The Sun Is Also a Star

And I have too. This is not the first time I’ve had these thoughts, but it’s the first time I’ve really been able to articulate them. Something about being with her makes me my best self.

I pull her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers. “What about you?” I ask. “You don’t believe in God?”

“I like your idea of it. I definitely don’t believe in the fire and brimstone one.”

“But you believe in something?”

She frowns, uncertain. “I really don’t know. I guess I’m more interested in why people feel like they have to believe in God. Why can’t it just be science? Science is wondrous. The night sky? Amazing. The inside of a human cell? Incredible. Something that tells us we’re born bad and that people use to justify all their petty prejudices and awfulness? I dunno. I guess I believe in science. Science is enough.”

“Huh,” I say. Sunlight reflects off the buildings, and the air around us takes on an orange tinge. I feel cocooned even in this wide-open space.

She says, “Did you know that the universe is approximately twenty-seven percent dark matter?”

I did not know that, but of course she does.

“What is dark matter?”

Delight is the only word for the look on her face. She tugs her hand out of mine, rubs her palms together, and settles in to explain.

“Well, scientists aren’t exactly sure, but it’s the difference between an object’s mass and the mass calculated by its gravitational effect.” She raises her eyebrows expectantly, as if she’s said something profound and earth-shattering.

I am profoundly un-earth-shattered.

She sighs. Dramatically.

“Poets,” she mutters, but with a smile. “Those two masses should be the same.” She raises an explanatory finger. “They should be the same, but they’re not, for very large bodies like planets.”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” I say, really meaning it.

“Isn’t it?” She’s beaming at me and I’m really a goner for this girl. “Also, it turns out the visible mass of a galaxy doesn’t have enough gravity to explain why it doesn’t fly apart.”

I shake my head to let her know I don’t understand.

She goes on. “If we calculate the gravitational forces of all the objects we can detect, it’s not enough to keep galaxies and stars in orbit around each other. There has to be more matter that we can’t see. Dark matter.”

“Okay, I get it,” I say.

She gives me skeptical eyes.

“No, really,” I say. “I get it. Dark matter is twenty-seven percent of the universe, you said?”

“Approximately.”

“And it’s the reason why objects don’t hurtle themselves off into deep dark space? It’s what keeps us bound together?”

Her skepticism turns into suspicion. “What is your addled poet brain getting at?”

“You’re gonna hate me.”

“Maybe,” she agrees.

“Dark matter is love. It’s the attracting force.”

“Oh God Jesus no. Yuck. Blech. You’re the worst.”

“Oh, I am good,” I say, laughing hard.

“The absolute worst,” she says, but she leans in and laughs hard along with me.

“I’m totally right,” I say, triumphant. I recapture her hand.

She groans again, but I can tell she’s thinking about it. Maybe she doesn’t disagree as much as she thinks she does.

I scroll through the questions on my phone. “Okay, I have another one. Complete the following sentence: We’re both in this room feeling…”

“Like I have to pee,” she says, smiling.

“You really hate talking about serious things, don’t you?”

“Have you ever had to pee really bad?” she asks. “It’s a serious thing. You could cause serious damage to your bladder by—”

“Do you really have to pee?” I ask.

“No.”

“Answer the question,” I tell her. I’m not letting her joke her way out of this one.

“You first,” she says, sighing.

“Happy, horny, and hopeful.”

“Alliteration. Nice.”

“Your turn, and you have to be sincere,” I tell her.

She sticks her tongue out at me. “Confused. Scared.”

I pull her hand into my lap. “Why are you scared?”

“It’s been a long day. This morning I thought I was being deported. I’ve been gearing myself up for that for two months. Now it looks like I’ll get to stay.”

She turns to look at me. “And then there’s you. I didn’t know you this morning, and now I don’t really remember not knowing you. It’s all a little much. I feel out of control.”

“Why is that so bad?” I ask.

“I like to see things coming. I like to plan ahead.”

And I get it. I really do. We are programmed to plan ahead. It’s part of our rhythm. The sun rises every day and defers to the moon every night. “Like the security guard said, though—planning doesn’t always work.”

“Do you think that’s true? I think mostly you can plan. Mostly things don’t just come out of nowhere and bowl you over.”

“Probably the dinosaurs thought that too, and look what happened to them,” I tease.

Her smile is so broad that I have to touch her face. She turns her face in to my palm and kisses it. “Extinction-level events notwithstanding, I think you can plan ahead,” she says.