Unlit Star (24 page)

"I forgot the ice cream."

His eyes drop to my empty hands. "I see that. That's sort of unusual, right? Wasn't that the whole purpose of going to the store?"

I wince. "Yeah. I got distracted."

The sudden stillness of his body strikes me as odd. "By what?"

Frowning, I toss the car keys toward him. He catches them, his stance and expression not changing. "What do you
think
I got distracted by?" I ask slowly. Did Riley call him or something? Why would she? What would the point of that be? Unless it was to try to wedge a gap between us. If so, I will have to hunt her down and punch her in her pretty face.

He shrugs. "I don't know." He turns toward the garage, entering through the side door. The garage door rambles up, showing a tense Rivers. "You want to drive the car into the driveway? I need to wash it." His tone is curt and he won't look at me, which I don't like, but what sets me off is when he chucks the car keys back at me without even glancing my way.

I let them drop to the pavement and cross my arms. "You have two seconds to tell me what is going on."

He snorts, snapping the band of his white athletic shorts as he walks farther into the garage. Kneeling beside a shelving unit, he grabs cleaning supplies and walks back into the sunlight, raising an eyebrow at me. "Are you going to move the car or do I need to?"

Hot anger scorches my veins and I charge him, wrapping my arms around his waist and taking him down without much effort. I think his surprise worked in my favor.

He grunts upon impact. "Damn it, Bana! What the hell was that for?"

I climb over the top of him and glare down at him with my palms digging into his warm chest. "You tell me what your attitude is for, right now, or I quit."

Wariness creeps into his eyes, but it doesn't remove the belligerence from his expression. "You wouldn't."

"I so would."

"You need this job. You need the money. What about your Amtrak trip?"

"I'll work for my mom. She pays better anyway."

"She does not."

"Okay, so you're right, but at least I wouldn't have to deal with your grumpy ass."

He scowls up at me. Only when I do not budge nor speak another word, does he sigh, closing his eyes. "Jeff Monroe works there. I thought—I thought maybe you'd seen him and talked to him or something," he mutters.

I sit back, becoming blatantly aware of how my body is straddling his, and digest what I just heard. Part of me wants to laugh, part of me wants to demand what is
wrong
with him, and the other part of me—is smiling. He opens one eye and closes it again. I push against his chest until he looks at me.

"Are you jealous?"

"No," he snaps.

I lean down, bringing my face inches from his. His lips turn down and I kiss the frown away. "You just made my day," I tell him.

"Glad my stupidity entertains you." His hands rise up to loosely clasp my waist. "You should have tried out for football. That tackle was lethal."

I grin. "Are we going to wash your car or stay like this all day?"

"I'm okay with us like this. Wait—are you going to wear your swim suit?"

"I could be persuaded."

He practically shoves me off of him. "No time for lying around. We've got a car to wash. I'll get you—I mean,
the car
—sudded up." A twinkle of mischief enters his eyes as he slowly smirks.

I don't mention my encounter with Riley. It has nothing to do with him, not really, and in the letting go of it, I am happier. We end up just as soapy and wet as the car, but we laugh and joke around as we spend the afternoon outside. Again, I am reminded of how the simple things are the best things, and that certain people make the difference between being alone and being lonely—and that Rivers fills me with vitality.

I TOOK A FEW HOURS
off in the morning, deciding I needed to dye my hair again since the red was fading out. While at the salon, I did something really crazy and went with what the beautician determined was probably the closest shade to my natural hair color, adding some faint blonde highlights throughout to add contrast. And then...I did something completely nutso and had a spray-on tan done. I let the sun-bathed masses get to me—I conformed. My skin glows a creamy shade of bronze like it has never glowed before. I feel prettier, brighter, my eyes more enhanced with the color of my face.

I feel like all the other people whose skin tans instead of burning.

Monica called just as I was leaving, and although I was glad to talk to her, the news she gave me put a layer of sorrow on my time with Rivers. Thomas' mother passed away—that alone being sad enough news—and they are returning in two days. I realize nothing can ever truly go back to the way it was, nor would I want it to, but once they are back, it cannot continue on as it has either.

