My Heart and Other Black Holes (12 page)

“Yeah.” His voice is quiet and I can hear him shifting on the bed, the mattress sighing beneath him. “Can you put them away? They’re embarrassing.”

“Why are you embarrassed of them? I mean, you did make Captain Nemo seem a bit more emo than I think he is, but besides that, you nailed it.” I hold the drawing up against the tank. “It’s really pretty incredible.”

Roman doesn’t say anything, but I hear him let out a light sigh in protest. I turn to face him. He’s pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

“I didn’t know you drew. I sketch sometimes, but I can only draw stick figures.” I stare down at the drawing and run my fingers over the turtle’s smooth-looking shell, almost expecting it to feel real. “These are impressive.”

“Whatever. I’m not like an artist or anything.” He shrugs. “It’s just something to do when I’m alone in here. Kills time.”

I nod and tuck the papers back inside the flap of the collector’s edition of
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
.
Roman’s body visibly loosens once the drawings are put away. “So I’m guessing Captain Nemo was named after the Jules Verne character?”

“I told you before, I didn’t name him.” Roman’s voice is suddenly cold.

I shake off his harshness. “Maddie did?”

“Yeah.”

I drop the topic and stare at the real live turtle some more. I don’t know much about turtles, but this one looks exceptionally well cared for. He has a bowl of fresh fruit, red Ping-Pong balls to play with, and a large, smooth slate rock to sunbathe on. I wonder how Roman can bear the thought of leaving Captain Nemo behind and if he knows what will happen to the poor guy once Roman isn’t around to take care of him. I bite my lip—I’m not brave enough to ask. Or maybe I don’t want to know the answer.

“So are you and that guy dating or something? The dude you’re going to the zoo with?” Roman asks out of nowhere.

I try not to laugh and decide to ignore his stupid question. Roman obviously isn’t too concerned about Captain Nemo’s fate. Or if he is, he’s not letting himself think about it. I lean over so I can inspect his shelf of trophies. I read the inscriptions, lots of standard Little League stuff, but there’s a big silver plaque that stands out. Its inscription reads:
WILLIS HIGH SCHOOL VARSITY BASKETBALL MVP
. I pick it up to take a closer look at it. It’s heavy in my hand.

“So your friends were right. You were really good at basketball. Why were you so modest about it?”

He shrugs. “Because.”

“Because why?”

“It’s not like I used to be good. I am good. And it’s weird to brag about things you’re still good at.”

“But you don’t play anymore?”

“Nope.” He flops back on the bed. “I don’t do anything anymore.”

“Except hassle me about going to the zoo. It’s not like you and I had plans, FrozenRobot.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, okay.”

He tosses a pillow at me and it hits me in the side of the face.

“Hey!” I say, rubbing my right cheek as if the pillow actually had the power to leave a mark.

“Sorry, I just wanted to get your attention because I had a thought.”

“And what’s that?”

He slides off the bed and sits at the foot of it. He pats the ground beside him. I take a seat next to him. I guess he’s tired of me snooping out his secrets. I lean my head back against the edge of the mattress.

“I realized I’m going to die with you and I don’t even know your favorite color.”

I clap my hand over my mouth and shake my head.
Way to make everything weird again, FrozenRobot.
As I think about his question, I move my hand from my mouth and pick at the carpet. It’s cleaner than the carpet in my and Georgia’s room. There are no crushed potato chips or specks of lint hiding in the fibers.

“What?” he says.

“My favorite color isn’t going to tell you anything about me.”

He scoots closer to me so his shoulder rests against mine. “Fine. Then tell me something about you. I want to know something about you. It doesn’t seem right that you’re a complete stranger.”

“Complete stranger? You know things about me. Hell, your mom is cooking me dinner right now.” He gives me a blank stare, so I add, “Turkish food. She’s cooking Turkish food for me. Because I’m—”

He waves his hand in the air and cuts me off. “You know what I mean. Not this fake stuff.” His eyes widen and he kind of looks like a puppy. A sad puppy. “I want to know something real. Something that not everyone in the world knows about you.” His puppy face deepens, his mouth sagging at the corners.

“I can’t get to sleep when I have socks on, but my feet are always cold so it’s kind of a problem.”

