At the Edge of the Universe

  “That’s not going to happen.” Tommy’s swollen nose makes his voice froggy. I tried to force him to go to the emergency room, but he refused, because nurses ask questions and doctors call police. He’s worried about what will happen to his mother if the cops lock up his father. And as guilty as I feel for keeping the secret, I’m more afraid of what Tommy will do if I betray his trust.

  “We should leave now,” I say. “Run away somewhere no one will find us.” It’s difficult to keep my thoughts straight when all I want to do is drive to Tommy’s house and kill his dad. “We could hide in the mountains or something. My uncle lives alone in a cabin with no electricity. I bet he’d let us stay with him. I mean, we’d have to find him first and—”

  Tommy takes my hand. “One more year, Ozzie,” he says. “We have to stick it out one more year so we can graduate.”

  “We can take the GED. Your life is more important than a stupid piece of paper.”

  “Ozzie . . .”

  I can’t look at Tommy without imagining his father looming over him, punching him. Slamming his face into a wall. “You’re the only thing in my life that matters, Tommy.”

  “Don’t say stupid shit like that, Oz. Your folks love you, and so does Renny, in his own weird way.”

  “But they’re not you.”

  Tommy glares at me. I’m not used to seeing anger in his eyes. Not directed at me, anyway. “You know how much I’d give for your life? For parents that love me, a house with a roof that doesn’t leak, a bedroom with a real door? You act like you have it so rough.” He pulls the bag of ice from his face and points at his swollen eye. “Your pops ever do anything like this to you?”

  I shake my head, unable to speak.

  “No,” Tommy says. “He wouldn’t. Because your pops is a saint. He’d never hit you or your mom or Warren.” He presses the ice against his face again, wincing. I want to kiss him, hold him. “You have a great life, Ozzie, and you know what hurts worse than a broken nose?”

  “Tommy . . .”

  “That you don’t fucking appreciate it.”

  Tears roll down my cheeks. I don’t notice them until they reach my lips and I lick them away. “I know I’m lucky, Tommy. But I’d give up everything to be with you.”

  Tommy nods. The anger drains from his eyes, replaced with disappointment. “Then you’re an idiot.”

  2,010,567,000 LY

  I LAY ON MY BED struggling to read on the road. Kerouac’s manic thoughts ran together on the page like he’d written them in a drug-fueled race to exorcise them from his brain, which I suppose he had. I preferred books that transported me to strange places and distant times, but Tommy had given me On the Road before he’d disappeared, and told me it would change my life. That copy had vanished with Tommy, so I’d borrowed one from work. I might have enjoyed Kerouac’s adventures more if Tommy was around to argue about them with. It was the kind of book that might once have inspired me to hitchhike across the country, but in my present state of mind, Dean Moriarty struck me as an asshole, and Sal an even bigger asshole for believing Dean worthy of idolization.

  Still, I kept reading, because Tommy had given it to me, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to hold on to some piece of him.

  A week had passed since I’d met with Calvin at the bookstore, and nothing had changed. He continued sleeping through class. Every time I saw him, I wondered whether he was still cutting himself, and if I should tell a teacher or the police. I even considered talking to Renny about it, but he was too preoccupied with his preparations for basic training to deal with my problems.

  I kept waiting for at least one of my parents to realize Renny was making a huge mistake and padlock him in his bedroom until he abandoned his fantasy of becoming a soldier, but that scenario grew less likely with each passing day.

  I needed to talk to someone. Lua had been skipping class more often than not, and hardly answered when I texted, and Dustin and I didn’t talk about personal stuff often.

  Oh, and the last time I’d checked, the universe had contracted to a size of barely two billion light-years across. Ninety-eight percent of the known universe . . . gone. At its current rate, I worried it would collapse entirely before graduation, and I still had no idea why it was happening.

