Reunion
He first appeared to her in a dream. They found each other at a train station during the morning rush. In the sun-streaked hall—a near-facsimile of Grand Central Terminal—Mimi waited atop a white marble staircase as a mass of faceless people flowed through. Humanesque blurs brushed past each other like in a time-lapse video. Indiscernible voices echoed. At the center of the room beneath a frozen-in-time clock stood a motionless figure. And for a second that seemed to last a lifetime, the crowd parted, the voices hushed, and he was looking right at her, smiling some strange smile.
When she realized she was awake, looking up at the cracked ceiling above her creaky single bed, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and tried to imprint the encounter in memory. But his face was already a wisp. All that remained were two curious eyes and lips curving up slightly at the corners. What stuck was not the visual of the dream, but the intense sensation that she had seen and been seen.
For Mimi, nothing was so unpleasant as the judgment of others. To be looked down at, disdained, or even the subject of sympathy was to exist in someone else’s mind in some distorted form. Although it was pointless to be concerned about the thoughts of others, Mimi made every attempt to shield herself from society’s assumptions. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible and offered few reasons for others to think about her. And yet, despite having been noticed by the boy in her dream, she understood on some level that his eyes were not judging her. Her body tingled as she thought about it and she lay still for a little while, savoring this new feeling.
By the time she arrived at school that day, the dream had receded and the numbing boredom of routine life had returned. The days dragged on, each more exasperating than the last, until Friday finally rolled around.
The day was almost tolerable. No moment of silence was held for Yoya Esterbrook, the boy whose tragic death one year ago rocked this nondescript northeastern town. Yet Mimi sensed her classmates’ eyes shifting in her direction periodically. Her friends put on a better show of normalcy. Between classes, she cracked jokes with them about how the chemistry teacher’s monotonous voice could literally put the class to sleep faster than chloroform. At lunch, she furrowed her brow as Emilia droned on about the suspicious behavior of her much older boyfriend Max, the loveable screwup and local pot dealer whose pattern of dating teenagers was a common topic of debate among their friend group. Mimi made sure to appear neutral as Andrew urged Emilia to “Drop! Him! Now!” punctuating each word with a dramatic clap.
These friends had occasionally ribbed Mimi about her apparent lack of interest in romance. In fact, Mimi had always been curious about the opposite sex, but she was cynical about love. She had been kissed by a boy once in junior high. She later heard that he had done so to impress his friends and not out of any particular fondness for Mimi. They didn’t speak again afterwards.
At the end of the school day, Mimi took to a secluded area behind a tree outside the school and lit a joint. She had just taken her first puff when Ana appeared, obviously troubled.
“Hey, Meems.”
“What’s up?” Mimi asked with little inflection of a question.
The two stood for a moment in silence. Mimi sighed and asked again.
“Well, it’s the anniversary of the accident, yeah?” Ana looked intently at the dirt threatening to tarnish her white sneakers. “His family wanted to see if you maybe wanted to meet them and chat or something. No pressure though.”
Mimi took a drag, held the burning smoke in her chest, and let some of it escape slowly through her nose. “Meet them?” she repeated. There were those expectations she hated so much. This was a family that had some idea of Mimi in their mind, that wanted answers she couldn’t give. “Who told you they wanted to meet me?”
“There was that memorial service at the church earlier this week.”
Mimi frowned. “I didn’t realize you went.”
“My parents wanted us to go as a family, offer condolences, that sort of thing.”
“Hm.” Mimi felt a bit sorry for Ana, with her pious, overbearing parents, but not sorry enough to hide her annoyance at being cornered.
“I told them that you don’t really remember much about the accident and that you didn’t actually know him—I mean, it’s not as if we went to the same school or anything.
“But I don’t think they have bad intentions. I don’t think they want to blame you. Just maybe get to know you...”