I watch his face pull back up into a crooked smile. He
stares at my gray Converse sneakers. “Maddie hated to wear socks.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She always told me that wearing socks made it feel like her feet were suffocating.”

“Smart girl.”

“She was,” he says. And then he rests his head on my shoulder and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I think he’s looking for comfort, but I don’t have any to give. I awkwardly pin my hands at my sides and hum Mozart’s Symphony no. 24.

He doesn’t seem to mind, though. He doesn’t move away and I can feel his shoulders rise and fall slowly with his breaths. Recently, I’ve become so much more aware of the things we do that keep us alive—our inhales, our exhales, our heartbeats.

“Can I ask you something without you getting mad?”

“Anything,” he says.

“I know you blame yourself for Maddie’s death, but do your parents?”

His whole body goes rigid, but he doesn’t lift his head from my shoulder. If anything, he leans against me harder, like a slab of wood propped up against a wall. “They’re in denial. But I still hear my mom cry every night. She tries to put on such a good face, but I know she’s broken inside. And she’s broken because of me. So I guess they don’t blame me.
At least not actively. But only because I think they’re terrified of losing me, too.”

My heart constricts. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to forget what Roman just said, but images of his mom flash through my mind. I see her standing over his body—his clothes soaked with river water, his face blue and cold, his mouth open, his tongue swollen from lack of oxygen. Bile builds in the back of my throat and I slide away from him.

His body jerks in response and he sits up. He pulls his knees to his chest, his camping chair pose. People are funny. The longer you are around them, the more you start to realize that everyone makes the same motions over and over again. We all want to believe that every day is different, that every day we change, but really, it seems that certain things are coded into us from the very beginning.

I’m not sure if Roman was always a half-moon smiler and a camp chair sitter. Maybe that happened after Maddie’s death. But one thing is for sure: His body is always on alert, like he’s walking high above the ground on a trapeze wire. I think his potential energy is guarding him against the pain of his world, saying,
Smile, it will be over soon
, and
Wrap yourself up and you won’t feel so much
. Maybe even in death, his energy will live on, and make those gestures. I wonder if those are the things his mom will remember about him, too. Or if she’ll picture him on the basketball court, dribbling. Or maybe she’ll remember him sprawled out on the couch,
sketching pictures, or with his nose in a Jules Verne novel.

I wonder what my energy will do after I die. I wonder if our energy will really outlast us.

He reaches out to touch my arm. “Aysel?”

“Yeah?”

“You look like you drifted away.”

“Sorry.”

“Okay, well, I’ve been thinking . . . ,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“I want to go to the zoo with you. You should bring me when you go with that other guy.”

Before I can respond, Roman’s mom calls up to us. “Guys, dinner is ready! Come on down.”

He stands up slowly and offers me his hand. I take it and he pulls me up. I know he’s waiting for me to tell him about the zoo, but I pretend like it never happened. He mock bows, signaling for me to go down the steps before him.

Roman’s mom is waiting for us in the foyer. She grabs my face in her hands and pulls me close. “I’m just so glad you were able to make it. I really hope you enjoy the food.”

I should probably tell her I’m not an expert on Turkish cuisine, that I know nothing about it, that she could have cooked me a cheeseburger and it would have passed as authentic. But I sort of like being the center of attention. I’m starting to understand why Georgia thrives on it so much. It’s nice having people wait on your every move. I fold the
feeling up and tuck it away. I’m glad I got to have it before April 7.

“Aysel,” she says, pronouncing my name perfectly, “meet Mr. Franklin.” Roman’s dad is tall like him, almost bald, with a long, narrow face. He sticks his hand out and I shake it.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, and I do my best to look friendly.

“Aysel and Roman met at the old playground,” she tells Mr. Franklin, clutching on to his arm.

Mr. Franklin turns to face Roman. “You’ve been playing ball again?” There’s a touch of surprise in his voice. My eyes dart from Mr. Franklin to Roman to Mrs. Franklin and back again. Mr. Franklin might be onto us.

“I’m starving,” I say in hopes of avoiding any more questions about how Roman and I met.

“Me too,” Mr. Franklin agrees. “Let’s eat.”

