Consider (4 page)

His face perks up when he sees me. He’s dressed up in his clothes from our date, the same dark jeans and striped button-down shirt. His shirt is wrinkled and must be misbuttoned since it doesn’t meet evenly at the bottom. It’s not fair that he looks sexier disheveled while I look like the bride of Frankenstein. He walks over and hugs me. The stress in my shoulders releases, but I push away sooner than usual since I feel Dad’s eyes staring at us. Dominick’s back straightens to full attention. He notices the difference.

“Sorry,” he announces, and I think it’s because of the hug. “It took me a little longer since I didn’t have another change of clothes. I had to wait for them to find mine.”

“Nick, stop with the excuses,” Dad comments. “Guys like you in the military—always behind, always an excuse—didn’t last long.”

Dominick cringes at the nickname. His father’s name was Nicholas. I’ve reminded my dad a million times.

“Dad, not now. Please.” My medication kicks in faster since I haven’t had much food, filling my body with warmth and laziness.

“He put you in danger,” Dad mutters, “and I’m the bad guy.”

“He didn’t know we were gonna have a freaking hologram invasion,” I argue in exhaustion.

“Enough,” Mom says. “Let’s go home. It’s been a long night.”

Dad grunts his disapproval as we walk to the car. Mom rubs his lower back. Like taming a lion.

Outside, the August morning air soothes my aching skin. I breathe in for an easy five counts, hold for two, and let it out in five more. The early sky holds the sun in one corner, the moon still visible in another. Neither look the same anymore.

Chapter 3

Day 2: August—4,380 hours to decide

NASA CLAIMS NO COMET THREAT DETECTED

ABC 6, Boston
7 news, and every other news media outlet I flip through broadcast the same loop of information. Five hundred vertexes. The hologram’s message playing in different languages depending on the country. Maps of vertex sightings across the globe with clusters of them spotted in China, India, and the U.S. Some small countries without any sightings.

They’re guessing that the placement of the vertexes is connected with population percentages. Officials are still asking everyone to stay away from the vertexes for their own safety. They have no way of knowing how many people may have been exposed before they set up perimeters and emergency medical protocols, but all tests show no ill readings as of this point.

That means no radiation poisoning for me or Dominick.
Give it two weeks, then I’ll believe it.
Doctor’s orders.

I grab my navy-blue journal with the hot-pink polka dots that Grandma Penelope sent me for Christmas last year. Not my style, but if there were ever a time to chronicle something, now would qualify. I scribble details about my ordeal last night and list all the facts I can glean from the news. My hand can’t write fast enough.

President Lee appears in front of the White House for a press conference. She repeats again that “there is no credibility in the holographic message. No such comet has been located at the present time.”

At the present time. So there’s still a possibility.

NASA is all over the news explaining the importance of “planetary protection” and warning about “interplanetary contamination.” They are “deeply concerned” that the arrival of these vertexes may have “contaminated our biosphere with extraterrestrial bacteria.” The CDC is running every test imaginable at various sites, but so far “nothing of interest” has been uncovered.

Nothing of interest.
They can’t be serious.

Newscasters report live from various locations across the world, and despite the warnings, throngs of people have flocked to see the phenomena for themselves. How can they not? It’s a spectacle—something so extraordinary and overwhelming that you have to see it to believe it. Even though I saw the one in Quincy, I already want to see another one. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.

Why would the holograms come to rescue us from nothing? Did they get the date wrong? What are they hiding?

Maybe it’s all a lie, and our very own scientists created the vertexes by accident. The holograms could be just an elaborate cover-up for their mistake. Weren’t they trying to make their own black holes, their own Big Bang in some large underground collider machine?
I bet they screwed up an experiment and cracked the universe.

The whole thing is just unreal. My mind won’t stop spinning.

My phone rings, and Benji’s name and face appear on the screen. I’m surprised he’s called me twice and not Mom or Dad. Whenever we talk, either it’s awkward or we get into a fight. I set my journal aside and click off the TV to shut out the media before answering the phone.

“Hey,” I say, “What’s up? Where are you?”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re sending me home.”

“Home
home?” I grab one of the striped side pillows from the sofa and hug it.

“Yes, but not off duty. They’re stationing me at one of the vertexes. Not sure which one yet, but they’re supposed to assign us to one close to our families.”

“Lucky us,” I comment. “You’ll be back.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?”

We both allow seconds of silence to tick between us.

