Daniel speaks first. “Question thirty-four. What would you save from a fire?”
Natasha considers. It does feel to her like her entire world is being razed. And the one thing that she wants to save, she can’t.
To Daniel she says: “I don’t have anything yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
“Good enough,” he says. “Mine’s easy. My notebook.”
He touches his jacket pocket to reassure himself it’s still there.
“Last question,” he says. “Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find the most disturbing, and why?”
“My dad.”
Daniel notes that it’s the first time Natasha’s called him dad instead of father.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because he’s not done yet. What about you?”
“Yours,” he says.
“I’m not your family, though.”
“Yes you are,” he says, thinking about what Natasha said earlier about multiverses. In some other universe they are married, maybe with two children, or maybe with none. “You don’t have to say it back. I just want you to know.”
There are things to say to him, and Natasha doesn’t know where, doesn’t know how to begin. Maybe that’s why Daniel wants to be a poet, so he can find the right words.
“I love you, Daniel,” she says at last.
He grins at her. “I guess the questionnaire worked.”
She smiles. “Yay, science.”
A moment passes.
“I know,” Daniel says, finally. “I already know.”
DANIEL SETS HIS PHONE TIMER for four minutes and takes both Natasha’s hands in his. Are they supposed to hold hands during this part of the experiment? He’s not sure. According to the study, this is the final step for falling in love. What happens if you’re already in love?
At first they both feel pretty silly. Natasha wants to say aloud that this is too goofy. Helpless, almost embarrassed smiles overtake their faces. Natasha looks away, but Daniel squeezes her hands. Stay with me is what he means.
By the second minute, they’re less self-conscious. Their smiles drift away and they catalog each other’s face.
Natasha thinks of her AP Biology class and what she knows of eyes and how they work. An optical image of his face is being sent to her retina. Her retina is converting those images to electronic signals. Her optic nerve is transmitting those signals to her visual cortex. She knows now that she’ll never forget this image of his face. She’ll know exactly when clear brown eyes became her favorite kind.
For his part, Daniel is trying to find the right words to describe her eyes. They’re light and dark at the same time. Like someone draped a heavy black cloth over a bright star.
By the third minute, Natasha’s reliving the day and all the moments that led them here. She sees the USCIS building, that strange security guard caressing her phone case, Lester Barnes’s kindness, Rob and Kelly shoplifting, meeting Daniel, Daniel saving her life, meeting Daniel’s dad and brother, norebang, kissing, the museum, the rooftop, more kissing, Daniel’s face when he told her she couldn’t stay, her dad’s crying face filled with regret, this moment right now in the cab.
Daniel is thinking not about past events, but future ones. Is there something else that could lead them back to each other?
During the final minute, hurt settles into their bones. It colonizes their bodies, spreads to their tissue and muscles and blood and cells.
The phone timer buzzes. They whisper promises they suspect they won’t be able to keep—phone calls, emails, text messages, and even international flights, expenses be damned.
“This day can’t be all there is,” Daniel says once, and then twice.
Natasha doesn’t say what she suspects. That meant to be doesn’t have to mean forever.
They kiss, and kiss again. When they do finally pull apart, it’s with a new knowledge. They have a sense that the length of a day is mutable, and you can never see the end from the beginning. They have a sense that love changes all things all the time.
That’s what love is for.
MY MOM HOLDS MY HAND as I stare out the window. Everything will be all right, Tasha, she says. We both know that’s more a hope than a guarantee, but I’ll take it nevertheless.
The plane ascends, and the world I’ve known fades. The city lights recede to pinpricks, until they look like earthbound stars. One of those stars is Daniel. I remind myself that stars are more than just poetic.
If you need to, you can navigate your way by them.
MY PHONE RINGS. It’s my parents calling for the millionth time. They’ll be pissed when I get home, and that’s fine.
This time next year, I’ll be someplace else. I don’t know where, but not here. I’m not sure college is for me. At least not Yale. At least not yet.
Am I making a mistake? Maybe. But it’s mine to make.
I look up to the sky and imagine I can see Natasha’s plane there.
New York City has too much light pollution. It blinds us to the stars, the satellites, the asteroids. Sometimes when we look up, we don’t see anything at all.
But here is a true thing: Almost everything in the night sky gives off light. Even if we can’t see it, the light is still there.
NATASHA AND DANIEL try to stay in touch, and for a time they do. There are emails and phone calls and text messages.
But time and distance are love’s natural enemies.
And the days get full.
Natasha enrolls in school in Kingston. Her class is called Sixth Form instead of senior year. In order to attend university, she has to study for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exams and her A-level exams. Money is scarce, so she waitresses to help her family. She fakes a Jamaican accent until it becomes real. She finds a family of friends. She learns to like and then to love the country of her birth.