My Heart and Other Black Holes

  He stares at me and I stare back at him, a blank expression plastered on my face. The poor guy squirms on the picnic table bench and then looks down at his white sneakers. His head dips toward the ground, his chin pressing against his chest, and I can see that the back of his neck is freckled and has turned red.

  It takes me a second to process what he said and then I burst out laughing. Laughing makes my throat feel sore. I take another gulp of my milkshake.

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “I’m awful, right?”

  I shake my head. “You’re honest. I like that. And now you know I’m not a flake.”

  He shrugs and fiddles with the zipper on his sweatshirt. “I don’t know that. All I’m saying is you definitely look like someone who wants to die, but I’m not entirely convinced you’re going to be able to pull the trigger.”

  I frown. “Well, that’s why I signed up for this. I want some . . . encouragement.” I stare at his hoodie. It says UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY BASKETBALL across it in big, black block letters. “Teamwork. Moral support. Those are sports terms, right?”

  His eyes drop to his sweatshirt. “I don’t play anymore.”

  “I didn’t ask you that.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he says. “But I guess I get what you mean. You think it’s going to be easier this way than on your own.”

  I rest my body weight on my elbows and lean toward him and channel our waitress’s confidence. “So are you the man for the job? Are we going to do this thing together or what?” It’s not like me to be so aggressive, but for some reason I feel the need to push FrozenRobot to choose me. I need to be assertive. I can’t remember the last time I was assertive.

  He shifts on the bench and picks at his cheeseburger. He tosses his tomatoes aside. I still haven’t seen him take a real bite of it. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “What do you need to know?”

  “More about you, for starters.”

  “Like?” I say.

  “What kind of name is Aysel?” He pronounces it correctly. I try not to look impressed.

  “Turkish.”

  “Are your parents Turkish?” he asks.

  I nod. I don’t tell him anything else about my parents. I also avoid giving him my last name. My mom is in the process of trying to legally change my last name to match her new one: Underwood. But that change hasn’t gone through yet, and the last thing I want is for FrozenRobot to Google me and find out about my dad. No matter how screwed up FrozenRobot is, I doubt he’d want to tie his suicide dream to mine if he knew the truth about my family history.

  “Do you speak Turkish?”

  I shake my head. My dad never taught me to speak the language. Sometimes I’d gather the courage to ask about Turkey, and if he was in a good mood, he’d tell me about the narrow streets of his old neighborhood where he would play soccer with his friends in the evenings. But when he was having a bad day (and his bad days were more and more frequent toward the end), he’d snap and tell me to stop asking questions. He’d say that I was lucky to have been born in America because I would never have to move halfway across the world just to find a job.

  And my mom, well, she’s tried everything she can to erase her roots. My parents separated when I was less than a year old, and ever since she hooked up with Steve, she’s tried to pretend like she’s a homegrown white American gal. She’s lighter than me, so if it weren’t for her slight accent, she’d be able to pass no problem. I look decidedly more foreign than my mom because I inherited Dad’s darker coloring.

  “Is this making you uncomfortable?” FrozenRobot asks while he chews his burger. He doesn’t seem to enjoy the burger as much as the jalapeños. It’s like he’s forcing himself to chew it and he does it slowly, nibbling at it, bit by bit.

  “No,” I say. “I just don’t get why you’re so hung up on my ethnicity. I’m not interrogating you.”

  He gives me a smile. I don’t get this kid. “I’m just curious because I think Aysel is a cool name.”

  “You can have it, if you want.”

  “Funny,” he says, but he doesn’t laugh.

  “Why April seventh?” It’s my turn to ask a question.

  “That’s when it happened.”

  “When what happened?”

  “The reason I want to die. It happened a year ago, on April seventh.” He clenches his jaw and looks away from me.

  “And I’m guessing you aren’t going to tell me what happened?”

  Before he can answer, the two guys from earlier come over and sit down next to him. “How’s it going?” one of them says to me while the other slaps his back.

  “I didn’t know you were seeing someone, Roman,” the backslapper teases. “What does Kelly think?”

