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Evan
"I need to go to sleep, Natalie." I let frustration seep into my words, but I don't tell her why. I don't tell her I saw Jordan kissing his ex in the street, and it hurt more than Lane cutting stitches from my flesh. I don't tell her I feel like a complete idiot for agreeing to this, and an even bigger idiot for getting caught up in it. For letting myself think there was something behind his touch—the way he ran his fingers across the freckles on my nose.
I spin around, and Nat still hasn't moved. "Seriously. I want to go."
Lane watches me from the kitchen table, and he has the same eyes as Jordan. Sarah cups her hands around a mug of tea next to him.
I shut my eyes and practice my yoga breathing. "Now," I say, as loud thudding steps echo through my head. I don't even have time to hide the envelope in my hands from that London school before Jordan slams the door open.
Nat jumps and spins to face him, but his focus is on me. With this overwhelming fearful determination, he only sees me.
He doesn't bother to shut the door behind him, but moves straight for me, taking my hand. I have no choice but to follow. He leads me down a small dim hallway to a doorway at the end, and I'm plunged into darkness. My thoughts are dizzy, and I jump at the sound of him shutting the door.
"What the hell?" I say as I'm hit with light. My hand shoots up to shield my eyes. My other hand presses over my newly bandaged collarbone. When I adjust to the light and scan his room, it’s exactly what I would expect of an eighteen-year-old guy’s room (I’ve never been in a guys room before, so I don’t know exactly where these expectations come from). There are clothes everywhere, bare walls, TV, Xbox, a dresser with a dusty mirror, more clothes on a big bed.
“I’m sorry, Evan,” he says, his eyes sincere. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry.”
“Jordan—” I start, and he squeezes my hands to silence me.
"People in love tell each other everything, right?" He asks the question the same way I asked the doctor if I was going to die the first time I had a seizure—like he already knows the answer. “They don’t lie to each other, right?”
"I..." But I can't finish that thought. How would I know? "Jordan, what are you talking about?”
“You said the word love was empty, and I didn’t believe you. I said that you were wrong. I said you would feel the word by the end of the night. But you weren’t wrong. I was. It’s not a word, Evan. It doesn’t have a meaning.”
He’s so sad that I can’t stop myself from reaching out to him and touching his face. He grabs my wrist and puts my hand over his mouth, his hot breath sending contradictory chills up my arm. “I don’t understand,” I say. “What doesn’t have a meaning?”
“Love. There is no meaning. It is empty," he says against my palm.
He takes my other hand and puts it on his face, leaning into it, and my heart vibrates with nerves. My stomach rolls, and I feel like I do when Dad drives too fast over a hill. My entire body feels like it’s defying gravity for less than a second. All from his touch. One fast touch and I feel like I’m falling.
But Jordan isn’t my happily ever after, and the falling feeling turns from good to bad way too fast. I see him walking away from me at the diner and it hurts. How can it hurt if I knew it would happen? If I've known him for only eight hours?
“You said this was over." My voice is a whisper, and my hands fall from his face.
His dark features suck me in with a pain I recognize, and he shakes his head.
"No, hear me out, okay?" He puts his hands on my hips, walking me backward until my calves hit his bed. I sit hard on the soft mattress, and he drops to his knees in front of me. With him kneeling on the ground and me sitting up on his bed, it's the first time we are eye to eye.
"Love is an empty word," he continues. "But it’s empty for a reason.”
I frown at him, and he braces himself with his hands on my thighs. “I don’t follow...”
“It is empty, because you have to fill it. Every word has a definition. It has a distinct sound and meaning, but the word love is a feeling. It’s empty because everyone is different. Everyone has to decide what to fill it with.”
My jaw lowers as if I plan to say something, but I don't speak.
“But Annie,” I say. “I saw you. I saw you out there with her.”
Jordan’s chin falls to his chest, and he slumps down, resting his forehead on my knee. “I’m too tired to deal with all of this right now.”
It’s true. My whole body feels exhausted to the point of forced shutdown. Jordan’s back straightens, and he shifts closer to me, taking my hips and sliding me to the edge of the bed. In a jolt, my body wakes up to his touch, but I see him kissing her over and over in my head.
“Jordan.” I place my hands on his shoulders.
“To hell with Annie,” he says, his eyes flashing angry.
