I think I have wanted that since the beginning, since that day on the baseball diamond, beneath the bleachers.
Drew shifts so that his arm is around me, then he gently runs his fingers through my hair.
“That feels good,” I mumble. We stay like that for a long time.
Until I remember Dad. And Becca Chen. Like father, like daughter. I pull away, abrupt, cold air rushing between us.
“I can’t,” I say, more to myself than him. “Micah.”
“Okay.”
“My dad … he … I don’t want to be like him. What he did to my mom—”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Drew says gently.
“But I want to,” I whisper. “That’s the problem, Drew. I want—” I scramble away from him. Because I don’t trust myself. I don’t know how to say no to a high.
His eyes flare, and he inhales, a long, deep breath, then he reaches over and intertwines his fingers with mine, our palms pressed against each other’s. He squeezes my hands once, then lets go.
“I’m just your friend,” Drew says. “For now. But…” He leans in, his forehead touching mine. “I want to be more. When you’re ready, Hannah. And if you’re not, okay. That’s okay. Either way, I’m here.”
And suddenly there’s a choice to make.
“What was your question—for the cards?” I breathe.
“How can I be with Hannah?” His fingers trail down my neck. “But I think you knew that already.”
“Everything’s changing so fast,” I whisper. “It’s…” I shake my head, suddenly overwhelmed. “I’m so scared, Drew. I’m so fucking scared.” My eyes fill again. “I’m so tired of being scared.”
I thought my problem was that I was invisible to the world. But Drew’s shown me it’s so much bigger than that. I can’t even see me.
“Hey, I’m here. There’s nothing to be—”
“Don’t say it.” I pull away from him. “There’s everything to be afraid of! Outer space, for one. Like, the entire cosmos all around us. And if I start thinking about it all, about Dad, and not telling Mae about him, and Becca Chen being pregnant, and did Mom know, did she know about Dad, and then you and Micah … and Mae going to school, and never seeing Mom again, and maybe she’s stopped visiting me because I’m such a fuckup, and the … the b-baby … and the ocean—”
“Okay, okay.” Drew draws me close. “You’re right. There’s a fucking lot to be afraid of.”
“I just want it all to go away. For a little bit. I just need a break. It’s been so hard, Drew. I’m so tired.”
“I want to help.” His lips move against my hair, hot breath running along my scalp. “Hannah, let me help.”
“There’s nothing you can do.” I look up at him. “I think it will always be this way. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again. Maybe I never was.”
Drew watches me for a moment, and I pull away, thinking I must be crushing him, because his face suddenly pinches with pain.
“We’re going to change that,” he says. Then he reaches into his pocket and holds up two pills. “This is all I’ve got left.” He hesitates. “It’s … stronger than what you’re used to these days.”
“Oxy?”
He nods. “And, Hannah, if we—you have to promise me, this is it. We do this together, and then that’s it. And we find another way to make it better. Okay?”
I nod. Just one more time. I can do that.
“Promise me,” he says.
“I promise.”
I take one of the pills. “You’ve never gotten high with me before.”
“I want to be where you are.” Drew slides the pill between his lips.
It’s not too long before we are floating on a beautiful cotton-candy cloud. A forgetting cloud. I am lighter than the cloud. Lighter than the moonbeams that pass through it.
I am the moonbeams.
I am No More and Nothing and Everything and Good.
Everything is perfect.
Everything.
No More.
Nothing.
Everything.
Good.
I am getting to go to space before Mae.
I pull my eyes open and look over at Drew. He’s beside me on the cloud, his eyes half-closed, one hand curled around my ankle.
“I want to do right by the miracle, too,” I say.
Or maybe I just think it.
“You are the miracle,” he breathes.
Or maybe I just imagine it.
23
Mae
ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit
Earth Date: 31 October
Earth Time (EST): 13:07
You don’t need dark magic to bring the dead back to life: You just need a freshly carved pumpkin.
I run my hand over the blood-orange five-pounder Nate hacked into before going in search of better knives. Its tangerine guts have been laid bare, filled with white jewels. I don’t know why pumpkins make me poetic, but they do.
The sour, earthy scent hits me, and suddenly I’m in the quantum realm, leaping into the past. No rules here in Quantum Land, remember? One minute I’m in Nate Russo’s dining room, the next I’m back in Venice.
Joni Mitchell is playing in the kitchen. Pumpkin spice soup. Mom humming along.
“I’m thinking Einstein.” Dad holds up a knife. “And we use the leftover cobweb decor for the hair. I bought mini battery-powered fans so it’ll blow constantly. What do you say?”
“That’d be sick,” Micah says, approving. I nod.
Mom sticks her hand into the gourd, pulling out seeds. “Ambitious, Professor. You think you’ve got what it takes?”
Dad glances at me. “We’ve got a naysayer, Winters. Help me out here.”
“It can’t be harder than researching extreme particle acceleration.”
He grins. “Girl after my own heart.”
Mom rolls her eyes. “You two.”
“Someone did Einstein for the NASA pumpkin-carving contest last year,” I say. “The Jet Propulsion Lab doesn’t mess around. I could look up some stuff and see how they—”
“Amuck! Amuck! Amuck!” Hannah squeals from the living room. “Why is no one watching this with me?”
I glance into the living room. “Because we’ve seen it ten thousand times!”
It’s quiet, and then I hear the beginnings of Nah’s favorite part. She’s fast-forwarded. We all know what’s coming.
“Don’t do it!” Micah yells, already laughing.
“I put a spell on you, and now you’re mine…” Hannah slides across the hall’s wooden floor, wearing the witch’s hat that had been sitting as a decoration in the living room window.
“Oh God, she’s gone full Hocus Pocus on us,” Mom says.
Hannah strikes a pose, more Lady Gaga than Bette Midler, but it works. “You can’t stop the things I do…”
Mom grabs the broom leaning against the fridge and uses it as a mic, and now it’s a duet. “I ain’t lyin’ …”
Dad holds his hands up, trying not to look amused. “Ladies, please. We have serious work to do if we’re going to get this thing in by the deadline!”