“And you were like, ‘Hey Mr. and Mrs. Esterbrook, I’m friends with Mimi—you know, the girl who lived while your son—’”
“—No! No I didn’t! My mom let it slip that we’ve been friends for a long time. You know she always liked you, she didn’t mean any harm. I think she was trying to tell them that it’s been hard for you. She said you used to come over all the time when we were kids but that you’ve been pretty quiet since the accident. Sorry, she just started going on and on and I didn’t know how to get her to shut up.”
Mimi put out the half-smoked joint and returned it to its case, then pressed into her eyelids with the base of her palms. “She shouldn’t have said anything. It’s none of her damn business.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Ana said. “So...Should I tell the family that you don’t want to see them?”
Mimi sighed. “Honestly? Yeah. I just really don’t have anything to say to them.”
“Okay,” Ana said, clearly relieved that the worst of it was over. “I have to go back in for tennis now, but are we okay?”
“Yeah, Ana,” Mimi said flatly, yet sincerely. “We’re good.”
Ana hesitated, but eventually the two managed a clumsy hug goodbye, and Ana jogged back to the building.
Finally alone, Mimi looked up at the huge cotton ball clouds in the sky and took a sweet gulp of fresh air, which tasted of early spring. She put aside the dread of arriving home and tried to focus on the nature around her as she unchained her bicycle. Why not take a detour to the nearby creek where she could listen to the birds and perhaps even catch a glimpse of a deer? She began to pedal.
The week had been brutal. She’d never heard them do it, but she knew her classmates whispered about her. Yeah, her, the dark-haired girl with the septum piercing and the Resting Bitch Face. That’s the girl who killed Yoya Esterbrook.
Mimi had never met Yoya, who lived in the neighborhood but studied at an elite private school in the city twenty minutes away. Beyond a bit of gossip in town about the cute Black boy in the Catholic school uniform, all Mimi knew of him she had learned from reading the news clippings after their paths collided in that awful way.
The wind rustled the leaves lightly when she arrived. She found a tree to rest her bike on and headed over to the creek. The breeze was crisp, but Mimi immediately removed her shoes and socks, rolled up her pant legs, and entered the water. It still retained some of winter’s frost. She let the cold creep up throughout the rest of her body. Even as the cold spread, she felt herself thawing—the way ice cracks when something is poured over it. She closed her eyes and took it in. To feel anything at all was so rare for her these days. Being so truly isolated like this, Mimi could finally be...lonely?
“Hey.”
A voice rang out in the quiet. Mimi’s eyes jolted open. She jerked her head, trying to find the source of the sound.
“Over here.”
She turned. On the other side of the water stood a figure with oddly familiar eyes and a mischievous smile. Mimi gasped. Leaning on a tree, here, so many miles from Grand Central, was the boy from her dream.
“W-who? How?” Mimi stuttered, feeling a chill unrelated to the water.
“You don’t recognize me?” The boy asked, tilting his head slightly.
“You’re not...Yoya?”
“Bingo!”
“But,” Mimi started.
“I know, we haven’t actually met. Not to mention you probably think I’m a ghost or something, right?” Yoya said. “Well, I guess it’s only natural you’d be confused, I really did die—here at least, but I’m not a ghost and I’m not dead.”
Her mouth opened as if to retort.
“Ah damn,” he said, surveying her face. “I spooked you, didn’t I?” Yoya scratched his head. “Let me start over.”
“You see,” he said, gesturing vaguely, “Man, this is hard to explain! I’ve always thought that if someone from the future or something visited me I would believe them right away—not that I’m from the future! Just a different reality.
“It’s nice to meet you in person finally. I’m Yoya.” He grinned.
Mimi had no words. She raised her eyebrows in horror.
“Okay, clearly you’re confused. Stay with me here. Have you ever heard of the concept of alternate realities?
“Basically it’s the idea that with every action, everything that happens, the universe splits up into different realities, and each of those realities continues along with the possible outcomes of that action. There are some realities where both of us survived the accident, realities where both of us died. In my reality, I made it out but you didn’t. The two of us were connected by that accident—and so I came here to find out the truth of what happened. And to meet you.
