Relativity by Cristin Bishara

Author:Cristin Bishara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury_Walker Books
Published: 2013-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Mom’s apartment is hollow without her. Every sound I make echoes.

Someone—Aristotle? Galileo?—said that nature abhors a vacuum. Horror vacui: the fear of empty spaces. Yeah, I abhor Mom’s absence. I hate the emptiness. After being with her for just a couple hours, I can see how vacant and silent my life has been for the past eleven years.

In this universe, Ruby has never felt that void, and she’s a different person than I am because of it. But now I realize that this Ruby is also experiencing a loss, and she will be changed too. Her parents are divorced. She’s suffering in her own way.

What else can I do? Somewhere, in some parallel universe, all could be right—no car accident, no windshield wiper through Mom’s throat. Happy birthdays, happy anniversaries. A safe and smooth ride through space-time.

If that universe is out there, I’ve got to keep moving. I’ve got to find it. I mean, I’d be an idiot to just jump in and out of the tree until I reach Universe One, when my own personal utopia could be waiting for me.

I lace my sneakers and hobble to the kitchen, my shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor. My Caesar salad sits mostly untouched at the table. I finish it, slurp down the rest of my soup, then nuke my pizza in the microwave. If I take off right now, I’m not sure when my next meal might be. I need to eat while I can, so I’m stuffing myself.

My dish clinks as I rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. I gather my things into my backpack and go into Mom’s room to snoop. I take one of her sweaters, pressing it to my nose before stuffing it into my backpack. Her messy dresser is littered with receipts, snapshots of Patrick in a football uniform, an iPod, and some coins and a few dollars. I help myself to the cash. Really, she would want me to have it. Before I stuff the bills into my pocket, I give Abraham Lincoln a nod. It’s somehow comforting to see that he’s still the face on the fives.

Her nightstand holds a thick brown Bible, a few business cards, and some clothes catalogs. A small electronic device sits inside the drawer, and I realize it’s a GPS. An ancient one with hardly any features, but it could come in handy, for sure.

After using the bathroom, I grab a bottled water from the fridge and put my hand on the doorknob—ready to go. Although …

It would be nice to have my pain meds first. I look down at my leg and notice that my jeans are tight around my right shin. Swollen.

What’s the rush? It’s getting dark, my body is craving sleep, and I’m about to lock myself out of Mom’s comfortable, warm apartment.

I take my hand off the doorknob and pull the copied map of Ó Direáin from my backpack. The length of my pinkie finger is about three miles on the scale, which means the high school is about five miles from here.

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