All the Love in the Universe

One. All the Love in the Universe-Marie

"At the end of the day, you still killed Stevie," the text chimed in the darkness. "We can never change that. All the love in the universe can never change that."

He was right, of course. How could I debate the cold, unabashed, stalwart truth? The only thing that could save us would be a time machine.

I grumbled a prayer of resistance and placed my phone screen-down beside my pillow. The sheets still smelled like Alec's deodorant and sweat. He'd been here just the night before.

It seemed like ages ago. Emotionally, we were in a new novel, this one rife with trauma of absence and the frustration of two stubborn minds. I hated this book. It seemed like it'd never end. I kept turning page after page and every time a new chapter appeared, it slowly lapsed into the old styles and phrases.

My brain sizzled like a steak, first a dull buzzing, then a mumbling humming. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the shoots of colors and forms that morphed behind my eyelids. I could watch an entire movie inside my consciousness: figments of my imagination tumbling, rollicking, interacting.

My temporal lobe was on fire again.

Every EEG I'd ever been subjected to showed activity in the temporal lobe. That delicate region of the brain is like a me-center, a hive of energy impacting personality, emotion, and perception.

And mine was alive with electricity.

Stress and insomnia ramped it up. Sometimes, I couldn't recognize my own visage in a mirror or photo. Sometimes, I lacked attachment to myself. That feeling we all take for granted? Self? What it means to feel at home in our own spirits and bodies?

Gone.

Vanquished.

Intellectually, I knew who I was. But emotionally? When the seizures were raging, I peered in at my life like a spectator. A Martian would have a better shot comprehending my Marie-ness. The effect was like being a hired hand in the personhood I inhabited.

Tendrils of fear and pressure encompassed my mind, squeezing me numb.

Alec was leaving. He was never gone, of course—the bond was too strong. But he was perpetually in the state of leaving: neither here nor there, his shape like a figment or hologram, vanishing as soon as it arrived.

It astounded me that he had ever been physically beside me at all. His essence was so transitory and wispy, my memory remained flummoxed. And yet, here, traces of him all around.

His tattered Cubs baseball cap perched on the dresser; a used bandaid curled on the floor. One of his songwriting notebooks laid open in a corner. I snuggled under the blanket within his baggy Fleetwood Mac shirt, inhaling his scent on the collar. Alec was never gone, but he was about as gone as he could be.

I knew he wouldn't text again today. His statement about Stevie confirmed my suspicion that he was on the road with the band. John and Paulson were mainstays in the Alec encampment. The trio had been playing together since junior high and had long since become closer than blood kin.

I'd entered the picture much too recently to be anywhere near their level. Ever since Alec and I had met, I'd known the score. I'd have to be twice as perfect to be half as trusted as the band brothers. The three of them had traveled the world together, squeezed in tight tour buses or airplanes, sleeping draped over each other like puppies in a heap. They knew each other's thoughts before ever speaking a word.

"When Alec catches a cold, John sneezes," Paulson liked to say. They were attached, moving as one to their shared destiny.

I was just the girl Alec fell in love with.