Between the Stars and Sky Read online

“Anytime,” she says as her hands move around the counter finding things I didn’t think went into coffee. “I don’t go for those types of guys, anyway. Too macho and way too obsessed with ordering girls around. If I wanted a bad boy I’d go to a bookstore.”

  “Bad boys visit bookstores?” I ask.

  “Sure,” she says. “They’re the only thing you can find between the pages these days. I want something more than bad. Something so good it hurts. I want something that rips me apart and puts me back together. Something that kills me and then gives me life. Don’t you want that?”

  My thoughts are wild. I want that, what she said. I want a reason for existing that makes me whole. And for a tiny moment, I wonder how she can still believe in something like that if what Mrs. Porter said is true. Or, if maybe she needs to believe it. Like I want to. “Are we talking about books or-”

  “We’re talking about books and life, Jackson Grant. Same things, really.”

  “How do you know my last name?” I ask her.

  “Miles is my friend. We talk.”

  “Is that right, Sarah Blake?”

  “Miles is a talker.”

  “That he is.”

  “Anyway, don’t you want a life that is equal parts love and lust?”

  “Isn’t lust bad?”

  “Lust is just the wanting. Love is what makes things last. Love is having faith in the relationship and knowing it will be the best thing in the world if you let it.”

  “Faith? I’m not really in the mood for a sermon.”

  She asks, “Don’t you have faith?”

  I smile slow and sad and say, “No, I don’t believe in anything religious like that. Don’t believe anyone can know the entire truth.”

  It’s her turn to smile. “Faith isn’t about that, Jackson. It’s not about God or church or bibles or good or bad or anything. Shit, I mean religion isn’t even about religion these days; it’s so organized it’s chaotic. A lot of people turn faith into something religious when all it’s meant to be is the belief in something we can’t see. That’s all it is; believing. Like love. Do you believe in love?”

  “Yes, I think.”

  “Have you ever seen love?”

  “Of course.”

  She laughs. “I mean actual love. Not two people kissing or getting married or whatever. Have you seen love, witnessed it? Seen it walk down the street? Seen what color love is?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t think love can be defined so easily like that.”

  “That’s faith. Believing in what you can’t see. In the American Dream or in true love or in a happily ever after when things suck.” She hands me my drink. “Here’s your Americano.”

  “I ordered a coffee.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Have a little faith, Jackson.”

  I do.

  I don’t.

  Maybe someday.

  * * *

  The Firelight Fall will end this-

  summer at the Point during the final night of the Firelight Festival. All teenagers above the age of sixteen are welcome to jump, if they dare. If they know where the invitations are hidden; below the darkest can of paint, under the floorboard, in the storage room at the back of Jameson’s. No invitation, no jump. Too bad if they’re gone when you find the secret spot, you can’t jump without one. People have tried and failed; the Firelight Fall is so secret that if you dare try and even begin to run toward the cliff no less than ten teens will attack you, jump on you, make you wish you were falling off a cliff instead of bleeding in the dirt. I’ve seen it happen, once.

  The Firelight Fall is a love story.

  I grip my invitation, and I remember the story like this: Long ago, a man named Jameson met a woman named Emily in this tiny town named Huntington. They fell in love at the Point, swimming in sin and sunshine. He loved her with all his heart, and she loved him back. Years went by in happiness, until the end of one summer when autumn was just beginning. Jameson and Emily had shared a sunset at the Point when, just after midnight, they decided to jump from the cliff and into the water where they met. This, they thought, would prove their love; an act of bravery, of wonder, of feeling nothing but being so alive as their hearts roared as they fell through the air. By the light of their campfire, the only thing Emily loved more than Jameson, they held hands and ran toward to cliff.

  One survived. One did not.

  But Jameson could never leave Huntington, and eventually opened the hardware store and began the Firelight Festival to honor his love, Emily.

  I will jump.

  I will survive this.

  Chapter Four

  I HAVE A SECRET.

  Let me tell it.

  Let me whisper it.

  I do not remember my dreams.

  Never. Darkness terrifies me. It beats in my heart like time moving too quickly; dark memories haunting every second of my dreams like poisons coursing through my veins until they grab my heart and my entire world fades hopelessly to black.

  This night is like that, so inky-dark it seems like it might never break for morning. Caliginous clouds race across the sky, dropping rain so it pelts against my window, falls slowly down the pane like tears-

  and beats against my heart like screams.

  Not once have I remembered-

  not since before. But if I did remember my dreams, if I did believe in them like I used to, I would paint them the color of stars. White and blue and black. Yellow and red when you looked closer. And then, when you were right in the middle living it and breathing it and feeling it, the dream would flash purple and pink and be so beautiful it would break your heart like a supernova.

  But.

  I don’t believe.

  Not anymore.

  Not since.

  Before.

  Chapter Five

  THIS FAR INTO SUMMER, the weather should be warm but, morning is laced with cool and quiet air, just cold enough to make the beach darker. And beyond where the waves touch the everlasting sky is a dangerous mix of sea and storm. Colors bend together like moments unable to find time.