“Mimi?”
Mimi had broken out in a cold sweat. Few words had actually registered. In trying to process the situation, her brain began to fry. She blinked once. Then again. Her head began to feel heavy and…
“Mimi!”
Yoya caught her just before she fell into the water and helped her to dry land. She struggled to keep her eyes open but noted his presence.
“Are you okay?”
“I..don’t know…” Mimi mumbled, working to focus her vision. She felt Yoya leap to his feet beside her.
“Crap! I’m sorry, I can’t stay. But please come find me again this time tomorrow. I really want to talk to you. I’ll be waiting.”
A cryptic wind once again shook the leaves, but left as quickly as it had come. The creek returned to stillness.
As if in alarm, Mimi jolted awake. Her bed shuddered with the force of her abrupt awakening. Dim moonlight filtered into her bedroom through gaps in the blinds. Upon arriving home earlier that evening, she had sped into her room, right past the fragrance of her mother’s cooking—simmering onions and spice-marinated meat—and belly-flopped onto the bed, ignoring the caked dirt and twigs in her hair. Her hollow stomach lurched unpleasantly. Disoriented by the dark but guided by hunger, Mimi stumbled down the hall and found a cling-wrapped plate of leftover rice pilaf waiting for her in the refrigerator. After a quick zap in the microwave, she brought the meal up to her room and stationed herself in front of her laptop. In the dead of the night, the glow of Mimi’s computer screen illuminated the entire room.
Her fingers traced familiar motions. Google’s algorithm was equally trained, and with just two clicks of the keys “Y” and “O,” her thoughts appeared instantaneously on the screen, spelling out the name of the smiling boy she met a few hours earlier. In between bites of reheated rice, she scrolled past previously accessed links, searching for any unread news articles. She quickly found a story in the local paper published not two days ago. After scanning the article to make sure her name wasn’t mentioned, she began to read.
One year after the tragic car crash that took the life of 16-year-old Yoya Esterbrook, his legacy lives on. On April 3, William and Carol Esterbrook announced the establishment of the Yoya Esterbrook Foundation, a philanthropic organization that aims to provide mentorship and financial support for teens and young adults from troubled and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Heralding the new foundation’s work as “a guiding light for so many young people who may have lost their way,” Town Supervisor Eric Sampson thanked the Esterbrook family for their generosity and revealed a partnership between the foundation and local schools. In addition to new mental health counseling resources for high schoolers and an annual scholarship to be used for college application fees, students at the junior high and high school levels will receive annual presentations from foundation representatives on the hazards of driving under the influence.
Earlier this year, the Esterbrook family made a generous donation to the Brunswick Library for the expansion of its science fiction and scientific periodicals collections.
“Our boy aspired to unlock the mysteries of the universe and make the world a better place through science,” his father William told The Union Times at an unveiling ceremony for the library’s new Yoya Esterbrook Wing for Science and Discovery. “I can only hope that with these resources now available to them, young boys and girls with a passion for STEM subjects can carry the torch our Yoya left behind.”
Mimi shut the laptop, put on her pajamas, and curled up under the bed covers. The Esterbrooks’ invitation now made sense. I’m just a project for them, a charity case. She felt awful thinking they had wanted to blame her for Yoya’s death, but worse knowing she was being pitied. Even more infuriating was this whole driving under the influence business. She’d had a drink at Emilia’s party that fateful night, that was true. But Mimi had no memory of getting into a car that night—by the time she had come to, she was lying flat on her back on a hospital bed, hooked up to a heart rate monitor. As she wondered what it must have been like for Yoya, being raised by those holier-than-thou parents whose pale European features were so different from his, she drifted off back to the realm of sleep, uncertain of what the next day would bring.
