by Nicola Yoon
Sometime in the next month, Jeremy will tell his wife that he no longer loves her. That it will be best for her and the children if he leaves. He will call Hannah Winter, and he will make her promises and he will keep all of them.
His son will never settle down or marry or have children or forgive his father for his betrayal. His daughter will marry her first girlfriend, Marie. She will spend most of that first marriage anticipating and then causing its end. After Marie, no one will ever love her quite as much again. And though she’ll get married twice more, she’ll never love anyone as much as she did Marie.
Jeremy and Hannah’s children will grow up to love others in the simple and uncomplicated way of people who have always known where love comes from, and aren’t afraid of its loss.
All of which isn’t to say that Jeremy Fitzgerald did the right thing or the wrong thing. It’s only to say this: love always changes everything.
And They Lived Happily Ever After.
NOW THAT THE SUN HAS set, the air’s gotten much colder. It’s not hard to imagine that winter’s just around the corner. I’ll have to unearth my bulky black coat and my boots. I tug my jacket closer and contemplate going inside to the lobby, where it’s warm. I’m on my way in when Daniel walks out the sliding glass doors.
He sees me and I expect a smile, but his face is grim. How badly could his interview have gone?
“What happened?” I ask as soon as I reach him. I’m imagining the worst, like he got into a fight with his interviewer, and now he’s banned from applying to any college at all, and his future is ruined.
He puts his hand on my face. “I really love you,” he says. He’s not joking. This has nothing to do with our silly bet. He says it the way you would say it to someone who is dying or you don’t expect to see again.
“Daniel, what’s wrong?” I pull his hand away from my face, but I hold on to it.
“I love you,” he says again, and recaptures my face with his other hand. “It doesn’t matter if you say it back. I just want you to know it.”
My phone rings. It’s the lawyer’s office.
“Don’t answer it,” he says.
Of course I’m going to answer it.
He touches my hand to stop me. “Please don’t,” he says again.
Now I’m alarmed. I click Ignore. “What happened to you in there?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again they’re filled with tears. “You can’t stay here,” he says.
At first I don’t get it. “Why? Is the building closing for the night?” I look around for guards asking us to leave.
Tears slide down his cheeks. Certain and unwanted knowledge blooms in my mind. I pull my hand out of his.
“What was your interviewer’s name?” I whisper.
He’s nodding now. “My interviewer was your lawyer.”
“Fitzgerald?”
“Yes,” he says.
I pull out my phone and look at the number again, still refusing to understand what he’s telling me. “I’ve been waiting for him to call. Did he say something about me?”
I already know the answer. I know it.
It takes him a couple of tries to get the words out. “He said he couldn’t get the order overturned.”
“But he said he could do it,” I insist.
He squeezes my hand and tries to pull me closer, but I resist. I don’t want to be comforted. I want to understand.
I back away from him. “Are you sure? Why were you even talking about me?”
He wipes a hand down his face. “There was all this weird shit going on with him and his paralegal, and your file was just on his desk.”
“That still doesn’t explain—”
He grabs my hand again. I pull it away forcefully this time. “Stop! Just stop!” I yell.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and lets me go.
I take another step back. “Just tell me what he said exactly.”
“He said the deportation order stands and that it’s better if you and your family leave tonight.”
I turn away and listen to my voice mail. It’s him—Attorney Fitzgerald. He says that I should call him. That he has unfortunate news.
I hang up and stare at Daniel mutely. He starts to say something, but I just want him to stop. I want the whole world to stop. There are too many moving parts that are outside of my control. I feel like I’m in an elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption that someone else designed. I don’t know the mechanism to trigger it. I don’t know what happens next. I only know that everything cascades, and that once it starts it won’t stop.
Hearts don’t break.
It’s just another thing the poets say.
Hearts are not made
Of glass
Or bone
Or any material that could
Splinter
Or Fragment
Or Shatter.
They don’t
Crack Into Pieces.
They don’t
Fall Apart.
Hearts don’t break.
They just stop working.
An old watch from another time and no parts to fix it.
WE’RE SITTING NEXT TO THE fountain and Daniel’s holding my hand. His suit jacket is around my shoulders.
He really is a keeper. He’s just not mine to keep.
“I have to go home,” I say to him. It’s the first thing I’ve said in over half an hour.
He pulls me close again. I’m finally ready to let him. His shoulders are so broad and solid. I rest my head on one. I fit there. I knew it this morning, and I know it now.
“What are we going to do?” he whispers.
There’s email and Skype and texts and IMs and maybe even visits to Jamaica. But even as I think it, I know I won’t let that happen. We have separate lives to lead. I can’t leave my heart here when my life is there. And I can’t take his heart with me when his whole future is here.
I lift my head from his shoulder. “How was the rest of the interview?”
He touches my cheek and then tilts my head back down. “He said he’d recommend me.”
