American Girl On Saturn (23 page)

The dew clings to my flip flops as I rush through the grass toward the treehouse. Of all places, Aralie just had to choose my and Milo’s late night spot to escape to. I thought she’d be rebellious. I figured she would leave the house and crash some party. Instead, she hides here.

This is pretty much the last place I want to be, but I steady myself and climb the ladder. Okay, scratch that. I’d rather be here than in our dining room facing Milo right now.

Aralie looks over her shoulder at me when I climb up.

“Thank God it’s you,” she says. “If you’d been Tate Kingsley, I’d have decapitated you and really stuck your head on a door.”

“You weren’t the one putting his head on my door?” I ask. “Emery said you put it there, so I just stuck it back on yours.”

“No,” she says, sitting on the black beanbag. “Why would I do that? Emery said you started it because Tate was always hanging out with me.”

I’m starting to get the feeling that Emery is more involved in the
Saturnized shenanigans than I thought to give her credit for. Tate’s head was probably her idea from the beginning.

Aralie leans back and stares at the wooden ceiling. She looks defeated, which is so rare for her. She never lets anyone get under her skin. Maybe that’s why she likes Jules. He can get to her even if she doesn’t want him to.

“We used to come out here every morning,” she says. “I swear, I’ll never be able to step into this thing again without imagining sunrises and smelling cigarettes.”

I’ll never be able to come up here without thinking of fireflies and hearing Milo’s guitar. I’d have never thought that Aralie would be in this very treehouse with a Saturn boy too. She watched the bleeding butterflies with Jules while Milo sang about them to me.

“All that time, I thought it was Tate,” I admit. I sit on the lime green beanbag next to her. “I just figured it couldn’t be Jules with the way you guys fight.”

Just as I think she’s about to spill her guts about Tate, Jules, and all things Saturn, the ladder creaks and little footsteps follow. Emery’s head pokes up into the treehouse, minus her Benji mask. She crawls in, and Mom’s voice floats up into the room.

I get up and walk over to Emery, who is still looking down at Mom. I see why – Mom’s arms are full with a pizza box and six-pack of Dr. Pepper. I reach down to gather our dinner, and Mom climbs up to assess the emotional damage.

“Are you girls okay?” she asks.

Her sympathetic-mom-voice is back, but this time, it’s not just aimed at me. In fact, Aralie doesn’t even know that I’m included in the sadness yet. She still thinks I’m hooking up with Noah, and all is well in my world.

I just nod my head because I don’t want to talk about the guys. Aralie must feel the same way because she nods and cracks open a Dr.
Pepper can.

“Emery wanted to join you guys,” Mom says. “She said she spends every birthday with her sisters, and she wasn’t going to stay with a bunch of
jerkfaces who were mean to them.”

“Yeah,” Emery says, pulling her rug over then sitting next to me. “I even left Benji. Stupid
jerkfaces.”

“Well,” Mom says. “If you’re all okay up here, I’m going to get back to the house because your dad was refereeing when I left, and I may not have a dining room once I get back.”

As much as I want to question her, I don’t because Emery is here, and I haven’t had a chance to tell Aralie about Milo. I’d rather not have her hear it from Mom.

Once Mom is gone, Aralie continues our conversation over Dr.
Pepper and pizza.

“But yeah, like I was saying,” she says. “I adore my orange scarf. It’s really cute and fun, but it’s kind of loud and can get on my nerves at times. You know, itchy fabric and all. It’s the scarf you wear when you’re hanging out with your
best friend
.”

I shoot her a smile over my Dr.
Pepper can. Tate was completely a decoy.

“So you prefer your black scarf then?” I ask, bringing the topic back around to Jules.

“Definitely,” she says. “I mean, it’s dark and sort of moody, but it matches everything. It fits me so well. I know it clashes with my band tees because they’re black too, but it’s like that scarf just gets me and my style, you know? I can wear it anywhere, kind of like your red scarf.”

That’s my cue. I don’t imagine Noah’s essence as red, though.

“Um, not exactly,” I say. “My red scarf is like your orange scarf. It’s good for best friend days, but it’s not the one I’d sneak out of the house wearing at midnight.”

Aralie’s eyes widen. “Which scarf would you wear at midnight?” she asks, leaning forward in total serious-mode.

“My blue scarf,” I say. “Blue is subtle and serious and…”

“Boring,” Emery says with her mouth full. “Can we talk about something else? This is my birthday, and I don’t
wanna talk about those stupid boys.”

