Binary Star (11 page)

He pushes me down on the grass.

Why did you do that?

You toppled over.

Why would you do that?

I didn’t. You did.

Cut it out.

I stand up and walk away. He does it again.

What are you doing?

You keep falling over.

He does it again.

Seriously, stop.

Stop falling.

He does it again and I stay on the grass this time. I look around at the manicured lawns and the single-family homes looking back at me. Across the street, a couple leaves an electronics store carrying a Sony HD-TV and plastic bags full of smaller items. Cars inch around Dairy Queen. I pull up my knees and get comfortable.

Are you just going to stay there?

If I stand up, you’ll do it again.

That’s right.

So, why would I stand up?

Because otherwise, you just have to sit there on the grass like a little bitch. He’s smiling.

We stare at each other for several seconds. Finally, I take out a magazine and start to read. Demi Moore on Her 20-Pound Weight Loss. Skinny Jeans! How Stars Get Skinny in Time for Summer. Cameron’s Red Carpet Confession: “I Didn’t Eat All Day!”

You know I have the keys to the apartment, I say.

Best and Worst Beach Bodies. Stars With Cellulite. Best Butts.

If you want to drink that beer, I have to let you in.

You really don’t get it, he says.

You can’t drink that Corona on the sidewalk. I get that.

You’re really sick.

I look at him.

I won’t do it again, he says.

He holds out his hand and I take it.

Fuck you, I say.

Fuck you, too, he says.

You know, you’re sick, too.

That night, we watch a documentary about the Earth Liberation Front. We see the charred remains of the offices of Superior Lumber, keyboards melted together and aluminum chairs twisted around themselves like wrought skeletons.

I thought the ELF was nonviolent, I say.

They are.

But this is arson.

Who was injured?

Mom, it’s me. We’re in Baltimore.

I’m sorry. I thought you’d be mad, which you are.

Yeah, we’re having fun.

I’m just not feeling well.

You know how I get in the car.

It’s not the flu. It’s motion sickness.

I haven’t been able to eat very much.

We’re having a good time.

Just mostly motels.

Not tonight. We’re staying with Helen.

I’ll tell her you said so.

I’m fine.

I’ll have John stop somewhere.

I’ll tell him you said hello.

Hey, Mom? Can I tell you something?

Never mind.

No, nothing. How are you?

It’s just that… well, I’ve been sad.

I don’t know.

I think I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know with what.

I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll be fine.

I don’t think I need to see anyone about it.

St. John’s Wort. Okay.

I will. Thank you.

I love you, too.

In Baltimore, we stay with a friend of my mother. She’s prepared a crab feast without knowing that we’re vegan. The last time she saw me, I was twelve and we made crab cakes from scratch. She remembers how much I loved them.

By the time we arrive, at dusk, everyone is waiting. She’s invited six or seven other people my mother’s age, who talk to John and me with the kind of intentional respect older people give to young adults. They ask me what I’m studying.

Astronomy. Education.

Am I going to be an astronaut?

Space scares me.

They find this funny. We stand around in the kitchen. A box of roasted crabs sits, closed, on a table covered with paper. ’90s music plays on a small Sony stereo. Our host hands us two Bud Lights.

You’re old enough to drink them now! she says. Last time I saw you, you were…

She holds up her hand to her breast.

It’s been a long time, I say.

It’s been too long. I’ve got more past than future now. Lord! Don’t ever get old.

I would never.

She opens the box and turns it upside-down. Red bodies spill across the butcher paper and the smell of Old Bay fills the tiny bare-wood kitchen. Star shapes crisscross each other limply and her friends begin tearing shells apart with their hands. John and I stand in the doorway.

What’s wrong? she asks us.

To be honest: we’re vegan.

Oh, no!

We should have told you.

I didn’t realize! I just want to make sure you’re fed.

She opens the refrigerator and bends down to search inside. John and I look at each other. We know what’s coming.

Potato salad?

No, sorry. It’s not vegan.

Leftover spaghetti?

What kind of sauce?

Vodka.

No, sorry.

Nutella and jelly?

John touches my shoulder.

You know, we can just go out and grab something, I say. It might be easier. We won’t be gone very long.

Don’t do that. I’d feel too bad.

It’s okay. This happens all the time.

Do you both have to go?

I look at John. He wouldn’t want to be alone if I stayed here.

We’ll both go. Be right back.

Don’t tell your mother.

I don’t tell her anything.

She laughs.

Mass transfer in a binary system shrinks the orbit, causing an accelerated overflow of the donor star’s Roche lobe.

This initiates a runaway process of mass transfer that engulfs the star’s companion in a common envelope.

Shrinking ends when the envelope is expelled or when the two stars merge and no more energy is available either to expand or expel the envelope.

This is called the spiral-in.

That night, we sleep on an air mattress our host lays out on the floor of the living room. It fills the area between the couch and the front windows and from the front door to the TV: almost the whole space. When I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I walk on air. I come back and walk on air and lie down next to John. I put my arm around his stomach.

When we first started dating, we camped by the Long Island Sound with two friends I’ve since fallen out with. We drank around the fire and made sandwiches with Nestlé graham crackers and Hershey’s bars, and marshmallows they stabbed with the ends of sticks and held to the edge of the flames. We talked until the sun began to rise, then we put out the fire and retired to our North Face tents and John shared mine. I slept with my arm around him, just like this, and felt his chest rise and fall. It was our first time sleeping together.

