter if he worked himself to death? What did it matter if he smoked himself to death? There was nothing left to live for, nothing left to plan for.
He takes one last look at the girl and the boy before closing the door. They’re looking at each other like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. He and his Beth were like that once.
Maybe he will give up smoking after all. Maybe he’ll make some new plans.
DANIEL WALKS TO THE EDGE of the roof and looks out at the city. His hair is loose and blowing in the breeze and he’s got his poet face on. The non-bruised side of his face smiles.
I go to him and slip my hand into his. “Aren’t you gonna write something down, poet boy?” I tease.
He smiles wider, but doesn’t turn to look at me. “It looks so different from up here, doesn’t it?” he asks.
What does he see when he looks out? I see miles of rooftops, most of them empty. A few of them are populated with long-abandoned things—nonworking HVAC units, broken office furniture. Some have gardens, and I wonder who tends them.
Daniel takes out his notebook now, and I move a little closer to the edge.
Before these buildings were buildings, they were just the skeletons of them. Before they were skeletons, they were crossbeams and girders. Metal and glass and concrete. And before that, they were construction plans. Before that, architectural plans. And before that, just an idea someone had for the making of a city.
Daniel puts away his notebook and pulls me back from the edge. He puts his hands on my waist.
“What do you even write in there?” I ask.
“Plans,” he says. His eyes are merry and staring at my lips and I’m having trouble thinking. I take a little step back but he follows, like we’re dancing.
“I—Jesus. Have you been this sexy the whole day?” I ask.
He laughs and blushes. “I’m glad you think I’m sexy.” His eyes are still on my lips.
“Is it gonna hurt if I kiss you?” I ask him.
“It’ll be a good pain.” He puts his other hand on my waist like he’s anchoring us. My heart just will not settle down. Kissing him can’t be as good as I remember. When we had our first kiss, I thought I was kissing him for the last time. I’m sure that made it more intense. This kiss will be more normal. No fireworks and chaos, just two people who like each other a lot, kissing.
I get on my tiptoes and move in even closer. Finally his eyes meet mine. He moves his hand from my waist and places it over my heart. It beats under his palm like it’s beating for him.
Our lips touch, and I try to keep my eyes open for as long as possible. I try not to succumb to the crazy entropy of this thing between us. I don’t understand it. Why this person? Why Daniel and not any of the boys before? What if we hadn’t met? Would I have had a perfectly ordinary day and not know that I was missing something?
I wrap my arms around his neck and lean into him, but I can’t get close enough. The restless, chaotic feeling is back. I want things that I can name, and some things that I can’t. I want this one moment to last forever, but I don’t want to miss all the other moments to come. I want our entire future together, but I want it here and now.
I’m slightly overwhelmed and break the kiss. “Go. Over. There,” I say, and punctuate each word with a kiss. I point to a spot far away from me, out of kissing range.
“Here?” he asks taking a single step back.
“At least five more.”
He grins at me, but complies.
“All our kisses aren’t going to be like that, are they?” I ask him.
“Like what?”
“You know. Insane.”
“I love how direct you are,” he says.
“Really? My mom says I go too far.”
“Maybe. I still love it, though.”
I lower my eyes and don’t respond. “How much time until your interview?” I ask.
“Forty minutes.”
“Got any more of those love questions for me?”
“You’re not in love with me yet?” His voice is filled with mock incredulity.
“Nope,” I say, and smile at him.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ve got time.”
IT FEELS LIKE A MIRACLE that we get to sit here on this rooftop, like we’re part of a secret sky city. The sun is slowly retreating across the buildings, but it’s not dark yet. It will be soon, but for now there’s only an idea of darkness.
Natasha and I are sitting cross-legged against the wall next to the stairwell door. We’re holding hands, and she’s resting her head on my shoulder. Her hair is soft against the side of my face.
“Are you ready for the dinner guest question yet?” I ask.
“You mean who I’d invite?”
“Yup.”
“Ugh, no. You go first,” she says.
“Easy,” I say. “God.”
She raises her head from my shoulder to look at me. “You really believe in God?”
“I do.”
“One guy? In the sky? With superpowers?” Her disbelief isn’t mocking, just investigative.
“Not exactly like that,” I say.
“What, then?”
I squeeze her hand. “You know the way we feel right now? This connection between us that we don’t understand and we don’t want to let go of? That’s God.”
“Holy hell,” she exclaims. “You poet boys are dangerous.”
She pulls my hand into her lap and holds it with both of hers.
I tilt my head back and watch the sky, trying to pick shapes out of the clouds. “Here’s what I think,” I say. “I think we’re all connected, everyone on earth.”
She runs her fingertips over my knuckles. “Even the bad people?”
“Yes. But everyone has at least a little good in them.”
“Not true,” she says.
“Okay,” I concede. “But everyone has done at least one good thing in their lifetime. Do you agree with that?”