The gig is up. Emery really does know. I don’t know what she knows or how she knows, but she spilled my Milo secret moments ago inside. She definitely knows.

Aralie sighs. “Have you heard us say their names? No. We’re talking about clothes and accessories.”

“No, you’re not,” Emery says. “No one wears a scarf in the summer. It’s too hot.”

“Blue scarf…” Aralie says to herself, ignoring Emery’s argument.

Does she really even have to debate it? How many times has Emery called Milo ‘boring’ this summer? I’ve lost count. Then again, she was trapped in between Halloween colors, so maybe she didn’t see through it after all.

“Oh come on, Air,” I say. “Emery has had the green one all to herself, so process of elimination.”

“Yeah,” Emery agrees. “Benji is mine so Milo is Chloe’s. Gosh.”

Aralie slams her face into the palm of her hand.

“I am such an idiot,” she says. “That makes sense. He’s totally your type, and he looked all happy and in love in those pictures the other night. Oh my God. I even said he could pass for your boyfriend! I didn’t know he actually was.”

Was. That’s correct, Aralie. Past tense. No longer current. That was just last night on our patio before we launched our wish lanterns. Before Milo brought me right here to this very treehouse and asked me to dance while he sang about un-shattering my heart. Before he blew up in my bedroom today and ended us forever.

Emery releases a deep, heavy breath. It sounds like relief.

“Finally,” she mumbles. “I was sick of keeping those secrets. I didn’t even tell Benji.”

“What secrets?” Aralie asks.

Emery pushes her plate and can away from her, like she’s about to present some big demonstration and needs as much room as possible.

“I know that you have a signed poster of Jules inside your closet,” she says. “I saw him give it to you that night. You stuck your head out of your door and whispered, ‘
Daaaa cooooast is cleeeeeaaaarrrrr,’ and he ran into your room.”

Her face even moves in slow motion as she reenacts Aralie opening the door, poking her head out, and whispering to Jules.

“I never said the coast was clear,” Aralie says. “I told him to hurry up before someone saw him. You should’ve been asleep anyway.”

Emery shrugs. “Milo gave Chloe his T-shirt,” she says. “He walked down to her room holding it, and I was scared he was
gonna be naked in her bedroom again, but he had pants on.”

I don’t even question why she’s awake at odd hours of the night. She probably stays up just to spy on us. I can’t even defend myself against her mistaken nudity accusations anymore. I’m tired of fighting and keeping secrets and lying to everyone about everything.

And then I remember Mom’s referee comment.

“What do you think happened with the guys?” I ask. “Why would Dad have to play referee?”

I’m glad Dad is back tonight. Godfrey turned in early, as much as he hated to miss Emery’s birthday dinner, but I think lockdown exhausts him. He couldn’t have handled Aralie’s eruption or Emery’s Benji mask or the backlash that may have happened after Aralie and I bolted for the treehouse.

Emery pipes up again. “Jules yelled at Milo. Then Noah got mad at Jules, and they got in a fight. Dad and Benji had to break it up.”

I ran too soon. Part of me wants to run back to the house right now so 1) I can make sure Noah is okay but also 2) I can get details as to what in the hell happened after I left.

Aralie sighs. “Boys will be boys,” she says. “I’m surprised Benji didn’t jump in on the action and throw punches too.”

Emery shakes her head.

“Benji was nice,” she says. “He told them not to fight because it was my birthday, and they were ruining it. But he’s still their best friend, so I had to leave him too.”

I reach out and snatch Emery up in a tight, squeezy hug. I don’t care if she thinks Milo was naked in my room. She can be a traitor and like Harry Styles. She can even lie about why Tate’s head is on my door. Right now, she’s freshly-six-years-old, and her birthday celebration was ruined thanks to her favorite boyband and their drama with her older sisters.

Aralie tackles us and kisses Emery on the cheek. Emery laughs and tells us that we’re annoying just like Tate and Noah, but she giggles until we hear the ladder creak again.

We pull apart instantly and sit perfectly still. I can’t even hear myself breathe. I knew it’d come down to this. Someone would eventually come out here to offer an apology on behalf of the band.

Then Emery says exactly what we’re all thinking.

“Uh oh. Here comes a scarf.”

“Quick,” Aralie says. “Who do you think it is?”

“Orange,” I say.

“No, green,” Aralie says.

“Blue!” Emery exclaims.

The three of us sit practically in a row, like baby ducks, waiting for whichever Saturn boy it is to make his appearance. Cue the dramatic music.

