I’d lived next door to Bradley all my life. Our parents were friends, but as kids, we barely talked to each other. We were into different things. He was an only child, my sister was my best friend, so it was only when our parents got together that we ever really interacted.

When we were nine, Bradley’s father passed away. His funeral was the first I’d ever attended. It was the first form of grief I’d ever experienced, and even though the loss wasn’t mine, it still affected me. Bradley’s mom was a stay-at-home mom. His dad worked what he called “a boring office job in finance.” I didn’t really know much about him, other than the fact that every second Sunday, like clockwork, I’d hear the sound of the lawnmower going, smell the scent of freshly-cut grass. His dad loved his yard. Besides his son, it was his pride and joy.

One afternoon, I heard Anita, Bradley’s mom, crying to my mom. She spoke about losing her husband, having to find a job, and Bradley. Bradley—he wasn’t doing too well, she said. He’d shut down completely. He wouldn’t talk to her. Wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t leave his room. My mom, a renowned child psychologist, offered to see Bradley for no charge.

The following Sunday, a day when there should’ve been the sounds of a lawnmower, there wasn’t. There was no odor of cut grass to heighten my senses. I asked Dad to show me how to use our lawnmower, and he smiled, started it up for me. My scrawny nine-year-old arms struggled to push it across our grass and onto the neighbors, but I managed. I was only there a few minutes when Bradley and Anita appeared in the doorway, holding each other while tears fell from their eyes. I told them I’d leave, that I didn’t mean to upset them. That’s when Bradley approached, told me to stay, and thanked me for giving him a piece of his father back.

Two weeks later, I cut their grass again.

We’ve been best friends ever since.

When Christa died, there was no such simple gesture that Bradley could take on to offer me the same. My mom didn’t even offer to have sessions with me the way she did with Bradley. The truth is, she stopped seeing all patients the second she saw her daughter hanging from the rafters. What’s the point? What good is it trying to save other people’s children when she couldn’t even save her own?

But Bradley was still there, coming over every day. He didn’t say a lot. There was nothing left to say. My room was always filled with light, stagnant air and settled dust.

He asked me once if I was afraid of the dark after Christa.

I told him the truth: I wasn’t afraid of the dark. I was afraid of what happened when the light switched on.

After a couple of weeks, he sat on the edge of my bed and started talking about anything and everything. I didn’t talk back. I didn’t need to. Then he started telling me about certain things my mom had told him when he was drowning in his own grief. I think, in a way, he was trying to be my best friend, my mom, and my dad all in one. I lay under the covers drowning in guilt, and I let him speak. Then one day, he said, “One time, your mom gave me this exercise. You get a sheet of paper, draw a line in the middle. On the left side, you write a list of the questions that are haunting you. On the other side, you write down a) the answers to those questions and b) how knowing the answers is going to affect you.”

I hadn’t thought about what he mentioned that day. Not until I was standing at the park watching a girl I had no doubt fallen for pushing her daughter on a swing. Her daughter. Andie has a daughter, and I don’t know how to feel about it. Maybe I should have told her that in the car, but I couldn’t. The only thing I could say was the truth. That her daughter was beautiful. And she really was. Cute and round in that little kid way—all chubby fingers and stumpy legs. But her hair... her hair was the first thing that made me realize who she was even before the word “mama” left her tiny little lips. Watching Andie with her felt like a knife slowly piercing my heart, deflating my lungs, making it impossible to breathe. Not for me, but for her. Because she’s living this life—this lie, almost—and she’s doing it all for a girl who isn’t her constant. At least not physically. But in her mind, I’m sure of it.

I guess that’s why I’m sitting at my desk now, two hours after Andie and I got home, pen in hand, staring down at the notepad in front of me, a single red line splitting the page in half.

Questions on the left.

Conclusions on the right.

Besides the headings, the columns have sat blank.

What is her name? is the first question that inks from my pen.

Followed by:

How old is she?

Who is the father?

Where is the father?

Does her being on parole have to do with why she doesn’t have custody?

Then the list goes on and on and on until I’m out of room, and I go back to the top of the page, to the conclusions.

How will knowing the answers affect me?

That’s where I get stuck.

What’s her name?

How old is she?

Who is the father?

I flip the notepad over and stand quickly, anger and jealousy coursing through my veins.

I have to know.

I don’t want to know.

I grab my textbooks, my laptop, and shove them in my backpack. My phone, keys, wallet. Then I slip on my shoes and get the hell out of the place that was once my safety.

* * *

My favorite campus library is basically deserted. Which is perfect. I get to work, like I do most Saturdays, and attempt to ignore the voices in my head, the questions, the conclusions, the consequences. But I’m constantly checking my phone, pulling up her contact, wondering if she’ll call. If I should call. If whatever we might have had is solid enough that we’re at the point where we need to be saving it.

