The Sun Is Also a Star(61)

Jeremy and Hannah’s children will grow up to love others in the simple and uncomplicated way of people who have always known where love comes from, and aren’t afraid of its loss.

All of which isn’t to say that Jeremy Fitzgerald did the right thing or the wrong thing. It’s only to say this: love always changes everything.





And They Lived Happily Ever After.





NOW THAT THE SUN HAS set, the air’s gotten much colder. It’s not hard to imagine that winter’s just around the corner. I’ll have to unearth my bulky black coat and my boots. I tug my jacket closer and contemplate going inside to the lobby, where it’s warm. I’m on my way in when Daniel walks out the sliding glass doors.

He sees me and I expect a smile, but his face is grim. How badly could his interview have gone?

“What happened?” I ask as soon as I reach him. I’m imagining the worst, like he got into a fight with his interviewer, and now he’s banned from applying to any college at all, and his future is ruined.

He puts his hand on my face. “I really love you,” he says. He’s not joking. This has nothing to do with our silly bet. He says it the way you would say it to someone who is dying or you don’t expect to see again.

“Daniel, what’s wrong?” I pull his hand away from my face, but I hold on to it.

“I love you,” he says again, and recaptures my face with his other hand. “It doesn’t matter if you say it back. I just want you to know it.”



My phone rings. It’s the lawyer’s office.

“Don’t answer it,” he says.

Of course I’m going to answer it.

He touches my hand to stop me. “Please don’t,” he says again.

Now I’m alarmed. I click Ignore. “What happened to you in there?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again they’re filled with tears. “You can’t stay here,” he says.

At first I don’t get it. “Why? Is the building closing for the night?” I look around for guards asking us to leave.

Tears slide down his cheeks. Certain and unwanted knowledge blooms in my mind. I pull my hand out of his.

“What was your interviewer’s name?” I whisper.

He’s nodding now. “My interviewer was your lawyer.”

“Fitzgerald?”

“Yes,” he says.

I pull out my phone and look at the number again, still refusing to understand what he’s telling me. “I’ve been waiting for him to call. Did he say something about me?”

I already know the answer. I know it.

It takes him a couple of tries to get the words out. “He said he couldn’t get the order overturned.”

“But he said he could do it,” I insist.

He squeezes my hand and tries to pull me closer, but I resist. I don’t want to be comforted. I want to understand.



I back away from him. “Are you sure? Why were you even talking about me?”

He wipes a hand down his face. “There was all this weird shit going on with him and his paralegal, and your file was just on his desk.”

“That still doesn’t explain—”

He grabs my hand again. I pull it away forcefully this time. “Stop! Just stop!” I yell.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and lets me go.

I take another step back. “Just tell me what he said exactly.”

“He said the deportation order stands and that it’s better if you and your family leave tonight.”

I turn away and listen to my voice mail. It’s him—Attorney Fitzgerald. He says that I should call him. That he has unfortunate news.

I hang up and stare at Daniel mutely. He starts to say something, but I just want him to stop. I want the whole world to stop. There are too many moving parts that are outside of my control. I feel like I’m in an elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption that someone else designed. I don’t know the mechanism to trigger it. I don’t know what happens next. I only know that everything cascades, and that once it starts it won’t stop.





Hearts don’t break.

It’s just another thing the poets say.

Hearts are not made

Of glass

Or bone

Or any material that could

Splinter

Or Fragment

Or Shatter.

They don’t

Crack Into Pieces.

They don’t

Fall Apart.

Hearts don’t break.

They just stop working.

An old watch from another time and no parts to fix it.





WE’RE SITTING NEXT TO THE fountain and Daniel’s holding my hand. His suit jacket is around my shoulders.

He really is a keeper. He’s just not mine to keep.

“I have to go home,” I say to him. It’s the first thing I’ve said in over half an hour.

He pulls me close again. I’m finally ready to let him. His shoulders are so broad and solid. I rest my head on one. I fit there. I knew it this morning, and I know it now.

“What are we going to do?” he whispers.

There’s email and Skype and texts and IMs and maybe even visits to Jamaica. But even as I think it, I know I won’t let that happen. We have separate lives to lead. I can’t leave my heart here when my life is there. And I can’t take his heart with me when his whole future is here.