“That’s great,” I say, with absolutely no enthusiasm.
“Yeah,” he says, enthusiasm level matching mine.
I am cold but I don’t want to move. Moving from this spot will start the chain reaction that ends with me on a plane.
Another five minutes go by.
“I really should go home,” I say. “Flight’s at ten.”
He pulls out his phone to check the time. “Three hours to go. Are you all packed up already?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go with you,” he says.
My heart makes a leap. For a crazy second I think he means he’ll go with me to Jamaica.
He sees the thought in my eyes. “I mean to your house.”
“I know what you meant,” I snap. I am resentful. I am ridiculous. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. My parents are there and I have too much to do. You’ll just get in the way.”
He raises himself up and holds out his hand for mine. “Here’s what we’re not going to do. We are not going to argue. We are not going to pretend that this isn’t the worst thing on earth, because it is. We’re not going to go our separate ways before we absolutely have to. I’m going with you to your parents’ house. I’m going to meet them, and they’re going to like me, and I’m not going to punch your dad. Instead, I’m going to see whether you look more like him or your mom. Your little brother will act like a little brother. Maybe I’ll finally get to hear that Jamaican accent you’ve been hiding from me all day. I’m going to look at the place where you sleep and eat and live and wish I’d known just a little sooner that you were right here.”
I start to interrupt, but he continues talking. “I’m going with you to your house, and then we’re going to take a cab to the airport, just the two of us. Then I’m going to watch you get on a plane and feel my heart get ripped out of my fucking chest, and then I’m going to wonder for the rest
of my life what could’ve happened if this day hadn’t gone just exactly the way it’s gone.”
He stops to take a breath. “Is that okay with you?” he asks.
SHE SAYS YES. I’m not ready to say goodbye. I’ll never be ready to say it. I take her hand and we start walking toward the subway in silence.
She’s wearing her backpack on one shoulder and I can see the DEUS EX MACHINA print again. Was it really just this morning that we met? This morning that I wanted to blow wherever the wind took me? What I wouldn’t give for God to really be in the machine.
Headline: Area Teen Defeats Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of the Department of Homeland Security, Lives Happily Ever After with His One True Love Thanks to This One Weird Legal Loophole No One Considered Until the Last Minute and Now We Will Have a Chase Scene to Stop Her from Getting on the Plane.
But that’s not what’s going to happen.
All day I’ve been thinking that we were meant to be. That all the people and places, all the coincidences were pushing us to be together forever. But maybe that’s not true. What if this thing between us was only meant to last the day? What if we are each other’s in-between people, a way station on the road to someplace else?
What if we are just a digression in someone else’s history?
“DID YOU KNOW THAT JAMAICA has the sixth highest murder rate in the world?” I ask him.
We’re on the Q train headed to Brooklyn. It’s packed with evening commuters and we’re standing, holding on to a pole. Daniel has one hand on my back. He hasn’t stopped touching me since we left the office building. Maybe if he keeps holding on to me, I won’t fly away.
“What are the other five?” he asks.
“Honduras, Venezuela, Belize, El Salvador, and Guatemala.”
“Huh,” he says.
“Did you also know that Jamaica is still a ceremonial member of the British Commonwealth?”
I don’t wait for an answer. “I am a subject of the Queen.” If I had room to do a curtsy, I would.
The train screeches to a stop. More people get on than off. “What else can I tell you? The population is two point nine million. Between one and ten percent of people identify as Rastafarians. Twenty percent of Jamaicans live below the poverty line.”
He moves a little closer so I’m almost completely surrounded by him. “Tell me one good thing you remember,” he says. “Not the facts.”
I don’t want to be optimistic. I don’t want to adjust to this new future. “I left when I was eight. I don’t remember that much.”
He presses. “Not your family? Cousins? Friends?”
“I remember having them, but I don’t know them. My mom forces us to get on the phone with them every year at Christmas. They make fun of my American accent.”
“One good thing,” he says. His eyes are deep brown now, almost black. “What did you miss the most after you first moved here?”
I don’t have to think about the answer for very long. “The beach. The ocean here is weird. It’s the wrong kind of blue. It’s cold. It’s too rough. Jamaica is in the Caribbean Sea. The water is this blue-green color and very calm. You can walk out for a long time and you’d still only be waist-deep.”
“That sounds nice,” he says. His voice trembles a little. I’m afraid to look up because then we’ll both be crying on the train.
“Want to finish the questions from section three?” I ask.
He gets out his phone. “Number twenty-nine. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.”
The train stops again, and this time more people get off than on. We have more room, but Daniel stays close to me as if we don’t.
“Earlier today in the record store with Rob was pretty embarrassing,” I say.
“Really? You didn’t seem embarrassed, just pissed.”
“I have a good poker face, unlike someone else I know,” I say, and nudge him with my shoulder.
“But why embarrassed?”
