Between the Stars and Sky Page 5

  “You can,” he said, “if the eyes are like yours.”

  “Like mine?”

  “Your eyes are like stars. Like lights in the darkest sky falling down and down and down until you can’t help but make a wish and hope they will stay in the sky forever. The brightest kind of dark blue, the darkest kind of hope; one that is so filled with life and love that if the light goes out the sky will fall.”

  “My eyes are all that?”

  “Open them.”

  And he said, “Your eyes are stars.”

  “What did you wish for?” she asked.

  In one beat, they touched.

  In two, their lips came close.

  In three, they kissed.

  “This,” he breathed. “Always this.”

  “Stop,” she says, her voice breaking the story with one word. And even though I want to continue, want to give her the happy ending I’ve written in my mind, I don’t yet. “Look there. Above the moon to the right. The second star. Do you see it?”

  I nod. “Yes. It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s our star.”

  “Ours,” I agree. I pull her hand to my chest. “Feel my heart beating? Now we have a star and our hearts are up there too, as alive as in our chests. If you ever lose me, I’ll be there. Don’t worry.”

  “Nerd.” She grins. “People don’t talk like that, Jackson. Like words are more than letters strung together; like they are music and freedom and life. Like words can change the world, break and rebuild in one sentence.”

  “I talk like that.”

  “I know. I like it.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s a little corny, but I like it.” She smiles. “I like that your words take time to settle around me instead of being so instantaneous. They last longer, mean more.”

  “You make it sound like words are alive.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  “Is that why you stopped my story? Because of the way I talk?”

  “No,” she whispers. “I stopped it because I wanted to feel the magic it held for one more second before the ending came. And now, I don’t want an ending. I don’t want this to stop. I just want to be here in your arms with our star and our hearts in the sky forever. Like magic.”

  “Magic,” I say. Then, “Why do you destroy your pictures?”

  “Because nothing that beautiful lasts forever. Nothing can last forever, Jackson, but that’s not the point. Not the whole point. I destroy them because sometimes the most beautiful things in the world are broken and bent and bruised a little at the edges.”

  “The most beautiful are the most broken.” My minds drifts back to Natalie, and I wonder if, maybe, I was never broken. Just bent. And maybe it didn’t even matter.

  Maybe I don’t need to be fixed.

  “I quit,” she tells me. “My job at Jameson’s. I quit the only thing I ever loved, the only thing that gave me any freedom.”

  “Why? Is there anything I can do? Miles wouldn’t just fire you. Why did you quit?”

  She sighs, low and sorrowful. “My dad. Made me. He didn’t even know I had a job until last week. He stormed in and said, ‘Fuck this, Sarah Blake! No daughter of mine will work in a place as low as Huntington! You’re better than these people!’ And he dragged me off and called Miles and that’s that. Nothing more.”

  Her eyes are so wet I’m afraid they’ll storm, and yet underneath there is this: A sense of resolution so fearsome, so absolute it’s as though Sarah has accepted her father’s delusions of her, of her helplessness against freedom from him.

  “Miles will still let you work.”

  “It’s not worth it, Jackson. My father will just follow me there and back; he’s done it before.”

  “Why? I don’t understand why he won’t let you have a job.”

  “It’s not the job part. It’s the freedom part. My entire life I’ve been beneath his finger. My mom doesn’t even live with us anymore, did you know that? She bought a place somewhere in California two years ago and I haven’t talked to her since. And I know, I know I should run away or do something or fight back but I can’t. Not when I’m almost ready to leave this place. Not when college is just around the corner. Then I’ll finally be free.”

  I ask, “Is that why you’re afraid of us? Because you’re so close to leaving this town, me? Because this might end?”

  She shakes her head, slow. “I’m not afraid. I just... I don’t want to lose you. Not again.”

  My heart stops-

  starts.

  And I can feel myself being pulled under by the unstoppable current of her words, of the fact that she remembers me. Us. All of us.

  “I’m not going anywhere you’re not,” I tell her, and I’m not sure if the words are entirely true but in this moment I want them to be. Because Sarah remembers, truly and vividly remembers the summers we’ve had, the memories we’ve shared.

  She asks, “Why did you leave before?”

  “I didn’t know,” I say. “I didn’t know anything. One day I was here, the next my Dad made us pack up our things and go home. We never came back.”

  “Not since you were thirteen. I remember.”

  I smile, sad. “I think... I think it was because of my Mom. Because of her...” I swallow and choke down the words I want to say but they’re so hard and raw in my throat I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say them.

  “Jackson?” Her hands are on mine, warm.

  And suddenly I know I can do this. I know I can be strong enough to tell Sarah this much. “I think it was because of my Mom’s cancer. I didn’t know about it until the end, but they did. They had to. And I think it was easier to get treatments from the city.”

  “But they didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I almost say things I don’t mean, things I’m so used to saying they’ve lost all meaning. Everything about cancer, about my feelings toward it, about death and my mother and my father are so obvious they almost mean nothing if you’re not living them.

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I say, “Me too. I wish I had known. I mean, it wouldn’t have changed anything. But I would have known. I would have known, Sarah. Why didn’t they tell me?”

