Between the Stars and Sky Read online

  There was nothing normal about acceptance; it is, after all, a word that sits very close to tolerance. And neither of those sleeps with normal.

  But with Sean, Miles did not care - not about who he was before. With Sean, Miles wanted to be someone worth loving, worth remembering the way he wanted Sean to remember him.

  “I think there’s no such thing as a fairy tale,” Miles told Sean, his voice steady and still. He didn’t know where he was going with these words, but he felt he needed to say them the same. Felt like he needed to tell more secrets, more stories. “Love exists, sure, but nothing like it is in the stories. No Prince Charming. That’s not realistic.”

  “Who told you that?” Sean asked him, a hint of a smile gathering about the edges of his lips.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who told you what real was? Who told you what defined love, what made a fairy tale true and not true?”

  “They’re just things we all know, Sean.”

  “Things we believe in and don’t. But you know what? I believe in fairy tales and Prince Charmings. I believe in love that is so powerful and romantic it takes your breath away and keeps you alive at once. You know why? Because when you take away all those fairy tale stories, strip them down, you’re left with the message that love is work. Love is a commitment. Love is strong and true and worth fighting for. And if those things are only found in fairy tales then I’m not sure what this life is supposed to be about, Miles. Because with you? With you I believe in magic because every time I look into your eyes I see the man you want to be for me, and I remember the man I want to be for you. That’s magic. That’s love, maybe.” Sean felt himself sink deeper into his state of anger and frustration built on the lies people told about love. “I tried not looking, Miles. I tried to do what people said, tried to stop looking for love so that it would find me instead. Because love finds you when you least expect it, when you’re not searching for it. That’s what they say. But what people forget is that in order for love to find you, someone has to be searching. Someone has to find you.”

  They were not in love. Not yet. But close. Even in the short time they had known each other, the past moments missed between them began to grow infinitely romantic so all they knew was how much they wanted love. Because love was hope, and hope they had. And in the dark, Sean traced the sky on Miles’ chest, outlined the shape of the moon on his stomach. Each finger drew a different path to Miles’ heart; one thousand of them, until there was no way Sean could ever get lost.

  * * *

  ONE YEAR PASSED IN the form of one day, slipping so slowly and so quickly time seemed to stop and start as it wanted, without reason or rhyme or rule.

  It didn’t matter.

  Nothing did.

  As dawn broke open the sky, Miles opened his eyes anew. He felt the morning in his throat, felt the possibility in his chest. Mostly, he felt Sean curled up beside him. Bodies together. Hearts almost touching. Hands intertwined.

  That close, Miles wasn’t sure what life was without Sean. Because there and then, he was so lost to Sean he was found, and Miles didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  There, he was.

  He. Just. Was.

  Finally.

  * * *

  LATER, WHEN HE LOOKED back on the day he began to fall in love with Sean, Miles wouldn’t remember exactly why he did. Sure, Miles loved Sean’s eyes, his smile. The way he said words and phrases like they surprised him. His innocence and his darkness, the same. His laugh. But exactly why Miles began loving Sean was a mystery.

  Or, maybe it was like fate; one day Miles was out of love, the next he was deep within it. Maybe love wasn’t so much about choices or values or reasons, but about letting yourself go enough to let someone in.

  No matter, Miles loved Sean.

  And their love began that day.

  The day Miles let himself go,

  so he could let Sean in.

  * * *

  BETWEEN THE DAY AND NIGHT, when Miles was beginning to let sleep take over, he wondered about Jackson.

  What was he doing?

  What was he thinking?

  What did he miss?

  And, most of all, Miles wondered if Jackson would ever come back to Huntington. If his best friend would ever face his demons like he so encouraged Miles to do.

  If they would be friends again.

  No, Miles thought. That wasn’t exactly right. Miles and Jackson were still friends, and would be until the end of their lives, but best friends? Miles wasn’t so sure. But he was sure Jackson would be proud of him now, of the person he became when he was with Sean.

  Not for Sean.

  Not for anyone.

  But because of everyone, because of Jackson, Miles had grown into someone else entirely in the space of an infinite moment. And he would never take that back.

  * * *

  “I DON’T KNOW IF I can do this.”

  “Do what?” Miles asked.

  “This,” Sean said, his hand moving furiously between them as though he was trying to fill the air with wind. “Us. I don’t think I do us anymore, Miles. It’s so... It’s too much around here.”

