15 January 2016
The Big Bang released so much energy that the universe has been expanding outward from it for more than thirteen billion years. Eventually, that expansion will cease, and gravity will cause the universe to contract. All those galactic clusters and far-flung stars ringed by planets—some dead, some teeming with alien life—are going to come zipping back toward one another, faster and faster as the pull of gravity draws them toward the center. No one is sure what will happen in the Big Crunch. The universe and everything in it could collapse into a massive singularity, or it could initiate another Big Bang, a new beginning to the universe. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Maybe the only way to really start over is to tear everything apart.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Mom was cooking when I walked into the kitchen. Buzzing about, happier than I’d seen her in ages. Audrey was picking me up to go to Calypso High’s winter carnival in fifteen minutes. I had no real desire to waste my time throwing balls at bottles to win cheap prizes, but Audrey refused to let me spend another Friday night wallowing alone in my room. I tried to ignore the possibility that Diego might be there, but when I realized I’d spent an hour obsessing over what to wear, I knew I was hoping to see him.
“Smells good in here,” I said. There were so many aromas, it was difficult to separate them, but I was pretty certain one was fish.
“Pancetta-wrapped salmon with asparagus and lime crème fraîche.” She glanced at me over her shoulder as she stood at the sink washing asparagus. “You look nice.”
I peeked at the bowls on the counter, looking for something to nibble on, but none of it looked edible. “Audrey and I are going to the winter carnival.”
“That’ll be fun.” She sounded doubtful, and I was right there with her.
“Sadly, I have nothing better to do.” I settled on a banana. It was still too green, but I had to quiet my chatty stomach. “You seen Charlie?”
Mom shook her head. “I think he’s staying with Zooey at her parents’ house.”
Charlie and I hadn’t spoken since the other night. My ribs looked like a weather map predicting a winter storm, but I’ll count it a worthy sacrifice if Charlie never drives drunk again.
“You think they’ll get through this?”
Mom transferred the asparagus to the cutting board. She smiled as she chopped. I hadn’t seen her smoke since New Year’s either, but I didn’t mention it. She’d tried to quit before but had never lasted longer than a week. I hoped she succeeded, but I didn’t want her to feel like a failure if she didn’t.
“It’s hard to tell.”
“I like Zooey,” I said. “I like Charlie with Zooey.” It didn’t matter that Charlie didn’t deserve his beautiful, brilliant fiancée. For some unknown reason she loved him, and he was a better person for it.
“Me too.” Even Mom seemed surprised that she meant it. “Though, I do hope your brother changes his mind about college.”
I chuckled. “Fat chance.”
“Can’t blame a mom for dreaming.” She set to work descaling the salmon. I’ve never been able to get past the meaty pink of it, so similar to human flesh, the white stripes of fat running through it.
“Are you having someone for dinner?”
She shook her head. “Just experimenting for the restaurant.”
“How’s it going?”
“Good . . . I think.” Mom leaned forward and made a face. “Henry, will you scratch my forehead?” She held up her fishy hands.
Mom arched her back like a cat when I finally hit the itch. “Better?”
“Much.”
“You seem happier.”
“I guess I am,” Mom said after thinking about it for a moment. “It’s tough work, and Chef Norbert can be a real asshole—”
“Nice way to talk about your new boss.”
She rolled her eyes. “What? His only mode of speaking is yelling, and sometimes he barks orders in French and I have no idea what he’s saying.” Mom laughed, and I couldn’t help thinking there hadn’t been enough of that in our house this last year. “Maybe I’ll open my own restaurant one day.”
I cringed at the idea of Mom running her own place, stress smoking and screaming at the help, but there were worse dreams to have. “Well, someone ought to put Charlie’s college fund to use.”
“Good thinking.”
I watched Mom while I waited for Audrey. She chopped and mixed and moved so quickly that I couldn’t always follow what she was doing, but every action was confident. Cooking is practically magic to me, and my mom is a wizard.
“Mom? Did Dad leave because of me?”
She froze. The knife hovered over the cutting board, and her eyebrows dipped to form a V. “Why on Earth would you think that?”
“Lots of reasons.”
“Henry, sweetie, your father loved you.”
“I know.”
“You aren’t the reason he left.”
“Why then?”
Mom sighed and set down her knife. She moved more slowly, like she’d been waiting years for me to ask and, now that I had, she realized she wasn’t prepared to answer. “Your father and I fell out of love. Joel was never the marrying type, and I was naive. In love with the idea of love. His devotion to you and Charlie is the reason he stayed as long as he did.”
“If he loved us so much, why’d he abandon us?”
“Because he hated the person he was becoming, and he wanted to leave before you and your brother hated him too.”
