You, Me, and Infinity

Chapter One

“Hello from the children of planet Earth.”

—­Greeting from Nick Sagan, age six

People don’t usually talk in there, or even make eye contact, so right away I knew you were special. You were sort of slouched down in the chair when I came in. Wearing your old classic Levi’s and your bright yellow sweatshirt, the shade a kid would pick for drawing the sun. It really set off your hair, your black curls springing in every direction. You could pat those curls and they’d bounce right back up, but of course I didn’t know that yet.

I slipped my backpack off my shoulder and took my usual place by the table of magazines. You looked up and gave me a half grin. “You celebrating?” you asked.

It was a strange question, given where we were. Not a lot of celebrating happened in there, I was pretty certain.

I squinched one eye. I worried I’d find myself on the bad end of a joke. The end where someone’s making fun of you. At times, I was prickly and on guard, which was partly why I was there, probably. When people looked at me—­quiet, smiling—­they thought they were getting a flower. Something you could approach or even pick to bring home and stick in a vase. I was supposed to be a flower—­then, surprise, a cactus. Don’t come close.

“National Depression and Anxiety Week,” you said.

“I thought that was every day,” I replied.

You smiled all the way then. A big smile that went all the way to your eyes. Why that’s so rare, I’ll never know. Those things are supposed to go together, but sometimes there’s no twinkle.

It got a little embarrassing for a second. Awkward. We both were awkward in general. Me more than you, okay, for sure. I looked at the clock on my phone. I was early. I was always early. Being only on time made me nervous, since it wasn’t early enough. On time was practically late. But mostly I looked at my phone because your cuteness was filling up the whole room, and so was my embarrassment. Everything cringeworthy about myself had sort of busted my seams and was rising, like those films about the Titanic, the ocean surging into the rooms.

You got up, went to the watercooler. You pulled one cup from the stack, and, like, ten tumbled out and fell away from each other, rolling on the floor. Haha! It was wonderful; it made me like you right away, but still, I blushed in empathy. There was some frantic clutching and crawling as you gathered the cups, including one that had escaped under the nearby love seat. I watched your adorable Levi’s butt scoot around. Then you rose again, in a moment of now what. You held the unruly cups in your hands, wearing the expression of a baffled dad with a newborn. You glanced at me, and I looked down again quickly, as if I didn’t even notice the whole hilarious show. I punched at my phone to appear completely immersed and accidentally pushed some game I’d installed but never used. Suddenly, there was a blare of excitable cartoon music. A very loud blast of inappropriate, circus-­like mania.

So, we were a pair.

I peeked. Well, anyone would. Your energy, you know. You crumpled up the extra cups and dropped them in the trash like a criminal hiding the bags of cash. The kind of criminal who’s too guilty and full of remorse to be very good at being a criminal.

You pulled the little blue lever, and the water flowed into the tiny cup. I prayed that this went well. No more humiliations. The watercooler sent up a big, burping bubble.

“Glug,” you said.

I quietly snort-­laughed. You laughed, too. My phone—­so pretend-­riveting—­changed to 2:59.

Dr. Quentin Baleaf, the other guy, opened his door and came out. I had Winnifred Evans, MSW. I don’t think she was an actual doctor, and she was always late, but I liked her. She had a big, cushy bosom, as comforting as an old sofa, and an aquarium that didn’t smell the best, and those plants called spider plants that can give you the creeps, as they are indeed spidery. But she was nice. Dr. Quentin had a gray beard and round glasses, and always wore a cardigan, even when it was summer, and that’s about all I knew.

“Mars?” he said.

Mars.

You.

You raised a hand in my direction, a later gesture that seemed supremely confident. I could tell even then that it was uncharacteristic. You looked slightly embarrassed that you’d done it. Mars, with the heartbreaker hair and the sexy jeans—­you were, above all else, a dweeb, a one-­hundred-­percent, rare and beautiful, dweeb.

You followed Dr. Quentin Baleaf. The door shut.

All at once, I felt something in my chest, like a landmass ­shifting.

I typed National Depression and Anxiety Week into my phone. It actually was National Depression and Anxiety Week. Well, more accurately, National Depression and Anxiety Awareness Week. I wondered which one of those you had, or if it was something else entirely. I wanted to know more. Like, the whole story. Twinkling eyes are like stars, aren’t they? With the possibility of a million more, a whole universe.

I made note of the day and time, you better believe it. It was my usual appointment day, but I already had a plan. I would come exactly that early for my next appointment. I never saw you there again, though.

Still, I already had the odd feeling that I’d never forget you. Winnifred Evans said a lot of things about feelings—­that they weren’t facts, and that they didn’t last. That you had to hang on through them sometimes, because they’d change. Disappear, even.

She never mentioned, though, that some feelings do last. A feeling like love could. It seems unbelievable that, against all odds, against all circumstance, against all possible distance, unimaginable distance from the Earth and the sun, it could remain. No matter where either of you were in the great galactic sea, and no matter if it was 2:59, or forty-­five years, or timeless time, love could be the same thing as infinity.