  Kelly? Don’t tell me FrozenRobot has a girlfriend. I give him my best what-the-hell look.

  “Guys, this is Aysel.” He returns my look with a pleading one. I’m not exactly the Nicest Person in the History of the Universe, but it’s not like I’m going to blow up FrozenRobot’s spot. Still, it’s fun to watch him sweat. I keep my face frozen in a neutral expression. I’m outfrozening FrozenRobot.

  “And Aysel, this is Travis and Lance.” There’s a slight tremble in Roman’s voice, and I notice he has a small patch of freckles around his nose that have turned progressively redder since his friends came over.

  “You go to Willis?” Lance asks. He wiggles his sandy-blond eyebrows at me.

  “We would have noticed her if she went to Willis,” Travis says in a slimy voice.

  The tone of his voice is enough to make me lose interest in my milkshake. It goes without saying that if I did go to Willis, Travis definitely wouldn’t be interested in me. The boys who go to my school who are like Travis and Lance definitely don’t notice me. At least not in a good way.

  “Don’t scare the girl,” says Lance. Lance apparently has a softer touch with the ladies. He looks more like a heartthrob than Travis, with his boy band shaggy haircut, big blue eyes, and broad shoulders.

  There’s a few seconds of awkward silence.

  “She goes to Langston,” Roman reluctantly offers.

  “Wait, so if you go to Langston, you must know Brian Jackson, right?” Lance asks, widening his blue eyes. I hold my breath as I stare at him, trying to determine whether he’s already connected the dots.

  “Oh, so is that how y’all know each other? From Brian?” Travis says as he leans toward Roman, stealing some of his fries.

  Roman and I exchange glances. “Uh, no,” he says. “We met last week.”

  We did? “Where?” Travis asks. He sneaks another glance at me. I can tell he knows something’s off. I swallow and send a little wish to the universe: Please don’t screw me on this. Please don’t let them figure out who I am.

  “Down by the old playground. At the court,” Roman says, and I make note of the fact that this kid can lie like a pro. His words are smooth and strong.

  Travis erupts, tossing his arms up in the air. “I knew it, man! You still want to play. I told you Coach would definitely put you back on the team. You have to stop beating—”

  “Can we not talk about that here?” Roman says, his voice suddenly chilly.

  “Seriously, man,” Lance says as he also grabs some of Roman’s fries. “Why would you bring that up?”

  Travis’s face reddens. I didn’t know boys like him ever felt uncomfortable, but I guess some things can even make types like him squirm. I’m learning so much about the male gender today. “Sorry,” Travis mumbles, and he looks away from the table. A smile returns to his face as he checks out our waitress. “Suzie looks good, though, right?”

  “She seems like she’s doing well,” Roman says in a matter-of-fact tone. He turns to me. “Suzie’s our waitress. She goes to our high school.”

  I nod like I understand what’s going on, but I’m pretty sure I’m missing all the subtext.

  Travis elbows Roman. “But, for real. I think she’s still into you.”

  Lance looks at me and then at Roma
n and then back to Travis. “Have some respect, man.”

  I’m about to tell him that Roman and I are not what he thinks. The idea of it almost makes me laugh again, and I swallow down some more of my milkshake. I slosh the strawberry around in my mouth, running my tongue over my teeth. I don’t care how unattractive it looks.

  Lance comes to the rescue again, breaking the awkward silence. “So wait, do you know Brian Jackson?”

  I try not to visibly sweat. I pick at my fries, keeping my eyes focused on the ketchup. I can’t look at any of them right now. “Not really.”

  “Isn’t he like famous though now?” Travis says. He reaches out and slaps Roman on the back again. “That could’ve been you, man.”

  Roman grumbles something and I can’t help myself from asking, “What do you mean?”

  Lance’s eyes awkwardly dart from Roman to me and then back again. “Can I tell her?”

  Roman clamps his hand on the back of his neck and turns his face so he can stare off in the distance. “Do whatever you want.”

  Another uncomfortable silence.