Emery shouts that she’s the winner as soon as Milo pops up from the ladder. I’d have given anything for it to be Tate and his stupid always-laughing self. Or even Jules and his crushed ladybug scent. Anyone but Milo. He has no right to even step into the treehouse anymore.

He lingers on the ladder and doesn’t actually come in. He stares at us like he’s forgotten how to speak. Words, Milo. You speak with words.

“I’ve never had stage fright before,” he finally says.

He climbs in, and I have half a mind to push him back into the black hole that will suck him back to the ground. Gravity would be on my side tonight.

He stands for a moment, still watching us, then finally kneels down across from Emery.

“You’d think performing in front of thousands of people each night would prepare you for public speaking, but um, I kind of want to throw up looking at you guys right now,” he says.

Aralie coughs.

“Not much of a charmer, are you, Milo?” she asks.

“I didn’t want to be the one to come out here,” he admits. “You were right when you said I’d probably done something to screw up. I really…royally…messed up.”

He glances at me for half a second before hanging his head to avoid eye contact. I’m glad he does. I can’t handle seeing his eyes right now. I’ll never eat caramel candy again.

“Emery,” he says, looking up at my baby sister. “On behalf of Spaceships Around Saturn, I’m sorry we ruined your birthday dinner. We should’ve behaved better because you’ve been nice enough to share your birthday with us.”

Emery sighs and looks at him with sad eyes and pouty lips.

“It’s okay,” she says with a heavy breath. “I just don’t like
jerkfaces being mean to my sisters.”

“You’re right,” he says. “We shouldn’t have said some of the things we’ve said today, and I don’t know about the other guys, but I have a lot of groveling to do later, if your oldest sister will let me.”

Emery’s forehead crinkles like a piece of bacon.

“I don’t know what you just said,” she tells him. “But whatever that is, you better do it.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I will,” he assures her.

He stands up and looks around the treehouse. I’m not sure if he has more to say to Emery or if he’s waiting for one of us to speak up. Maybe he’s thinking about all of the other times he’s been in here and how those days were better than today. Maybe he’s thinking of a maple leaf with a heart inside of it or singing the lyrics of “Bleeding Butterflies” inside his head.

“So, Emery,” he says. “You think you could come back inside and blow out your candles? Your mom worked pretty hard on that cake, and I don’t want to end up disappointing her too. I’ve done enough of that today.”

Aralie grabs the pizza box and tells Emery to help her carry the stuff back to the house. I don’t move as Emery passes stuff down the black hole to Aralie. Milo lingers around. I keep hoping he’ll go back to the house instead of waiting for us.

“Alright, Em,” Aralie calls up. “Let’s go.”

Emery glances over at Milo, then at me, and looks back down the hole, steadily shaking her head at Aralie.

“I wanna hear what this boring jerkface has to say,” Emery says through her teeth.

She’s anything but discreet. She folds her arms across her chest, taps her foot a few times to let Milo know that she’s waiting, and stares into us like she’s trying to shoot space lasers from her eyeballs.

“Emery!” Aralie shouts. “Get down here now!”

Emery stomps her foot and growls before climbing down. She mumbles something about it being her birthday and how unfair this is before her voice fades into the night.

“Can I have a minute?” Milo asks, as soon as he’s sure we’re alone.

My eyes follow him as he walks toward me. He sits on the black beanbag that Aralie just abandoned and waits for my answer.

“What happened to counting down the minutes until you could be away from me forever?” I ask, turning my eyes back to the wall because I can’t handle this.

“I screwed up,” he says. He reaches over and runs his hand along my arm. “I screwed up in the worst ways.”

I pull my arm back to myself. He’s not telling me anything that I don’t already know. I prop my arms against my knees and bury my face so I won’t have to look at him. If I see his face right now, I’ll burst into tears, and I refuse to break…at least while I’m alone in the treehouse with him.

“You have every right to be mad at me,” he says. “I’m mad at me too.”

Silence swallows us for a few minutes, aside from the night crowd singing “Alien Morse Code.” I bet the crickets and toads know by now. They woke up as the sun fell out of the sky and read the headlines about Milo and me. This is their tribute to all we were before today. This is their goodbye song. The fireflies are probably dancing around with their light bulbs turned off, refusing to flicker so they don’t shine upon the leftover pieces of my already-broken heart.

“Will you meet me tonight?” Milo asks, shattering the silence. “I know you probably don’t want to, but can I at least have a chance to explain? To beg and plead?”

I do want to hear what he has to say. I want to know what was going through his stupid brain earlier today when he flipped out and made assumptions that made zero sense. I want to know if he knows the truth – about Paige and the photos.