“But I saw...” I don’t want to say it.
“You saw her do what she always does. But I don’t want it anymore.” He takes my hand from his shoulder and turns it over. Faded from sweat and scratched up from gravel is the little black heart I drew at the concert. He removes his pen from around his neck, and he colors in the little empty shape. “I know what you meant now. I felt it out there with her, just now. The word was empty, Evan.”
He lightly traces the two faded words that surround the heart on my palm and goose bumps spring up my arm. Nothing’s changed.
He crosses out nothing and writes everything.
“Everything changed. The moment I met you.”
I’m swarmed with too many emotions to sort out at almost four in the morning.
“This is all pretend,” I whisper, and he cups my face in his hands.
“Is it?” He looks at me like he did the first time he saw me—like he understood something about me that even I didn’t understand.
A knock at the door and Jordan drops his hands, moving away from me. I instantly feel colder without him close. Lonelier. Did he win the bet? Did I fill the word love up with Jordan’s beautiful words?
“Yup,” Jordan calls, and Nat pokes her head in the door with scared eyes. She hands me my cell phone.
“Your mom called.”
“What?” My voice is high-pitched, and my chest feels like it will explode.
“She called twice. You should probably call her back, EJ.”
“It’s four in the morning...”
“I know. That’s why you should probably call her back. Tell her you were sleeping or something.”
“But why would she call at four in the morning?” My brain’s not keeping up, or understanding anything, as I hold the phone.
“I don’t know...” Nat sighs, and the phone starts ringing.
I let it ring three times before I answer it.
“Hello?” I act sleepy. “Mom?”
“Evan, where are you?” Her voice is calm and even, and my heart evaporates from my chest.
“I’m in bed, Mom.” I don’t have to fake annoyance.
"I don't think you are."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm sitting in your hotel room right now, Evan. So unless you're in someone else's bed..."
All the air from my lungs leaks through my teeth, and I mouth the word busted to Nat. Jordan sits on floor with his knees up, his arms wrapped around them and his forehead resting on his clasped hands. Nat is awkwardly standing half-in, half-out of the door, picking at the wood with her fingernail.
I hang my head between my knees. I really didn’t think this night could get any crazier.
"Evan?" Mom sounds more Mom-like than I've ever heard her.
"I'm fine." I’m mumbling now.
"That not what I asked you."
"Technically, you didn't ask me anything."
"Watch your mouth." The snappiness in her tone sits me up.
"Really? Now is the time you decide to act like a real mother?"
“It’s four o’clock in the morning, Evan Leigh Jordans,” she shouts into the phone, her voice breaking. “You tell me where you are.”
“We went to the Lemming Garden concert and met the band. We had breakfast with them, and now we’re hanging out.” I figure the truth is my best option right now. We’re busted. I’m hoping that my past record of good behavior gets me out of this, but my stomach rolls and kneads the doubt inside me, letting it rise. Mom wouldn’t know that. She’s never around to know what normal behavior from me is.
Mom sighs. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Enough, Evan. You come back to the hotel. Right now. I’m your mother. Show me a little more respect.”
I scoff. “What did you hear that line in a movie or something?” Wow. What is happening? I have very little concern for how my words affect Mom, but I never thought I’d have the guts to say what I really think out loud (which also freaks me out because there are a lot of things I'd like to say).
“Get back here. Now.” Mom yells louder and more fiercely than I’ve ever heard her, but even though I’m shaking and terrified, I can’t go back.
“No.”
“Pardon?”
I stand up from Jordan’s bed. His eyes follow me as I pace. Nat’s gripping the door handle so tight her knuckles are white. Shock and pride dance together in her eyes.
“I said no. I’ll be back to get my bags before we leave for the airport.”
“I’ll call your father,” Mom threatens, and I scoff.
“No you won’t. Dad didn’t want to leave me with you. I convinced him to. I told him it was a good idea. Dad never wants me alone with you. He doesn’t trust you. I don’t trust you. But if Dad was here we’d never have gotten to that concert. He’ll blame you, and you know it.”
Silence on the other end. When she starts speaking again, her voice shakes with anger, but she doesn’t say anything about Dad.
“You can’t be out there by yourself. Not in your condition. Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”
“No, Mom. I said no. Listen to me.” My voice gets higher. I lean on Jordan’s dresser, watching myself talk in his mirror. “Natalie is here. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine, Evan. You just had that thing implanted. What if something happens to you?”