“I can’t really talk details,” he continues, “but from where I sit, none of it looks good. Every country is having a different reaction. It’s bad.”

I think about what he’s saying and what he’s not saying. He’s usually a die-hard patriot, like Dad, a rare creature to find these days. For him to say something is bad in our country, it must be catastrophic.

“Why didn’t you call Mom and Dad?” I ask. I pull on a tiny string on the corner of the pillow, and it starts to unravel the seam.

“Because Mom will be emotional, and Dad will be Dad. What does it matter? Can you just tell them that I should be back in a week?”

“Sure,” I say, annoyed. “They’ll love having you back.”

He sighs into the phone, and I get the impression that he’d rather be overseas in a foreign land dealing with foreign wars than be on the home front dealing with the new unknown. Or maybe his real problem has less to do with the holograms and more to do with the family.

“One week. Tell them.”

Curly hair is
a punishment, especially in August humidity. Rita’s coming over around three o’clock to hear all about the hologram and the vertex firsthand, and then Dominick’s coming after dinner. I have an hour to shower and tame my hair into submission. I step into the tub, careful not to get the bandage on my elbow wet. The smell of disinfectant from last night burns into my memory. I grab a loofah and lather half the bottle of berry vanilla body wash on every inch of my skin. The water rinses over me as I let the wall hold me up.

Stepping out of the shower, I wrap myself with a huge mintgreen towel and dry off. It’s a struggle to put on my clothes, a Paramore T-shirt and jean shorts. As I lift my hands to slick my wet curls into a ponytail, a dull pain shoots through my heart and takes my breath away. My heart spasms into a million little unnatural beats. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was having a heart attack. But I know better.

During middle school, my parents brought me to the emergency room three times for supposed heart attack symptoms. By the third time, the diagnosis was panic attacks caused by general anxiety disorder. Either way, the doctor implied that it was all in my mind and recommended counseling, which I tried for a while but found medication more effective than talking about my physical symptoms to a stranger.

The bathroom walls close in on me. My body rebels and screams,
Get out!
Can’t breathe. Get out!

I grab the knob and fight with the door at first, pushing instead of pulling. I flee to my bedroom to get my anxiety pills, but it’s going to be bad regardless. The attacks that sneak up out of nowhere for no apparent reason, those are the ones that get you. I pop a pill, sit on my bedroom floor, and hug my knees. My brain continues to short-circuit, reacting as if I am under imminent threat of death when I was just doing my hair. The explosion inside of me feels so real I want to scream. Sweat pools down my back, and hives break out on my arms. I peel my T-shirt off my body to escape the heat, but nothing helps.

What if it’s not a panic attack? What if it’s related to the vertexes? Maybe it’s radiation poisoning. Oh God, what if I really am dying this time? I need to go back to the hospital before my skin starts melting off my body.

“Mom,” I yell from the floor. “Mom? Mom!” I don’t think she can hear me from here. She’s the only one home, and the last time I saw her she was in the backyard gardening.

Oh, God, they’re going to find my corpse, and Dad will flip into PTSD mode, Mom will never stop crying and have a nervous breakdown, and Benji will blame it all on me and refuse to come to my funeral.

“Honey?” Mom’s voice calls. It takes her a second to find me huddled in the corner wearing only a bra and shorts. “Alex, are you okay?”

“I need to go to the hospital. I think I have radiation poisoning.” I begin to sob and rock back and forth.

“Honey, they said the vertexes are fine. No radiation. Did you take your medication?”

“Yes, but it’s not working. It’s from the radiation, I know it. Are you just going to stand there and watch me die?”

“Honey, no.” She wraps her arms around the back of me. “I know you’re scared, but we’ve been through this before. If you don’t feel better soon, then I promise I will bring you to the hospital. We just have to wait it through.”

Waiting is the absolute worst.
“Fine, but if I die, you’re going to feel really guilty.”

She nods and slips the hair elastic from my wrist.

“Can you call Rita? Tell her not to come over?” I beg as she smooths my hair back. I almost tell her to cancel on Dominick too, but I need to see him tonight to talk about yesterday. We couldn’t exactly talk about it on the ride home with my parents listening.

“Absolutely. Climb into bed and I’ll sit with you.”

She pulls the crisp, purple and blue, patterned sheet up to my chin. A cocoon. I pray that when I wake it will be over.

