My Heart and Other Black Holes (8 page)

The class continues to argue with him even as we all write our names on small sheets of notebook paper and hand them to him. He grabs the Cincinnati Reds cap he has on his desk and puts all the names inside it. As he calls out the pairings, the groans and sighs become louder.

I clench my teeth and wish I’d been smart enough not to hand in my name. Maybe then I would’ve gotten to work alone. Even better, I wouldn’t have to listen to my partner throw the World’s Biggest Fit once they find out they’re stuck with me.

“Aysel Seran,” Mr. Scott announces as he pulls my name out of the hat.

The class goes silent.

“Your partner will be Tyler Bowen,” Mr. Scott says cheerfully, completely oblivious to my social leprosy.

“Oh God,” Stacy says. She reaches out to pat his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Ty.”

Tyler’s face darkens like someone just murdered his mother. I guess given my family history I shouldn’t joke about that. I almost feel bad for Tyler. I know that any association with me is bad news for him socially. But the thing is, our project is due on April 10, so in the end it doesn’t matter.

I’ll be gone before we have to turn it in.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16

22 days left

T
he last ten minutes of my shift at TMC are always the slowest. I debate calling the next person on my log, but that would mean I actually care about being a good employee, which I don’t. Instead, I play around on Smooth Passages.

I read more of the postings in the Suicide Partners section. It’s strange how some people post multiple times. I wonder if they didn’t like the people who responded to them, and then I wonder if someone other than me responded to Roman.
Did he pick me over someone else?
The thought makes my stomach flip in a way I’m not used to. Mostly because never in my
life have I been picked when there was another alternative. Though, if I’m being completely honest with myself, Roman probably didn’t have any other choices. Willis, Kentucky, is the middle of nowhere. Lucky for him, Langston is only fifteen minutes west of nowhere.

“I told you to stop checking dating websites when you’re at work,” Laura grumbles.

“Why do you care, anyway?” I quickly minimize the window before she can get a better look at the website.

She picks at her chipped pink nail polish. “I don’t care. Though I have to tell you I think you’re only going to find straight-up weirdos on there.”

She has no idea how right she is. “Thanks for the advice.” I do my best to maintain a straight face, but I can’t. Laura shakes her head.

“Don’t blame me when your computer gets a virus.” She points at my screen.

“I’ll make sure to inform Mr. Palmer that the straight-up-weirdo website was all me.” I give her a wink before I pick up the phone, trying not to laugh, and dial the next number on my list—Earl Gorges, who lives on Rowan Hill Drive.

“Hello?” a deep voice answers the phone.

“May I please speak to Mr. Earl Gorges?”

“Speaking,” the voice says.

“Hi, Mr. Gorges, this is Aysel Seran, I’m calling from Tucker’s Marketing Concepts on behalf of Fit and Active
Foods. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Go to hell,” he says, and hangs up the phone.

I turn to Laura. “That man just told me to go to hell.”

This time it’s her turn to laugh.

I decide to take the long way when I drive to pick up Roman. My hands start to tremble as I pull onto Tanner Lane. I’ve avoided this street as much as possible since everything with my dad happened. Tanner Lane sits on the outskirts of town, home to only the recreational center and a few run-down shops. As I drive down the road, I let myself glance to the left.

And then I see it. My dad’s old convenience store. The shabby gray cement building doesn’t look any different now that it’s abandoned, which says more about its past state than its current one. The town keeps talking about tearing it down. Apparently some developer bought it and plans to turn it into one of those fancy gas stations where you can treat yourself to a slushie of any color, buy a hot pizza, and fill up your tank. All you could get at Dad’s old store was a candy bar, a cup of coffee, and the newspaper.

I know I should be eager for it to be torn down, hungry to see the memory crumble. Maybe if the scene of the crime no longer exists, people will start to forget. But I know that’s not true. And even if it were, I don’t want to see the building go. For better or worse, it’s my childhood.

I stare at the building and remember sitting inside, behind the counter with my dad. We’d share a Snickers bar and listen to Bach. He’d tell me how when he was younger, he used to fantasize about learning how to play the piano. He said that once he made enough money at his store, he was going to pay for me to take piano lessons. He was going to send me to a fancy music camp. I guess things didn’t exactly go the way he planned.