My memories of my father are all jumbled together. They say when we recall a memory, we’re actually calling up the last time we remembered it, and I’m not sure I can trust that my anger at him for leaving hasn’t tainted those memories. I tried to think back to the last few months he lived with us. Had he been stressed? More distant? If he’d stayed, would my life have turned out differently? Would I hate him more than I hated him for leaving us?
“Do you think Dad made the right choice?”
Mom resumed chopping at a leisurely pace. “I don’t know, sweetie, but I think we’re doing pretty well without him. Everything happens for a reason.”
• • •
The Calypso High winter carnival was held in the school’s senior parking lot. Gone were the cars and neatly lined spaces, replaced by game booths and food booths and a Ferris wheel that looked like it had barely passed its last safety inspection. The cold weather had stuck around, but the heat from the bonfire and the press of bodies made me wish I’d worn shorts rather than jeans and a button-down shirt.
Audrey spent the drive describing her mother’s next invention: an office chair that grew more uncomfortable the longer you sat in it. It was supposed to remind cubicle workers to stand and stretch every hour, but it sounded like an ergonomic torture device. I did my best to camouflage my anxiety by singing along to the stupid songs on the radio. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of spending the evening surrounded by my peers, most of whom I imagined whispering “Space Boy” as they passed. There were too many dark corners to hide in, too many shadows to launch punches from. Still, I tried to enjoy myself.
We ran from booth to booth, looking for trouble. I made a valiant effort to win a stuffed whale by pitching a ball at a pyramid of bottles, but never managed to knock down more than two. Audrey, however, had perfect aim, and dunked Jay Oh into a tank of freezing water. Seeing him shiver and sputter wasn’t exactly revenge, but it didn’t suck, either.
Somewhere along the way, my fake smile became real. I was with my best friend, and no one could hurt me. I didn’t even mind when she had to leave to work the debate team’s booth—for two dollars, they’d try to help you win any argument. I wandered through the maze of booths and tents, thinking how much Jesse would have adored the spectacle of it all. He loved anything loud and manic. The laughter and smiles of crowds had given him strength, whereas they drained me even when I enjoyed them.
The Calypso Crooners were hosting a karaoke booth, and I couldn’t listen to one more off-key rendition of “Summer Nights,” so I ended up on the far side of the carnival, where it was quieter. I noticed a blue-striped tent with a meticulously painted sign that read: CALYPSO HIGH ART GALLERY. Diego had mentioned an art show, and I wondered if any of his paintings were on display. I had thirty minutes to kill before Audrey rejoined me, so I decided to take a peek inside.
The outside of the tent may have been dingy, but the inside was wondrous. Framed art hung from the walls and was displayed on freestanding easels. A sculpture of Medusa that bore an eerie resemblance to Principal DeShields haunted a space by the entrance, glowering at all who passed; a cityscape constructed of cigarette butts had attracted a crowd of admirers; and a painting of an ocean sunrise caught my attention. It was so realistic, I could hear the waves and smell the salt water. Each piece of art had a little placard indicating the artist and name of the work. I didn’t want to admit I was looking for one bearing Diego’s name, but I was. I finally found it in the back of the tent, beside an eight-by-ten painting in a simple black frame.
Diego had painted a boy sitting cross-legged in a dark room. He was naked, with shadows for underwear and cracked cement for skin. Sections of his arms, legs, and shoulders had crumbled, revealing a core of rebar rather than bone. As if hinged, the boy’s skull hung open, and the hollow space inside was crowded with familiar faces. I recognized my mom, Nana, Charlie and Zooey cradling a tiny bundle between them, Ms. Faraci, and Audrey. Jesse’s translucent face peered back at me too. It took me a moment to notice, but hidden in the back stood an algae-skinned alien with marble-black eyes mounted on wobbly stalks. The boy’s hand hovered over a button, and his lips bore a cheeky Mona Lisa smile, as if he were hoarding all the secrets of the universe and would never share.
It was me. I tried to digest the details, but there were so many. Rather than beating in my chest, Diego had painted my heart as cut from the night sky—full of stars—and pinned to the concrete skin of my upper left arm, and a crow hovered overhead, so dark it nearly blended into the background. I could have peeled back the layers of meaning for hours and not discovered them all. This was how Diego saw me. I was Henry Denton and I was Space Boy. I was broken and I was beautiful. I was nothing and I was everything. I didn’t matter to the universe, but I mattered to him.
The person in that painting would have pressed the button. The person in that painting with the steel bones and legions in his skull would have saved Jesse. The person in that painting would have fought back in the showers, he would have told the police who had attacked him. The person in that painting wasn’t real.
