Eternal Love

The Friday before Hudson Moss died for the first time, we were paired up for a Physics project. Just as a warning, he does that a lot. Dying, I mean. I think it was a hobby of his or something, but more on that later.

Like with everybody in my grade, Hudson and I were familiar with each other considering we’d been going to school together since we were kids. Despite that forced proximity, we didn’t really have a deep understanding of one another. I wasn’t intimate with most people at school. I’m not exactly what you would call a social butterfly (no pun intended, it’ll make sense later).

That all changed, though, when Dr. Meyer made us partners for his stupid collaborative project about quantum physics.

When the project was first announced at the end of class on Friday, I despised Dr. Meyer with every fiber of my being. In all my years of attending school, group projects were notoriously repetitive. You either wound up with someone you didn’t like, or you were stuck with someone who refused to participate, leaving you to do all the work while they got half the credit.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Dr. Meyer, being the angel that he is, let us know the group projects would incorporate a presentational element to them. And that’s when I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was the Devil. Which tracks because in some versions of the Bible, the Devil is a fallen angel. I hope that fall hurt dearly, Dr. Meyer.

Beneath the fleshy trappings of a man in his mid-fifties was a monster beyond comprehension. His sunken eyes and spiky gray hair were just a facade for the maelstrom of darkness within.

I’m being dramatic, I know. In truth, Dr. Meyer was actually pleasant and wonderful, if not slightly energetic. But I hate group projects, and presentations even more so. Every student does. And every teacher knows this. Yet, they continue to incorporate them into the modern curriculum because teachers are a little sadistic inside.

When the final bell rang, class was dismissed. Dr. Meyer suggested we take the weekend to brainstorm. I was going to adhere to that advice, but I wouldn’t be thinking of motion or matter. No, I would be scheming ways to get revenge, to inflict on him the same discomfort and pressure he had bestowed upon us.

That’s a lie.

I was too lazy to do something like that. I would instead spend the weekend watching movies, snacking on my stepmother’s baked goods, or reading. That is, whenever I wasn’t busy sleeping. You know it’s a good weekend when you look in the mirror and see your face is chock-full of pillow lines.

With the school day over, everyone evacuated the classrooms. Some people lingered in the halls, discussing their weekend plans, and if they didn’t have any, they were hastily trying to make some.

Not me though. I gathered my things into my backpack and left. No goodbyes, no conversations, no hesitation. As my grandfather might’ve said, off like a prom dress.

He was from a different generation.

Sort of like my hometown itself. I live in a small coastal fishing village that is still reconciling the internet even though it’s been regularized for over fifteen years. It’s the kind of place people call quaint or nostalgic, but when you’re a teenager who has yet to breach those restricted confines, a better interpretation is boring.

But that’s fine. I prefer boring over chaotic any day of the week.

On the walk back home, I realized I was being followed. Don’t get ahead of yourself, it wasn’t anything nefarious or sketchy. It was just Hudson Moss in his rust-covered truck slowly driving alongside the curb. Now that I’ve written it, sounds both nefarious and sketchy.

“Kendra,” he called through the open window. “Need a ride?”

I almost told him no because, like I mentioned, I’m not the type of person you invite to social gatherings. But at the same time, my introverted nature was greatly combated by my overwhelming laziness.

“Sure,” I said, rounding the truck to climb into the passenger seat. “Why not?”

We lived on the same block, so I wasn’t putting him out or anything.

He reached over and unlocked the passenger door. Hinges squealed as I pulled the door open. Instantly, I was met by the smell of oil and grease which I hoped had more to do with Hudson’s part-time job at the local garage rather than the truck itself.

With my seat belt buckled, we took off. The engine sputtered as the speedometer hit twenty-five. The dashboard trembled. The windows and mirrors rattled. Every vibration reverberated within me. Kind of like those massage chairs at the mall except you’re inside a moving death contraption that could explode or crash at any given second.

Across from me was Hudson Moss. He was seventeen, like me, but stood about four inches taller. His jaw was cut sharp, but his hair, thick and curly, poofed around his head, softening his features. In the waning daylight, his eyes glittered. They were misty blue like opals, which you’d think would make him seem wistful and sad, but whenever I saw him, he was smiling and naturally vibrant.

Let’s get this out of the way right here and now. Yes, he was attractive. Yes, I had always thought this. Even when we were kids and he cried on the first day of school, I thought he was cute. No, my heart didn’t melt over him. No, I wasn’t helplessly in love or obsessed with the boy from my class.

There! Are you happy? Okay, good. Screw you for making me admit it.

While I was looking Hudson over, seeing him in a way that made my stomach clench with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, he said, “We should exchange numbers.” Noticing my perturbed reaction, he added, “That way we can talk about our science project outside of class.”

“Oh, right, about that,” I replied. “I was sort of thinking we’d just make a diorama of Newton sitting under an apple tree. We could have the apple fall on his head and just kind of phone our way through the presentation.”

He drew back in his seat, confused, but he was still smiling. “You know the presentation is s’posed to focus on our current unit, right?”

“And?”

“Newton’s laws were part of the last unit.”

It became very apparent why I’d been scraping by in Physics class with a C Minus. Still, better than my English grades.

“Okay, smart guy,” I said, “what did you have in mind?”

“I like Schrodinger’s Cat paradox.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

He laughed and shook his head. “What if we just get a cardboard box for our model and BS our way through the presentation portion by talking about observation and existence?”

“Wait, the diorama would just be a box?”

“That’s the whole point. Since the box is closed, you don’t know what’s inside. Without visible proof, you’re trapped between two states of being.”

“But we wouldn’t actually put anything in the box?”

“Prob’ly not.”

“That’s genius.”

As if to show a sense of humbleness, he shrugged. “What can I say, if you want to be an engineer you’ve gotta get clever.”

“You’re going to be an engineer?”

“That’s the plan.”

I frowned. “You are aware most engineering students fail, right?”

“And most people end up dying,” he said, “but that doesn’t stop them from living.”

“I’m pretty sure everyone dies. Not most. All.”

“You never know. Crazy things happen all the time. I’m just trying to cover my bases.”

“Statistically speaking, though—”

“Statistically speaking, some people are never recorded as dead,” he interjected. “They’re presumed dead, but without a body or a witness, they can’t confirm it. In a way, they are both dead and alive. Not fully one or the other. They’re simply existing outside of our plane of reality, unaffected by either space or time. Which I think would be great material for our presentation.”

Sad to say, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention during Dr. Meyer’s lectures to know if Hudson’s assessment was accurate, or even practical for that matter. I just knew that I didn’t have the evidence to refute his claim, nor did I possess sufficient knowledge to substitute it with one of my own.

So, I said what came to mind. “You’re weird.”

“Everyone’s weird,” he countered. “A lot of us just pretend that we’re not.”

“I’m not weird.”

“I bet you are.”

“How so?”

“No clue, but everybody’s weird. Even if just a little.”

“According to your theories, I’m neither weird nor normal until it can be proven through visible evidence.”

He scoffed. “You know, we should be writing this down to use in our presentation. Dr. Meyer would eat this up.”

After that, we exchanged numbers and he dropped me off at my house. We had until the last week of school to finish our assignment, but something told me we would’ve finished it within a week or so. That is, if Hudson hadn’t died the following Monday.

My name is Kendra Rivers and this is the story of how I destroyed the universe. That’s neither an exaggeration nor a lie, by the way.