  My most recent theory, which had come to me during class while Mrs. Nelson recounted embarrassing stories of her awkward teenage years in an attempt to help us relate to The Metamorphosis, was that reality was a lie. That in a distant, dying future, the desperate remnants of humanity had sought refuge in a simulated world, but my future-self’s subconscious mind had rejected the illusion. Tommy’s disappearance, Flight 1184, the shrinking universe. All symptoms of the truth intruding on my dream of a better life.

  As implausible as it sounded, it was no less reasonable than any of the other theories I’d concocted. And if it were true, I wondered if Tommy was alive at the crumbling edge of the universe, dreaming some other version of me.

  When I realized I’d read the same page of On the Road three times, I tossed the book aside, stood, and pressed my ear to my bedroom door. Mom and Dad had been fighting when I’d come home from school, but I didn’t hear yelling and hoped it was safe to forage for food.

  On my way downstairs I noticed a strange man looking mighty comfortable on the couch in the living room. His brown hair was parted neatly to the side, and that was all I could tell from the back of his head.

  “Who are you, and why are you in my house?” I asked. I was holding my phone, ready to call the police.

  The man stood and turned around. He was wearing a Game of Thrones T-shirt and khaki shorts that revealed tan, hairy thighs. He looked about Renny’s age, maybe older, but not by much. I continued down the stairs. The stranger didn’t look like a crazed psycho killer, but neither had Norman Bates. The man walked toward me, smiling, and held out his hand.

  “Hey, bro. I’m Ben Schwitzer.” A sun-and-moon tattoo decorated the underside of his wrist. “You must be Ozzie.”

  I looked at his hand, but refused to shake it. My parents had taught me the importance of politeness, but that didn’t extend to strange men who’d possibly broken into my house with the intention of robbing and/or killing us.

  “Am I supposed to know you?”

  Ben Schwitzer, if that was his real name, looked like the kind of guy who spent hours at the gym, sitting in front of a floor-length mirror, admiring his broad shoulders and thick arms while he lifted weights. I figured I couldn’t take him in a straight-up fight, but I could’ve probably outrun him if necessary. Still, his youthful red cheeks and his purposely haphazard stubble screamed beer-pong aficionado rather than serial murderer.

  “I work with Kat at Entropie,” Ben Schwitzer said. “For her, I guess you could say. But not directly. I’m in the IT department.”

  My mom had started working at Entropie—a medical software company—a few months after I was born. I’d been delivered prematurely, and the weeks I’d spent in NICU had demolished my parents’ savings. They’d needed the money, but I also think Mom had regretted giving up her career to take care of Renny. She’d started in the logistics department and had worked her ass off to eventually become the COO.

  I wondered if Ben Schwitzer was the man Renny told me she’d gone on a date with a couple of weeks ago.

  “First job after college?” I asked.

  Ben cocked his head to the side. “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess.” I glanced out the bay windows that framed the staircase for Dad’s car, but it was gone. “Are you dating my mom?”

  Ben shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “Kat and I are just hanging out.”

  Hanging out. A mental image of my mother and this man-child on a date crashed through my thoughts. Her leaning forward as he regaled her with stories of his not-so-distant college escapades. Them trying to figure out where to go at the end of the night because she couldn’t take him back to her house, where her legal husband and two c
hildren slept, and they couldn’t go to his house because he didn’t want to wake up his parents. Laughter bubbled out of me and self-replicated.

  Ben frowned. “Did I miss something?”

  “The seventies and eighties,” I said. “Unlike my mother.” My entire body shook. I held on to the banister for balance. “Are you even old enough to drink?”

  “I’m twenty-four, bro.”

  Being “bro’d” by Ben Schwitzer made me crack up harder. Mom walked into the kitchen wearing tight gray jeans and a sleeveless blouse. She looked forty-two going on twenty, which made it impossible to stop cackling. She stared at us, her face hardening to marble.

  “Ozzie,” she said. “I see you’ve met Ben.”

  I held my stomach, trying to swallow the laughter. “You know how old he is, right? You were a year older than he is now when I was born.”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed. Ben forced a smile. “I think I’ll wait in the car,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Ozzie.”