But the logical part of my mind says that I should just let it go. Lockdown is going to end as soon as Dad’s colleagues finish questioning this guy in custody. Milo will go back on tour, and he’ll meet some supermodel or pretty new actress trying to make it in Hollywood, and I’ll be a memory. I’ll be a flicker in the night. I’ll be a bleeding butterfly who fizzled out and gave all of her color to the world. I’ll just be the girl from lockdown who was good with a Sharpie.

“I’ll think about it,” I say. I stand up and walk past him. “Emery’s waiting.”

Emery sits at the table with her giant turquoise birthday cake in front of her. It’s shaped like a seashell, and I’m sure she’d have preferred a Saturn-shaped cake, but Mom bought the seashell pan a month ago when Emery was obsessing over mermaids.

She requests that the guys sing happy birthday to her, which works for us because no one wants to attempt to sing when you have professional musicians in the room with you. I focus my eyes on the seashell until the guys finish singing. Emery demands the slice with her name on it.

I tell Mom that I’m going to go upstairs, and she doesn’t question me or force me to stay for Emery’s sake. As long as Benji is there, I doubt Emery will even know I’m gone.

“Wait up,” Noah says from behind me.

I stop halfway up the stairs and wait for him. He nods for me to go on, so I head to my bedroom. He closes the door behind us.

“Milo’s an idiot,” he says. He follows me to my bed and sits down. “He told me what he did today, and I told him in a lot of four-letter words how stupid he was. And then I told him about Paige. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I didn’t want to have to tell him, so it’s better that you did. What happened with you and Jules?”

Noah laughs.

“We’re cool,” he says. “You know, it happens. We’re guys. We fight sometimes. It’s not the first time. Probably won’t be the last.”

“Um, I need better details than that,” I tell him.

He explains, play-by-play, how it went down. As soon as I ran after Aralie, Jules verbally blasted Milo for having a secret relationship with me since he’s the one who is so hardcore about doing what management asks of them. In true Milo-fashion, he didn’t defend himself, so Noah stepped up to the plate and told Jules to mind his own business.

Jules returned that same statement to Noah, resulting in Noah getting up and going around the table to get in Jules’s face. I seriously wish I could’ve seen it, even if it was just through the patio door.

“Then Jules pushed me, and I hit him in his jaw, and the next thing I know, your dad was yelling, and Benji had his arms around me pulling me back,” Noah says.

“I can’t believe you hit Jules,” I say. “And Milo didn’t say anything?”

“Nope,” Noah says. “He and Tate just stood off to the side watching with your Mom. She said something about how lockdown was getting to everyone and how fighting isn’t the answer. You know, all that mom-like stuff.”

And that’s when Mom grabbed Emery and brought her outside to us. I wonder if Emery even wanted to hang out with Aralie and me tonight. No, actually, I know she did. Emery hates fighting and yelling, although she’s the queen of tantrum-throwing. That was a side of Spaceships Around Saturn that she hadn’t seen yet. Hopefully she won’t see it again.

“Your dad gave us a lecture, and Benji cursed me out for throwing punches,” Noah says. “I knew better, but I was so damn pissed off. And then Milo dragged me out of the room and told me what he’d said to you and I wanted to hit him too.”

Note to self: Noah possibly has anger issues.

Noah stands up and glances around before walking toward my door.

“You want me to bring you a piece of the seashell cake?” he asks.

I shake my head. I don’t think I can digest anything right now. I’ve found Milo’s stage fright. There’s no way I can face him at midnight. Management was right. Relationships are too dramatic and painful and shattering.

“If you change your mind, let me know,” Noah says. “I’ll be your messenger for the night.”

He closes the door behind him, leaving me in solitude with my emotions. I replay memories in my brain from the last two weeks on lockdown. From Oreos to Twister to fireflies to hide-and-seek. From the day Milo was “naked” in my bedroom and the two days he ignored me to the morning he defended my honor and lied about Jules’s cigarettes. From an acoustic version of “Bleeding Butterflies” to slow dancing and launching wish lanterns.

Then all of those moments fade to black with one conversation.

Emery’s birthday celebration rages downstairs until she’s too tired to be excited. Footsteps move past my door for an hour before the house settles for the night. It’s quiet for too long.

I lie in the dark and don’t look at my phone until I hear footsteps.

It’s midnight.

That’s Milo.

I allow enough time for him to get downstairs, through the patio door, and halfway across the backyard before I make a decision.

Unlike our many midnights before, tonight, I won’t follow him.