My Heart and Other Black Holes

  He moves to be next to me and drapes his arm around my shoulders. “Shh, it’s okay.”

  My eyes blur and a wet ball forms and hardens in my throat. I haven’t truly cried in years. I’m not going to cry now. My shoulders shake and I bite down hard on my bottom lip. My mouth fills with the taste of blood. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

  He grabs my chin and gently pulls on it so I’m forced to look at him. His golden eyes are still warm. “Because I didn’t know how to bring it up. And I wasn’t completely sure.” He drops my chin and pulls his hands away from me. He places them on his knees and takes a deep breath. “It was just a hunch I had based on your name and what you’d said about your family. It’s kind of hard to avoid the story . . . it’s everywhere. And I thought that was probably your dad, but couldn’t know for sure. Not until I heard it from you.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about the story being everywhere.” I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. I suck in a sob, refusing to let the tears stream down. My whole body stings with shame. It’s not even my dad—that’s bad enough—but I can’t believe I was so stupid to think that I could hide the whole thing from Roman.

  I sniffle and a briny taste crawls up my throat. “If you knew, why did you want me to tell you? Why did you keep asking about my dad?”

  He grabs my hand again and squeezes it. “Because I wanted to know that you trusted me. That you felt comfortable enough with me to know that I wouldn’t judge you for it. And I wanted to hear the whole story from you.” He tugs on my hand, begging me to look at him. I tilt my head so I can gaze at the side of his face, but I refuse to meet his eyes. “I thought it would be good for you to talk about it. Hell, I still think it would be good.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes it helps to talk. It helped me to tell you about Maddie.”

  My insides jolt with hope. “It did?”

  “You gave me something no one else has given me.”

  “What?”

  “You looked at me the same way before and after the story. I want to do that for you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  He lets go of my hand and moves to put his arm around me. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Don’t be mad at me,” he whispers.

  “I’m not.”

  “You promise?”

  “Promise.”

  His shoulder is broad but bony, and I can feel his muscles tensing under the weight of my head. “Do you really not hate me? Even now that you know for sure that my dad is the crazy guy that was all over the news? I just thought you’d be really upset because . . .” I focus my eyes on a faded soda can that’s been tossed under the picnic table. “Well, because you used to be really close to Brian Jackson.”

  He strokes the back of my head, running his fingers through my tangled curly hair. “I promise I don’t hate you, Aysel. I could never hate you. And I definitely wouldn’t hate you because of this. You didn’t do anything to Brian’s brother. You didn’t kill him.”

  His sentence replays in my head: You didn’t do anything to Brian’s brother. You didn’t kill him. As I digest his words, my eyes become blurrier and blurrier. A tear rolls down my cheek and then the flood happens. My body trembles and I heave. I don’t understand why I’m sobbing now, why now of all times, why now when I finally don’t want to die.

  He wraps me in his arms and I press my face into the soft cotton of his T-shirt. It smells like a mixture of fabric softener and campfire smoke. He continues stroking my hair and I focus on his kinetic energy. I don’t want him to stop. I want him to stay in motion.

  He presses his lips to my ear and whispers, “Tell me, Aysel.”

  I suck in the damp air and it fills my lungs. My heart feels like it might burst, and I untangle myself from him. I wipe my eyes and clear my throat. “I’m sorry.”

  He smiles slightly. “You don’t have to be sorry. Stop saying that. Crazy girl.”

  I frown. “See? You do think I’m crazy. Because of my dad.”

  He shakes his head, his smile becoming wider and more crooked. “No. I think you’re crazy in a completely different way. In a beautiful way.”

  My heart stalls. I want to ask him how he can say things like that—seven days before we’re supposed to die. It’s not fair. He can’t make me love him when he’s going to leave me. When he wants to leave me. When he knows this is the end.

  The tears keep streaming down my face and he nudges me with his shoulder. “Tell me the story.”