  “Don’t forget to buckle into your child seat,” I called after Ben as he left through the garage.

  The moment the door shut behind him, Mom rounded on me. “You think this is funny, young man?”

  I tried to wipe the smirk off my face but couldn’t. “You’re old enough to be his mother,” I said. “It’s hilarious.” Even when my words smacked Mom and I could see I’d hurt her, I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “I know this is confusing, Ozzie, but your father and I are through. We will not be reconciling.” Her composure amazed me. She gritted her teeth and the muscles in her neck bulged, and I didn’t know how she kept herself from slapping the stupid grin off my face. She took a deep breath and let it out. I recognized the technique, because one of the therapists I’d test-driven had encouraged the practice to help me handle stress. “Maybe when you’re older you’ll understand—”

  “Older?” I said. “I’m practically your date’s age.”

  “You have no right to judge who I spend my time with while you carry on this foolish charade of having an imaginary boyfriend.”

  “Whatever,” I said, partially because I knew she was right—my parents’ marriage was over, and she was free to date any strange man she wanted—but mostly because, even though I wanted to argue with her about Tommy, it was pointless, since I had exactly no proof he was real.

  Mom stopped herself from doing or saying whatever she’d been considering, plucked her purse off the counter, turned, and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.

  “Wow,” Renny said. “Way to be an asshole.”

  I found my brother leaning over the railing at the top of the stairs.

  “Shut up, Warren.”

  2,008,389,000 LY

  I LOVED MS. NOVAK ONLY FRACTIONALLY less than I loved Lua. She answered the door at Lua’s house wearing the run-down look of a person whose life was all work and responsibility, but who refused to let it break her.

  “My second son,” she said as she wrapped me in a hug. “How are you, love?”

  Before I could unleash the torrent of all my problems on her, the sound of glass shattering from inside the house cut me off. “Jaime’s here,” she said. “I think they’re fighting. Or making up. Who can tell? I should probably check on them.”

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Ms. Novak stood aside to let me in. I followed the shouting voices past the Novak’s cheerfully silly Christmas tree to Lua’s room, and momentarily debated leaving and spending the evening driving around Cloud Lake. But I wanted—no, I needed—to talk to Lua, which meant refereeing another fight between my best friend and Jaime.

  When I opened the door, I saw Lua standing beside the bed, holding a crystal rose over his head. His hair was no longer platinum blond, but electric pink. Jaime stood on the other side of the bed, his arms outspread, his eyes panicked. It was like by opening the door, I’d frozen the moment. I cataloged every detail. Jaime’s oily, shaggy hair plastered to his forehead with sweat; the shattered remnants of a lamp on the floor by the closet; the word “No!” paused on Jaime’s lips.

  Then time unfroze.

  Lua threw the rose against the wall, and Jaime flinched as the crystal shards exploded.

  “Stop it, Lu! You’re acting crazy!” he said.

  “Crazy? I’m acting crazy?” Lua’s eyes grew wide and he launched himself at Jaime, even though Lua was six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, and beat Jaime’s chest with his fists. “You fucked Birdie Johnson!”

  I entered the fray to pull Lua off Jaime. Lua struggled—he was deceptively strong—and I strained to keep him from busting free and attacking Jaime again.

  “You broke up with me!” Jaime said. He shook the fight out of his arms and headed for the door. “I’m outta here.”

  I let Lua go as soon as I thought it safe, but he looked around the room, grabbed a wooden jewelry box off his dresser, and chased after Jaime. I followed. Jaime was already in his car, backing out of the driveway, and Lua shouted, “Don’t forget this, asshole!” and lobbed the jewelry box at his windshield. The box fell short, smashing into the hood of Jaime’s Jetta, spilling rings and bracelets and coins. Jaime didn’t stop.

  We stood outside until Jaime was gone. Then I said, “Wanna tell me what that was about?”

  Lua folded his arms over his chest. “Just a minor disagreement.”