  I don’t realize I’m crying until she brushes a droplet from my eye and says, “They wanted to keep you safe. They cared about you enough to think they were doing the best thing for you, Jackson. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t wrong, but it was out of love. And that’s more than most of us can say we have.”

  Our eyes close and our lips meet and the world flips itself over in a hurricane of hearts beating faster faster faster faster. And in an instant, as blinding and forever as my lips entwined with hers, I realize this: For months I have been alone without my mother. Long and lonely months I’ve surrounded myself with people and still lost myself alone.

  Since.

  But now.

  This.

  For the first time in months I am not alone.

  Slowly, our lips touch three times more. And between those tiny touches are moments that last forever; songs of eternity in spaces between. Then, all at once, we are lost to each other. Nothing but the waves crashing at our feet, the stars above.

  Us, between.

  I am alive. I am heartbeats. I am a hurricane.

  And I am found.

  * * *

  The truth is this: there is no truth, only lies living in the moments between. Everything is between something. Life and death. Love and lust. Hope and loss. And just for a second, one that flies by in an instant, I wonder where our story is going. Where it will end. But for now I am happy living in the between, the time just before dawn right after dusk, I have found with Sarah on the beach.

  I wake to her.

  Her eyes are closed. I watched the way she fell asleep, like she was holding back, holding on to something until she couldn’t anymore. Until she let herself go, let sleep take over.

  Slow.

 
So, so slow-

  and then in an instant.

  And it occurs to me that so many things happen this way. It’s like falling in love, like growing older, like losing a parent. The best and worst things happen before we even know they did; that is their beauty and their betrayal. Darkness still pulls at the sky, though the stars are not as bright. Still, those dark moments find me and I feel like falling into them, but not with her. Not with Sarah here and now, and not with the hope that there is more.

  I feel stronger.

  Instead of falling, I fly.

  I will remember this when I jump from here during the Firelight Fall. I will remember this feeling: Like I’m already flying off the cliff higher and higher until I touch the clouds with my heart.

  With Sarah.

  Chapter Nine

  THERE IS A SONG my mother used to sing to me. Before I closed my eyes to sleep. Before the night fell fully dark, she would sing me a soft song of heavy promises. This song is my first memory of her, but not my last.

  Close your eyes, Baby Blue

  Listen to the night, silent and still

  Her voice was a quiet melody of broken sounds and soft lilts; there was nothing beautiful about her voice, but I thought the world of it. I still do.

  Dream about the stars, bright and big

  Paint with your heart, the colors of your dream

  She would sit on my bed, tucking my covers under my sides and my hair behind my ears. Smiling. Always smiling even when her eyes were wet with things she wouldn’t say to me. She sang to me every single night until I was eight, and even after always made sure I had a smile before I closed my eyes. Even when she didn’t sing, I heard the song. I remembered.

  Never be afraid to smile so free

  You are safe, Little Baby Blue

  I didn’t know until Dad called me from the hospital. Mom was almost gone. Almost burned away, her spirit. Her life. Everything about her, except my memories, was nearly vanished. Come quick. Don’t bring Natalie. Not for this. Not now. Don’t need your girlfriend for-

  this.

  Family only.

  At this place where we shouldn’t be.

  This-

  place

  between

  my

  life

  and

  the

  death

  of

  my

  mother.

  You are loved, little one

  You are mine, forever and ever

  She lied.

  I’ll never leave your side

  So, Little Baby Blue, close your eyes.

  She promised me so much.

  Mom.

  And

  didn’t

  keep

  a

  word.

  * * *

  Now, I don’t forget but I don’t dwell.

  Or maybe I do.

  Maybe I do think about the times when my mother was alive and wish those memories were now and here and everything about who I am today.

  Is that so bad?

  Wanting my mother back?

  But, with Sarah, a part of me is filled. A part of my heart doesn’t cry as much for the mother I lost, isn’t as complicated, and instead smiles for the girl I found.

  I’m not sure if this is good or bad. If Sarah is closing a part of me that should be reserved for my mother, my family, or if she’s letting loose the space I need to move on and love again, more and more and more.

  Remembering or forgetting.

  But I can’t stop it.

  Can’t stop either.

  I can’t.

  And maybe that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

  * * *

  My fingers hover over my phone, waiting and wanting to push the tiny, neon buttons. Waiting for my father to call. Wanting to call him.

  But he doesn’t.

  And I don’t.

  Not yet.

  Maybe one day, when we’re both brave enough, we will face each other like we’re meant to, instead of hiding behind memories of our family already gone.

  I almost laugh.

  Because I know I should call him. I miss him, the one person who is going through exactly what I am. He lost her too. My father. I know I should be the one to make this right when I was stubborn enough to push him away from something he had no control over, something neither of us did.

  But he pushed me away too.

  And I am still-

  so stubborn-

  not brave enough.

  Yet.

  Chapter Ten

  I WONDER IF DREAMS have dreams. If the dream version of me ever sleeps or is simply awake forever.

  Because I am sure I am dreaming.

