Beneath Wandering Stars (25 page)

You will never be lovelier than you are now.

I don't feel lovely; I feel like I need to burn all of my clothes and start from scratch. Still, the thought that seventeen could be my prime—as it surely was in ancient Greece—doesn't leave me feeling depressed. It warms me from the inside, just like the sun's rays warm me from the outside. Seth could have skipped this line to avoid giving me the wrong idea.

But he didn't.

“You know what I realized this morning while trying to block out Rodrigo's bagpipes?” Seth asks.

“What's that?”

“We haven't had a round of questions for quite some time.”

That's probably because they've felt forced and pointless ever since Burgos. Seth may never tell me what happened to him and Lucas. Not until he's ready, so why try to sneak in the same question a hundred different ways? Besides, we're getting along better than ever. I'm not about to risk our truce by rocking the volatile vessel that is Seth. He's too guarded and he likes it that way.

“What else do you want to know?”

Seth points to the unspoiled scenery before us. “Do you really think you'll be able to return to normal life after
this
?”

“Define normal,” I reply, sitting up to wring out my damp socks. “Oh, wait. You're telling me this trek isn't what life in the Army is actually like? That's too bad. I thought the blisters and lack of laundry facilities were giving me some decent marching training.”

Seth smirks. “You've actually considered joining?”

“No. I was kidding. You need to work on your sarcasm radar.”

“Nah, I bet you marry a soldier one day. It takes a special woman to keep that little platoon in working order. You've already got the skill set. And the guts.”

I don't know if I should be flattered or outraged. Seth meant his statement as a compliment, but right now my life goals consist of reaching Santiago ASAP, seeing my brother go on to lead a normal life, and graduating high school so I can get as far from the Army as possible. My mom rocks the military spouse role and I'm sure I could do the same if I wanted to, but the fact that Seth would even
think
to acknowledge this freaks me out.

So I set up a roadblock. “What about you? Think you'll re-enlist?”

“I don't know.” Seth sighs. “Maybe. My dad was pretty ticked that I enlisted before going to college first, since that makes getting into Officer Candidate School a lot harder.”

I'd almost forgotten that Seth is an officer's kid. His father is a colonel, so yeah, I can imagine his decorated dad was pissed when he learned his only son wouldn't follow in his footsteps by attending an elite military academy, but signed up to be a grunt instead.

“Why didn't you try for OCS?” I'd always assumed Seth was the one who came up with the idea that he and Lucas enlist together. “Or why didn't you guys go to college and do the ROTC route? It probably would have been safer that way.”

For some reason, all my anger about this situation is gone, ground into the dust of a road I've already walked. I ask out of curiosity and nothing more.

Seth swings one leg over the wall, straddling it like a horse. “In that case, we would have joined Special Forces or done something equally dangerous.” He removes his sunglasses and stares right at me. Right through me. “Lucas didn't want to spend his life behind a desk, Gabi. It was his idea, you know? Signing up right after graduation. I think he saw it as a sort of rite of passage. A surefire way to become a man, instead of spending his twenties playing video games in his parents' basement like most of our friends. He was enlisting with or without me. I figured
with
might give him better odds, that way I'd be around to watch his back.”

But he was wrong. Even Seth couldn't watch it close enough.

I can tell that's exactly what he's thinking. And it makes me feel sick. I'd convinced myself that Seth pressured Lucas to enlist, but I know my brother and now that I know Seth, Lucas is definitely the more spontaneous of the two. I guess it was easier to blame someone else than to admit that Lucas knew what he was getting into when he signed that dotted line.

“So the only reason you didn't go to OCS was because you didn't want Lucas to enlist alone?”

Seth nods and it all makes sense. He was balancing my brother out, trying to be the stark realism to his romantic idealism. Seth's failure to protect Lucas is furrowed in the lines of a face way too young to even have such scars. Knowing that for every visible wound I can trace, there are dozens more beneath the surface makes me want to weep.

You're a big girl now, mija.
Too big to cry.