The parking lot is empty. I pull my car up to the building and turn off the engine. I step outside and run my hands over the familiar concrete blocks. I walk around on the front curb and search for the place where I pressed my palms in the wet cement of the sidewalk when I was ten.

When Dad first discovered what I’d done, his eyes blazed with anger and the vein in his forehead bulged, but then he stared at the tiny handprints and back at me and finally burst out laughing. He flung me over his shoulder and said, “I guess it’s fine, Zellie. This way everyone will know the place belongs to you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and put my hands into the old imprint. They’re too big to fit now, but it still feels like more of a fit than anywhere else in the world does. I tilt my head toward the sky and slowly open my eyes. The sky is gray and still, like it’s holding its breath. I hold my breath too and wait for the pressure building in my throat to fade. It doesn’t.

“I miss you, Dad,” I whisper as I turn my eyes back to the
cement curb. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”

My phone beeps and I see a message from Roman. I tell him I’m on my way and I jump back into the car. When I reach FrozenRobot’s house, I text him to come outside. I don’t want to have to face his mom. But when the door opens, I see Mrs. Franklin standing there. She walks toward my car at a brisk pace.

I take a deep breath and roll down the window.

“Aysel,” she says, her voice tight, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

It doesn’t sound like it.
I nod at her because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that.

“Roman didn’t get out of bed yesterday and refused to go to school. But he just told me that he’s planning to go out with you. Is that right?” She squints at me like she’s trying to determine what my allure is. Poor woman. She has no idea that it’s not me that holds the appeal: it’s death.

I nod again. “Yeah. We’re going to hang out.” I try to keep my voice neutral, afraid that even the slightest shake in my voice will give our true plan away, the real reason for our hangout.

“Where?” She puts her hands on her hips. I sink farther into my car’s seat. I hadn’t prepared for an interrogation.

I’m fumbling around for an answer when Roman comes up behind his mom. “We’re going to the playground.”

Her gaze darts from me to him and back again. A worried
look crosses her face and she pinches her lips. Then she smiles slowly, but it’s a weak one. “Are you going to play basketball?”

I look to Roman for the answer. His shoulders are hunched, as if he can barely stand to hold himself up, like he’s uncomfortable with his own height. But he’s one of those people who can never be invisible, even if they want to be. “Yeah. I’m going to teach Aysel how to shoot.” He slowly gestures toward me, his hands clumsy and sluggish. I wonder if he used to talk with his hands, but now he’s out of practice. “You’re looking at the next basketball superstar.”

I force myself to smile and can only imagine how awfully fake it looks. “He claimed he could teach a cat to shoot, so I gave him a harder student. Me.”

Mrs. Franklin laughs, but I still sense a bit of hesitance. “Okay, well, you kids have fun. But Roman . . .” She puts her hand on his shoulder and her pink lacquered fingernails glint in the glow of my car’s headlights. “Will you call me if you’re going to be out late?”

“Yeah, no problem, Mom.” He gives her a weak hug and I look away as she runs her fingers through his short buzzed hair.

She waves at us as she walks back into the house. Roman slides into the passenger seat and we sit for a few moments in silence.

“Nice to see you, too,” I say.

“I told you to stop making jokes.”

“That wasn’t a joke.” I turn back on the engine. “So are we really going to hang out at the playground?” I use his same words from the other day. “Hang out” sounds so much less morbid than “Where should we go to plan our joint death?”

“Sure. The old playground sounds good.” He stares out the window and seems even more distant than he was when I first met him.

I steer my car down his street and take a left turn onto Main. “You forget that I’m not from Willis. I don’t know what you mean by the old playground.” Maybe he’s the type of person who turns his lies into truths in his head. Like just because he told his friends we met at the old playground, somehow the universe made that true.

“Keep going this way and then take a right turn onto Possum Run.”

Only in Willis, Kentucky, would that be the name of a street.

“You had me at Possum Run,” I say.

He glares at me.

“Okay, okay. I’ll be serious.”