Three raps of a knuckle on wood woke Mimi up. Along with consciousness came an awareness of how painfully bright the bedroom was. The cramped space was relatively bare and contained only a few notable embellishments. A bookshelf stood in the corner, packed with paperbacks once loved, since forgotten. A colorful mosaic desk lamp purchased many years ago at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar sat on the desk, and a collection of Instax photos hung from a string of fairy lights above it. Emilia and Andrew’s pouting faces peeked out from many of the pictures: memories of their summer trip between Freshman and Sophomore year, when Emilia’s older sister invited them to dog-sit at her Brooklyn apartment while she went backpacking in Europe. Elsewhere on the desk, buried behind a messy stack of textbooks and old homework, a framed photo collected dust. A moment of joy, frozen in time. In the weathered relic, Mimi’s grandparents, mother and father, brother, and a young Mimi posed in front of the Hagia Sophia. All smiles. No one could have known Mimi’s father would die of a heart attack less than a year later.
“Mimi, I am running the dishwasher. May I take anything from you?” A muffled voice called through the bedroom door.
Mimi groaned. Why does she have to do this on a Saturday morning? After rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Mimi dragged her feet out of the bed. She shuffled around the room, gathering various plates and cups from her windowsill and desk, and balanced them on top of the grubby dinner plate.
“Here,” she said, opening the door just a hair. Mimi’s mother, Betül, was a frizzy-haired woman with perpetually dark, puffy eyelids and kindly features. Mimi let her irritation at being woken up show on her face. She narrowed her eyes at her mother, who was balancing on her toes, trying to peek inside the room.
Their relationship was difficult even before the accident, but had since hit an all-time low. Not long after Mimi’s discharge from the hospital Betül suggested that perhaps Emilia and Andrew were a bad influence on her. How dare she blame my friends when she’s the one who shipped us off to this shitty nowhere town?! Mimi thought, and in a moment of blind rage, she yelled back at her mother: “Every bad thing that has ever happened to me is your fault!” Thus Mimi received the space she asked for, even if it wasn’t space she truly needed.
“Please do not stay all day in bed, Mimi, it is not good for you.”
Mimi passed Betül the dishes and immediately shut the door behind her. Her mother lingered on the other side. When the scuffle of slippers finally disappeared, Mimi’s shoulders relaxed and she rolled back into bed.
Contrary to her mother’s counsel, Mimi spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon sedentary. She left the room only for a much-needed shower and to warm a slice of whole grain bread. Eating buttered honey toast while sitting cross-legged on her mattress, Mimi scrolled through pictures of well-dressed Instagram influencers in far-off places. She watched longingly as they swam through crystal-clear waters, wandered through sprawling metropolises, and ordered obscenely decadent desserts from plush restaurants. She sat through three episodes of Twin Peaks, not pausing to attend to any of her body’s basic needs, until she glimpsed the time. If she was going to meet Yoya by the creek again, she might as well start getting ready.
“You came!”
Mimi had been killing time by the creek for about fifteen minutes when Yoya appeared.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” Yoya said sheepishly, stepping over a tall weedy overgrowth to join her.
“Me neither,” Mimi replied.
“Well, I’m glad you are.”
Mimi shyly avoided Yoya’s gaze. He looked over at the water and spoke: “You know, I used to come here a lot as a kid. In middle school I collected water and soil samples for my seventh grade science fair project from this exact spot.”
“You won first place, right?” Mimi said. She blushed. “I read in the paper.”
“It’s so peaceful here. Do you come here a lot?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “When I want to be alone.”
“Sorry, I guess I’m interrupting your alone time.”
“No—I didn’t mean it like that. I come here to get away from all the gossip.”
“Oh, right. Because of the accident.”
“Yeah, but also even before the accident people were always whispering...and then there was the incident with Emin.”
“Emin?”
“My brother. He’s doing well now. He joined the Peace Corps and went to Jordan to volunteer.”
“But?”
“I don’t know the details too well, but Emin was hanging out in the city. Some drunks called him ‘ISIS.’ There was a big fight and one of the guys ended up in the hospital. That’s when all hell really broke loose. It was as if everyone in the town had been waiting for something bad to happen—like they were looking for a reason to hate us all along.
