One (One Universe)

thought I was.
    “I, um. I walked home. I guess I left it…” I give myself over to the trembling in my legs and sit on the top step, look at him, and shrug. I can’t say anything because I know I’ll burst into tears.
    Now my lip trembles, too, and I must looked wrecked because Dad sits down beside me, looks at me sadly, and wraps his arm around me.
    “Is it…a boy?” He actually sounds hopeful. Maybe that I have enough of a social life to even be upset by a boy at all.
    “Yes…no…I don’t know, Dad.” I turn my head into his shoulder and really let loose, soaking his shirt with my tears. I’m so overwhelmed with emotions — excitement and confusion and frustration and exhilaration all knocking together in my head — that I can’t even figure out how I feel. Maybe letting the tears loose will free up some room in there so I can think. Dad rests his chin on my head and just sits there for a few minutes, squeezing my arm occasionally, letting me cry.
    “Did he hurt you?” Dad asks after a moment.
    “No… Elias? No. Not at all.”
    “Elias.” Dad turns his head into mine, kissing the top of it.
    A bright blue-white light pans through the front windows of the house, and I hear the hint of a car door slamming. Five seconds later, a light knock on the door.
    He is too perfect.
    Dad runs down the stairs, and I listen to his gruff voice exchanging with Elias’s younger, velvet one.
    “Good evening, sir. I just wanted to get this back before the morning.”
    I hear the clink of keys changing hands. How could I have been so stupid as to leave the keys in the car? Or did I leave them in the dirt next to the house? This boy takes my head away from me.
    “Thank you…uh… I didn’t catch your name, son.”
    “Elias VanDyne, sir. I have the same calculus teacher as Merrin.” There’s a pause, half a second too long to be normal. Then, “I won’t keep you any later, sir, and my curfew is almost up. But please tell Mrs. Grey I say hello.”
    “Can I drive you back?”
    “No, thank you, sir. It’s not too dark for an evening run. No one out there but the crickets and owls anyway.”
    Great. He runs, too. Of course he does.
    “Thank you, Elias. Be careful.”
    “Thank you. And good night, sir.”
    Dad closes the door softly and walks with measured steps to the bottom of the stairs, and looks at me for a quiet moment. I’m not crying loudly anymore, but tears still roll down my cheeks.
    After a few moments, Dad says, “Well, he’s hardly a monster. Right?”
    I respond with a hiccuped laugh, covering my mouth with the back of my hand and shaking my head. “No,” I manage. “No, he’s not.”
    “I’m going to let you go to bed,” Dad says. “If you want to talk more in the morning, you know where to find me.”
    I use the banister to pull myself up and collapse into bed — wet hair, bathrobe and all.

TEN
    T he next morning, when I try to turn into my golden-sunshine-bed-bath, I can’t.
    My whole body is heavy and thick, like lead runs through my veins. There’s a vague ache, but it sort of courses around the heaviest layer of my body, the one stuck to the bed.
    I feel the glow of the sunlight at the edge of my bed, can glimpse it out of the corner of my eye, but there is no way I can move my body to reach it.
    It must be 7:15 already. I’ve slept way too late. I should be getting in the car right now. I let my eyes close as the dull ache turns into pain and bleeds in a wave up from the small of my back to my shoulder blades, and for a few minutes, it’s all I can think about.
    There’s a knock on the door, and I manage to croak, “Come in.”
    Mom sticks her head in, says, “Honey? You feeling okay?” Her voice sounds like it would if I were underwater, like I’m in the bathtub instead of in bed.
    I move my head a bit, trying to shake it, but I’m not sure if it’s a “yes” or a “no.” Mom’s eyebrows furrow, and she steps in gingerly and sits on the very edge of my bed, her body not touching mine. She presses the back of her hand to my forehead, looks puzzled, then bends in to kiss it.
    “That’s quite a fever,” she murmurs. Then she puts her hands on either side of my face and says, “What’s going on?”
    “My back hurts,” I say, “and I’m so…exhausted.”
    Mom sits up straight, and her eyes widen. She clears her throat, stares at me for another second. Her eyes dart to the box of tampons on my desk. Then she swallows hard and speaks again, her voice