That's what Dad told me the first time he deployed. I was barely seven. But I'd held back my tears like a true Santiago, saving them for my pillow that night.

“Come here, Gabi.” Seth drapes his arm around my shoulder. “Go ahead. Cry. Curse. Get angry. You need to. But afterwards, after you get it all out, you go back to being strong for him, all right? Once Lucas wakes up, you be the tough little sister I already know you are.”

“
If
he wakes up.” The words come out as a sob, not statement. I press my face against Seth's chest as the lid containing my grief bursts open. The tears finally come. Hot, angry tears. Liquid rage at the thought of Lucas's boyhood getting blown to bits. And for what? What did his sacrifice even mean?

Seth holds me tight, solid as a citadel, a stable mast in the midst of a storm. He doesn't say he's sorry or give me any reassurance. We're way past the power of positive thinking by now, past empty promises that everything will work out for the best. All we can cling to is the fraying thread of hope that unites us, even if the unraveling strand is what strangles us both in the end.

“Gabi, look at me.” Seth lifts my chin and stares into my tear-stained face. “No matter what happens, no matter where he is or where he's going, Lucas would be proud of you for doing this. And grateful. I know I am. This walk, this time to process everything—it was exactly what I needed. And I needed to walk it with
you
.”

Suddenly, I am intensely aware that Seth's rough hand cradles my chin. He wipes the tears from my cheeks, but as he pulls his hand away, I lift mine to stop him.

The look on his face assures me we're in for it now. It's an irrevocable look, a no-going-back look. Seth cups my face with both hands and presses his lips to mine. I taste tears, and rage, and secrets, all mixed with a hope that binds us more than one kiss ever could. It's over in an instant, but things will never be the same. And we both know it.

“I'm sorry, Gabi. This isn't a good idea. You just make me feel so damn weak—”

Seth pulls away, but I pull him back into heaven. “We've got six more minutes.”

The second kiss is more urgent and less sweet, but everything spins all the same. Seth wraps his arms around my waist and draws me closer, like I'm a lifesaver he'll drown without.

“
Ándale, ándale!
Arriba!
”

We wrench ourselves apart at a loud wolf whistle and the laughter of passing pilgrims. I whirl around to glare at these gawking intruders, knocking my water bottle off the wall in the process. It rolls down the hill, getting caught on a thorny bush before a significant drop off. I want to cry out after it, but my tingling lips have yet to regain the power of speech.

“No worries. I'll get it.” Seth jumps down from the wall. He seems relieved to have a reason to avoid the fact that he made a move on his best friend's sister and she made one back. I'm not fourteen anymore, so it kind of irks me, but I also get that there's an elaborate BFF rulebook and Seth has broken a major commandment.

“It's not worth it,” I call after him. “I'll buy another bottle in the next big town.”

“The next big town is two days away, and hydration is the key to hiking success.” A shy grin on his face, Seth slides cautiously down the steep hillside. “Sit tight. I'll get it.”

With this new mission before him, Seth slips back into soldier mode. There will be no stopping him, so I focus on
not
having a nervous breakdown as he climbs down the rocky embankment, inching closer to the ridge. It's a messed-up thought, but I can't help thinking that if Seth slips and goes over the edge, I may never be kissed like that again. Brent certainly never kissed me like that.

Seth kissed me like I mattered, like I gave him somewhere firm to stand.

It's only when he reaches the shrub and gropes for the runaway bottle that I realize I'm holding my breath. Why is it that the second I open myself up to caring for someone, he's immediately hung out over a ledge? Literally.

My champion raises his stainless steel trophy, a proud smile stretching across his sun-kissed cheeks. After securing the bottle's cap between his teeth, Seth scrambles back towards the wall, using exposed roots to pull himself up the hillside. He's almost to the top.

Snap.

The sound is worse than the crack of a shattered femur. One of the roots breaks. Seth loses his footing. And he's gone.

My stomach lurches up my throat as Seth slides down the steep incline, his shocked eyes locking onto mine before he vanishes from sight. He doesn't cry out. He just disappears.