She thinks it over and then slowly nods.
I go on. “I think all the good parts of us are connected on some level. The part that shares the last double chocolate chip cookie or donates to charity or gives a dollar to a street musician or becomes a candy striper or cries at Apple commercials or says I love you or I forgive you. I think that’s God. God is the connection of the very best parts of us.”
“And you think that connection has a consciousness?” she asks.
“Yeah, and we call it God.”
She laughs a quiet laugh. “Are you always so—”
“Erudite?” I ask, interrupting.
She laughs louder now. “I was gonna say cheesy.”
“Yes. I’m known far and wide for my cheesiness.”
“I’m kidding,” she says, bumping her shoulder into mine. “I really like that you’ve thought about it.”
And I have too. This is not the first time I’ve had these thoughts, but it’s the first time I’ve really been able to articulate them. Something about being with her makes me my best self.
I pull her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers. “What about you?” I ask. “You don’t believe in God?”
“I like your idea of it. I definitely don’t believe in the fire and brimstone one.”
“But you believe in something?”
She frowns, uncertain. “I really don’t know. I guess I’m more interested in why people feel like they have to believe in God. Why can’t it just be science? Science is wondrous. The night sky? Amazing. The inside of a human cell? Incredible. Something that tells us we’re born bad and that people use to justify all their petty prejudices and awfulness? I dunno. I guess I believe in science. Science is enough.”
> “Huh,” I say. Sunlight reflects off the buildings, and the air around us takes on an orange tinge. I feel cocooned even in this wide-open space.
She says, “Did you know that the universe is approximately twenty-seven percent dark matter?”
I did not know that, but of course she does.
“What is dark matter?”
Delight is the only word for the look on her face. She tugs her hand out of mine, rubs her palms together, and settles in to explain.
“Well, scientists aren’t exactly sure, but it’s the difference between an object’s mass and the mass calculated by its gravitational effect.” She raises her eyebrows expectantly, as if she’s said something profound and earth-shattering.
I am profoundly un-earth-shattered.
She sighs. Dramatically.
“Poets,” she mutters, but with a smile. “Those two masses should be the same.” She raises an explanatory finger. “They should be the same, but they’re not, for very large bodies like planets.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” I say, really meaning it.
“Isn’t it?” She’s beaming at me and I’m really a goner for this girl. “Also, it turns out the visible mass of a galaxy doesn’t have enough gravity to explain why it doesn’t fly apart.”
I shake my head to let her know I don’t understand.
She goes on. “If we calculate the gravitational forces of all the objects we can detect, it’s not enough to keep galaxies and stars in orbit around each other. There has to be more matter that we can’t see. Dark matter.”
“Okay, I get it,” I say.
She gives me skeptical eyes.
“No, really,” I say. “I get it. Dark matter is twenty-seven percent of the universe, you said?”
“Approximately.”
“And it’s the reason why objects don’t hurtle themselves off into deep dark space? It’s what keeps us bound together?”
Her skepticism turns into suspicion. “What is your addled poet brain getting at?”
“You’re gonna hate me.”
“Maybe,” she agrees.
“Dark matter is love. It’s the attracting force.”
“Oh God Jesus no. Yuck. Blech. You’re the worst.”
“Oh, I am good,” I say, laughing hard.
“The absolute worst,” she says, but she leans in and laughs hard along with me.
“I’m totally right,” I say, triumphant. I recapture her hand.
She groans again, but I can tell she’s thinking about it. Maybe she doesn’t disagree as much as she thinks she does.
I scroll through the questions on my phone. “Okay, I have another one. Complete the following sentence: We’re both in this room feeling…”
“Like I have to pee,” she says, smiling.
“You really hate talking about serious things, don’t you?”
“Have you ever had to pee really bad?” she asks. “It’s a serious thing. You could cause serious damage to your bladder by—”
“Do you really have to pee?” I ask.
“No.”
“Answer the question,” I tell her. I’m not letting her joke her way out of this one.
“You first,” she says, sighing.
“Happy, horny, and hopeful.”
“Alliteration. Nice.”
“Your turn, and you have to be sincere,” I tell her.
She sticks her tongue out at me. “Confused. Scared.”
I pull her hand into my lap. “Why are you scared?”
“It’s been a long day. This morning I thought I was being deported. I’ve been gearing myself up for that for two months. Now it looks like I’ll get to stay.”
She turns to look at me. “And then there’s you. I didn’t know you this morning, and now I don’t really remember not knowing you. It’s all a little much. I feel out of control.”
“Why is that so bad?” I ask.
“I like to see things coming. I like to plan ahead.”
And I get it. I really do. We are programmed to plan ahead. It’s part of our rhythm. The sun rises every day and defers to the moon every night. “Like the security guard said, though—planning doesn’t always work.”
“Do you think that’s true? I think mostly you can plan. Mostly things don’t just come out of nowhere and bowl you over.”