An average-size human being jumping out of an airplane will reach 99 percent of terminal velocity—approximately 122 miles per hour—within about fifteen seconds. If the body remains horizontal, the air resistance gives the illusion of floating. That’s how I’ve felt since meeting Diego. Like I was floating. But I’d been falling the entire time.
A hand on my shoulder. “Henry?”
Diego.
“Henry, are you—”
“That’s not me.”
Diego’s hand slid away. The ground was rushing to meet me. I was falling and falling. I was running.
But I could never run far or fast enough to escape the impact because gravity is inevitable.
• • •
Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, and the third brightest star in the northern hemisphere. Lyra is traditionally associated with the Greek musician Orpheus, though it is also sometimes referred to as King Arthur’s Harp. Upon the death of Orpheus’s wife, Eurydice, he marched into the Underworld and played his lyre for Hades until the lord of Death, so moved, agreed to return his wife. The hitch was that Orpheus was forbidden from looking backward until he was clear of the dread god’s domain. Failure to abide by this one rule would nullify his victory, and Eurydice would be lost forever. Orpheus looked back. Orpheus was an asshole.
I, however, did not look back. Not even once I reached the football field.
I sat on the bleachers and buried my face in my hands, crying until I couldn’t cry anymore, wondering how I’d fucked everything up. I wasn’t the person Diego thought I was. I could never be that person. I hadn’t even pressed the goddamn button. I screamed as loud as I could, letting the noise explode from my throat and ripple across the world. I didn’t care who heard me.
“You don’t answer my texts anymore, Space Boy.” Marcus startled me when he sauntered up behind me. I hopped to my feet and scanned the surrounding area for Adrian or Jay, but either they were well hidden or Marcus was alone.
“Go away.”
Marcus climbed the bleachers and sat next to where I was standing, leaving space between us. His face was drawn and pale, but he still looked good in jeans and a V-neck sweater. “Listen, about that thing in the hallway . . . That wasn’t me. I didn’t know about that.”
I touched my eye involuntarily. “Whatever, Marcus. I’m not in the mood.” I marched down off the bleachers toward the football field, hoping he wouldn’t follow me. But he did. I turned around and shouted, “Leave me alone!”
“I miss spending time with you, Henry.”
“Publicly humiliating and attacking me was a bizarre way to show it. A box of chocolates might have been more appropriate.”
“I’m sorry.” The funny thing is that I believed him. Jesse had faked being happy, Diego had hidden his past from me, but Marcus had always told me the truth. Even when he beat me up, it was honest. He pulled a flask from his pocket and offered it to me. When I didn’t take it, he drank from it first and offered it to me again. Drinking was the last thing I needed, but I didn’t want to feel anything anymore, so I accepted the flask. I don’t know what it was, but it burned my throat.
I sat down on the grass and buried my face in my hands. “Why are you being nice to me, Marcus? Why now?”
“Do you want to know the truth?” He passed me the flask again, and I swallowed a couple of gulps, feeling the alcohol loosen my limbs and my brain.
“Sure.” I was only half listening. I could still hear the distant sounds of the carnival, but it occurred to me how isolated we were.
Marcus sat across from me and pulled his feet in so he was sitting cross-legged. “I’m not strong like you, Henry. My parents expect me to be their perfect son; my friends expect me to be Mr. Popular. It’s so hard to be everything to everyone. I feel stretched thin sometimes. You’re the only person who doesn’t expect anything from me.”
I sat up and tried to clear my head, but my thoughts were stuck in a pool of tar, and I couldn’t pull them out. “You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Marcus sat forward, his eyes were unfocused and red. “I knew in the beginning I was just not-Jesse to you. You needed someone to take your mind off of Jesse, and I was not-Jesse. But I fell for you, Henry, and I thought you’d fall for me too.”
“You. Attacked. Me.”
Marcus crawled across the grass until his face was so close to mine that I could smell his rancid breath. “I fucked up.” Marcus brushed my lips with his, and I didn’t turn away. “Is this all right?” Here was Marcus offering to be not-Jesse for me again. All I had to do was accept, and I could blunt the pain of living for a little while longer.
I looked at the stars, wishing the sluggers would abduct me so that I didn’t have to make a choice. That’s what this was all about, after all. Making choices. Diego had made a choice. My mom had made a choice. Charlie had made a choice. Even Jesse had made a choice. It had been a selfish, stupid, heartbreaking choice, but one he’d made for himself.
Marcus pushed himself onto me, the weight of his body against mine made it difficult to breathe. A rock dug into my back while Marcus kissed my neck, his hands pulling at the button on my jeans. I didn’t have to choose. I could close my eyes and let it happen the same way I was going to sit back and let the world end. Marcus rubbed his hips against mine and struggled with my zipper.
I didn’t have to choose. It was easier not to choose.
“I can’t . . .”