“My mom’s Muslim so it’s always been like this,” Mimi explained, gaze turned down toward the dirt. “She’s not super religious...She doesn’t usually wear a headscarf or perform namaz every day. But when we were younger she made us go to mosque.
“I was actually born in the City—the real City—in Queens. But we moved up here after my dad died. For as long as I can remember, people in this town would treat us like freaks. First they called us ‘Al Qaeda,’ then it was ‘ISIS.’ My brother joined a Muslim student group and studied Turkish and Arabic. But I never really believed in organized religion.” Mimi stopped speaking. Unconsciously, she had dug a small hole into the soil with her index finger.
“I think I know what you mean,” Yoya said. “I go to Catholic school but I hate the way people use religion as an excuse to ignore facts and science when it’s convenient for them. I’d like to believe in God, but I hate that some people justify doing terrible things by saying God willed it.”
Mimi nodded. He continued, “My parents went all the way to Sierra Leone to get me. As if adopting an African child earns them extra brownie points in God’s book...Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for everything they’ve done. But I don’t think they ever considered for a second what it would be like for me here. They don’t know what it’s like to be different.”
Mimi’s heart skipped a beat. But I do. Tangerine streaks had appeared across the baby blue sky. As Mimi paused to think of a response, Yoya recoiled, wincing as if in pain.
“Sorry, that’s my cue. I have to go now,” Yoya said. “But can I see you again?”
“Yeah! I mean...yeah, that’s cool.”
“You know how to find me,” he said, and he vanished into the woods behind the creek.
Mimi took to meeting with Yoya at the creek after school a few days a week. Together, they would lie on their backs by the water, exchanging stories of childhood, family, and friends. A giddy elation passed between them. Mimi marveled at the miraculous circumstances they found themselves in. She experienced a thrill with each subtle flirtation. The world around her blossomed with new colors as unfamiliar sensations greeted her. Yet a grave sense of unease also lingered in the back of her mind, the understanding that such euphoria could not last.
At the end of one school day in early May, Ana joined Mimi at her locker.
“Haven’t seen you at SAT Prep lately.” Ana sneezed and blew her nose raucously into a sopping handkerchief. “Sorry, allergies.”
Mimi slipped a few books into her bag before zipping it up. “Oh really?” She drawled without looking up. With her head so full of Yoya lately, Mimi had completely forgotten about after-school SAT prep class.
“Is everything okay?” Ana sniffled.
“Yeah, of course.”
Someone cleared their throat nearby.
“There you are, Mimi. I need to talk to you.” Emilia spoke sternly.
“Oh! Hi, Emilia! Didn’t see you there!” Ana said with a jump.
Emilia’s eyes settled on the snotty cloth in Ana’s right hand and flashed momentary disgust. Quickly concealing her initial reaction, she found a forced smile. “Sorry Ana, can I have a minute to speak to Mimi?” she asked, voice dripping with honey.
Ana giggled nervously and backed away, almost bumping into a boy’s open locker door on her way out.
“What’s up?” Mimi said, shutting her locker without looking at Emilia.
“You know what’s up,” Emilia hissed.
Mimi turned to look at Emilia with a blank expression. Uh-oh.
“Andrew’s boyfriend told Andrew that he saw you with Max,” Emilia snarled.
“What? When?”
“Last week. Friday, after school,” Emilia said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter when—what the hell were you doing with him?!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit. Were you the one he was cheating with?”
“No way!” Mimi snorted. “I swear!”
“Don’t play dumb, Andrew’s boyfriend saw you. You barely hang with us anymore, and you’ve been super faded since right around when Max and I broke up. You’re trying to tell me that’s all a coincidence?”
“I mean, now that you mention it I guess I did run into him.”
“So you did meet him!”
“I mean, yeah, I saw him and said hello. But that’s it!”
“You’re so full of shit, Mimi. How many of my relationships are you going to ruin before you’re satisfied?”
Snap. “Oh my god just give it a rest! Why the hell would I be interested in that grody pedophile?! I’m not some slut whose self-worth is defined by whether or not I have a boyfriend!”
