Ben is waiting for me by the aquarium in the lobby.
For a second, I turn into Nah. Wish I could do a crazy thing: take his hand and run. Not look back, just grab his hand, outrun every wave that tries to follow.
He’s sitting at a small table, next to a huge wall of glass that cages bright pink coral, a little stone castle, and darting sunshine-yellow fish. When he sees me, he bolts to his feet.
“Hey.”
That smile. For a second, the clanging thoughts in me go silent. It is a Tibetan bell, ringing, deep and clear and ancient.
Good morning, Earth.
I try to smile. “Hi.”
“How is she?”
“Alive.”
He reaches out, wraps his arms around me. Coffee and wind.
“God, Mae, I seriously almost left with you. Just walked right out of Castaways.”
He’d had to stay, since he was the only person working.
“Nate was with me. And I had Drew on the phone. He was amazing. He knew right where she would be.”
My eyes fall on the aquarium. Will I ever see the bottom of the ocean and not think of Dad? I pull away from Ben, sit down at one of the tables.
My heart’s tired.
He stays standing for a moment, watching me. I notice the empty paper coffee cups stacked on the table. His backpack on the floor. He has three finals next Monday alone.
“Have you been here this whole time?”
Hours. It’s nearly one in the morning.
He nods. Slides into the seat opposite mine.
“I forgot to check my phone until just now,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
I can feel myself detaching from him. Like a space capsule from its rocket. Hold on and let go at the same time. Maybe this is a Zen koan—those riddles the masters like to come up with. If it’s not, it should be.
“It’s okay,” Ben says. “Nate told me what was happening. I saw him with your aunt and uncle on their way out. You want me to call a car? I can take you home.”
“I’m going to stay the night.”
I don’t want her to be alone. Don’t trust her. That I don’t know pulsing inside me. Ben’s favorite words, my nightmare.
He leans forward. “How can I help?”
I look away from those eyes—my mother’s eyes. Warm and brown.
“When Hannah was little—really little—she would do this thing. Play this game,” I say. “She’d pretend to be dead. I’d walk into a room and she’d be lying on the floor, eyes closed, in some twisted position. Or floating facedown in my grandparents’ pool at the Cape.” I shake my head. “I believed her every time. And I would get so upset, you know? And shake her and scream and—not cry, I couldn’t cry, but I’d really believe it. At some point she’d open her eyes or give this awful waking gasp or just get bored or whatever and she’d laugh and laugh at the look on my face.” I wrap my arms around myself, the snow from the angel’s garden deep in my bones now. “Even later, when I was pretty sure she was fooling me … I still believed her, a little. Because what if she wasn’t pretending? I was so scared that, one time, it wouldn’t be a game. That she really would be dead. And I could have saved her.”
Ben reaches across the table, but I stand, move deeper into the empty lobby with its bright colors and happy murals, meant to cheer up sick kids and their families. No amount of sunflowers or smiley faces will fix this.
Ben stands behind me, close but not touching. “I want to help, Mae. What can I do? How can I make it a little better?”
“You can’t.”
He reaches out and turns me around. “Try me.”
“Ben.” I swallow. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. You’re so strong, Mae. You’re—”
“No. I mean—this. Us.” I slide out of his grip. “My sister almost died tonight. Because I was with you. Because I missed you and I went anyway, even though I should have stayed with her, and it’s my—” I shake my head. “I know what she did isn’t my fault. But she tried to tell me. And I left her. I didn’t see. I’m too—there’s too much in my head right now. Everything’s … It’s like particle acceleration in here. I can’t right now. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. But I can’t be with you.”
Every mission requires focus. Anything that is not mission critical needs to be set aside. Ben is not mission critical. Hannah is.
He stares at me. “If you need more space, okay. Take it, as much as you want. But breaking up with me isn’t going to make her better.”
“But it will make me better!” I’m shaking now, and this day has to end, it has to. I see Drew, his palm pressed flat against that glass window, watching my sister come back to life. “I think about you … about losing you, and then I make mistakes with my sister because I’m worrying about the what-ifs. And every time I’m with you, I can’t help thinking about it. There are so many ways to die, Ben.”
“Yes. But there are so many ways to live. Together. For as long as we have.”
“You don’t get it! We don’t have time. And River, her telling me to live in the present, just accept whatever is going to happen. Screw that. All that got her was a dead brother. But she’s right about one thing: I need to let go. To not be so attached. So that’s what I’m doing, Ben. I’m too … I’m clinging to you, clinging, and I—”
“Mae. That’s not what she’s saying, not what that means. She’s talking about unhealthy clinging, like with Hannah. Fixing her is becoming your own addiction. And you know how addiction plays out. That’s what she’s talking about.”
I pull my jacket around me tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“Mae.” His voice, gravel and crashing rocks, tunneling to Earth’s core. “I’m not him.”
“What?”
“Your dad. Is that what this is really about?” He steps closer. “I know what he did freaks you the hell out. But I’m not him. I love you.”
I wish this were just about being afraid to be cheated on.
I see Drew, his face ravaged as he leaves Nah’s room. And I see my sister in that room. In that hospital bed.
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t say anything at all.
Ben grips the back of one of the chairs. “You’ve never said it back.”
“If you perform an experiment,” I say, “and every time you do it, no matter the variables, you get the same results, what can you conclude?”
He blinks. “That your hypothesis is either correct or incorrect.”
“Every person I say those words to dies, Ben. That’s the result of my experiment.” And then I tell him what I was telling myself in the elevator on the way down to the lobby. “You told me I wasn’t being healthy—with the way I’m handling things with my sister. And you’re right. Just not in the way you think.” I swallow. “Before I met you, I trusted myself. I knew how to work problems and solve them. I could maintain focus. And knowing you has put me in this uncontrolled spin, and I have to recover, Ben. I have to.”
Because I’m not afraid of heights. I’m afraid of falling.