  I want this forever: A world where everything is not what it has to be, but what it is. Just is. And maybe the world changes by the hour, minute, second. Maybe it doesn’t.

  Maybe I do.

  If I want to change, maybe I need to begin again as the sky does daily. Start over. Fade and rise again.

  Again.

  That is the solution-

  the problem.

  Because I don’t know where I start or end, and I don’t know how I got here.

  Across the lake, I can see the Blake house; a monstrous thing there since I was a child. Large windows like eyes peer out to the lake, tilting with the tan roof in rows of three. The white house rises gray around a porch that never ends. The entire thing is light, billowing colors of clouds before a storm. Colors so different from the lake that slaps against the tiny stone wall surrounding the beach, or the forest climbing up from behind.

  Still, the sky is wonderful. The lake froths with the gentle wind. And in this sweet moment of eternal rules, everything is what it should be, what it began as, even if it has changed along the way.

  It’s amazing how much I didn’t see before I knew this house across the lake belonged to a girl named Sarah.

  I begin to wonder about my mother, a person who was everything to me but, in the end, nothing more than a thousand memories fixed together. Would she want me to be the person I am today?

  Or someone more.

  I think of her journal, of her words I haven’t read just yet. Of the way she used to sing me to sleep when I was little. And I realize again and again that she was more like me than I ever cared to admit. She was words, poetry. She was inside her head just as much as me.

  One day I will read her journal.

  One day I will know her again.

  But today I step forward toward the lake, toward a girl I want to know and a life I want to have. Slowly. Toward a dangerous purple light I cannot se
e during the day. My toes dig cold in the sand. My face is warm. I want to run to jump to fly but can’t find my legs or my wings so I just put one foot in front of the other and step like maybe this is it, maybe this is where I begin.

  Just one step.

  And then another.

  One more.

  Again.

  * * *

  Walking, I’m not sure where I am headed, but moving forward feels wonderful. It’s the first time in as long as I can remember that I feel as though the world is a place I can smile in. For now.

  One day, I will be a bird-

  flying, flying, gone.

  But for now I am happy being me.

  Here.

  My feet carry me around the circle of white sand that is Huntington Beach; white-tipped waves tickle my toes. I run back and forth and back again, from the lake to the shore, sticking my feet in the water and out. Sun lights my skin on fire and creates silver shadows that twirl on the surface of the lake. Children run past me, splashing and playing in the warm water as the summer heat beats them red. Their tiny hands wave at me, their lips smile, and I feel like one of them. So peaceful. So calm. So lost in this secret world of the lake, this curve of sand hidden in the wake of the mountains, that I’m almost found.

  There are secrets in this town-

  dark and dangerous ones.

  The Firelight Fall knows them all.

  But a moment like this-

  is what Huntington is made of.

  Summer sunshine, happiness.

  Bliss.

  Around the beach the happiness goes, so I follow it, and it occurs to me that this town is connected like the beach is; one circle of warmth and light with dark shadows like the mountains peaked at our edges.

  Underneath the mountains, Huntington’s downtown overlooks the lake, but from it you cannot see the Point, the place where our secrets run and jump and try to survive.

  But I can.

  Past the shops and restaurants that make their homes downtown, the Point rises above the sun-struck lake, crawling toward the ice-blue sky higher and higher with each step I take. The closer I get, the more I see, and soon the cave where Jameson’s mystery sleeps is in my view. There, parallel from downtown, the lake becomes brutal and vicious, waves jump up the jagged rocks and throw themselves on the smoothness of the cave’s entrance.

  Nearly a mile away, and I can see what Jameson must have seen so clearly; a secret place, a test for love. And just as I’m thinking of walking further, making my way to Jameson’s cave to see if I can find myself there, I see a house that towers just beyond the marina before me, so high it cuts the sun in two.

  The Blake house.

  Light reflecting off the wavy lake dances in the windows of the massive house, each window a rainbow in the sun. And I wonder if they designed it that way; so the lake seemed to ripple because of the house. Walking closer, the Blake house looks vacant, though I’m not surprised; it’s too beautiful of a day to be trapped inside.

  I turn to the lake and there is my house, resting easy on the other side of the water. Beyond the thick trees in front of it, the Grant house is nothing compared to the Blake’s. I can see our path, the sign that says Grant carved in a dead stump where the beach hits forest. A plastic chair tipped over behind a mound of sand covered in grass. A hummingbird feeder that, from here, is nothing more than a blaring red dot in a tall tree; the only bright color. From here, my home, my life, looks so small, so dull compared to everything.

  And then-

  there in the rippling blue water between my house and this one sits a rock cut like a triangle, most of it hidden beneath the surface. The beacon of what little childhood I have left. I smile so wide it hurts. Years ago, when I was just beginning, this was my Atlantis, my story.

  My secret.

  I would run down to the water every morning, find this stone that stood so proudly against the rushing water around it, and sit. Watching. Waiting for the Lost City to rise again, to find me. Give me powers. Make me whole, complete, when I felt like I wasn’t.