  “Roman used to play select basketball with Brian. Do you know what select basketball is?” Lance says.

  I have a general idea, but I shake my head so I can get more details about FrozenRobot’s connection to Brian Jackson. My head feels like a car alarm just went off inside it—all beeps and sirens. I try to steady my mind by mentally conjuring the beginning of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

  “Are you humming?” Travis says before Lance can continue to explain exactly how Brian and Roman know each other. He starts to laugh, but Roman shoves him.

  “Don’t be a jerk,” he says, glaring at Travis. His hazel eyes flash with anger, making them look more golden than green.

  Blood rushes to my cheeks and I look down at the picnic table. There’s a puddle of ketchup next to my fries. I wonder if FrozenRobot would be so defensive of me if he knew about my dad, and then I wonder why FrozenRobot is defending me at all. I can feel them all staring at me, but FrozenRobot’s eyes feel different from Travis’s or Lance’s. Their eyes burn my skin in the same way as my classmates’ eyes—they are greedy to uncover my secrets, to see inside. FrozenRobot’s eyes are soft and patient. He knows what he’ll find if he digs deeper. There’s no rush to unpack my insides. He understands there is nothing special about emptiness, nothing interesting about depression.

  I gather the courage to look up at him. He gives me a slight smile and I’m pretty sure I’ve found my Suicide Partner.

  His friends are silent, watching him. Even though he claims he used to be popular in a past life, it seems like he’s pretty damn popular in this one. He drums his hands against the top of the table. “Brian and I used to be friends when we were little. We played basketball together, on a team you had to try out for. A travel team—we’d play games in Louisville and Cincinnati and Lexington. Then, as we got older, Brian and I would work out together. Run and lift. Nothing exciting.” Roman scratches the back of his neck again, his eyes turning cloudy and hard to read. “Now, he’s a big shot. Olympic bound or whatever. We don’t talk much.” He stares straight at me. “Not that interesting, is it?”

  Lance seems convinced that something is going on between Roman and me and tries to help his friend out by adding, “The point is, our boy here is mad athletic.”

  “Yeah, if Roman had stuck it out, he’d probably be attending UK next year on a fat scholarship for basketball,” Travis adds. He puts his arm around Roman, like a proud brother or something, but Roman shrugs him off.

  “Knock it off,” Roman says, shaking his head and staring at the ground. “Aysel doesn’t care about that stuff.”

  Translation: There’s no need to impress this girl. I’m not trying to sleep with her, I’m trying to die with her. Neither Travis nor Lance seems to pick up on that undertone, though. Instead, both of them raise their hands in the air and start saying, “My bad, my bad.” As I watch them, I know I should be thinking that they’re such lemmings, going through the exact same motions at the exact same time, but instead, all I can think is how I’ve never been that in sync with someone else. I wonder if FrozenRobot used to be in sync with them but somehow fell out of orbit.

  I wonder what happened to make him fall out of orbit. What happened that turned him from Roman, star athlete and friend of Olympic hopefuls, into FrozenRobot, tragic boy haunting suicide websites.

  I stare at him out of the corner of my eye. His head is bent down, his shoulders hunched. He’s studying the one jalapeño seed he has left, moving it around the paper plate with his finger. Slowly, he raises it to his lips and swallows it.

  We’re all watching him and finally he mumbles, “Well, it was good to see you guys, but I think Aysel’s going to give me a ride home now. See you around later, okay?”

  “Okay, dude.” Travis squeezes Roman’s shoulders. “Take care of yourself. We’re here for you.”

  “Let’s hang out sometime soon,” Lance adds. “I’d love to shoot hoops with you down at the old playground. It’d be like old times.”

  “Right,” Roman says, his voice cold. “Just like old times.” He gets up from the table and tosses the remainder of his food in the garbage can.

  I give Travis and Lance a weak wave and follow Roman. I dump my fries, they’re almost finished anyway, but I keep my milkshake. “So I’m giving you a ride home?” I whisper, hoping Lance and Travis don’t hear me.

  “Yeah. I don’t drive.”