“He cheated on me with her. Every time I see them together I feel like maybe I wasn’t good enough.”
“That guy was just a cheater. It’s nothing to do with you.” He grabs my hand and holds on to it. I kind of love his earnestness.
“I know. I called him earlier today to ask him why he did it.”
I’ve surprised him. “You did? What did he say?”
“He wanted us both.”
“Jackass. If I ever see that guy again, I’ll kick his ass.”
“Got a thirst for blood now that you’ve been in your first fight, do you?”
“I’m a fighter, not a lover,” he says, misquoting Michael Jackson. “Did your parents care that he was white?”
“They never met him.” I couldn’t imagine taking him to meet my dad. Watching them talk to each other would’ve been torturous. Also, I never wanted him to see how small our apartment was. In the end, I guess I really didn’t want him to know me.
With Daniel, it’s different somehow. I want him to see all of me.
The lights flicker off and come right back on. He squeezes my fingers. “My parents only want us to date Korean girls.”
“You’re not doing a good job listening to them,” I tease.
“Well, it’s not like I’ve dated a ton of girls. One Korean. Charlie, though? It’s like he’s allergic to nonwhite girls.”
The train jostles us and I hold on to the pole with both hands. “You want to know the secret to your brother?”
He puts his hand on top of mine. “What’s the secret?”
“He doesn’t like himself very much.”
“You think so?” he says, considering. He wants there to be a reason Charlie is the way he is.
“Trust me on this,” I say.
We screech around a long corner. He steadies me with a hand against my back and leaves it there. “Why only Korean girls for your parents?” I ask.
“They think they’ll understand Korean girls. Even the ones raised here.”
“But those girls are both American and Korean.”
“I’m not saying it makes sense,” he says, smiling. “What about you? Do your parents care who you date?”
I shrug. “I’ve never asked. I guess probably they would prefer me to eventually marry a black guy.”
“Why?”
“Same reason as yours. Somehow they’ll understand him better. And he’ll understand them better.”
“But it’s not like all black people are the same,” he says.
“Neither are all Korean girls.”
“Parents are pretty stupid.” He’s only half kidding.
“I think they think they’re protecting us,” I say.
“From what? Honestly, who can even give a shit about this stuff? We should know better by now.”
“Maybe our kids will,” I say. I regret the words even as they’re flying out of my mouth.
The lights flicker off again and we come to a complete stop between stations. I focus on the yellow-orange glow of the safety lights in the tunnel.
“I didn’t mean our kids,” I say into the dark. “I meant the next generation of kids.”
“I know what you meant,” he says quietly.
Now that I’ve thought it and said it, I can’t unthink it and unsay it. What would our kids look like? I feel the loss of something I don’t even know I want.
We pull into the Canal Street station, the last underground stop before we go over the Manhattan Bridge. The doors close and we both turn to face the window. When we emerge from the tunnel the first thing I see is the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s just past dusk and the lights are on along the suspension cables. My eyes follow their long arcs across the sky. The bridge is beautiful at night, but it’s the city skyline that astonishes me every time I see it. It looks like a towering sculpture of lighted glass and metal, like a machined piece of art. From this distance, the city looks orderly and planned, as if all of it were created at one time for one purpose. When you’re inside it, though, it feels like chaos
.
I think back to when we were on the roof earlier. I imagined the city as it was being built. Now I project it out into an apocalyptic future. The lights dim and the glass falls away, leaving just the metal skeletons of buildings. Eventually those rust and crumble. The streets are uprooted, green with wild plants, overrun with wild animals. The city is beautiful and ruined.
We descend back into the tunnel. I know for sure that I will always compare every city skyline to New York’s. Just as I will always compare every boy to Daniel.
“WHAT’S YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT?” she asks when the bridge disappears from view.
“You’re kidding, right? You were there for it. With my dad telling you to change your hair and my brother making small-penis jokes?”
She laughs. “That was pretty bad.”
“I will live a thousand lifetimes and it will still be the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“I dunno. Your dad and Charlie could figure out a way to top it.”
I groan and rub the back of my neck. “We should all be born with a family Do-Over Card. At sixteen, you get a chance to evaluate your situation and then you can choose to stay in your current family or start over with a new one.”
She tugs my hand down from my neck and holds on to it. “Would you get to choose who the new family is?” she asks.
“Nope. You take your chances.”
“So one day you just show up on some strangers’ doorstep?”
“I haven’t worked out all the details yet,” I tell her. “Maybe once you make your decision you get reborn into a new family?”
“Does your old family just think you died?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s so cruel,” she says.
“Okay, okay. Maybe they just forget you ever existed. Anyway, I don’t think many people would switch.”
She shakes her head. “I disagree. I think a lot of people would. There are some bad families in this world.”
“Would you?” I ask her.
She doesn’t say anything for a while, and I listen to the rhythm of the train while she thinks it over. I’ve never wished for a train to slow down before.