My phone rings and I grab at quickly, stopping its vibrating movement on the desk. I expect it to be Andie, but it’s not. In fact, it’s the last person I would’ve expected. I answer the call, hold the phone to my ear. “Mom?”

“Noah. Hi. Are you busy? Do you have time to talk?”

I check around the library to make sure I’m not disturbing anyone, and when the coast is clear, I lean back in my chair, listen to the background noises of where she is, replay the sound of her voice in my head, try to determine whether she’s slurring her words. “I have time,” I tell her. “Is everything okay with you guys? Is Dad okay?”

It takes her a moment to answer. “We’re… okay. We’re doing better than we were. I think… the note from Christa and her message to you…”

I blink hard, fight what feels like falling. “Yeah… I know.”

“It felt like…”

“Closure?”

“Answers.”

“Yeah…”

“So… your dad and I… we were thinking we could come down there sometime soon. Maybe this weekend? Or next? Whenever you’re not busy.” She sniffs once. “We feel like…”

“Like what, Ma?”

“We feel like we’ve abandoned you, son. Like we failed to remember that losing one child didn’t mean losing them both, and we’re sorry, Noah. God, we’re so sorry.”

“Ma...” My voice cracks on the single word.

“We just love you, and we hope you’ll forgive us, and maybe—maybe we can get to know you again…because we don’t want to lose you, too.”

I process her words, words I’ve wanted and needed to hear so many times in the past, and focus on the sincerity and clarity in her speech. “I mean, I would love for you to, but we’re probably moving out soon, so…”

“You’re moving already?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

I sigh. “It doesn’t mat—” I pause, realizing what I’m about to say. That it doesn’t matter. But it does. If Christa taught us anything, it’s that everything matters.

“Why, Noah?” my mom presses, and I can tell by her tone that she’s thinking the same. “Please. Talk to me.”

I inhale deeply, let my exhale form the words: “Well, there’s this girl…”

“Tell me about her?”

* * *

It’s dark by the time I get home. There’s no light, no movement from the girls’ apartment. So, I go back to my room, back to my solitude, back to my list. My heart is lighter than it was when I left, my parents both there to help me wade through the darkness.

I strip out of my clothes and pick up the notepad and pen and bring it to bed, read over the questions again. And even though the time away has healed moments of the past, it’s done nothing to ease my confusion since the moment I saw Andie with her daughter.

I lay the notepad on the nightstand, try to sleep. I toss. I turn. I read through the questions again and again. I’m still left with nothing.

Hours pass, sleep evades me.

Frustrated, I throw the covers off me and check the time: 2:13 am, and my mind is too frantic to settle my heart. Jaw clenched, I make my way to the bathroom, switch on the lights, and stare at myself in the mirror. I look like death; fatigue and exhaustion can do that. But my fucking brain won’t shut off.

Reluctantly, I pull on the mirror, revealing the medicine cabinet, and grasp the pill bottle. I close my fist around it, straighten my arms against the sink and lower my head, my shoulders hunched.

I hate taking them.

I hate feeling weak.

I hate that I don’t mean physically.

My phone sounds with a text, and I carry the bottle with me to my nightstand. I assume it’ll be Bradley, asking why I’m walking around my room at stupid hours of the night, asking if I’m okay. But it’s not. Andie’s name appears on the screen, and I drop the pills, open the text:

I am Dark Matter, Dark Energy. My life and future are 95% unknown. The 5%? The light? It’s the only thing I know for sure. Her name is Aries. I gave her a heartbeat, and because of that, my heart will always belong to HER.

I read the text over and over, and with each word, each letter, I feel my jaw unclench, my muscles unfurl, until realization hits my bloodline like lightning splits the atmosphere.

Knowing the answers wouldn’t affect me at all.

It doesn’t change the way I feel about her, about what I want with her.

It’s with that knowledge alone that I inhale deeply, tidal waves of answers consuming my mind, my heart: The girl I’m falling for has a girl of her own, and they might just be more beautiful and brighter than all the stars in the sky.

I trash the list and rush for the door.

I make it one step onto the balcony before I see her, bare feet and bared soul. She switches her focus from the night sky to me, and without a single word spoken, we move toward each other, meeting halfway. A step below me, the girl who causes my heart to drum holds my gaze, pleads, “Say something beautiful?”

Beneath the stars, where her namesake lives, surrounded by Dark Matter, the fearfully unknown and indefinite future, I take her shaky hands in mine, and everything falls upon me like the first time I ever laid eyes on her. The conclusion hits me like a shot of caffeine.

It stirs me.

Jolts me.

Annihilates me.

Darkness does matter.

But so does hope.

So does love.

So does light.

And this time, I promise to remember the light.

“Us.”