  The world exploded. “What do you mean?”

  Sean’s eyes were wet, panicked. “People look at us like we’re freaks. Don’t you see it? I can’t even look my mother in the eye anymore. She looks at me like I’m some son she never wanted. And I can’t even breathe. I can’t even... I don’t understand. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

  “You don’t feel like yourself with me?” Miles asked, his words falling like stars into the sea. Every single beat of his sentence blew into the air and splashed emotion up. He didn’t want Sean to leave him, feel this way. He didn’t know what to say to make it better.

  “I do,” Sean said. “But I don’t. I do and then I see the way everyone looks at me and I don’t want to be looked at like that. I don’t. Even your friends look at us like we’re something less than human!”

  “Then don’t look at them.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  Miles took Sean’s hands in his. He held them tight, never wanting to let them go. “Look at me, Sean. Look at me and I’ll keep you safe. Just don’t let me go.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “It can be.”

  In the distance, thunder clapped. The beginnings of a summer storm approached, marking the air with the scent of rain. Miles didn’t know what to say, not exactly, but he wouldn’t stop until the right things fell from his lips like rain from the sky. And if that took forever, so be it.

  Days passed.

  Weeks ran away.

  And still, some things were worth it.

  * * *

  MILES HATED ROMANCE MOVIES, but for Sean he loved them. “Stop eating all the popcorn,” Sean hissed under his breath as he pulled the bucket closer to him.

  Miles grinned but didn’t respond. Part of him loved this: Being a couple, having things to argue about. Having someone to blame things on. It wasn’t the reason he wanted Sean in his life, but it was one of the reasons Miles wanted him to stay.

  Staying, Miles knew, meant everything. It was when things got difficult, when they started to unravel around you, that you were tested. And when you stayed, when you chose to be a couple instead of not, that’s when bridges were crossed, mended. That’s when love was healed.

  But.

  “Queerbait,” a voice shot through the darkness of the theater, through the voices coming from the screen. It sounded a lot like Scott Samsen.

  Sean’s body stiffened next to him, and Miles stopped breathing for a second. He listened, sure he what he’d heard wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.

  He heard a girl giggle.

  Jessica’s laugh. “Fucking gays.”

  Gays.

  Miles almost laughed, almost cried the way the word was used like an insult. Like something less than human. And suddenly,
as the couple on screen began to hold each other and move their lips to the slow beats of a love song, Miles couldn’t take being anything less.

  He was on his feet, his eyes almost glowing in the darkness. His fists balled against his sides. His entire body shaking.

  And then the movie wasn’t there.

  Nothing was.

  Except Miles and Sean.

  His voice cut through the air, made shapes in the air around the dark void of couples unseen around him, and Miles could almost see himself screaming. “You think being gay is a bad thing? You think loving someone is unreal, unnatural? Loving is the most natural thing in the world! And if you’re afraid of it, fine. If you’re jealous, fine. But don’t you dare tell me who to be or who to love or who to kiss because you’re afraid of something you know nothing about. And don’t you dare think of us as less than you. We are people, just like you. We have lives, just like you. We love, just like you should. And if you actually defined us by those things instead of idiotically damning us to be less than you, well, you’d see we’re all the same. Just people trying to live, to love. Trying to understand. But you can’t understand and for that I am so sorry. Sorry you are so small minded that you can’t see love is love wherever it is. I’m sorry you’re so afraid of us, so unsure of yourself, that you have to shoot other people down to bring yourself up. And I’m sorry you will never know what it’s like to be so happy the world is as clear as this: I’m in love with a guy named Sean, and in our love the world is filled with an unimaginable kind of happiness. I only wish you could see it, because this? Our love? It is stronger than your words will ever be.”

  Silence.

  As the people faded back-

  silence, still.

  And then, as the theater began to rise before him in the afterglow of the concluded movie, Miles saw smiles. All around him, people smiled. Held hands. Looked at him as if they understood. He could not see anyone who looked upset, anyone who could have thrown such negatives insults at him, but it didn’t matter. Because when Miles looked down at Sean and saw tears in his eyes, he knew the only one that mattered was here-

  next to him.

  And in his heart.

  “Miles?” Sean asked, standing up. His voice was serious and deep, and it filled Miles with a sudden pang of regret.