No, wait…
Emilia took a step back and scanned Mimi head to toe. “Wow.”
“Wait, Emilia, I just meant…”
“Fuck you Mimi. You always were a judgmental bitch.”
Mimi’s vision tunneled as she watched Emilia’s back disappear around the corner. She stood there, simmering with could haves and should haves. She could only think of one place she could stand to be right now. She ran out of the building and mounted her bicycle.
The sky over the creek was overcast, but the water was calm. She balanced the rusty two-wheeler precariously on a tree and plunged her hand into her bag, seizing the smoke case and grabbing a fresh joint. Hands shaking, she lit it and immediately took an enormous inhale. Better. She sat down on the ground with a plop and looked to the water. Smoke unfurled from the end of the joint and dissipated into motionless air. She closed her eyes.
“Mimi?” Yoya’s voice echoed from far away. He slid through the trees to join her. “What’s wrong?”
“Am I that easy to read?”
Yoya chuckled. “Kind of.”
She pulled herself to the ground and lay in a corpse pose, admiring the clouds drifting so free and far above. He lay down next to her. Their pinky fingers touched and a vibration ran up Mimi’s arm. The two stared up at the sky for what seemed like an eternity.
Mimi shattered the silence. “How are you so...positive?”
“Positive?” he asked in surprise. “Is that how I seem?”
“You know what you want and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it.”
“Is someone telling you that you can’t do what you want ?”
“Not exactly.”
“What is it that you want to do?”
She sensed him staring at her. “I don’t know…” Mimi mumbled. “I’m not really good at anything.”
“Not what you’re good at, what would you like to do?
Had she ever asked herself that? She mulled the question for the better part of a minute. “I want to move back to the City—like Manhattan, not Troy or Albany.”
Yoya sat up, brimming with enthusiasm. “You should go for it!”
“But even if my grades were good enough to get into school in New York, we can’t afford it. My family already took out loans my brother’s education. Not to mention the debt from my hospital bills...”
“That’s tough. Have you thought about getting a part-time job to start saving up?”
“It’s not that easy,” she said, closing her eyes in frustration. “The only jobs around here are in retail or service. I’m not good with people like you. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I know how exhausting it is to always be around these people living in their little bubble. I wish the two of us could just run away from it all, together.”
Mimi sat up and searched his face for signs of a jest. He continued to smile serenely. Warm blood flushed Mimi’s cheeks and she turned away, dazzled by him. An acute ache grew in her. A longing. An envy.
“It’s not fair,” she said before she could suppress it. Something long repressed frothed up and out of her. A voice rose in her throat and spilled out so low and soft it was almost swallowed up by the gently churning creek. “You overcame so much to get where you were. You had so much potential. You could have been somebody. But instead you died and it was all my fault...And I know what everyone thinks. They think if someone had to die, it should have been me.”
Nausea took hold of Mimi and she clasped her hands over her mouth. Darkness sucking her in, pulsing outward in bursts. She grabbed onto a tree and let sick spew out. Timed inhales and exhales and the warmth of a kind hand on her back soothed her.
When she finally returned to stability, Mimi took a moment to reconcile her thoughts. The last thing she wanted to admit to herself had become too obvious to ignore any longer. This won’t last. I need to face the truth. But when she looked over her shoulder, she was all alone.
The next day at school came and Mimi was no longer welcome at Emilia’s lunch table. When she passed Andrew in the hall, he offered her a sympathetic smile, but didn’t stop to talk. With nowhere to sit in the cafeteria without drawing attention to her spat with Emilia, Mimi headed to the school library. How strange that she had once considered the library a place of respite rather than of exile. The amount of time Mimi spent with a nose in a book had significantly decreased right around the time she befriended Emilia and Andrew. Not that either of them were anti-book. On the contrary, the two loved to discuss the Donna Tartt novels they had read and mourn the tragic loss of Sylvia Plath. But the geeky SF and fantasy books that Mimi loved were a guilty pleasure she didn’t feel she could share with either of them.