Once we’re seated at the table, Roman’s mom leads us in prayer. I don’t close my eyes, but I notice that Roman does. The whole room smells like oregano and cumin, and my head fills with the image of my father’s friend’s wife, who cooked dinner for us one night when they’d come to visit. She’d held my face in her hands, much like how Mrs. Franklin did a moment ago, and she’d whispered to me in Turkish. I didn’t understand any of it, so I’d pretended she was saying, “Everything will be okay, Aysel. It’s all going to work out.”

I know now that she probably wasn’t saying that. And
even if she had been, she was wrong.

Mrs. Franklin passes a warm casserole dish to me. “This is kuzu güveç.” She looks at me as if to ask if her pronunciation was correct. I have no idea, so I weakly nod. “It’s sort of like a lamb stew.”

The table is crowded with other dishes—stuffed grape leaves, lamb and chicken kebabs, a rice pilaf, and a yogurt sauce. There’s also a small dish of jalapeños for Roman. It must have taken her hours and hours to prepare, and it all looks fantastic, but as I stick my fork into the lamb, ready to take a bite, I feel my appetite disappearing. I stare at Mrs. Franklin, her smiling, eager-to-please face, and know that Roman and I are about to break her heart.

This whole dinner, her effort to connect with me, is more than my own mother has ever done. Mrs. Franklin keeps smiling at me, wanting to know my opinion on everything. Her eyes are bright and I recognize the spark in them—hope. She thinks Roman is getting better, that he’s made a new friend, that he’s showing interest in a girl.

I slide my fork across my plate, pushing the lamb into the rice. I do my best to swallow my guilt.

“This is really good, sweetheart,” Mr. Franklin says as he wipes his mouth with his napkin. “I have to admit I was nervous at first.” He glances over at me. “Not that I didn’t think it would be good, but I’ve just never had food like this before.”

I nod at him to let him know I’m not offended. I don’t know enough about Turkish cuisine to have any vested stake in whether Mr. Franklin likes it or not. I wonder what it would be like to actually know something about the place my parents came from.

Mrs. Franklin bobs her head up and down with excitement at Mr. Franklin’s compliment. “And you like it too, Aysel?”

“It’s delicious,” I say like I’m some kind of expert.

“Oh, good.” She squeezes her hands together and beams.

I really don’t want to break her heart.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23

15 days left

G
eorgia and I are sitting at the kitchen table and she’s peering out the window. I think she’s hoping to catch a glimpse of Tyler before we take off.

“Who’s the cutie?” She presses her face against the windowpane.

I take a sip of my black coffee. I keep trying to teach myself to like coffee, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t get past the bitter taste. “I thought you knew Tyler?”

“Don’t mess with me,” she says. “That boy isn’t Tyler. He’s taller and his hair is shorter.”

I look out the window and see Mrs. Franklin’s red Jeep
pulling out of our driveway. The doorbell rings and I get up to answer the door, but Georgia beats me to it. She flings it open, puts her hands on her hips, and in her sweetest voice says, “Hello, nice to meet you.”

“Uh, hi,” Roman says as he walks into our house. I’ve never been embarrassed by anything at Steve’s house, mostly because I spend all my time embarrassed about being me, but the second Roman enters, I start noticing everything that is wrong. Our carpet is stained and there’s a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. It looks nothing like his immaculate, spotless house.

I know I shouldn’t care what he thinks. It’s not as if he’s going to decide that he doesn’t want to jump off the cliff at Crestville Pointe with me because my house is a disaster zone, but I don’t like the idea of him feeling sorry for me. I wish the black slug would go ahead and eat my self-consciousness along with my happiness.

He sticks his hand out to greet Georgia like he’s a statesman. Southern manners die hard, I guess.

“I’m Roman,” he says. “I’m a friend of your sister’s.”

I’m surprised he was even able to deduce that Georgia was my sister, considering our lack of sibling resemblance. “Half sister,” I blurt out before Georgia can say anything.

A flicker of annoyance washes over Georgia’s face, but she ignores me and turns her attention back to Roman. She steps closer to him and tugs on the back of her shiny ponytail. “So how do you know Aysel?”

Roman looks down at the floor and shuffles his feet. “We met a few weeks ago at the basketball court out in Willis.”

Georgia spins around to face me. “What were you doing in Willis?”