The Geography of You and Me(14)

Lucy was sitting with her arms resting on her knees, and when she turned to look at him, her leg bumped against his. Right then, he had a sudden urge to inch closer to her, to close the space between them, and the force of it surprised him; it felt like a very long time since he’d wanted anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching over to put a hand over his. “About your mom.”

The warmth of her palm cracked at something inside him, that hard shell of hurt that had formed over his heart like a coat of ice. She was watching him intently, her eyes seeking his, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Because the numbness was the only thing keeping him going, the only thing preventing him from falling to pieces in front of his dad, who was falling to pieces enough for both of them.

He turned his eyes back to the sky. “They look almost fake,” he said. “Don’t they?”

Lucy followed his gaze. “The stars?” she asked, but he didn’t answer. He was thinking of the ones on the ceiling of his bedroom back home, little pieces of plastic that glowed green in the dark. His mother had put them up when he was little, when Owen first became obsessed with the sky, spending summer nights on his back in the front yard, staring up at the scattering of lights until his eyes burned. They bought him a telescope, and they bought him binoculars; they even bought him a globe that showed all the constellations. But, in the end, the only way to convince him to go to bed were those glowing plastic stars, which his mother tacked up on the ceiling herself.

“They’re not in the right places,” Owen had said that first night, his eyes pinned above him as he climbed into bed.

“Sure they are,” she told him. “It’s just that these are very rare constellations.”

He frowned up at them. “What are they called?”

“Well,” she’d said, scooting in next to him and pointing at the ceiling. “That’s Owen Major.”

He let his head fall to the side, so that it was resting on her shoulder, and in the dark, his voice was hushed. “Is there an Owen Minor?”

“Sure,” she said. “Right over there. And that’s Buckley’s Belt.”

“Like Orion’s Belt?”

“Even better,” she said. “Because you can always see it. Every single night.”

Now, beside him on the roof, he could feel Lucy smiling. “They don’t look fake at all,” she said. “They look real. Really real. They might be the realest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Owen smiled, too, letting his eyes fall shut, but he could still see them, glowing bright against the backs of his eyelids. For the first time in weeks, he felt all lit up inside, even on this darkest of nights.





5


When she woke, everything was blurry. As soon as she opened her eyes, Lucy brought an arm up over her face to block out the blazing sunlight. But several seconds passed before she remembered where she was—high up on the roof beneath a whitewashed sky—and several more went by before she realized she was alone.

She rubbed her eyes, then propped herself up on her elbows, staring at the blanket beside her, where just last night Owen had fallen asleep, and which was now only an Owen-shaped indent, like a plaid flannel snow angel.

They hadn’t planned to sleep up here, but as the night had deepened and their voices had grown softer, slowed by the heat and the weight of the past hours, they found themselves lying side by side, their eyes fixed on the stars as they talked.

Owen had fallen asleep first, his head tipping to one side so that his hair fell over his eyes, and he looked peaceful in a way he hadn’t when he was awake. His hair smelled faintly of lemons from the cleaning solution on the floor of their kitchen, and Lucy listened to him breathe, watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Being there like that, so close to him, she had to remind herself that this wasn’t real. It wasn’t a date but an accident. It wasn’t romantic, only practical. They were just two people trying to make it through the night, and it didn’t mean anything beyond that.

After all, hours didn’t necessarily add up in that way. Time didn’t automatically amount to anything. There was only so much you could ask from a single night.

Still, Lucy hadn’t expected him to disappear completely. It was true that they’d made no plans for the morning, no promises for the next day. They’d shared nothing more than a blanket and some food and a little bit of light. But somehow, it had seemed like more than that—at least to her. And now, as she glanced around the roof—empty except for a few pigeons milling about on the far side—she couldn’t help feeling wounded by his absence.

She rose to her feet, still squinting from the brightness of the morning, and shuffled over to the ledge. In the daylight, the city looked entirely different. The sky to the east was splashed with orange, and below it, Central Park was stretched out, a vast and manicured swath of wilderness interrupted only by the occasional pond, like dabs of blue-gray paint on a palette. Lucy stood with the breeze on her face, wondering whether the city had power again. It was impossible to tell from this high up.

Downstairs, when she pushed open the door to her apartment, the answer quickly became clear. She held her breath against the wall of heat that greeted her—so dense it almost felt like something she could touch—and moved down the sweltering hallway and into the kitchen, where she stood staring at the place they’d been lying just last night, their heads close so that their bodies formed a kind of steeple.