  I wipe the snot from my nose. I stare at his T-shirt, now stained with my tears. “I ruined your shirt.”

  “I don’t care about my shirt. I care about you.”

  Something inside me clicks. It’s like I’ve spent my whole life fiddling with a complicated combination only to discover I was toying with the wrong lock. And now, the vault inside of me that contains all my secrets is swinging open and I feel this rush of blood swell in my chest. “Okay, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  I don’t look at him, but I swear I can feel him nod. And I can definitely feel his eyes on my face, soft and gentle, like the first snow of the year. We’re silent for a while, sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder. I press my gray sneaker against his dirty white one, and I wish we could stay like this forever. But deep down, I know that we can’t, and so finally I tell him the story, the complete story, the whole story.

  “My dad and mom moved from Turkey to the US before I was born. At first, they lived somewhere in Michigan, but some relative of my dad’s or maybe it was my mom’s . . .” I stop talking for a second and catch my breath. Roman is right—I’ve never told this story, not since my dad got locked away. It’s been whispered behind my back or talked about in hushed voices by my mom and Steve late at night when they think Georgia, Mike, and I are all sound asleep. It’s been twisted and manipulated and changed. I’ve never owned it.

  “Anyway,” I continue, “this relative ran a convenience store here in Langston and when he passed away, my parents moved here to take over the store.”

  Roman snorts.

  “I know, Langston of all places. But, yup, they moved here and a couple months later, Mom got pregnant with me. After I was born, I guess they started to grow apart. When I was less than a year old, they separated. Apparently my dad had really violent mood swings. One morning, he’d wake up at dawn and make her scrambled eggs and toast. But other days, she’d wake up to find he’d smashed a hole in the wall from anger and had locked himself in their small basement study and refused to come out. He was like that when I lived with him, too. But I was too scared to ever say anything to Mom about it.”

  I work up the nerve to look at Roman. He places his hand over mine, interlacing our fingers. “Go on,” he says.

  “Dad stayed in Langston and took over the store because he wanted to keep me in his life. I was everything to him—” My voice cracks as I say that. “And then Mom met Steve and they got married and had Georgia and Mike and I’d visit with them on the weekends, but I lived with my dad. And he hated losing me on those weekends.”

  I stare off into the distance at the swing set. In the wind, the swing is swaying back and forth, making it look like a ghost is pushing it. I wonder if Roman and Maddie used to come to this playground and swing. I swallow down the salt of my tears. I can tell that Roman is waiting for me to say something else, but this is the part I’m scared of, the part I’ve never been able to make sense of in my own head.

  After a long, heavy silence, I say, “One day, I went over to Mom’s after school. Usually after school, I’d meet up with Dad at the store, but this day was special because it was Mike’s first Little League game and I promised him I’d be there. I remember the look on Dad’s face when I told him I wouldn’t be home until late. Things were going badly at the store and Dad counted on me to keep him company and help out. That month, Dad wa
s convinced we had a shoplifting problem. He was completely obsessed with it.” I pause and bite the inside of my left cheek. I don’t let go of Roman’s hand. I squeeze it as hard as I can over and over again, each squeeze a little wish.

  “So I wasn’t there when it happened. When Timothy and his friends walked into the store, I was watching Mike run from first to second base.” I shake my head and stare at the ground. “Timothy and his friends came into the store and started goofing around. They were running through the aisles and one of them knocked over a display and my dad, my dad, he—” I choke over my words. “My dad got angry. Really angry. He started shouting at them and Timothy and his friends thought this was really funny for some reason so they knocked over another display and one of his friends grabbed a few candy bars and threw them in the air, daring my dad to do something about it.

  “So my dad grabbed the baseball bat from behind the counter and went after them. I guess Timothy stepped out in front and tried to reason with my dad, but he just snapped. Nobody could stop him. By the time the police came, Timothy was unconscious and my dad was just sitting next to him, still holding the baseball bat like a madman. Timothy never regained consciousness and he died at the hospital three days later.” I take a few shaky breaths. “I don’t think my dad even knew who Timothy Jackson was.”