“You’re freaking me out,” he says.

“Why?”

“With the jokes. You seem serious about this whole thing, but then whenever you start to talk about it, you’re all lighthearted.”

I let out my laugh. The same one that comes out whenever I’m talking to Laura. It’s high-pitched and strangled.

“See?”

“Sorry. I laugh when I get nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?”

I take the right turn onto Possum Run. “Because you’re interrogating me about my motives. Besides, I once read that a side effect of depression is an overwhelming desire to make stupid jokes.”

He frowns.

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Look it up.”

“Okay, I will.” He crosses his arms over his chest and looks out the window. “So are you going to tell me or what?”

“Tell you what?” My car bumps over a pothole on Possum Run.

“Why you want to do it.”

I see the playground on the left side of the street. The “old playground” apparently consists of a rusted swing set, a cracked basketball court complete with a metal chain basket, and three rotting picnic tables. It looks like it used to have a sandbox, but at some point, I guess, the sand got replaced with gravel. Soda cans and plastic potato-chip bags are littered across the muddy grass. In some ways, the playground feels more like a graveyard. Like it’s a decrepit testament to
faded memories, better times. Maybe that’s why FrozenRobot likes it so much.

I park the car and look over at him. His knees are folded up and knocking against the dashboard, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His hazel eyes are wide as he studies the playground.

“You haven’t told me why you want to. I didn’t know that we were planning on sharing with one another,” I say. My lungs constrict, a warning not to reveal any information that I’m later going to regret having shared.

He opens the door and gets out of the car. I stay seated for a few seconds longer and squeeze my eyes shut. I know it contradicts the whole idea of having a Suicide Partner, but a giant part of me doesn’t want to tell FrozenRobot my reasons. I don’t want him to start looking at me the way the other kids at my school do, like I’m a ticking time bomb. I like that Roman thinks he and I are similar. I like having someone relate to me. I don’t want to ruin that.

And worse, with his connection to Brian Jackson, I don’t think he’d take what my dad did lightly. Sure, he might not still be close to Brian, but it all feels very uncomfortable considering my dad is responsible for the tragedy that’s haunted Brian’s family—the very reason his brother didn’t make it to the Olympics. No way I can tell Roman about my reasons. I’m not going to risk him bailing on me.

All he needs to know is that I’m ready to die. That should be enough.

He taps on my window. I get out of the car and lean against it.

“Sorry,” he says. “I can be an asshole sometimes. Ever since . . .” He trails off and cups his hand over his eyes as he gazes up at the sky. The sun has almost set, so I don’t know why he’s so worried about shading his eyes. Maybe it’s just a habit. It’s funny—the things we do out of habit.

“Ever since?” I prompt him.

He walks over to one of the picnic tables and sits on top of it. I take a seat next to him and breathe in the scent of damp, decaying wood. The sky is a hazy indigo. March sunsets are always like that in Kentucky. It’s like the sky has too much moisture to produce any color that isn’t some variation of blue.

“Ever since she died.”

“Who died?” I don’t miss a beat before I ask. It’s probably not polite, but I figure none of the normal social rules apply to my and FrozenRobot’s relationship.

“My sister. My little sister. She was only nine years old.”

I bite the skin around my thumbnail and stare at Roman’s profile. He’s pulled his knees to his chin, folding himself up like a camp chair. “That’s young.” For a brief moment, I think of Mike. He’s nine, almost ten.

“Too young.”

“Seventeen is young,” I offer.

“Are you trying to talk me out of doing this now?”

“No. I was just making a point that I don’t think you have to die just because she did. There’s like—”

He interrupts me, “She’s dead because of me.” His voice is a low growl and I scoot away from him.

“What do you mean?”

His shoulders tremble as he lets out a loud exhale. “I was babysitting her one night. But I wasn’t really babysitting her, you know?”

I don’t know, but I give him a slight nod, urging him to go on.

“My girlfriend was over and Madison, that was my little sister’s name . . .” He takes a few shallow breaths and I’m terrified that he’s about to start crying. I never know what to do when people cry. I haven’t cried since I was ten. I think it’s because the black slug sucks up any of my potential tears.