“Probably the dinosaurs thought that too, and look what happened to them,” I tease.
Her smile is so broad that I have to touch her face. She turns her face in to my palm and kisses it. “Extinction-level events notwithstanding, I think you can plan ahead,” she says.
“I bowled you over,” I remind her, and she doesn’t deny it.
“Anyway,” I say. “So far you only have two things—confused and scared.”
“All right, all right. I’ll give you what you want and say ‘happy.’ ”
I sigh dramatically. “You could’ve said that one first.”
“I like suspense,” she says.
“No you don’t.”
“You’re right. I hate suspense.”
“Happy because of me?” I ask.
“And not being deported. But mostly you.”
She pulls our joined hands to her lips and kisses mine. I could stay here forever interrupting our talking with kissing, interrupting our kissing with talking.
“When are we doing the staring-into-each-other’s-eyes thing?” I ask.
She rolls the very eyes that I want to stare into. “Later. After your interview,” she says.
“Don’t be scared,” I tease.
“What’s to be scared of? All you’ll see is iris and pupil.”
“The eyes are the windows to the soul,” I counter.
“Stuff and nonsense,” she says.
I check the time on my phone unnecessarily. I know it’s almost time for my interview, but I want to linger out here in sky city some more. “Let’s get in a couple more questions,” I say. “Lightning round. What’s your most treasured memory?”
“The first time I got to eat ice cream in a cone instead of in a cup,” she says with no hesitation.
“How old were you?”
“Four. Chocolate ice cream while wearing an all-white Easter Sunday dress.”
“Whose idea was that?” I ask.
“My father’s,” she says, smiling. “He used to think I was the greatest thing ever.”
“And he doesn’t anymore?”
“No,” she says.
I wait for her to continue, but she moves on: “What’s your memory?”
“We took a family trip to Disney World when I was seven. Charlie really wanted to go on Space Mountain, but my mom thought it’d be too scary for me and she wouldn’t let him go by himself. And neither of my parents wanted to go.”
She tightens her grip on my hands, which is cute since I clearly survived the experience. “So what happened?”
“I convinced my mom that I really wasn’t scared. I told her I’d been looking forward to the ride since forever.”
“But you weren’t?” she asks.
“No. I was scared shitless. I just did it for Charlie.”
She bumps my shoulder and teases. “I already like you. You don’t have to convince me that you’re a saint.”
“That’s the thing. I wasn’t being saintly. I think I knew our relationship wasn’t going to last. I was just trying to convince him I was worth it. It worked too. He told me I was brave and he let me finish all his popcorn.”
I tilt my head back and look up at the clouds. They’re barely moving across the sky.
“Do you think it’s funny that both of our favorite memories are about the people we like the least now?” I ask.
“Maybe that’s why we dislike them,” she says. “The distance between who they were and who they are is so wide, we have no hope of getting them back.”
“Maybe,” I say. “You know what the worst part of that story is?”
“What?”
“I hate roller coasters to this day
because of that trip.”
She laughs, and I laugh with her.
SCIENTISTS THEORIZE that the first “eyes” were nothing more than a pigmented, light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancient creature. That spot gave it the ability to sense light from dark—an advantage, since darkness could indicate that a predator was close enough to block out light. Because of this, they survived more, reproduced more, and passed this ability down to their offspring. Random mutations created a deepening depression in the light-sensitive spot. This depression led to slightly better vision and, therefore, more survival. Over time, that light-sensitive spot evolved to become the human eye.
How did we go from eyes as a survival mechanism to the idea of love at first sight? Or the idea that eyes are the windows to the soul? Or to the cliché of lovers staring endlessly into each other’s eyes?
Studies have shown that the pupils of people who are attracted to each other dilate from the presence of dopamine. Other studies suggest that threads in the eye can indicate personality tendencies, and that maybe eyes are a kind of window to the soul after all.
And what about the lovers who spend hours staring into each other’s eyes? Is it a display of trust? I will let you in close and trust you not to hurt me while I’m in this vulnerable position. And if trust is one of the foundations of love, perhaps the staring is a way to build or reinforce it. Or maybe it’s simpler than that.
A simple search for connection.
To see.
To be seen.
ATTORNEY FITZGERALD’S DOOR is at the end of a long, gray, and mostly featureless hallway. I try (and fail) not to take this as a sign about my future. There’s no name on the door, just a number. No one answers when I knock. Maybe he’s left for the day already? Because that would be ideal. Then it wouldn’t be my fault that I didn’t get to go to Yale and become a doctor. Never mind that I’m ten minutes late because of all the kissing. I regret nothing.
I turn the handle and walk right into a sobbing woman. She’s not even crying into her hands to hide her face like people usually do. She’s standing in the middle of the room taking huge gulps of air with tears streaming down her face. Her mascara is streaked across her cheeks and her eyes are puffy and red, like she’s been crying for a long time.