“Yeah, Mom. That’s a good question. What if something happens to me?” I tap my fingers hard on the dresser to release this pressure that fills me like compressed air.
“That’s enough with the attitude.” Mom tries to match my tone, but the truth is I’m not afraid of her. When Dad raises his voice to me it causes a tornado of tears and sorrys and self-loathing disappointment. When Mom’s upset with me it does... nothing. I feel empty. Or I should say I used to feel empty. Right now something has changed. I flatten the palm with mine and Jordan’s drawing on it. My heart. He filled it in. My words, crossed out and replaced.
Everything’s changed.
That empty place inside where my Mom resides is filling. I’m filling the word, because I do love my mom. Of course I love my mom. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have spent months crying. If I didn’t love her, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to make her love me back. To make her come home.
“I’m not giving you attitude. You want to know what if something happens to me, and I’m giving you an honest answer. If something happens to me, you won’t be there to help me, like usual. Nat will get me through it, like usual. Dad will fix it, and pay for it, and care for me, like usual. Or...I'll die and none of you will be able to do anything anyway...” Wherever I’ve stored all the anger I’ve felt since that day she drove away with the hibiscus tree hanging out the back window, is imploding.
My Supernova.
The liquidy, gaseous toxicity bubbles and boils through tiny holes in my core.
“Then you’ll get a phone call after I’m stable,” I continue, unable to hold back the furor in which my hatred collapses my chest. “You’ll run around like you give a shit when really you use me to get people to feel sorry for you. You will use my condition to make people think you’re so strong for having a sick kid. You’ll sit in the corner of a hospital room and cringe whenever something gross happens. Like usual...”
Movement in the mirror reminds me I’m not alone. Jordan slowly stands, but he doesn’t come to me.
“Evan, that’s not fair...” Mom’s voice breaks, and I’m tired of hearing her say my name. “That’s not true.”
“You know it’s true!” I screech, and Nat finally moves fully into the room, probably anticipating my impending explosion. “And you know what’s really not fair? Having a mother who doesn’t come home from a yoga retreat in Bali when her daughter has heart surgery. Having a mother who updates her social media status to tell the world her daughter might need a heart transplant, and then accepts comments that congratulate you on how strong you are for your family, when the truth is you left your family. That’s what’s not fair. I’m sorry, Mom, but you never listened to me when I asked you to stay. You didn’t come back when I asked you to. When I begged you to come home, you didn’t. So why the hell do you think I’d do it for you?”
Mom’s crying now, but I’m in complete detonation mode, and I don’t care. Stopping the blast now would only result in casualties. I have to let it out. I have to let it go.
I want her to cry. I want her to feel every pain I’ve ever felt, and I listen to her tears with shaking limbs. My fingers trail along Jordan’s messy dresser with scribbled words all over his mirror and find a black pen. I uncap it and on the mirror I draw a heart over my reflection, and then I split it down the center. A violent zigzag breaking it in two.
Mom just says my name as I stare at the heart. Jordan and Nat’s reflections behind me are still and careful.
“I’m sorry I inconvenienced your life by being sick. I’m sorry I caused you any pain. I’m sorry that I might die. I’m sorry you had to leave Dad because of me.” I’m screaming the words my own face in the mirror, reflected behind a broken heart.
I listen to Mom cry for a few minutes. I'm dizzy and shaking from the exertion so I brace myself by leaning hard against the dresser. Mom just cries. I sigh to steady my breathing. My heart thumps, and I lay my hand over the freshly re-bandaged ICD. “I’m safe, okay? I’m not coming back until the morning. But I’m safe where I am. Natalie’s here. Call Dad if you want. I don’t care. I don’t care anymore, Mom.”
I tap end with my thumb as my wrist goes limp. My phone falls from my fingers with a thud on the dresser. My body bursts with things I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling at the same time. An emotional overload, mixed with exhaustion, forces unexpected tears to spill from my eyes. My shaking hand slides through my hair and my fingers curl into a fist around the strands. My other hand lashes out at the mirror. I violently smear the wet ink. My reflection is distorted through the smudges of black, but still I look weak. Broken. Pathetic. I should feel good about telling my mom off. I should feel good that she knows exactly what I think of her.
I should.
