Parallel

They’re bent over a piece of paper, intently discussing its contents. My mind calmly considers the possible reasons for this early morning meeting. They’re doing homework. ( For what class? They’re not in any together. ) Caitlin is helping Josh study for our midterm. ( Why didn’t she offer to help me? ) They’re partners on some extracurricular science project. ( Like what? And why hasn’t either of them mentioned it? )
    None of these explanations makes sense. And none of them makes me feel better about the fact that if I hadn’t come in through that side door, I never would’ve discovered what Caitlin obviously doesn’t want me to know: She’s been hanging out with Josh.
    Even if it’s totally innocuous, why hasn’t she told me?
    And why is Josh smiling at her the same way he smiled at Albireo, the breath-catching blue and gold double star at the tip of Cygnus’s beak? (Annoyingly, my test-prepped brain now proceeds to rattle off the facts I’ve learned about Albireo in the weeks since Josh pointed it out to me, like an idiot savant on amphetamines: 380 light-years away from the Earth. Thought to be a gravitationally bound binary system with an orbital period of seventy-five thousand years. Loved by astronomers for its striking beauty, which is easily seen at low telescopic power. )
    Move. Away. From the door.
    Part of me wants them to see me, because it’ll force them to explain what they’re doing. But do they owe me an explanation? Josh has made it clear that he’s not interested in me, and even if he were her type (which he isn’t), Caitlin would never go after a guy I liked.
    Then again, we’ve barely spoken to each other since the accident. We talk at lunch, of course, but not at all after school. I’ve been blaming crew practice, college applications, and a fictitious new cell phone plan with fewer minutes, but the truth is I’m hiding from her. If Caitlin knew how much time I’ve been spending at the hospital, she’d want to know why, and I can’t tell her why. Mostly because I know how she’d react if she ever found out what I did, but also because I can’t bear to say the words aloud. The refrain in my head is excruciating enough; speaking it would put me over the edge. If I hadn’t, Ilana wouldn’t. If I hadn’t, Ilana wouldn’t.
    I pull myself away from the door and hurry down the hall to G103, where a dozen kids from class are gathered, listening to Dr. Mann describe the phases of stellar evolution. Most of them look as panicked about our test as I feel. Megan is sitting by the window that overlooks the parking lot, her yellow backpack propped up in the vacant seat beside her. Saving it for someone. She keeps glancing outside at Josh’s Jeep, no doubt wondering where its owner is. She obviously doesn’t know he’s with Caitlin, either. So they’re hiding it from both of us.
    I slide into an empty seat and pull out my notebook, resolving to focus on nothing but astronomy for the next twenty minutes.
    “We have time for one more question,” I hear Dr. Mann say.
    My head snaps up. Already? I’ve absorbed about ten percent of what’s been said since I arrived and written all of three sentences in my notebook. The rest of the page is covered with doodled stars and lines connecting them.
    My hand shoots up. “Hubble’s law,” I call out, before he can call on someone else. Dr. Mann meets my gaze and nods for me to continue. “I understand that the universe is receding from us,” I say, “and that we’re receding from the rest of the universe at the same rate . . . right?” While I said I understood this, the truth is I’m only half-sure of what I just said. But Dr. Mann nods. “But how is that possible? Everything can’t be receding from everything, can it?”
    “Ah,” Dr. Mann replies. “Excellent question. And one I came prepared for.” He roots around in his pocket, coins clanging against one another, and pulls out a red balloon. “Imagine that this is our universe,” he says, holding up the balloon. It’s covered in black marker dots. “And that each of these dots is a cluster of galaxies within our universe.” I hear Megan giggle. There’s a half-eaten piece of butterscotch candy stuck to the old man’s sleeve. “Hubble’s law says that the distances between these clusters are continuously increasing and, most significantly, that our universe is itself expanding.” Dr. Mann puts the balloon to his lips and begins to inflate it. As the