BooksBarbecue
Back Dear Universe Save as PDF
Contents ( 64)
  1. Copyright
  2. Contents
  3. Prologue
  4. {OCTOBER}
  5. Days ’til prom: Eons
  6. 1
  7. SECOND HALF OF SENIOR YEAR {JANUARY}
  8. Days ’til prom: 103
  9. 2
  10. Days ’til prom: Still 103
  11. 3
  12. Days ’til prom: 100
  13. 4
  14. Days ’til prom: Still 100
  15. 5
  16. Days ’til prom: 89
  17. {FEBRUARY}
  18. Days ’til prom: 83
  19. 6
  20. Days ’til prom: Still 83
  21. 7
  22. Days ’til prom: 65
  23. Days ’til prom: 64
  24. 8
  25. Days ’til prom: 61
  26. Days ’til prom: 57
  27. 9
  28. {MARCH}
  29. Days ’til prom: 51
  30. 10
  31. Days ’til prom: Still 51
  32. 11
  33. Days ’til prom: 50
  34. 12
  35. Days ’til prom: 49
  36. Days ’til prom: 48
  37. 13
  38. Days ’til prom: Still 48
  39. 14
  40. Days ’til prom: Seems irrelevant now
  41. 15
  42. Days ’til graduation: 31
  43. 16
  44. Days ’til graduation: 30
  45. 17
  46. {APRIL}
  47. Days ’til graduation: 17
  48. 18
  49. Days ’til graduation: 11
  50. Days ’til graduation: 6
  51. 19
  52. Days ’til graduation: 5
  53. 20
  54. Days ’til graduation: Still 4
  55. 21
  56. Days ‘til graduation: Still 2
  57. 22
  58. Days ’til graduation: Still 2, but minus a few hours
  59. Epilogue
  60. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  61. PRAISE FOR
  62. Dear Universe
  63. PRAISE FOR
  64. Love & Other Carnivorous Plants

G hope everything’s okay with your family

10:36 AM

I’m sorry about everything C

10:36 AM

Phone’s gonna die C

10:36 AM

Ttys C

Sometime in the middle of the night, they moved my dad to a new room, where they gave him more pills. Here, in between bouts of kind of sleeping and checking texts, I look at people’s feeds for updates from Senior Night: Gene and Doug stuffing pizza in each other’s mouth, Abigail dancing with Helga in the moon bounce, Josie winning the superlative Most Likely to Succeed. In one picture of Hilary’s, I see Gene talking closely with Helga at the drinks table, and it makes me want to throw my phone down. I know it’s stupid to be jealous, but sometimes I’m stupid. Eventually I turn my phone off. Maybe if I don’t see any more pictures or texts or calls, I won’t have missed anything at all.

“You’re awake,” my mom whispers as she comes into the room holding a disposable cup of sludge. “The doctor will be in soon.”

“Dad’s been asleep a long time,” I say, looking over at him in the bed.

“It was the medicine,” my mom says for like the eighth or eighteenth time. I help myself to some of her coffee.

“He was really agitated. He was saying all these things, that I disappointed him.” I puncture the rim of the cup with my nails, carving out little moons in the material.

“He didn’t mean it. Just remember, it’s not him, it’s—”

“I know. The disease.” I try to see my reflection in the dark liquid surface of the coffee, but you know that feeling of looking and looking and still not seeing?

“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep,” my mom offers, straightening her back to meet the doctor who’s talking to a nurse outside the doorway. “Or maybe text Abigail or go for a run. It’d be good to get out of here for a bit.”

I shake my head. My bones feel too heavy to run. “I’ll stay. I’m just gonna get some breakfast.”

“Okay. Give yourself a break, Cham. This stuff always takes a while.”

I stand and nod. When I’m in the hallway I look back. My mom’s in the seat by my dad’s bed, and he’s sleeping so deeply he’s not even snoring.

That’s when I realize that this could be it. It it. Up until now I hadn’t thought about there being a real ending to this. Sure, I’d thought about an ending, but an ending is different from the ending. An end is prom and graduation and Nicaragua. But the end, the Real End, is a lot more final than that. It’s completely and totally irreversible, and it could be anytime, from now to years from now. I walk toward the stairs. The only real deadline is the final one. It’s not up to any of us and we can’t push it back.

image