  Some nights I would dream of it, of Atlantis rising up and out of the lake. Or of me diving deep below. I would find secrets in the Lost City, little pieces of myself no one could ever touch: a knife that stopped time, a book that never stopped telling stories, a rock that granted everlasting life. Every summer, I would escape reality for a place I only saw in my dreams.

  Then Mom died.

  And the Lost City was destroyed, again.

  But I don’t want that to be the end, so I keep walking across the sand, staying close to the place where the water touches my toes. I watch the rock, the Point in the distance, and wonder about my story. About Jameson’s. About which is true and not.

  Lies.

  Secrets.

  Truths.

  I think about this as my feet carry me closer to the Blake house: Does any lie or secret matter if no one knows the truth? Or are we all stories waiting to be found, read, cherished. Maybe we are all something we’re not until we find someone who knows who we are.

  There she is.

  I am so close to the Blake house. I see a girl in the middle window on the second floor. Her back to the beach, golden hair twisted in a knot on her head, she is painting. Colors move around her, bright as what sun can find her.

  Sarah.

  I remember our summers, those few days we spent together over the course of thirteen summers. Never more than two at a time, never more than we should. Always never enough, always too fast too slow too soon. Now, I wonder if she remembers them like I do, or if I’m creating stories based on hopes. If Sarah is like my Lost City, and never will I see everything. Only the surface, only what’s above the water.

  And then suddenly, her painting stops.

  Sarah’s fingers move so quickly, colors blur, and there is paper everywhere. Shards of it flying in the air around her. Pieces of her painting. Dead. Gone. Destroyed.

  Like Atlantis, my childhood.

  I wonder why.

  * * *

  I feel like singing. If only to break the silence of night. Everything is too quiet now, too alone. Only the crackle and pop of the beach fire keeps the darkness alive, keeps the sun on my skin even though it’s gone. And all I want to do is sing or scream or make some kind of noise into the night so I break it into a thousand sounds so I don’t feel so alone with it.

  A sad, sad song-

  and the songbook is this: My mother’s journal. A piece of her. Life. A little bit of who she was hidden in something she loved. Like me. Like my dad. Like our family.

  And I can’t open it. I can’t.

  Instead, I watch as my grip loosens, the leather slipping slowly from my grasp, falling down and down and down like a bullet until it jumps from my hand completely and hits the water.

  Gone.

  Destroyed.

  Liquid burns the pages, cuts them. Makes the ink bleed into the lake like blood from a body.

  I am the bullet.

  I am the gun.

  I have killed everything but silence still.

  Until-

  “Jackson?”

  I turn and see sunshine.

  “Sarah?” I say her name because I don’t know what else to say. I was going to sing, but now all I want to do is taste the quiet syllables of her letters. “Sarah.”

  She smiles. “You said that already.”

  “Oh,” I say. I panic. “It’s so dark I couldn’t see you so I wanted to make sure it was you.”

  I am failing.

  “It’s me. I remember.” She sits beside me on the log. The fire burns her hair gold and lights her skin so it sparkles. “I remember you just the way you were. Want to touch me to be sure? Just in case?”

  “I-”

  She is shaking.

  She is laughing.

  And suddenly I can take on the world. Suddenly I can say anything to anyone and especially to her. So I say, “Touch me instead.”

  She does. Her hand presses against my should
er, down my arm slowly, stopping every inch every little moment to kill me, and finds my hand and stops.

  Just stops.

  I whisper, “Sarah.”

  She is not smiling. “You already said that.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “Say it again,” she breathes.

  I do.

  But now it is not her name; it is a door, a window that looks out onto our future. A word that means a thousand. A breath.

  I want to kiss her.

  Consume her.

  But I don’t.

  Because she isn’t here she isn’t here she isn’t-

  here is a dream.

  And when I wake, the morning is as golden as her hair. The journal still whole in my hands. The lake as calm and quiet as her name.

  I have a secret.

  Let me tell it.

  Let me whisper it.

  I remember.

  A girl is opening my eyes. Already, I am healing, beginning to hear the poetry I once did; I can’t help but focus more when I think of her. I can’t help but remember the good instead of the bad. It’s as though the world explodes around her and dulls everywhere else.

  Who are you? I ask myself.

  I answer, I don’t know.

  But I think knowing may begin in the place where dreams and reality collide, in the form of a girl named Sarah Blake.

  Chapter Six

  THIS IS A FACT: Without coffee, I die. It hasn’t been proven, but I’m not sure I want to risk it. So, when someone knocks on the front door at seven in the morning on Saturday, I run into the walls four times on the way there and answer in a grumble of words that aren’t really words but sounds strung together with sleep.

  “Modest, aren’t you,” a voice tells me.

  “What?” I rub my eyes, groan.

  “Nice boxers,” Sarah says, pointing down. I think I see a smile on her face, red and yellow paint flying across her brow, but my vision is blurred. “The smiley faces are cute. And apparently, it is a very happy morning.”

  “Shit,” I mumble and move so the wall is blocking most of my body. She blinks into focus and the very sight of her causes me to blush. “What do you want?”