Binary Star by Sarah Gerard Read Free Book Online Page B

For once, I feel good.
    I noticed my students looking at me.
    I didn’t know you smoked.
    I don’t.
    You’re smoking.
    I’m on fire. Just coffee.
    No food?
    I’m not hungry.
    Or I have food at the school. Or I ate before I came. Or I never eat lunch. Or there’s nothing vegan here. Or I’m feeling nauseous today.
    You know what they say: starve a fever, feed a cold.
    Are you sick?
    Kind of, yeah.
    I’ll buy it. You look a little overworked.
    We drive back toward the school with the windows up and the radio on the oldies station. My mentor sings along. Housewives jog on both sides of the turnpike in Lululemon activewear. Leaves dry up and curl into themselves, and fall from trees onto the sidewalk. Cars inch around the Burger King Drive-Thru.
    So, any plans post-graduation?
    “The next phase.”
    Exactly.
    Not really.
    That’s not what he wants to hear. We finish the drive in silence and pull into the school parking lot. Students crouch low in their cars, not wanting to be seen skipping class, but we see them. He turns to me.
    Your boyfriend lives in Chicago?
    Yeah.
    That must be hard.
    I don’t say anything.
    If you ever need to talk…
    Thank you.
    I sit in different parts of the room. I imagine someone seeing me sit in different parts of the room. This person isn’t John, but someone I imagine. Someone better than me. Someone luminous. A complete stranger.
    This person is a woman. She is young. She is thin. She is sexually magnetic.
    She has a lot of friends and she’s the center of her social circle. She has a lot of clothes but she doesn’t need to brag. She has men, only some of whom she pays attention to. They give her money.
    All of her beautiful friends are as beautiful as her.
    She lives in half-darkness. She hardly ever sees the light. She has her own light. She sleeps late in the day.
    She goes to the beach.
    She is constantly in motion but there’s no separation between her movements. She is fluid.
    She’s white. She’s so white, she’s silver. She’s glowing and reflective.
    You can’t take your eyes off her.
    I imagine what she would think if she saw me in this chair. I wonder if she’d be jealous. She wouldn’t tell me if she were. No, she has class.
    I change positions. There. I lean back. I curve. I reach around myself.
    If she saw me this way from a certain angle:
    I take a picture with my iPhone.
    From this angle: Take a picture.
    Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. I wait for comments. Retweets. Shares.
    I look for people to like me.
    I look at other people. I look through a whole photo album of someone I used to know. She’s lost weight. She’s married.
    She’s happy.
    She’s successful.
    She has money. Recognition.
    I like a picture of hers and she likes one of mine.
    I look through a whole album of John’s ex-girlfriend’s. She doesn’t know I do this. I do this often. I take a minute to change my profile picture to a picture of John and I kissing deeply.
    I imagine she notices.
    Sickness is reciprocal.
    Gravity is how we fall together.
    If you’re able to love, you can tell me what it means.
    The way space-time curves around it:
    Love is a black hole.
    Undetectable except by the way it affects other bodies.
    Invisible but strong. Inescapable.
    You have a leather couch that I’ve slept on. You have a field; I have a field.
    If you stopped talking, you’d fall asleep, John.
    (The red behind your eyes.)
    I know that about you.
    I sit in the back of the class. I haven’t been to the last two classes. My classmates know. They see how tired I am. I have a 24 ounce McDonald’s coffee on my desk; it’s mostly empty. This morning, I ate half a McDonald’s salad without dressing, cheese, or croutons, and felt it for hours.
    That’s a lie. I have a very poor sense of time.
    I can sleep with my eyes open.
    Make your hand still. You’re shaking. What does that say?
    You’re wobbling on your axis.
    I can’t sleep with my eyes open. Stop. Stop pretending.
    Write this down.
    (In your