Outside of Our Universe

Chapter 21

It's so strange how once something is over, everything else goes back to being the same. The journey from MIT back home isn't nearly as long or treacherous by car as it is by foot. Ms. Worshire drives silently, her hands firmly placed on the steering wheel.

We pull up to the curb of our house at 11:55am. The big white house gleams in the sunlight, an illusion of happiness. That place might be my house, but it is no home to me. It is a prison, firmly locking me away from the outside world.

Ms. Worshire takes out her keychain from her purse. The keys clink against a souvenir keyring that says 'Uncle Larry's Tavern' in bright neon letters. She walks to the front door and unlocks it.

"Welcome home!" Ms. Worshire says cheerfully.

I stand still in front of the door.

Ms. Worshire frowns. "It's okay, Nova. It really is. I'm not mad at you. Just come inside."

She pats me gently on the back.

I want to believe that everything will really be okay, that everything is fine the way it is. But I now that I have experienced so much more than my old life, it's hard to go back.

I don't want to go back.

Ms. Worshire coaxes me into the house. I reluctantly step inside. She closes the door behind me, shutting me back into the tiny world I was raised in.

Why did he make me leave?

"Well then," Ms.Worshire says, clearing her throat. "Would you like some lunch?"

Since things are back to normal, I go back to not talking.

"Nova," she says admonishingly.

I ignore her and walk up to my room, dragging my backpack with me.

My room is not the same as it used to be. It is a mess. The closet doors are wide open, but nothing is inside them. My clothes are scattered across the room in piles of shirts and dresses. For some reason, my drawers have been emptied out as well, and my books are all out of order.

"Oh, sorry about that, love," Ms. Worshire says as she passes by, "I was looking to see if you had hidden in your room somewhere and made quite a mess of things."

I sigh, taking a blue shirt from the floor and start folding. I go through the piles one by one and start to organize things and put them back into their original places. The dresses go in the closet, the shirts go in the top drawer, the books go on the shelf...

Why did he make me leave?

I remember when I was little, I went up to my mother one day, crawled up onto her lap, and asked her why Father had left us.

"Well... Nova... before you were born, your father was a very busy man. He was always stressed out, and he wasn't very good at keeping a job..."

She trailed off for a while before getting back on track.

"It's very hard to explain, Nova," she said. "See, your father was a hard-working man, and he always wanted the best for us. It's just that, some people, they can't deal with the responsibilities of life, or maybe they're scared... When your father found out that I was going to have you, he was very scared. He wasn't ready, and he just didn't feel like he could take that responsibility. So he just ... he left."

I never really ever understood why he left. I still don't. I don't think Mother really understood why he left either. But I know that she missed him. She liked to talk about him, and she did so very fondly. She enjoyed telling stories about Father.

"He was a very handsome and intelligent man," she would say. "I think that's why we got along so well, because we're both smart people. He wasn't from Massachusetts. He lived in Boston. We met one day at a science seminar."

"What was his job?" I asked one night during dinner.

"Oh, he was a biologist," she would say affectionately. "You know, bacteria, birds, butterflies... his favourite animals were butterflies. He loved them so much. He loved how beautiful and free they are, and how they can fly around in the air..."

Mother loved to talk about Father whenever I asked her to.

"I think it was love at first sight, Nova. He bumped into me at the water fountain and I was so amazed by him that I spilled water all over his blue shirt!"

I laughed at this because it sounded so silly to me.

"I wore my red dress with butterflies for our first date. He told me I looked stunning..."

It's funny to think that Mother ever had a love life. She was always so alone in taking care of me.

"That night, we danced until the sun came up. It was magical."

Mother had experienced love before. She knew what it was like. I could see it in her eyes. That look, that feeling she had when she talked about Father.

"He was a good man, Nova." She always reminded me of that.

I don't really understand how a good man can leave the people he loves most behind, but Mother had never told me a lie before, so I believed her anyway.

It's just another thing that I will never understand.

At 3pm, my room is finally tidy again. All my books are in order on the shelf, all my clothes are back in the closet, and all my papers and stationary are put away in their drawers. My bed is made, my sheets are neat, and there is not a single speck of dust in sight.

My backpack is still sitting in the corner of my room, completely packed. I decide to leave it that way. I sit in the middle of my room on the floor. The time goes by. Everything is back to normal. Back to the days of mediocrity. I don't bother to read any textbooks or use my telescope because I know that they won't make me happy anymore. But I know what will definitely make me happy.

Going back to Nathan.

I just wish I could go back to Nathan, to the one person who cared about me and understood me. The father I never had. The person who was gentle and kind like my mother. The person who gave me more in life than I ever could have wished for since Mother died.

At 4pm, I go to the kitchen and get a snack. I open the cabinet and pull out two pieces of soft white bread. I take out the peanut butter jar and a knife and make myself a sandwich. I mope around the kitchen, only eating tiny bites of the sandwich.

Ms. Worshire hears my feet against the ground and comes into the kitchen.

"You can have dinner soon, Nova. Just give me a little while." She walks over to a second cabinet and takes out a dingy old bottle, trying to hide it under her cardigan, and retreats back into her room quickly.

I look out of the kitchen window as the sunlight slowly fades from the sky. The last ray of sunlight peeks through the ominous gray clouds before disappearing quietly. The sky changes its beautiful shade of blue from a bright sapphire to a dark periwinkle colour, until it finally settles into twilight and stars start to twinkle from high up above.

At least there is still some beauty left for me to see.

I reminisce about yesterday. I remember how we sat in the sand and watched the sun set over the big blue sea and the moving white waves.

It was all so much better.

Why did it have to end? Why did he send me away? Why did he let this happen to me?

He promised. People aren't supposed to break promises. But I guess some people do after all.

I remember seeing Mother mope around the house when I was very very young, looking out the window and at that special city miles away, searching hopelessly for what she had lost.

Mother knew what it feels like to have someone leave your life. That feeling of emptiness, that nagging pain of despair, knowing that they chose to leave you and that they won't ever come back.

Now I know that feeling too.