Sarah Gerard - Binary Star

I shiver when it’s warm.

John’s parents flew him here this past summer. John has never had a job. He is probably not capable.

For weeks, he sleeps on the red futon. For weeks, I walk the floor around him. The ashtray lies beside him on the mattress.

And the ashes, I rub into the red cover.

I blow smoke into the center.

John, what about your class?

It already started.

The one you were taking in the city?

I have opinions about class.

How do you feel about your class?

You take advantage.

You take advantage.

Your class is destroying you.

I destroy me. I burn myself away.

It would take me an hour and a half on the train.

You can’t get it up.

What?

You can’t get up in time to leave.

He isn’t hungry. He isn’t motivated. I am, but he doesn’t know why.

John tried to tie me up.

He tried to tie me with nylon ropes but I don’t have bedposts. He tried to tie me to the feet of the bed but the ropes weren’t long enough. So he tied me to myself.

This is the only way I can do it.

I want you to hurt me. Please. I need it.

We don’t need sex. I don’t need sex.

If you touch me, I’ll explode.

John tried it with knives and with handcuffs but he’s a coward.

(We have the darkness between us.)

John tried it with ropes and cigarettes.

That’s enough and it will never go away.

There’s something between us that matters.

Degenerate matter.

That matter is darkness.

The degenerate state of matter occurs under extremely high density or at extremely low temperatures.

Its pressure forces atoms to shed electrons in the dwarf’s core, which is mostly carbon and oxygen:

Diamonds.

The largest diamond in the universe lives at the center of a variable white dwarf star.

It is nicknamed after the Beatles song: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”

John is very confused on the phone.

If I call too early in the morning or too late at night.

He is often angry with himself during the day.

I understand that I can’t understand.

He is angry at himself and at others. He wants to do better.

Do you ever feel powerless? he says.

You must be joking.

I never joke. Do you ever arrive somewhere you don’t remember going to?

I feel like I’ve never had a choice.

John is mad at his culture.

His culture has made him mad.

I am always somewhere without knowing why.

I want to know.

We have an understanding of damage, and of the fact that what is between us is only thought.

That I am damaged has a significant effect, it is very important.

That John doesn’t know.

He doesn’t need to worry about it. He shouldn’t worry. He has enough to worry about.

It’s my role to be supportive. That’s why he loves me.

John loves me. He does.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Maybe I don’t.

Maybe he wants to hurt me.

Love is giving up yourself. He has nothing to give up.

John doesn’t believe in sacrifice.

That nothing is substantial prevents him from owning it fully.

If I were perfect?

Nothing is perfect. What is a perfect star?

A white one.

They’re all white.

No. Some are blue.

And some are red.

A GIANT TURNS RED LATE IN ITS LIFE, WHEN IT exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core.

Its surface is cool but its radius expands; it is luminous but has low mass.

The outer layers of the red giant are convective, bringing material exposed to nuclear burning to the surface for the first time.

This is the first dredge-up.

Last winter, we spent a month driving around the country’s perimeter. John’s parents paid for everything: hotels, food, and gas. Our job was to drive and come back in January: to find something new. At first, we didn’t know what.

To step out of time, place ourselves entirely in the present, which is also eternity.

The week before we’re set to leave, I spend the night at a friend’s house on Jones Beach, cramming for a final. I call John at two in the morning, speeding on Adderall, and tell him that I weigh 98 pounds, which is true at the time. I had weighed myself several times during the night. Then I’d become afraid.

I tell him that I’m bulimic, which is also true, but not the whole truth.

You can’t purge when we’re away.

Then you can’t drink, I say.

Okay.

We’ll find equilibrium.

We make a pact for balance.

We’ll shed our lives in order to see ourselves clearly.

As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine.

I agree.

This will bring us closer, I say.

I’m here for you, he says.

And I’m here for you.

We start in Chicago and drive west toward North Dakota. All of our necessities are behind us in the backseat. Two cups of coffee sit between us and two iPhones full of music, none of the songs repeated.

How long have you been doing it? John asks me.

Ever since I was little.

Why?

I don’t know. Why do you need to drink?

I don’t. I just like drinking.

Whatever.

Really.

Okay.

I never see more stars than I see driving along the edge of the buttes. We pull over so that I can see them still, and I lie down on the shoulder of the road to stare into the space between them. John stays in the car. The curve of the road is dangerous. John is often afraid, but he doesn’t know it.

After a minute, he makes me get back in the car. He can’t be alone.

We are inches away from the edge of the road and a plummet down the cliff.

I get in and shut the door. I strap into the car. It is dark like the vacuum of space.

I can’t see my hands. As long as I’m in here, I’m safe.

We’re silent with each other.

In the early days of space travel, researchers feared that astronauts would disassociate with Earth once they lost sight of it.

They would lose the sense of having a body that belonged on the ground, held by gravity.

They would lose their sense of human value.

Familial belonging.

And reimagine themselves as cosmic beings, bound by nothing.

They called it psychosis.

In July 1976, Russian cosmonaut Vitaly Zholobov suffered a nervous breakdown when his spaceship failed to dock at the Salyut 5 station and lost power for 90 minutes.

No light, no oxygen coming in, no communication with Earth.

They were on the dark side of the orbit. It was Zholobov’s first flight.

He had to go home.

The next day, John and I do donuts in the lot of a Butte community theater. Leaving, we’re pulled over and searched by a cop who doesn’t believe that John needs his pills even though he has a prescription. As we wait for him to check our IDs, I read the billboard across the street over and over.

Hail to the Beef. Hail to the Beef. Hail to the Beef. Hail to the Beef.