“What’s wrong?” Marcus cupped my head with his hand and stroked the side of my face with his thumb, kissing me hard, desperately.
“Stop.” I wedged my hands between our chests and tried to shove Marcus away. “I don’t want to do this, Marcus.”
Marcus stopped kissing me. “You’re a fucking tease, Henry.”
“Get off me!”
Marcus grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed my head into the ground. The world melted and blurred. There were so many stars. Too many. There shouldn’t have been that many stars in the sky. I tried to name them, but there were constellations I’d never seen.
Torpid from the booze and dizzy from hitting the rock, I tried to fend off Marcus, but he was yanking my jeans down around my knees. This was another slugger hallucination. Only an hour ago I was laughing with Audrey, I was seeing myself the way Diego saw me. Somewhere along the way I’d stumbled into this nightmare world where Marcus was on top of me, panting in my ear and telling me what a fucking loser I was. How he was going to fuck Space Boy, and no one would believe me because no one believed loser space boys.
I pressed my head against the rock, digging it deeper into the cut on my scalp, clutching the pain, using it to drag me out of the fog. I elbowed Marcus in the face and scrambled to my feet, pulling up my pants and sprinting toward the flashing lights and laughter and nauseating smell of popcorn.
Marcus screamed my name. He tackled me by the bleachers, and I fell on my wrist. It bent back in a way wrists weren’t supposed to bend, but I ate the pain, swallowed it down with blood, and became stronger. I kicked like an animal until I connected with something that made him howl. And then I ran again. I didn’t look back this time either.
I spotted Ms. Faraci standing by the candy apple booth.
“Henry?” Ms. Faraci dropped her apple and brushed my hair from my eyes. It was sticky with blood. The color drained from her face. “Henry, what happened?”
Now that I was safe, I finally looked back. Marcus wasn’t there, but Diego was. He trotted toward us, panic in his algae eyes. “Henry, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He saw me cradling my wrist, touched the blood on my ear. He saw my pants undone, hanging off my hips. “What happened?”
“Were you attacked again?” Ms. Faraci asked. She guided me to a quieter spot behind the roasted nuts tent. The smell made me want to vomit.
Diego followed us, his eyes an expressionless wasteland.
“Henry? Tell me what happened.” Ms. Faraci grabbed her cell phone out of her purse. “That’s it. I’m calling an ambulance.”
“It was Marcus McCoy.”
Ms. Faraci dialed 911.
“What was Marcus?” Diego’s voice was flat; he hardly sounded like the boy I knew.
“I need an ambulance and police at Calypso High School. One of our students has been attacked.” Ms. Faraci regarded me like she was afraid I was going to shatter to pieces in front of her.
“What did Marcus do?”
I couldn’t look Diego in the eyes. “It’s not your problem.”
“Did Marcus hurt you?” I nodded. “Did he . . . ?” Diego glanced at my jeans, and I fumbled with them but couldn’t button them because my wrist was swollen and useless.
“He tried.”
Diego’s mouth twisted.
Ms. Faraci touched my shoulder, and I jumped. “It’s okay, Henry. You’re okay. The police are coming. Let’s get you somewhere safe.” She put her arm around my shoulders to lead me toward the school.
“Come on, Diego,” I said, but Diego was gone.
• • •
I sat on the back of an ambulance while the cops questioned me and paramedics pressed gauze to my head. My wrist was definitely broken, and I probably had a concussion. I told the police officers everything, including who had attacked me in the showers. The paramedics wanted to take me to the hospital, but I refused to go until someone found Diego. Audrey stayed with me, holding my good hand. She hardly said a word.
A crowd of onlookers had gathered around the emergency vehicles, and my mom shoved them aside to get to me, not caring who she elbowed. “Henry! Henry, what the hell happened?” She was wearing pink pajamas, and her hair was pulled back with an elastic band.
I smiled weakly and tried to assure her I was okay, but what she really needed was a Xanax. “Someone attacked me,” I said. “He tried to . . . He tried to rape me.” None of this would have happened if I hadn’t run from Diego. “I needed to be alone, so I went to the football field.”
“Young man,” said the red-haired paramedic with bloodshot eyes. “We need to take you to the hospital.”
“Not until they find Diego.” I turned to Audrey. “You have to find him.”
“I’m not leaving you.” Her voice was so fierce that I didn’t even try to argue.
The paramedic was about to explain for the fifth time why I needed to go to the emergency room, when two cops led Diego through the crowd, his hands zip-tied behind his back. Dried blood stained his face and was streaked across his shirt. I jumped off the edge of the ambulance and ran to him.
“Diego! Are you okay?” I looked for the source of the blood but couldn’t find any injuries.
“Don’t worry,” Diego said. “It’s not mine.”