“Mimi? What are you doing here?”
Of course. Ana came over to join Mimi in the private corner of the library she’d tried to disappear into.
“Nothing much. Thought I could get some homework done during lunch break.”
Ana gave Mimi an all too knowing look. “Is everything alright with you?”
“Jesus, Ana! I’m fine, alright! Would you just leave me alone already?” Mimi said a bit too loudly. A few heads in the library turned in their direction.
“Okay,” Ana said, slightly deflated. “But just remember you can talk to me anytime.” And she left Mimi by herself.
The next weeks were a blur. Classes were suddenly being conducted in a foreign language. Staying awake through the day had become a Herculean task. A few times per week, Mimi and Emilia would link eyes. Each time, both would quickly look away. Mimi itched to see Yoya but to face him was to stand naked in front of all of her fears, past, present, and future.
As Mimi ripped off the May page of her calendar, she realized she would never truly be ready to face her fears. Tomorrow meant never. Later meant never. Eventually meant never, too. And the only alternative to never was now.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Yoya said, walking over to join Mimi, who was crouching by the creek. Mimi ran her fingers through the water, making little ripples, but said nothing. This time, Yoya broke the long silence.
“This is going to be our last meeting,” he said.
Mimi looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know this just isn’t sustainable. It’s taking a toll on both of us.”
“What if we pace ourselves? Spread our meetings out?”
“We both know that’s not going to work. There would be long-term consequences.” Yoya’s expression darkened.
“But you’re the only one I can talk to! No one else understands!”
“The people who love you want to understand. You just need to give them a chance.”
“What are you talking about? No one loves me, they all think I’m a waste of space!”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true!” Mimi trembled. “Emilia hates me, my mom is always judging and trying to change me, and Ana...It’s too late for me and Ana.”
“Even if that were true, what about all the people you don’t know yet? What about the love out there waiting for you?” Yoya asked.
“Ha!” Mimi laughed mirthlessly. “Not once has anyone ever expressed genuine interest in me. Every time I let my guard down someone tries to take advantage of me.
“On the night of the accident...Emilia’s boyfriend at the time...I can’t remember his name—no that’s not true, I do remember.
“Paul,” Mimi spat. “We had been drinking, but I only drank a bit, I remember that. Emilia was really drunk, had passed out. I remember that, too. I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and when I came out, Paul was waiting for me, totally wasted.” Mimi shuddered. “He didn’t really do that much, he just pulled me into the bedroom and tried to stick his tongue in my mouth. But when I pushed him away…”
‘Damn, Mimi, why’re you being such a prude? I thought Muslim girls were supposed to obey men!’ Awful memory after awful memory came tumbling out. Mimi tried to quell the wavering of her voice and began again. “He laughed in my face. I ran out and locked myself in the bathroom again. He kept knocking on the door. Wouldn’t stop. I...found a bottle of Xanax in the cabinet. I was in there for a long time...I don’t really know what happened after that. I tried to wake up Emilia and tell her, but she was so drunk she didn’t believe me. So I left. I must have tried to drive home because the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. And then I heard the news. That there was another car. And you were dead.”
Yoya looked at her with a sorrowful expression. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? How can you be sorry?! I literally killed you—all because I couldn’t handle one stupid asshole!”
“It’s not your fault.” Yoya’s voice was measured and soft.
“Of course it’s my fault.”
“I forgive you, Mimi.”
“You can’t possibly forgive me! You’re not even real!”
“What do you mean I’m not real?”
“I mean you’re a hallucination! You’re just something my brain made up to help me cope!”
“How does that make me not real?”
“Huh?” Mimi was stumped by the question.
“I’m saying, just because I’m not physically here doesn’t mean I don’t exist.” He flashed her that enigma of a smile. “Can you honestly prove that we aren’t having this conversation?”
“No...But that’s crazy!”