But I don’t.
I want to fill our love. Mom and me. But not with this. Not with poison.
A hand grips my elbow, but I throw it off. “Don’t,” I say. I’m tired of being held up. I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being sick. I don’t want a new heart; I want to keep this one. I want my family back.
I want to stop being afraid to love them.
I see Nat’s reflection, still standing by the door. Giving me space, but even her expression is straight pity.
Jordan tries again to place his hand on the small of my back. I shove his arm.
“Stop. Just stop it!” But when I turn to meet Jordan’s gaze it’s not pity in his face. It’s recognition. There’s a little smile that touches the corner of his mouth and pride in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. On anyone.
“You’ve identified your throne, Cassiopeia.,” he says as he wipes tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. I have no expressions left to display on my worn and tired face so I say “What?”
“The thing you’re holding onto,” he continues, spinning me to see my swollen and puffy face in the mirror. “That thing you cling to so you don’t have to fall into the unknown.”
He leans against me, pinning my hips into the wood of the dresser and picks up the same pen I used to draw the broken heart. He redraws the lines. Nat moves to stand next to us, but I don’t care that I’m pressed against Jordan in front of her. Too much has happened tonight that I wouldn’t even know the definition of embarrassment anymore.
“You are a broken heart. That’s what you think, isn’t it? That no one could love you, and you couldn’t return that love because you are broken.”
I stare at his reflection, feeling the pressure of his body against mine. How it feels right and wrong at the same time. How I want it and don’t at the same time. How I believe I’m not worthy of it, or him. I glance at Nat, and I can tell she’s on Jordan’s side. I’m being ambushed. They are trying to contain me, without regard for themselves. My best friend I’ve known my whole life and the boy I’ve known for one night are staging my intervention.
“I don’t want to think that. I don’t want that to be who I am,” I whisper.
“Then don’t let it be. Just fall.” Jordan’s words rush through me, my stomach jumping like I’ve already let go.
The faster I fall, the blurrier my world becomes. “I’m scared.”
Nat reaches out and grabs my hand. “You know I’ll catch you, right? Me, your dad, even your mom. You know we love you, right? Even when you try not to let us.”
Jordan begins to write on the smooth surface of the mirror pulling my attention away from Nat and her questions.
The words scrawl across the reflection of my chest under the heart I drew. His mirror is smudged and chaotic—exactly how I feel.
A broken heart is who I am
There’s huge gaps between the words. “You aren’t seeing it though, Evan.” He leans against me harder and wraps his arm around my shoulders. “You are missing the most important words. The words that change the meaning.”
He draws an arrow and puts the pen to the mirror again.
A broken heart is part of who I am
Fresh tears hit me, and whispered words I never knew I thought sneak through my barrier.
“I don’t want you to hurt because of me.”
Nat sighs deep and long, there’s more seriousness in her expression than I’ve ever seen. “You don’t get to make that choice, Evan. That’s my decision.”
I have no response, but everything about her stance says it’s non-negotiable. There is no arguing. Nat glances at the mirror and crosses one arm over her stomach. I don’t expect it when she lets go of my hand to take my cell phone and taps my arm with it.
“I’m going to take this, okay?” she says and slides my phone in her pocket. “I’m completely exhausted, and I need to crash. Lane grabbed me some blankets. I’ll be right out there.”
“I’ll answer your phone in the morning when your dad calls to remind you to take your meds. I’ll make something up,” Nat continues before she turns and walks away.
“Nattie?” I push away from Jordan, the mirror, and the mess I created.
“Yeah?” Nat pauses in the open doorway.
“You know you’re my favorite person in the world, right? That I’ll make it up to you.” I tilt my head to the side.
“I know, EJ. See you in the morning.” The door clicks shut softly before I can answer. I stare at it for a bit then turn around to face Jordan.
My eyes fill with more tears as I see all the little dots drawn on the mirror. Jordan puts the pen in my hand and wraps both of his arms around my waist, returning me to my spot in front of him.
He takes my hand and places the pen to the first dot that outlines my reflection, and I begin to connect each drawn star with shaky lines.
“You are more than one single thing,” he whispers into my hair. “You are a thousand tiny suns forever burnt into my soul. My favorite constellation. We may not have real love, but you will stay with me forever. Because what I said before is true. Everything changed the moment I met you.”