Ben went home for the holiday—he wasn’t going to. Wanted to stay with me. But I can feel those three words between us. The ones he had the guts to say, and I didn’t. I can feel him wanting more from me than I can give. Right now, everything is for Hannah. So I kissed him and told him to go to Brooklyn. Told him I’d see him when he got back. It wasn’t what he wanted.

When it gets dark outside, I grab my coat and head down the stairs, ignoring the closed door to my sister’s room. I say a quick goodbye, then head toward the T.

I’m on the Dharma Bums email list now, and they’re having a special meeting tonight, so I’m going. I want to look for the secret in the silence. My dad was always saying that you learn more when you get quiet. I need to learn more. I think maybe I have too much specialized knowledge. I know a lot about astrophysics and theoretical physics, but I don’t understand people. They are so different from theorems. So much harder to figure out. It’s possible that the hardest person to understand is myself.

I need the silence to tell me what to do. To tell me if it really was the right thing to cancel that interview. To tell me how to help my sister in the best way I can.

It’s cold tonight. No snow. Just banks of it left over from the storm. The D train rumbles behind me, a few blocks away, toward Boston Children’s, and I look over the houses and trees to where Nah is waiting for us to pick her up tomorrow.

My eyes flick up to the sky, but the sight of the moon tonight doesn’t make me feel better. It just reminds me how fast everything goes. The moon’s one light-second away, so every time you look at it, you’re actually seeing into the past. You’re time traveling. And I just want to keep going back. Not forward. Back. And back. And back. But I can’t.

I hurry down the sidewalk toward Beacon, to the T stop at Washington Square. The doors open and it’s pretty empty inside. Everyone with their families.

I don’t see him until I’ve transferred to the Red Line. He’s sitting across from me, staring at nothing. Maybe he’s seeing her. Trying to look past the stations that fly by, all the way back to Boston Children’s.