“How many people on this planet choose to believe in a god they can’t see? Are billions of people crazy? I’m not saying I’m a god. But is it so bad to believe in something? To believe that there are forces beyond our comprehension? That just maybe, with a different roll of chance’s dice, there exists a universe where I’m alive, a universe where you’re alive, and a universe where we can be together?”
“How can I know what you’re saying is true?”
“You can’t. But sometimes, what you choose to believe in makes all the difference.”
“I want you to be real,” Mimi said, failing to hold back tears.
“So then that’s what I am,” Yoya said, smiling again. He held her in an embrace. “But I think you know that I don’t belong here like this.”
“I can’t be here by myself.” Her wet cheeks were becoming wetter.
“You won’t be. You have people who care for you—even if you think you don’t.”
“But I’ll miss you.”
“Every time you miss me, just remember that I’m out there somewhere missing you too.”
They held each other tight, and Mimi could have sworn she felt his heartbeat. When the lingering sensation of his touch dissipated into the lonely breath of the wind, she brought her hand to her face to find that her tears had already been wiped away.
“Ana!” Mimi called out. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in June, she found Ana reading a book under a shady tree in the park near the library. “The Little Prince? Haven’t you read that a hundred times already?”
Ana looked up from the book and smiled. “I just love it so much.”
“Me too,” Mimi admitted.
“I know. You were the one who gave it to me in the first place, remember?”
Mimi joined Ana on the grass and stretched her legs out. “That was a long time ago.”
Ana closed the book and looked up at the sky. “I miss our little book club sometimes. Remember how we used to go to the library every day after school and just read together? My parents were always like, ‘If you love reading so much, why can’t we get you to open the Bible?!’” She giggled.
“...Ana, can I talk to you about something?”
Ana looked perplexed, but nodded.
“Do you believe that there might be alternate realities—as in multiple universes?”
“You mean like theoretical physics? I don’t know too much about the science behind it, but it’s an interesting theory.”
“What would you say if I told you I met someone from an alternate reality?”
Ana’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Can I trust you to listen to what I’m about to tell you, no judgment?”
“‘Judge not, and you will not be judged.’”
“And Ana, this stays between us.”
She nodded again.
“Back in April I started taking this experimental psychedelic.” Mimi said in a low voice.
“Wait,” Ana interjected. “Like a drug? Where’d you get it?”
“Where do you think?” Mimi asked rhetorically. Seeing Ana’s dumbfounded expression, Mimi quickly followed up, “We weren’t hooking up though! I couldn’t tell Emilia I was meeting her boyfriend, when part of the reason they were fighting was that he started selling harder drugs. I know, it’s bad, but I really was desperate. I was ready to do anything to cut through the numbness.”
Ana mimed zipping her mouth shut.
“Anyway when I tried it, I met…” Mimi bit her lip. She leaned in close to Ana and whispered, “I met Yoya Esterbrook.”
Ana’s face betrayed her surprise, but she listened politely. Mimi spoke of her time together with Yoya, of how easily she could open up to him. How terrifying it was to admit what happened the night of the accident. “I know I must sound delusional. But it’s not just that I saw him—I really felt him there with me. And maybe it really was just all my imagination, but I’ve never felt anything so real in my life.”
Ana placed her hand on Mimi’s. “I’m so grateful that you shared this with me.”
Mimi’s first instinct was to be suspicious of Ana’s kindness, until it dawned on her that she and Ana used to share every secret together. The two spent many playdates buried in a book and visiting make-believe worlds together, once upon a time. How real those adventures seemed! Mimi regretted the ease with which she had forgotten their friendship once Emilia and Andrew came into her life. Ana wasn’t cool. Her family was poor and too religious. But Ana had always tried to check in, even after Mimi closed herself off from the world.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been a good friend to you, Ana.”
“Don’t be silly, Meems.”
As the two friends sat together in the shade, listening to the breeze sway the trees, Mimi bid a secret farewell to her own little prince who lived on another planet somewhere in the vast multiverse. Perhaps he, too, was pining for his foolish flower.