“Seth!” I jump down from the wall and peer over the edge, my heart invoking every memorized petition I know in a single moment. “Please, please,
please
.”

Thank God. I see Seth lying face down on his stomach, both hands clinging to rocks and loose dirt. As I press my boots into the soft soil and creep down the slope, he releases a combination of curse words I've never heard before. The crude soldier language is music to my ears. It means Seth is still conscious. Seth is still Seth. What I would give to hear Lucas, who rarely swore before basic training, drop a string of serious f-bombs.

I inch closer and Seth pushes himself upright. Thankfully, there's no sign of blood, minus what's boiling in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“If a busted ankle counts as okay,” Seth growls, reaching for my extended hand.

His anger is a mask for his humiliation. I feel worse about
that
than I do about his injury. I'm sure the poor guy never imagined he'd survive firefights with the Taliban just to be taken out by a damn tree root. It's so tragic it's almost funny, but I'm too concerned about the pain warping Seth's face to so much as crack a smile.

“Walk it off, soldier,” I say as I pull him up the hillside. Coddling is the last thing Seth's bruised ego needs right now. Only he can't walk it off. When we reach the wall and I remove his boot, it becomes apparent that Seth won't be walking for weeks.

His ankle is double its normal size.

“Serves me right.” Seth shakes his head. He's frustrated about falling below his own ridiculously high standards on two accounts, but I see the hint of a smirk forming in the corners of his mouth. “Kissing you is dangerous business.”

• • •

“It can't happen again. You know that, right?” Seth winces as I lay a bag of frozen peas across his ankle. We're back at Rodrigo and Pilar's apartment, back on the couch where I slept last night. Back, in many ways, to square one.

“You're assuming I
want
it to happen again.” I expel the words like acid, that way Seth won't see how much his rejection hurts. There's no way I'm letting another guy kiss me and dismiss me without getting scathed in the process.

“Fine, but just know that it was a mistake. And I'm sorry.” Seth bites his lip, which seems to have more to do with his sprained ankle than it does with the agony of wanting something he can't have. “You're amazing, Gabi, but your dad, your brother. They're both trusting me not to be that shady soldier who takes advantage of younger girls.”

“And you think
that
was ‘taking advantage'?” I get that Seth's fall probably felt like a divine lightning bolt, but this condescension is too much. “Maybe you've already forgotten, but
I
kissed
you
back.”

“Dammit, Gabi. What do you want from me? I have no way of knowing how Lucas would feel about it, and I've got enough on my conscience as it is.” Seth scowls like he's going over a very long list. “Besides, where would it go from here? You're heading back to Texas once you graduate, and who knows where the Army will send me next.”

I transfer Seth's bum ankle from my lap to a pillow. “Relax. It was a kiss, not a proposal. Ever heard of a summer fling?”

Seth frowns. “You're worth way more than that, Gabi. And I'm pretty sure summer flings don't apply to your best friend's little sister.”

If that's true, then why don't I feel worth anything? Why do I feel slighted yet again?

“Fine. It—whatever ‘it' is
—
ends in Santiago.”

Seth's cold silence tells me it's ended already.

Pilar enters the room carrying a tray of hot tea. “
Pobre peregrino
,” she purrs, setting the tray down so she can feel Seth's forehead, as if sprained ankles somehow caused fevers. “After we ice it, we need to get that leg wrapped to help with the swelling. But first, a dose of the world's best medicine.”

I'm thinking Pilar has brewed some kind of gross medicinal tea, but then she walks over to her husband's reading chair and picks up an acoustic guitar from the stand behind it. After cracking her knuckles, she starts playing some of the most gorgeous melodies I've ever heard. Seth lies back on the couch with his eyes closed, soaking it all in like the Spanish sun.

Pilar doesn't exactly sing, but every now and then she croons the guttural moans and gypsy yelps that give flamenco its flavor. “That song was by Paco de Lucia,
el rey de flamenco
,” she says with a shy smile after Seth and I break into enthusiastic applause.