Space (Laws of Physics #2)(11)

I’d followed every mention of Abram for over a year after leaving Chicago, obsessively checking sources for music news, hunting through social media for information from his shows, pictures, videos, snippets of stories. An interesting byproduct of my investigations was that I’d learned a great deal about him, things I didn’t know, most of it definitional in nature.

Where he’d gone to school: Melvil Dewey High School, where he’d been voted most talented his senior year even though he’d dropped out before graduating.

Why he’d dropped out of high school the last half of his senior year: To pursue music full-time after receiving an offer to play bass guitar on tour for an (at the time) up and coming indie rock band named Cyclops Ulysses.

What jobs he’d had: Dishwasher at fourteen for his uncle’s restaurant; construction jobs at sixteen and every summer with his dad’s old company (which explained his lean yet broad build); bass guitarist for Cyclops Ulysses at eighteen until they’d disbanded; bass guitarist for another, equally promising band named Ink Revolution at twenty-one; bass guitar for hire and solo artist at twenty-three.

His self-professed musical influences: Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, Carol Kaye, Eddie Van Halen, Tal Wilkenfeld, John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Kendrick Lamar.

Shortly after I left, right after I’d written the letter, he’d been photographed with a remarkably beautiful woman. His arm was around her shoulders. In one photo he was kissing her neck while she grinned at the camera, a cigarette held aloft. Seeing that photo had hurt. A lot. It had hurt like being punched hard in the stomach. I’d lost my breath. Admittedly, breathing had been difficult for a while after that.

But I got over it. Or rather, I kept telling myself there was nothing to “get over.” Move on, Mona.

And yet, I’d still searched for news about him, nightly, religiously, obsessively. His first arrest caught me by surprise, but by the third I almost mailed the letter. All the charges had eventually been dropped as far as I could tell, he’d never been arraigned, but—and I didn’t feel this was a controversial statement—Abram seemed to be in a downward spiral. I almost mailed the letter because I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been the cause even as I rolled my eyes at myself.

No, Mona. Abram is not getting himself arrested and into fights and losing weight and taking up smoking because of you. Six days. People change. Don’t give yourself so much credit. Move on.

Mentions of him began to taper off around the one-year anniversary of my trip to Chicago. He wasn’t playing the club scene, he wasn’t signed with or subbing for any bands, he wasn’t out publicly for any gigs. I simmered in my uneasiness until finally, sixteen months ago, he’d disappeared. From everywhere. No stories. No bookings. No performances. No arrests.

After three weeks, frantic for news, I’d called my sister and made some bogus excuse for why I was curious. The excuse hadn’t been a lie, but it also hadn’t been the whole truth. Lisa then called Leo, and Leo explained that he and Abram had lost touch, but he was aware that Abram had changed his last name. After his latest night in lock-up, Abram had told Leo he was worried about tarnishing his sister’s journalistic name and reputation. Leo told Lisa he thought it more likely that Abram didn’t want to keep embarrassing his parents.

Lisa didn’t give me his new last name.

I hadn’t asked.

I’d tried to take it as a sign from the universe: move on.

Move. Stay in motion. Keep moving. Move on, Mona.

So that’s what I’d done. I moved. I worked. I read. I wrote a paper about the age of the universe, it had been called groundbreaking. I testified before Congress. I gave interviews. I worked some more.

Constantly moving hadn’t yet yielded moving on, but it had made me tired. So very, very tired. Sometimes I was even too tired to fret about Abram—what he was doing, who he was with—before falling asleep. Sometimes I even forgot to fret.

But back to Poe and us staring at each other, and all the unspoken ‘what ifs’ heavy between us. No, we never talked about it. But what if we did? What if I put Hawaii on the table? What if I actually moved on?

After a protracted moment—during which indecision refereed a tug-of-war between my irrational longing for the impossibility of Abram and my rational desire to stop being a pathetic lunatic—Poe sighed, dropping his chin to his chest and licking his lips. The flutter in my stomach was abruptly overshadowed by a hint of guilt.

I liked him. What was there not to like? We wanted the same things: kids who we could fuss over and adore, a house in a nice neighborhood with neighbors and neighbor kids and a lawn to mow, a big library, work that was meaningful and interesting, a car payment and retirement accounts and more savings than debt. A normal, quiet life of exceptionalism.

Poe was loyal, wickedly funny, brilliant, kind, and so very, very handsome. I liked him.

But do you deserve someone like him?

I was attracted to Poe, really attracted. Maybe I could become someone who would deserve him? How long did I expect him to be single? It was a miracle he wasn’t already married.

“What’s going on?” Allyn whispered in my ear. “Why aren’t you promising him a trip to Hawaii? You know he’s crazy about you. Promise him!”

Crazy about me?

Studying him now, the dark glitter of hope in his gaze tempered by the stark line of his mouth and jaw, I felt jarring certainty that Poe Payton had remained single for a reason. He’d been waiting. For me. And that was hugely unfair. To him. He shouldn’t be waiting for anyone. People should be waiting for him! He—like Abram—deserved better. Much, much better.