Drew presses on the glass that separates us from where Nah lies in a hospital bed, his palms flat against the window, as though he could will himself into that room. He keeps saying her name, over and over. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.
“Thank you,” I say.
I will be saying those words to him for the rest of my life.
Nah is alive.
She is alive because of him.
Drew knew where to find her. It is the only reason she is breathing right now.
My sister is lying in that bed, and I see her in the snow, her hair spread out over the clean cold of it.
Drew is silent.
“Drew.” I rest my hand over his. “I’m so glad she has you.”
He looks at me, eyes hollow. “I’m not. You were right about me. Everything you said, Mae. I…”
His eyes fill, and I think maybe there is nothing more lonely than seeing a boy cry. Nobody ever lets them. I like that this one can. That he does. That he cries for my sister.
“I could have stopped her. So many times. And I didn’t. Not until it was too late. I was too scared to push her away, to lose her. But I almost did anyway. I can’t believe how stupid, how selfish I’ve been. Your family’s been through so much, and … fuck. I’m so … Sorry isn’t enough. I’m so…”
I look away. Look at Nah.
I rest my forehead against the glass. All that adrenaline from the past two hours has evaporated, and now I am filled with stones and sand and gallons of seawater. You can’t reach the surface when you’re this weighed down.
“Nobody can stop her, Drew. All the books say that. You and I made the same mistake. I didn’t tell my aunt and uncle until my plan with Micah failed. I didn’t want to lose her, either.” When I sigh, the glass fogs up. “She told me to name a star after her. She was trying to tell me. And I didn’t get it.”
I didn’t work the problem. I didn’t think about the next thing that could kill me.
I would make a terrible astronaut.
“She meant it, Mae.” A tear slips down his cheek. “The amount she took. She wanted it to work. She doesn’t want to be here anymore.”
With me. She doesn’t want to be with me. I’m not enough to keep her here.
Aunt Nora and Uncle Tony trudge down the hall, looking ancient. I’m sure the hospital brings back too many memories of Annie, of the constant treatments. Of the medicine not working.
Uncle Tony’s eyes fall on Drew, and he opens his mouth, closes it. Nods at him once. “Thank you.”
“We appreciate what you did, Drew,” Aunt Nora says. “So very much. But I think it’s best for Hannah if you leave now.”
He looks at Nah through the window, then nods. “Yeah. I understand.”
Drew turns. Starts down the hall.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
He stops. Stares at me.
“Mae—” Aunt Nora starts, but I shake my head.
“If it weren’t for Drew, we wouldn’t be here right now. We’d be at the morgue, identifying her body.”
I look at Drew. His hair is wild, dark and sticking up from running his hands through it, over and over, worrying about my sister. I grab Drew’s hand, pull him back toward the window. “He stays.”
I feel the shift then. The moment when I truly step over into adulthood, when everything I say doesn’t get to be up for debate. They feel it, too.
This night, it has burned away whatever remained of my childhood. That’s done now. I am the commander of my own life.
“Okay, then,” Uncle Tony says.
They move Nah into the room she’ll be in for the next day or so. She’s not in here because of the overdose—the medicine worked, and she could go home right now, though she does have some hypothermia. This is a suicide watch.
I make sure Drew gets to see her before visiting hours end, since I can be here whenever I want, but he has to be out by eight p.m. I don’t know what happens in that room, but when he comes out, he’s a mess.
I surprise myself when I reach up and hug him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I … don’t think you will,” he says softly. “You’re a good sister, Mae. She’s lucky to have you.”
He walks away, shoulders slumped forward, head down, and I don’t have the heart to ask.
I walk into the room, and it is quiet except for the machines: beeps and whirs. Most of the lights are off except for a row above the bed, where Nah is sitting up. Her eyes are red, skin like tissue paper, an IV stuck in her hand. Mostly fluids, some medicine. I’m sure she’s nauseous. The withdrawal is already starting.
For a minute, we just look at each other. Then I hold up my phone.
“I found a website. Where you can name a star after someone for seventy-five bucks.” I try to smile. “Can we do it that way instead?”
My sister bursts into tears, and I surprise both of us by doing the same. When I get to the side of the bed, she scooches over and I lie next to her. I can’t smell her rose smell, Mom’s perfume she’s been wearing since the wave. She smells like starch and a little bit sour, and a lot like winter. Deep cold.
“I’m so sad,” she says. Her voice is scorched from all the vomiting that happened after she woke up.
“I know. I am, too.”
We lie there, snow howling past the window, the quiet sounds of the hospital all around us. When the Russians are on a space walk, they just hang outside the ISS during each ninety-minute period of night, waiting for the next sunrise. It’s too dark, too cold, to get any work done. Getting in and out of your suit is such a hassle that it’s easier just to hang on to something and bob around in zero gravity. The Americans work through the night, but I think the cosmonauts have it right. Sometimes you just need to hang out and wait for the light. There’s always another sunrise. You can’t force things in the dark.
“You must think I’m a coward,” Nah says after a while.
I shake my head. “I wish I could be like you.”
She closes her eyes. “What a dumb thing to say.”
“It’s true.” I squeeze her shoulder. “You’re not afraid, Nah. Of anything. It seems like. I’m terrified. All the time.”
“I’m so afraid of living that I’d rather die.” She opens her eyes. “You literally want to fly to outer space on a bomb. You want to test fighter jets in the air to see if they work. What the hell are you talking about?”
I wave a hand. “I’m not afraid of heights. I’m afraid of … falling.”
I’d started to believe that if I worked hard enough, I could control the outcome of any problem put before me. Eliminate all possibility of human error. Be two steps ahead of the universe itself. Maybe River’s right. I’m clinging so tightly to everything in my life, thinking it will keep me from falling. From failing. But if you look at every space disaster in history, you know there is often nothing you can do. The Apollo 1 team died in a training because when their cabin caught on fire, they couldn’t get out—one of the hatches opened the wrong way. No one realized that was a problem until it happened. That was the engineers’ fault, not theirs. They never went to the moon. They never went anywhere.