  I can’t look at Roman’s face, so I press my head against his chest. “My mom never let me see my dad again. I didn’t even get to go to the trial. I never got to say good-bye.”

  He strokes the back of my head, running his fingers through my curls. “She probably thought that was the best thing for you. He was . . .” His voice trails off. “Well, you know.”

  I pull away from him so I can face him. I take his hand in mine. “You know you were wrong before when you said my dad was the reason I wanted to die. He’s not. The reason is that I’m terrified whatever madness was inside of him lives inside of me, too. That I’m capable of doing something just as awful.”

  There’s a long silence and Roman doesn’t say anything. He lets go of my hand and my heart plummets. He hates me. He’s scared of me. I look away and am about to jump off the picnic table when he tugs at my arm. “Aysel, look at me.”

  I keep staring at the swing set. The chain links are rusted. Someone should change them. Someone should really clean up this place.

  “Aysel,” he urges. “Please.”

  When I turn to look at him, I see his face is inches from mine. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are somber. I hold my breath as I wait for him to say something. Say anything.

  He pushes a stray hair away from my face and then bends his head down so he can kiss my forehead. My whole body tingles. “I want you to know you’re nothing like your dad. Do you hear me? I know you, Aysel. You’d never do something like that.” He puts his hands on the sides of my face, cradling my head in his hands.

  “But then why do I miss him so much?” My nose is inches from Roman’s and I want to look away from his eyes, but I can’t.

  He pulls me closer to him, wrapping his arms around me. “Because you’re human. No one person is all bad or all good. I’m sure you had good times with your dad. It makes sense that you miss him.”

  “That’s why I wanted to see him one last time, you know? Not only to try and figure out if I’m like him, but also to let him know I miss him. That I’m sorry for leaving him alone. As messed up as it is, I want his forgiveness.”

  Roman rubs his hand along my spine, working his way up to the base of my shoulders. “I’m sure he doesn’t blame you, Aysel. And I’m sure he still loves you. He always will.”

  Hearing him say that makes my tears turn into sobs. He holds me tighter and I bawl into his T-shirt. We sit there, me crying, him rubbing my back, for what seems like hours. Once I’ve composed myself, I scoot away from him and wipe my eyes. “Sorry.”

  He reaches out and grabs my hands. “Don’t ever be sorry.”

  I swallow a couple of times and look up at the sky. It’s turned a gloomy indigo and the sun is starting to set. I don’t want this day to fade, for any more time to pass. I shut my eyes and stay as still as I can for a moment. When I open my eyes, I see Roman staring at the ground.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “For understanding.”

  He gives me a small shrug like it was nothing, but it definitely wasn’t nothing.

  “I found your drawing of me,” I say slowly.

  His eyes lighten with surprise. “It’s not finished.”

  I take it out of my pocket and unfold it. “It looks pretty finished.”

  He shifts his weight from his left foot to his right. “You can keep it.”

  I know that should make my heart lift, but it doesn’t. The way he says it sounds so final. “I wish I could draw.”

  He looks off in the distance and rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sure you can.”

  “Not like this,” I whisper. “I wish I could draw you how I see you.” I’d draw a boy with the most magnetic smile and the kindest hands and eyes that are gloomy but can sometimes be bright. I’d draw a boy who deserves to see the ocean.

  But it’s like he has a sixth sense for my flakiness and he cricks his neck in the direction of the car. “We should get going.”

  A breeze cuts across my face, which is still damp with tears, and as I stare at him, standing there, his hand on the back of his neck, the wind making his loose T-shirt flap, his face frozen in a pained expression, I know he’s thinking about Maddie. I know he’s thinking about diving headfirst into the Ohio River. I know he’s thinking about dying.

  I want to cry all over again.