  For days I have felt like this: The never sky of dreams has stormed into the still blue of my reality, wild and vivid and too fast and too slow. And with certainty, I realize Natalie has no place in my heart anymore. No hold on my feelings. It’s as though she never existed in this new world I’m living in with a girl named Sarah Blake.

  I am not brave enough for so many things, but in this I can try: My lips are on Sarah’s again, and I can’t get enough of her. Lose myself in her and find myself again. I want to taste every part of her, feel the way she moves and bends. Hear the way she laughs, the way she doesn’t.

  But as our bodies stretch out on a blue and white checkered picnic blanket in the grass of Huntington Park, I realize I want so much of her that I almost want nothing. Everything all at once is too little of the things that should be felt slowly.

  Like love.

  “What are you thinking?” she asks me, pulling away and resting her hands against my chest. “Your hands stopped moving.”

  I can’t help but forget her question for a second, thinking only of the way her hands feel against my rising and falling chest like she is the one pulling it up and pushing it down, giving me life. And then I tell her, “I’m just thinking about you, how nice this is.”

  “I knew you’d like a picnic.”

  “IS THAT JACKSON GRANT?” Mrs. Porter’s shrill voice echoes off the gazebo which, I’m sure, is still in trauma after experiencing a night between Mrs. Porter and the mayor. “IT IS JACKSON GRANT! HOW ARE YOU DOING?”

  “Fine, Mrs. Porter!” I yell back, trying to keep my voice from breaking with laughter. “Thanks!”

  She rises from her seat, smoothes her hair that is shining with hairspray, and puts both hands to her lips so her voice sounds even louder than before. “WHO ARE YOU WITH? IS THAT SARAH BLAKE? A PICNIC? DESSERT IS THE WAY TO A WOMAN’S HEART! WHAT DID YOU MAKE? NEVER MIND, I’LL COME OVER LATER AND ASK.” Even from here, I can see her lips smack together in a mess of purple, glittery lipstick and gloss. “HAVE FUN, JACKSON. HAVE SAFE SEX IF YOU DO HAVE SEX. NO ONE WANTS A BABY AT YOUR AGE. MY GOODNESS, SHOW HER YOUR ARMS. YOU LOOK SO CUTE.”

  I can’t even roll my eyes, I’m laughing so hard. Silent fits of giggles bubble in my chest and fight for air, and from the way Sarah is shaking beside me, her eyes wide and wet with tears, I can tell she is about to lose it too.

  “What is for dessert?” I ask, grinning. My words blow out of my mouth choppy and whispered. Laughter is still heavy in them. And then suddenly, it’s not. Suddenly, this moment is serious and sensual and the world falls away from us until it’s only me and Sarah.

  Her eyes, a deeper shade of blue in the setting sunlight, trace my face down to my lips. “What do you want?”

  I whisper, “I want what you want.”

  “I want to be a bird and fly into the sunset.”

  I smile so wide my lips hurt. “Not what I meant, but okay.” I’m reminded of my summer wish, goal, to be a bird and fly for freedom, and it strikes me as incredibly romantic that Sarah knows me well enough to know this. Or maybe she doesn’t, in which case it means even more. We share this little piece of serendipity. “I’ll be a bird too.”

  She kisses me quick. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  Fire burns behind us; the branches we h
old are beacons in the dark night like sparklers, fireworks running down the beach. Past the outskirts of Huntington’s downtown, the docks, my Atlantis stone. We move so fast it’s like we’re not moving at all. We control the wind, the world. The waves are our breaths, their rippling sounds against sand our exhales.

  I shout, “Where are we going?”

  She doesn’t answer. Still running, Sarah turns, and even though her hair whips around her face like a blonde storm, I can tell she is smiling.

  My branch is nearly out, the red, hot part of the stick reaching for my fingers. Almost ready to burn me.

  “Don’t drop the stick!” Sarah screams at me.

  I can barely hear her, but I hold the stick tighter. I can feel the heat of the flame nearly on my skin, bubbling down the branch. Closer and closer and closer.

  Suddenly, we stop. Just outside Sarah’s house, on the other side of the beach, our legs stop moving but my heart continues to pound.

  Sarah grabs the branch from me, throws the stick in a mad arc through the air so it lands in a pile of brush outlined by stones. It doesn’t take long for the leaves and sticks to catch and burn into a calm and warm fire.

  “I thought you were trying to burn me,” I tell her as we sit together on the sand near the sparking red.

  She grins. “Maybe I was.”

  I don’t know what to make of this. So, I ask, “If you were trying to, why didn’t you? What was the point? We could have just walked to your house and lit the fire here.”

  “But what fun would that have been?”

  “Safe fun.”

  “There’s nothing safe about having fun, Jackson.”

  “Uh,” I begin, “there’s living. That’s fun.”

  “If you do it right.”

  “There’s a right way to live?”

  “And a wrong way,” she tells me.

  “And you’re right?”

  “Always,” she says, smiling. Almost laughing. And I can tell she’s playing with me. “But seriously, I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I’m living the best way I know how. I want to live, Jackson. Not just be. Not just breathe. I want to live so viciously I almost die.”