  “Sean?” Miles responded. His voice was quiet when he wanted it to be loud, his fear rising up. He wanted everything to be okay. But he wasn’t sure if his words made Sean happy or not, or if they would be the end of something so great.

  And then Sean was kissing him, lips against lips as though the world were exploding inside them. As though the people didn’t exist around them.

  When he pulled away, Sean said, “love you.”

  “I love you,” Miles whispered.

  Not too.

  Not also.

  Just, love. Simple and pure.

  * * *

  “I’M SORRY,” SHE SAID, her words true and soft.

  Miles looked her in the eyes. “I’m not, Jessica. I’m not the same person I was before Sean, and I love that. I’m not sorry for anything because everything has lead me to this moment, to him.”

  “You’re not sorry about what you said?” Her voice lifted above them in a panic of anger, of hate. Each word was filled was the delusion that still meant something to Miles. “About not talking to me anymore? You’re going to ditch me for him? I can’t believe this! You realize you’ll be dead to me. Dead, Miles. I won’t even look at you anymore.”

  Miles simply smiled. He leaned in on his words, and even though he knew what he was about to say wasn’t the most mature of things, he felt his words in his heart the same. “I know, you bitch.”

  Jessica was stunned, broken.

  And then she wasn’t. Walking away from Miles, she looked like she could take on the world. Her back was firm, her shoulders high. Her steps confident and strong. Miles didn’t care.

  Maybe Jessica would never change; people didn’t have to. But even so, Miles did. He didn’t need her to prove anything to himself. Didn’t need a friend like Jessica, one who cared little about his life beyond what it did for her.

  Sean stepped beside him.

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Miles said, taking his hand. “But I had an idea I wanted to run by you.”

  “Run it.”

  “Let’s go away.”

  “Away? Where?”

  “Anywhere. Let’s road trip for the summer, leave this all behind and find ourselves in whatever is out there.”

  “Leave Huntington?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will we come back?”

  Miles grinned. “You never really leave Huntington, Sean. Our memories are here, our families. We’ll be back.”

  Walking down Huntington’s main street as the sun began to crawl over the mountain in the distance, a sense of peace filled Miles. Even though his heart beat in one direction, his mind found memories of Jackson. And in those most cherished memories, Miles knew this: Everyone always came back to Huntington. He would see his friend again. Someday. And when he did, Miles would forgive him in a heartbeat, in a second. No questions. Just love, always.

  In the end-

  of the beginning.

  * * *

  THERE IS A PLACE BETWEEN waking and dreaming where reality slips away but stays the same. It feels impossible to reach but closer than ever before. It is there where Miles found Sean, his impossible love. His heart. His dream and his reality.

  There is a place where love is infinite, and it is found between. Loving someone, for Miles, was perhaps the most reckless thing he had ever done.

  To love someone the way Miles wanted to love, meant giving up a part of himself. The part that cared what others thought, that joked and teased at those less than him, that was afraid of the person people saw. But even though loving forced him to lose a piece of himself, it allowed him to gain more.

  Sean was more.

  More, in fact, than Miles could ever have imagined he would be. More than happiness, more than bliss. More then even Jackson could be. And if he had to give up everything every single day of his life to stay with a boy like Sean, Miles thought he would.

  Sean was everything.

  To Miles. And that was, of course, the point.

  “Where to first?” Miles asked Sean, smiling.

  Sean, his eyes fixed on the last line of sunlight ahead of them, did not smile. Not at first. He breathed deeply, in and out and in again, until his shoulders fell and his body relaxed in the seat. Then, he smiled and said, “Wherever the road takes us. This is our time, Miles. The first moment in our forever. Let’s see what happens.”

  As the day faded, the two boys held hands driving into the night. One thousand times they had kissed since they met. One thousand lines had been drawn on skin and lips. And one thousand miles they would drive until the next thousand. Until the next. The next. One by one. Until the end of their forever.

  DAVID JAMES

  …is the author of the Legend of the Dreamer duet, a fantasy series for young adults. This is his first contemporary fiction novel for young adults. Living in Michigan, he has worked as an editor, a bookseller, and a teacher, and still dreams to one day be a Power Ranger. He lives for cool autumn days, gummy worms, bad movies, popcorn, and books.

  Learn more about David’s writing process at

  http://djamesauthor.blogspot.com

  http://facebook.com/djamesauthor

  Tweet him at @DJamesAuthor

  Table of Contents

  Before

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

>   Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  After and During

  Bonus Content