That afternoon, I woke with a spider bite on my neck and he kissed it. We made love in the tent and the time outside didn’t matter. It didn’t even exist.

John rolls over and kisses me on the forehead and we lie with our arms around each other for a long time. My face is pressed against his chest. I breathe in his smell. I kiss his collarbone.

He runs his fingers around the elastic waistband of my shorts and pushes it down, then he pushes me onto my back. He climbs on top of me and pulls my shorts down to my ankles, and I feel his dick grow hard against me.

I lick my fingers and wet myself. I take him in my hand. He pushes inside me.

Bursts of color appear behind my eyes. Sharp pain shoots through my abdomen. My breath catches. I stretch around him. He grows harder inside me and thrusts. I lick my fingers again.

I’m dry. John moves slowly.

Is this hurting you?

A little, but it’s okay.

I don’t want to hurt you.

No, it feels good.

Kiss me.

He buries his head in my shoulder. His movements are slow and rhythmic. I feel him coming deep inside me.

Afterward, he lies next to me, our sweat cooling.

That was really good.

Yeah.

I love you, he says.

I know you do.

Did you come?

Yes.

Really?

No.

But sometimes it’s hard for me.

I just want you to feel good.

I do.

Okay.

He touches between my legs.

You’re not just saying that?

Why would I lie about it?

The next day, the arteries leading into New York are clogged. We sit in an hours-long traffic jam, during which it begins to snow. In the sky above the billboards for Manhattan Mini Storage, Kars4Kids, and GEICO, white and grey clouds recess into themselves in soft folding shapes. We play a game where we try to say the same word at the same time without any clues.

Last night, I washed down 20 milligrams of Adderall with two Red Bulls. At seven o’clock this morning, I ate two Hydroxycuts and dressed for class. On the way there, I ate an apple and drank 24 ounces of coffee. I’m sitting in the front row because this is where I was told to sit. I can’t feel my body in my chair. The fluorescent lights buzz against the walls, which seem to be full
of water. My professor makes eye contact with me when I first arrive, but then doesn’t look at me for the rest of the class. I take twenty pages of notes in two hours. I count them. I write neatly, as small as I can, but my hand shakes and sometimes I lose control of the line.

– The white dwarf is supported against collapse by degeneracy pressure.

John texts me.

Second draft of the manifesto.

I’m in class.

– The temperature rises within a white dwarf accreting matter from its companion.

– It doesn’t expand and cool.

I’ll send it to you now. Read it when you can.

I will.

– The star increases in temperature, not in pressure.

You’re in, aren’t you?

Of course. I want to help.

– Carbon fusion in the core reignites — runaway process that feeds on itself.

As I’m leaving, my professor pulls me aside.

You slipped a little on the last test.

I know. I didn’t have time to study.

I realize I’m grinding my jaw and stop. My forehead tenses. I relax it.

Well, get the notes from someone next time.

I will.

You only have one more absence this semester.

I won’t miss any more class.

He smiles. He’s about to make a joke.

And don’t sit in the back. It’s like you’re hiding something.

To be honest, I have a thyroid condition. It was just diagnosed. That’s why I’ve missed classes.

I’ve said too much already.

So, if you notice me losing weight, you’ll know that’s why.

He looks at me for a long time. He knows I’m lying.

I haven’t noticed, yet, but I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sorry about your condition.

It’s under control.

We remain standing mutely in the doorway.

If you ever need to see me, you know where to find me.

Thank you.

My downstairs neighbor’s dog barks until five in the morning the night we return to New York. John plans to leave at eight to drive back to Chicago. He takes his Seroquel at midnight and asks me to wake him at seven to say a proper goodbye. I’m awake for most of the night. I’m awake when my alarm goes off. He’s sluggish and falls asleep on the red futon while I’m in the bathroom. I make coffee and try to convince him to sleep more, but he still drives away. I watch from the sidewalk and feel a profound absence.

He doesn’t call from the road and when I call him, he doesn’t answer. I call twenty times. I email. I text. I call Michele.

Have you seen John?

She hasn’t.

He should have been back tonight.

He’ll call you when he’s back, I’m sure.

I picture him driving around in circles. He’s lost.

I picture him overturned in a ditch.

The next morning, he calls to say he’s sorry, that he pulled off in Ohio and woke up ten hours later in his car.

I was in the middle of nowhere. So many stars. Like driving through North Dakota.

I told you to stay here and sleep.

I’m home now.

I thought you were dead.

Don’t be dramatic.

That night, he gets drunk by himself and falls asleep in the bushes outside his apartment. His neighbor wakes him at six in the morning, when he goes out to get his newspaper. John has cuts and bruises on his face that he doesn’t remember getting in a fight, though the patterns suggest someone hit him very hard. I tell him to go to the hospital and get x-rayed, but he thinks it’s unnecessary.

Michele thinks he’s fine.

You have an atmosphere. I have an atmosphere.

You stand on one side of the bed and I stand on the other and you tell me what you think of my clothing. You leave Dog in the crate all day while you sleep. She has to pee. She’s an animal, John.

Say you can’t help it, but maybe consider you own her.

Mornings feel like paper.

A morning is continuous. You don’t realize it if you sleep when it’s dark. You wake suddenly in the light and there is division between one time and another.

I tell you now: There’s no division. You have more past than future? No, you don’t. You have neither.

You have only the present.

It is cruel to own an animal: not vegan.

I stand at the foot of your bed and talk like a child. I pulse against the cock you can’t use.