Sarah Gerard - Binary Star

Stop falling.

He does it again and I stay on the grass this time. I look around at the manicured lawns and the single-family homes looking back at me. Across the street, a couple leaves an electronics store carrying a Sony HD-TV and plastic bags full of smaller items. Cars inch around Dairy Queen. I pull up my knees and get comfortable.

Are you just going to stay there?

If I stand up, you’ll do it again.

That’s right.

So, why would I stand up?

Because otherwise, you just have to sit there on the grass like a little bitch. He’s smiling.

We stare at each other for several seconds. Finally, I take out a magazine and start to read. Demi Moore on Her 20-Pound Weight Loss. Skinny Jeans! How Stars Get Skinny in Time for Summer. Cameron’s Red Carpet Confession: “I Didn’t Eat All Day!”

You know I have the keys to the apartment, I say.

Best and Worst Beach Bodies. Stars With Cellulite. Best Butts.

If you want to drink that beer, I have to let you in.

You really don’t get it, he says.

You can’t drink that Corona on the sidewalk. I get that.

You’re really sick.

I look at him.

I won’t do it again, he says.

He holds out his hand and I take it.

Fuck you, I say.

Fuck you, too, he says.

You know, you’re sick, too.

That night, we watch a documentary about the Earth Liberation Front. We see the charred remains of the offices of Superior Lumber, keyboards melted together and aluminum chairs twisted around themselves like wrought skeletons.

I thought the ELF was nonviolent, I say.

They are.

But this is arson.

Who was injured?

Mom, it’s me. We’re in Baltimore.

I’m sorry. I thought you’d be mad, which you are.

Yeah, we’re having fun.

I’m just not feeling well.

You know how I get in the car.

It’s not the flu. It’s motion sickness.

I haven’t been able to eat very much.

We’re having a good time.

Just mostly motels.

Not tonight. We’re staying with Helen.

I’ll tell her you said so.

I’m fine.

I’ll have John stop somewhere.

I’ll tell him you said hello.

Hey, Mom? Can I tell you something?

Never mind.

No, nothing. How are you?

It’s just that… well, I’ve been sad.

I don’t know.

I think I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know with what.

I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll be fine.

I don’t think I need to see anyone about it.

St. John’s Wort. Okay.

I will. Thank you.

I love you, too.

In Baltimore, we stay with a friend of my mother. She’s prepared a crab feast without knowing that we’re vegan. The last time she saw me, I was twelve and we made crab cakes from scratch. She remembers how much I loved them.

By the time we arrive, at dusk, everyone is waiting. She’s invited six or seven other people my mother’s age, who talk to John and me with the kind of intentional respect older people give to young adults. They ask me what I’m studying.

Astronomy. Education.

Am I going to be an astronaut?

Space scares me.

They find this funny. We stand around in the kitchen. A box of roasted crabs sits, closed, on a table covered with paper. ’90s music plays on a small Sony stereo. Our host hands us two Bud Lights.

You’re old enough to drink them now! she says. Last time I saw you, you were…

She holds up her hand to her breast.

It’s been a long time, I say.

It’s been too long. I’ve got more past than future now. Lord! Don’t ever get old.

I would never.

She opens the box and turns it upside-down. Red bodies spill across the butcher paper and the smell of Old Bay fills the tiny bare-wood kitchen. Star shapes crisscross each other limply and her friends begin tearing shells apart with their hands. John and I stand in the doorway.

What’s wrong? she asks us.

To be honest: we’re vegan.

Oh, no!

We should have told you.

I didn’t realize! I just want to make sure you’re fed.

She opens the refrigerator and bends down to search inside. John and I look at each other. We know what’s coming.

Potato salad?

No, sorry. It’s not vegan.

Leftover spaghetti?

What kind of sauce?

Vodka.

No, sorry.

Nutella and jelly?

John touches my shoulder.

You know, we can just go out and grab something, I say. It might be easier. We won’t be gone very long.

Don’t do that. I’d feel too bad.

It’s okay. This happens all the time.

Do you both have to go?

I look at John. He wouldn’t want to be alone if I stayed here.

We’ll both go. Be right back.

Don’t tell your mother.

I don’t tell her anything.

She laughs.

Mass transfer in a binary system shrinks the orbit, causing an accelerated overflow of the donor star’s Roche lobe.

This initiates a runaway process of mass transfer that engulfs the star’s companion in a common envelope.

Shrinking ends when the envelope is expelled or when the two stars merge and no more energy is available either to expand or expel the envelope.

This is called the spiral-in.

That night, we sleep on an air mattress our host lays out on the floor of the living room. It fills the area between the couch and the front windows and from the front door to the TV: almost the whole space. When I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I walk on air. I come back and walk on air and lie down next to John. I put my arm around his stomach.

When we first started dating, we camped by the Long Island Sound with two friends I’ve since fallen out with. We drank around the fire and made sandwiches with Nestlé graham crackers and Hershey’s bars, and marshmallows they stabbed with the ends of sticks and held to the edge of the flames. We talked until the sun began to rise, then we put out the fire and retired to our North Face tents and John shared mine. I slept with my arm around him, just like this, and felt his chest rise and fall. It was our first time sleeping together.

That afternoon, I woke with a spider bite on my neck and he kissed it. We made love in the tent and the time outside didn’t matter. It didn’t even exist.

John rolls over and kisses me on the forehead and we lie with our arms around each other for a long time. My face is pressed against his chest. I breathe in his smell. I kiss his collarbone.

He runs his fingers around the elastic waistband of my shorts and pushes it down, then he pushes me onto my back. He climbs on top of me and pulls my shorts down to my ankles, and I feel his dick grow hard against me.

I lick my fingers and wet myself. I take him in my hand. He pushes inside me.

Bursts of color appear behind my eyes. Sharp pain shoots through my abdomen. My breath catches. I stretch around him. He grows harder inside me and thrusts. I lick my fingers again.

I’m dry. John moves slowly.

Is this hurting you?

A little, but it’s okay.

I don’t want to hurt you.

No, it feels good.

Kiss me.

He buries his head in my shoulder. His movements are slow and rhythmic. I feel him coming deep inside me.

Afterward, he lies next to me, our sweat cooling.

That was really good.

Yeah.

I love you, he says.

I know you do.

Did you come?

Yes.

Really?

No.

But sometimes it’s hard for me.

I just want you to feel good.

I do.

Okay.

He touches between my legs.

You’re not just saying that?

Why would I lie about it?

The next day, the arteries leading into New York are clogged. We sit in an hours-long traffic jam, during which it begins to snow. In the sky above the billboards for Manhattan Mini Storage, Kars4Kids, and GEICO, white and grey clouds recess into themselves in soft folding shapes. We play a game where we try to say the same word at the same time without any clues.