  “Aren’t you seventeen?”

  He gives me that same half-moon smile he flashed me when we first met. “You stalked my profile.”

  “I wanted to make sure you weren’t a soccer mom or something,” I say, and head toward my car. I don’t add that I wish his profile had advertised his connection to Brian Jackson. I never would’ve agreed to meet.

  Once I unlock the car, I toss the junk that’s in the passenger seat to the back. I leave a few of the greasy fast-food bags on the floor in front of the seat. I figure he can just put his feet on them. Whatever. It’s not like he’s going to reject me because I’m messy.

  He gets in and taps his hands on the dusty dashboard. “Nice ride.” His sneakers crunch against the old bags. “Looks like you maintain it, too.”

  I ignore his comments and put the key in the ignition. The engine makes a sputtering noise. I jiggle the wheel and we’re in business. I pull out of the parking lot and then look over at him. He’s staring straight out the windshield, his head tipped toward his chest. His hazel eyes are wide but empty. For the first time, I can really see it. FrozenRobot isn’t playing around; FrozenRobot wants to die.

  The black slug lives inside of FrozenRobot, too.

  THURSDAY, MARCH 14

  24 days left

  For a while, we drive in silence. I’m a little nervous that FrozenRobot is going to open the car door and launch himself out onto the gravel road. I’m not sure the impact would kill him, but it’d still put me in a sticky situation.

  When he reaches for the radio dial instead of the door, I take a shallow breath of relief. He chooses Georgia’s favorite station—the one that plays the same top five hits on repeat. All the songs seem to be about getting trashed, wearing glittery short dresses, and dancing the night away. I make a face.

  “What?” he says.

  “I don’t get you. You seem like such a—”

  He makes a motion, crossing his arms in the air like a letter X, which I take to mean “shut up” and so I do. The one thing I’m pretty good at is following orders. Wait, I guess that’s not true. I never follow Mr. Palmer’s orders, though most of the time I at least try to pretend like I do.

  Roman turns the radio off. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were such a music snob.”

  “I’m a nothing snob,” I say.

  “Not a snob and not a soccer mom,” he says. “You have a lot going for you.”

  “Right,” I say, and then test the waters. “A lot of potential wasted on April seventh.” Potent
ial energy. I wonder if FrozenRobot ever thinks about the physics of death.

  “Here’s to that,” he says, pretending to raise a drink in the air. “Cheers.” I guess the songs on Georgia’s radio station are a good fit for his interests.

  We bump along the road for a little bit longer in silence. I reach for the radio dial and turn it to the classical music station. He doesn’t comment on my music choice. The landscape slowly becomes hillier. We reach a sharp curve in the road and turn away from the river, heading toward the rolling hills. The grass is still brown and dry from the winter and most of the trees are still barren. Spring is running late this year. I roll down the window a little and the moist, cool air slips into the car. On certain days, you can smell bourbon in the air, the sweet rye scent coming from a distillery that’s a few miles away, but today, I only smell mud and damp grass. The wind slaps against my cheeks and I resist the urge to look over at him, keeping my eyes focused on the road.

  “I can’t drive anymore because of something that happened last year,” he finally volunteers. “That’s why you’re always going to have to drive. I had my mom drop me off earlier at the root beer stand. She was so thrilled that I was leaving the house for the first time in months to meet a friend.” He gives me a look. “I told her you were a new friend. My mom is psyched.”

  So his parents are worried about him. That’s kind of bad. That means heightened supervision. But I guess that’s why he needs me, his trusted Suicide Partner. “Got it,” I say. “Well, do you think you can at least give me directions so I know where to drop you off?”

  He pauses and his bottom lip twists, like he’s debating whether to talk or not.

  “What?” I prompt.

  “Can I ask you for a favor?”

  My first task as his partner. Something inside me sways like a rocking chair in an empty room—it’s both lonely and comforting. “Sure. What is it?”

  “Can we stop at the fishing supply store on Main?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “The fishing supply store?”

  “Yeah. I need to pick up some earthworms.”