“You make the coffee, I’ll make the eggs.” She started crashing around the kitchen before I had the chance to agree. Instead, I followed in silence and scooped the remainder of beans into the grinder. “Tell me then, why do you look good?”
I glanced into the stainless steel of the coffee machine. I definitely hadn’t miraculously unwrinkled in the last fifteen minutes. There was no fairy godmother situation. “Emerson, I’m in my pajamas and haven’t brushed my hair – or teeth for that matter. The delivery woke me up.”
Her eyes bulged. “It’s ten a.m.!”
I turned on the grinder before she could say any more, and yelled over it, “I was asleep. Not everyone gets up before the sun.”
She started cracking eggs into a bowl. “I wasn’t expecting you to be asleep. I was expecting you to be blotchy and tear stained, and rocking slowly in a corner.”
I stopped, ground beans in one hand, coffee filter in the other. “What? Why?”
“Because I spoke to Jupiter, and he told me about your conversation…”
“Oh.” I watched the first drip hit the bottom of the pot.
I knew her being here had everything to do with Jupiter, but I hadn’t expected her to say that, or be surprised at how I looked. I did feel good though; better than I had in a long time. More accurately, better than I had since I’d arrived in New York.
In the last three days I’d grounded myself. My world was finally spinning in the right direction again.
“Marn…”
I reached onto the shelf and removed two coffee mugs. “You know, I heard you once. You were talking to that friend of yours, the one who had a crush on Jupiter. The twin.”
A little crease appeared on her forehead. “Ainsley?”
I nodded. “Yeah, her. We were at Jupiter’s game, the one where The Dodgers’ scout was sitting behind us, remember?” Emerson took a second, and then she nodded. “I’d gone to the restroom. One of his fan club members accosted me, telling me there was no way Jupiter was going to stay with me once he got drafted, that he’d find a new girlfriend as soon as we were separated. I cried all the way back to my seat, only to hear you telling Ainsley you didn’t think Jupiter and I would last.”
Emerson had been watching me the whole time. Her hand stopped whisking the eggs and flew to her mouth. “Oh, Marnie, I wouldn’t have meant it…”
“I know,” I muttered, my mouth turned downward, “but I loved him so much, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him – or him leaving me. I did what I thought was the best thing for us; it wasn’t a big deal for me to stay in school another year, and it definitely wasn’t as big a deal as he seemed to think, so I requested to stay. I was seventeen, Emerson. I was trying to keep us together but he left anyway, and I always wondered why. Wondered what happened. I drove myself crazy for years. I blocked him out of my life so I’d stop thinking about it.”
She reached out and touched her hand to mine, but I wasn’t done.
“It was easier than I thought it would be. The M.I.T. School of Engineering is where you want to go if a baseball player breaks your heart. Science nerds do not compare,” I laughed dryly. “The past month, I’ve been falling back in love with him. There was noway I could stop it, but he’s been buying houses, and telescopes, and a boxes of LifeSavers, and planning our future, while I’ve been lying awake too scared to sleep in case he decided the next morning that he was done with me again. I’ve been trying to protect myself…” I laughed through my words, because I was done with beating myself up. “Turns out, I was the cause in the first place.”
Emerson looked at me like I was a little crazy. Maybe I was, because over the last three days I’d realized something that I probably should have realized a long time ago… especially as a scientist.
I couldn’t control the future; I could only control my choices.
And I choose Jupiter.
“It wasn’t easy on him either you know.” The eggs sizzled as Emerson poured them into the hot pan. “The weeks after the draft, he was a mess. It’s the first time I remember him really crying… like not from a ball smashing into his face or something, really hard sobbing. I heard him one night and didn’t know what to do. He was my big brother, but for two weeks, he only left his room to eat or train.”
I blinked. My heart skipped a beat. He’d told me over and over that our breakup had been hard on him too, but to hear it from someone else really helped it sink in. “Really?”
“Yes. And this time I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I watched the game last night. The only time he plays that badly is when it’s to do with you.” She frowned at me. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because I watched the game, too. He did play badly, didn’t he?”
She narrowed her eyes as she scraped the eggs onto the plates I’d laid out. I poured out two cups of coffee, pushing one over to her.
“So tell me why you’re okay, and you look like you’ve slept for a week. The other day you looked tired… hot, but tired,” she added with a grin.
“Because I have. I’ve almost slept solidly, but I also had sleep to make up for.”
She stared, waiting for the real answer.
“Jupiter stormed out the other night and told me to figure out what I wanted my future to look like, but I already knew. I wanted my future to beourfuture; I’ve never not wanted that. I was just scared of it all blowing up; scared of him leaving me on the doorstep again… Except when he did, I expected it to be a thousand times worse than it was.” I took a massive bite of my toast and eggs. Sleeping had almost given me a bigger appetite than sex. “Understanding that I was partly responsible for our breakup lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, and when I finally stopped crying, I slept. And sleeping really helps you think clearly.”