Two hours later, I open my eyes and feel exhausted. My chest still has phantom pain, like soreness after a muscle spasm, but nothing like before. Mom was right—I didn’t need to go to the hospital. But I’ll never admit it to her, and she’ll never bring it up again. It’s a silent code we have in our house, a code we use to cover up a lot of things.

At dinner I
inform my parents that their precious Benji is returning. Mom practically leaps from her seat at the dinner table while Dad starts bombarding me with questions. Now I understand why Benji called me to deliver the news. Jerk.

Dad badgers me for information that I don’t have. Stuff about “world security versus national security” and “pulling out of volatile regions too soon without the right reinforcement and protection of our interests.” I push salad around my plate, take a bite of my cheeseburger. At least once Benji returns, he’ll be stuck in the hot seat.

“Regardless of what happens, we’re staying put,” Dad finally states.

I speak up. “No matter what? Even if a comet comes?”

“Ben, we need to discuss it as a family,” my mother says.

“We’re staying put,” Dad repeats.

Mom places a hand on his forearm. She’s not going to fight him, though, as usual. I roll my eyes. Dad catches me.

“You mean you’d go?” He holds his fork over his salad in midair waiting for my response.
Or maybe to poke my eyes out.

“Well, no,” I say, “I don’t have enough information.” I pick at the remains of my dinner. “According to the news, there’s no comet in our vicinity.” I feel like a newscaster spewing regurgitated facts stored in my journal.

“Exactly,” Mom says. “There’s not enough information.”

“True,” Dad concedes, “but regardless, we’re staying put. A captain goes down with the ship. People go down with the planet.”

“What?” I argue. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Why is it ridiculous? We were born here, and we should stay here. Humans weren’t meant to time travel to other universes. It’s unnatural. If time is up, time is up.”

I can’t eat. “You mean to tell me that if there was a comet, you’d expect us to sit here and die?”

Dad slams down his fork. “No, I expect the UN to get involved and stop the damn thing. I expect us to wait as a family while the government does what it does best.”

As a family.
Mom and I look at each other. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Does she think we should wait and die together, too? Bullshit
.
I’ll be gone. They can kumbaya together all they want.

At the sound of the doorbell, I escape the conversation to let Dominick into the house. He embraces me in a soft hug and follows with a long kiss. How we were ever just friends for so long is beyond me.

“You okay?” he asks. “You look tired.”

“I’m fine.” If he had seen my condition hours ago, he would’ve called an ambulance.

“Strange date last night,” he says.

“That’s an understatement,” I add, swinging my ponytail off my shoulder. “It’s even stranger in here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

We pass into the dining room, and Mom smiles at Dominick. Dad stabs at his salad.

“Nick, let’s settle something,” Dad begins.

“Shoot,” Dominick says, holding the back of a dining room chair for support.

“What do you think about the whole vortex thing?”

“Vertex thing,” Mom corrects him, clearing her plate.

“Vortex, vertex, same thing,” he adds. “You staying or going?”

“Dad, leave Dominick alone,” I say.

“Let the man speak,” Dad comments. “I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”

Dominick laughs uncomfortably. He rocks the chair back and forth. “I have no idea. I think the whole thing is crazy.”

“You got that right. It’s goddamn lunacy.”

Dominick grins, but I see him stick his hands in both pockets. He does that when he’s uncomfortable but wants to seem nonchalant. Like when he talks about his father.

“A vertex and a vortex are not the same,” Mom interrupts. “Didn’t you see the explanation on the news?”

Dad blows her off and goes into the kitchen with his empty plate. Dominick turns to my mother instead. “No, what’d they say?”

Mom’s eyes light up since she actually has the stage. “Well, a hologram explained it to some scientists, and the scientists tried to explain it to us. They even drew a diagram, but I didn’t understand that part. Maybe you will since you like math.”

“Of course he likes math,” I say. “He’s planning on majoring in math at college.”

My mother’s face glows. “Really? That’s wonderful. Well, the holograms explained that traveling to parallel universes and through time both work on the . . . it sounded important so I wrote it down. Where did I put it?”

She searches through a pile of papers on the side table and grabs a yellow sticky note.

“Here we go—the ‘parabolic principle.’ It sounded fascinating, but I couldn’t really follow it. Part of it involves something called a vertex.”

Dominick rubs the stubble on his chin. “It must work on parabolas then.” I can see his brain turning. “Do you know what a parabola is?”

“No,” she says.

So Dominick draws one.