  On the ride home, I make him agree to meet with me sometime next week. It’s pretty twisted, but he agrees that we both need to plan what we want to do about suicide notes. I can hardly talk about it and I’m pretty sure that he knows that I’m lying now, but neither of us says anything.

  After we’ve made a halfhearted plan to meet up, the rest of the drive is silent. I don’t bother to turn on the radio. Not even Mozart’s requiem is going to comfort me right now. As I’m pulling into his driveway, Roman says, “Last night you slept with your socks on.”

  “What?” I turn off the engine and park the car so I can look at him. He’s staring out the passenger window, crunched up close to the door, like he needs to create as much physical space between us as possible.

  “You said you can’t sleep with socks on. Remember, you told me that? You told me how it’s a problem for you. But last night you slept with socks on.”

  I can’t tell if he’s serious or not. “Um. And what’s your point?”

  He slowly turns to face me. His eyes are wide and watery. “My point is you can change. You’re resilient. Remember that, Aysel, you’re resilient.”

  “It’s just socks,” I say quietly.

  He shrugs. “It’s still a change.”

  I’m about to tell him that he can be resilient too. That I know he can. But I bite down hard on my tongue. I step out of the car to help him unload the trunk. I’m not really one for praying, but I do my best attempt and will Mrs. Franklin to stay in the house. Hopefully some riveting romantic drama is on TV and it will have more appeal than the one being enacted outside on her doorstep. “What are you trying to say, Roman?”

  His lips form into his crooked smile. “Nothing. I was just making an observation.” His eyes don’t look so sad anymore. They don’t look like anything—they’re empty—and that almost makes my heart ache more. He spreads his arms wide and pulls me into a hug. “See you.”

  “Wait, did we decide on Thursday or Friday? Which one works better for you again?”

  He doesn’t answer. He just drops his arms, letting me go, and then turns and walks up the pathway to his house, carrying his backpack, the tent, the cooler, and the picnic basket. I wonder if I should help, he’s fumbling to manage everything, but I don’t think he wants my help. I wish he would want my help.

  “I’ll let you
know if I hear anything else about my dad,” I call out. At this point, I don’t even care if his mom hears. For the first time in my life, my dad is the least of my worries. I watch Roman drop the camping supplies on the doorstep. He gives me a small backward wave, but he doesn’t turn around.

  I need to figure out some way to turn him around. To turn him all the way around.

  MONDAY, APRIL 1

  6 days left

  When school gets out, I call the number Jacob left for me on the voice mail. I called it once on Sunday after I dropped off Roman, but no one picked up and I couldn’t muster the courage to leave a message.

  I curl up in the front seat of my car and press the phone to my ear. It rings a couple of times and then a glassy voice answers. “Saint Anne’s Behavioral Health Hospital, this is Tara. How may I help you?”

  I swallow. “Uh, hi, Tara. My name is Aysel Seran. I’m Omer Seran’s daughter. I was told he was transferred from McGreavy Correctional Facility to Saint Anne’s and . . .” The words are tumbling out of my mouth quicker than I mean them to, but I’m scared that if I don’t spit out everything, she’s going to hang up and I’ll lose my chance of ever finding my dad.

  “I see.” Her voice is clipped. “Are you a minor?”

  “What?”

  “Are you under eighteen years old?”

  I contemplate lying. “Why does it matter?”

  “I’m not authorized to give any information regarding patients to minors. I’m also not authorized to give out any sensitive information over the phone.”

  “But . . .” I bite down on my lower lip. “What am I supposed to do? I really want to see my dad.”

  I hear her sigh. “If your father is a patient here, which I’m legally not allowed to confirm, you would need to have your guardian call us to set up a visit. Depending on the state of the patient, a visit may or may not be possible.”

  “You can’t give me any more information than that? Not even a hint that my dad’s there?”

  “I think it would be a good idea to talk with your mother about arranging a visit here.” Another sigh. “This is the number she should call.”