  “A minor disagreement, huh?” I draped my arm over Lua’s shoulders. “I guess you’re not going to prom together, then.”

  “With any luck, Jaime won’t make it to prom with his dick still attached to his body.”

  “My mom recently sharpened all the knives in our house, if you need them.”

  “What?” Lua said.

  “Nothing.” I felt like I should do or say something, but I wasn’t certain how to help Lua. After a minute, I said, “Wanna get coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  I drove us to Prufrock’s, a fairly new, trendy coffee bar in Calypso, the next town over. Despite the self-important artist crowd that usually frequented the place, I enjoyed its cozy atmosphere. I wasn’t sure it’d survive a year, but I hoped it would. Worn and comfy chairs and couches were arranged haphazardly—nestled in dark corners for those who desired privacy, set up in circles for those who wanted to socialize and hoped to be seen—and the dark wood counters and industrial light fixtures gave the café a moody, dissociative vibe. Even the holiday decorations—mistletoe crafted from metal and gears, a mix of black and silver stockings, and green garland—were muted to match the atmosphere. Capping off the indie ambiance were a few paintings hanging from the walls, some of them pretty good. I was especially drawn to one depicting two boys with raven wings flying into outer space.

  Lua claimed a couch in the back while I stood in line to order our drinks.

  The cute guy behind the counter laughed and smiled as he spoke to each customer like they were the most important person in the world. His name tag read DIEGO. When it was my turn, I ordered myself a mocha, and Lua a frozen mocha.

  “Can you make the frozen decaf?” I asked. “But don’t write it on the cup.”

  Diego raised his eyebrow. “We consider secretly withholding caffeine a capital offense around here.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Lua. He was stabbing his phone screen with his finger, either composing a profanity-laced rant to Jaime that I’d need to intercept before he sent it, or deleting every picture of them together. Possibly both.

  “My friend’s already a little overstimulated. Any more caffeine and he may rack up a body count.”

  “Got it.” Diego winked at me, which made me blush, and prepared our drinks himself.

  Lua was still torturing his phone when I returned, carrying our coffees. I settled in, leaning against the arm of the couch, and pulled my legs underneath me.

  “I don’t understand how you can drink cold coffee,” I said.

  “It’s frozen, not cold.” Lua tossed his phone down and focused on his drink. “And it’s, like, eighty degr
ees outside. It hardly feels like Christmas.”

  My drink tasted more like hot chocolate than coffee; I’d really only ordered it for the delicious whipped cream. “So,” I said. “You want to talk about Jaime?”

  “No.”

  “Right.”

  Lua didn’t handle his emotions well. He bottled them up, pushed them down, until the pressure grew too great and they erupted in a geyser of profanity and violence. Lua and Jaime had dated on and off since freshman year and had spent more than half of their relationship engaged in screaming matches, usually instigated by Lua. I’d never cared for Jaime—he’d hardly made the effort to get to know me or Dustin or Tommy—but he treated Lua well for the most part and genuinely loved him. Jaime had stood by Lua when he’d begun questioning his gender, and Jaime had even punched one of his friends so hard he’d knocked out one of the guy’s teeth because the guy had made a rude comment about Lua. But two people can love each other and still not belong together, even if neither of them wanted to admit it.

  “My mom’s dating a guy from her office,” I said.

  Lua froze with the straw still in his mouth, then slowly lowered the cup. “What? Seriously? Go, Kat.”

  “It’s weird. He’s twenty-four.”

  “Would it be weird if your dad were hooking up with some younger woman?” Lua asked, and then didn’t wait for my answer. “Don’t be that guy, Ozzie.”

  I hadn’t expected Lua to take my mom’s side. “Logically, yeah, I get it. But she’s my mom. And the guy is, like, Warren’s age.”

  Lua shrugged and made me feel like I’d overreacted about the whole thing, which I probably had. “Speaking of Renny. He still planning to run around the globe and murder innocent people under the dubious banner of democracy?”

  “He ships out January second.”

  Lua slurped her “coffee.” “That soon?”