Space (Laws of Physics #2)(25)

I needed to ready myself for the day. There was still the small matter of telling Abram the truth, assuming he didn’t already know. And in order to accomplish that with a clear conscience, I would have to call my sister. And that’s what I did.

Reaching for my phone again, I unlocked it, dialed her number, and waited. She’d become an early riser and our weekly phone calls typically took place before 7:00 AM, so I knew she’d be up now. The line rang on the other end, but the connection sounded spotty, broken, like a skipping record.

When she answered, I immediately asked, “Lisa? Lisa? Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Hey, Mo. I can hear you. Where are you? Aren’t you supposed to be in—” the sound dropped off, replaced with clicks and scratching sounds, and then suddenly she was back “—thought you were going this week?”

“You’re breaking up. Listen, I have to talk to you about something important.” I pushed the covers back and strolled to the window seat where Allyn and I had taken up residence the previous evening until close to 2:00 AM. Without any prompting, I’d told Allyn the whole story about my week in Chicago before we’d gone to bed last night, and I do mean the whole story.

I figured, if I was really going to tell Abram the truth today—and despite the fact that any interaction with him was ultimately pointless to my future—I would still require some level of moral support after the task had been accomplished. I continued to have alarmingly nebulous and irrational feelings for the man. It would therefore make sense that my subsequent antiphon post-truth-telling would also be likewise irrational.

I wanted to be prepared, so I’d made preparations.

“What? Sorry, you’re breaking up,” Lisa’s voice sounded from the other end of the phone.

“This is important. Can you hear me?”

“Yes. I can hear you now, but there’s static on the line or something.”

“Okay. I’ll make it quick. Listen, Abram is here.”

“What?”

“Abram.” I whisper-yelled, stepping into a corner of the room, as though facing the corner would keep my voice from leaving the little triangle of secret shame I’d created with my body and the two walls. See? Already, just talking about him made me behave in strange and mysterious ways.

“Oh shit. Abram?”

“Yes. Listen.” I clutched my forehead, squeezing my eyes shut. “Just listen.”

“You want to tell him the truth,” she said, surprising the heck out of me, but also relieved that she’d guessed.

Gripping the front of my shirt, I twisted the neckline of my sleep shirt around my middle and index finger. “Yes. I want to tell him. He’s here, at the house, in Aspen, with Leo and other music people of an indeterminate number. It’s snowing, and we’re trapped. If he hasn’t figured it out yet, he definitely will now that we’re—”

“You’re breaking up again. Before the call drops, if you’re asking, my vote is to do it.”

My eyes flew open. “What?”

“Do it. Tell him. Mom and Dad will never cut you off, so I think them finding out now won’t hurt you. And they aren’t looking for reasons to cut me off anymore. I mean, they don’t talk to me, but I’ve let go of ever being a priority to—” She cut off for several seconds and I frowned, willing the line to reconnect. It did midsentence, “—getting to the point where I don’t even care. I have a good job, I have school, things are good, I can take care of myself. If that was keeping you from telling Abram, don’t worry about me. At this point, it’s not like the story would be interesting to his reporter sister. No one would care and it would just make him look idiotic. And if after all this time you still—” The line clicked and hissed, and I only caught skipped syllables of what she said for a few seconds, but then it picked back up, “—and it’s still really bothering you, then I say do it. I never should have asked you to lie in the first place. You tell him, clear your conscience, and don’t worry about me. I’m good, we’re good, I understand why you want to do it. You have my support one hundred percent.”

For some reason, my breathing was labored. Instead of feeling better upon receiving her blessing, I felt worse.

I said and thought at the same time, “How long have you felt this way?”

“What?”

“How long have you, I mean, how long ago could I have told him?”

She hesitated, and I thought for a second that the line had cut out, but then she asked, “Wait. Mona, have you had feelings for Abram all this time?” She sounded confused, like it hadn’t occurred to her that this might’ve been a possibility.

I let my forehead fall to the junction of the two walls and confessed the truth. “Yes.” As the prophesy foretold.

Yes, I’m not over him.

Yes, I think about him daily.

Yes, I’ve wanted to tell him the truth since I left and have lived in a state of readiness to do so, carrying that letter everywhere I go.

Yes, I’ll never be able to mentally move on until he knows, until that equation is solved, that hypothesis proves null.

I had no choice now but to move on. He was a famous musician, a fact that was inescapable. I had no desire to live in that world ever again. Even if, by some cosmic miracle and warping of reality, he was eventually interested at some point—which he definitely would never be—we might as well have existed in different dimensions.