Space (Laws of Physics #2)(5)

I’d fallen in love with Lisa, and all her contradictions, and all her beauty and character and strength and softness. She’d become my place. With her, I never had to force the wonder, and being soft hadn’t seemed so hard.

Now, ascending the final step to the kitchen level, I spotted Lisa and it was like my body and mind finally became fully awake. She was on a stool at the island, her lovely profile to me, her waterfall hair sweeping the center of her back, and the whole stanza came to me at once:

Gone, and she took all her sweet softness with her.

Gone, and emptiness takes a shape.

Gone, and summer is winter.

Gone, and I sleep.

But when she’s here, I’m finally awake.

A barren landscape,

Now beauty in her wake.

With Lisa, vibrancy. Without her, emptiness took shape, a barren landscape.

I filled my lungs with the sight of her, energized by the deprivation of desire—to see her, touch her, listen to her, engage with her—and reminding myself to take it slow. Wait. Tread carefully. I was certain of what I wanted, how I felt, but she wasn’t someone to rush. The truth was, I had no idea when or if she’d get there. Though that was somewhat terrifying, it didn’t stress me. Especially when she made the waiting and anticipation so much fun.

Lisa’s eyes were on a magazine spread flat on the kitchen island and she was hunched over a bowl of something, distractedly eating spoonfuls while reading.

I loved that she read so much. I loved, even though she’d dropped out of school, that her brain was obviously hungry for knowledge, debate, and philosophy. I loved that she’d been kicked out of school but seemed to be an unbending rule follower. I loved that once you knew her, nothing about her past made any sense.

Leo had been worried about his youngest sister for a while, specifically that their parents had “fucking ruined her.” According to Leo, Mona, the older twin, had never needed much from anyone and automatically knew what to do and how to behave in all situations.

I’d never met Lisa’s sister, but there were pictures of her in the front room. From what I’d seen, Mona and Lisa didn’t resemble each other much. In the family photos Leo had pointed out to me from Mona DaVinci’s recent college graduation, I never would have guessed that the two women were twins if I didn’t already know. She was shorter than Lisa in all the pictures of them together, and seemed smaller, fading into the background, always smiling with a closed mouth, and definitely lacking Lisa’s vibrancy. To be blunt, the older twin looked like she’d stopped aging at twelve.

“Mona is smarter than all of us combined,” he’d said when he asked me to keep an eye on Lisa over a week ago. Leo didn’t usually talk about his sisters, but he’d wanted to prepare me for her arrival. “I’m Mona’s older brother, but I go to her for advice. She’s like a superhero, I swear. Doesn’t need or take shit from anyone, doesn’t care what anyone thinks, not even me, not even my parents. But Lisa . . .” Leo had sounded worried. “I know you don’t like her, man. And I’m sorry for what she did last year, but she needs people, you know? She needs community. She needs someone to take care of, someone to take care of her. Some people don’t need that, but Lisa does.”

Presently, I stuffed my hands in my back pockets so I wouldn’t reach for her. I wanted to. I always wanted to touch her. But something had happened to Lisa since last year, something she didn’t yet feel comfortable confiding, something that made every first touch difficult. Maybe more time together would fix it for her. Maybe not.

Whatever she needed, because I knew exactly what Leo had meant about Lisa needing people.

My sister and I had been born with this same curse: Someone to take care of, someone to take care of me, an inescapable desire for codependency. Another song lyric. I wasn’t happy with it, it needed work, but that was basically the gist of why I didn’t fuck around with my time or with people.

Lisa didn’t look up as I approached, so I said, “Hey,” not hiding my smile.

From now on, all my smiles belonged to her.

Her eyes flickered up, and then dropped just as fast to the bowl of what I now saw was cereal. She straightened her back, closing the magazine and clearing her throat while I studied the bowl. Note to self, she likes Lucky Charms.

“Abram,” she said, swallowing, tucking hair behind both her ears. “Good morning.”

Immediately, I heard the guarded, distant, and particular quality to her voice. But it was the particular that resonated like an out of tune piano. I ignored it, eager to remove that barren landscape between us.

“Good morning, Lisa.” I leaned my elbows on the island, making my tone ironically formal and bending at the waist to bring us eye level. “And how did you sleep last night?” I hoped this would make her blush. She was so very exquisite when she blushed.

She didn’t blush but she still wouldn’t look at me. “I, uh, didn’t sleep very well, honestly.” Lisa lifted her chin but not her eyes. “We should talk.”

I frowned at the persisting particular quality to her voice, my eyes moving over her. It was at least eighty-five degrees outside and she was dressed in a baggy black hoddie and yoga pants. On her feet she wore socks and she’d stuffed her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. She was also wearing a lot of makeup, darker than usual, like the day she’d come home last week.