I smile when I see his long frame sprawled out, stomach down, on a blanket on the wood deck, the sight of him enough to make all my dreary thoughts dissipate. Rivers loves the sun and the sun loves him back, turning his skin an attractive shade of copper as the days go by.

“Are you going to sleep out here too?”

"It isn't like we haven't before." He looks up from the book in his hands and stares. “What did you do to your hair?”

I am unusually nervous as I finger a layered lock of chocolate brown hair, stopping beside him. “I dyed it back to my natural color. Or as close as the beautician could get it.”

"And did you sit under a heating lamp while you were there too?"

I splay my fingers wide, liking the color they have never been able to wear before. "I did a spray-on tan. I wanted to know what it felt like to be like all you people who get some color in the summer."

"And? What's the consensus?"

I shrug. "It's fun."

“Fun, huh?" He pauses. "I like it."

My face heats up and I swallow. “Thanks.”

He rolls onto his back, letting the book fall from his fingers to the blanket he lies on. “But I liked you pale too.
Anyway, really. You're sort of like a chameleon. You're always changing. Your hair, your clothes, your image. Most people are trying to be like someone else, but you seem to be fighting to be known only as you. But how do you know who you really are, if you're always trying to be different from everyone else?”

“I know who I am.”

“Who's that?”

“Me.” I wink and sit down beside him. “You should go for a walk with me.”

“You should lie down with me.”

I freeze. The sun comes from behind him, illuminating him like a fireball halo, which sort of makes sense. He is consuming, no matter what his mood. Light and dark play as the sun and Rivers collide. He grabs my arm and tugs. I land on my back beside him, feeling out of breath and it has nothing to do with my short fall.

He smiles a half-smile, and my body tingles. “Can I ask you something?”

I shrug. “Yeah.”

“Did you purposely try to be different because you wanted to put distance between yourself and others? I mean, was it a sort of defense mechanism? Because seeing you now, I don't think that image you portrayed in school ever really fit you. You're too...” He stops, his eyebrows lowering as he searches for the right word. “I don't know,
free
.”

“I didn't realize it wasn't okay to be different. I was how I wanted and needed to be. It was other people that had a problem with it.” I turn my face to the sky, not wanting to get into any serious conversations. I am free now, yes. I am free because it is all I can be.

“High school is about conformity. You know that.
Everyone
knows that. Be anything other than everyone else and it's like putting a big bullseye on yourself. Did you do it on purpose?”

I sit back, scooting to put distance between us. “I didn't
do
anything. I was just me. That was me then and this is me now. I'm allowed to change, right? Was it so wrong to be the way I was?” His words are flustering me and I'm becoming agitated. I don't want to talk about high school or how I was then and how I am now and why there is no correlation between the two.

I changed, but would I have if things were different than they are now?

Rivers sits up as well, watching me. “Did I ask something wrong?”

“No. I just...I don't want to talk about it.” I look away from the intensity of his eyes.

“I only asked because I want to know more about you. I find everything about you interesting. You sort of rock my world, in an entirely unapologetic way.” He smiles and the sun reflects off his face, blinding me with its beauty.

This is not good. This is not what I want. I look at him and realize that, yes, this
is
what I want, but I shouldn't. I
can't
. He can't. Rivers can't care about me. He'll only get hurt if he does.
Too late
, a voice tells me. I draw my knees up and rest my chin on them, closing my eyes against what is glaringly unavoidable. I'm scared, I realize. I just wanted to help them. I never intended to care about him and I never wanted him to care about me either.

Jumping to my feet, I careen close to the edge of the pool and Rivers steadies me with his hands on my waist. “Easy." His touch burns me, making me feels things I have never felt before and know I will never feel again. I want to cry. I think I
am
going to cry. "Look, I'm sorry if I upset you.”

I pull away from him, hurrying for the house. It isn't my house, so there is nowhere I can really go to get away from him, from my feelings, from my truths. Everything is building and coming at me once—all I have wanted, all I have caught a glimpse of, all I cannot have. I saw it all in Rivers' smile. Tears blind me as I stumble into the cool interior of the house and toward the bathroom, deciding it's as close to my own space as I am going to get.

I lock the door and sink to the floor with my back against the wall, letting the sobs break free. This is the first time I've cried about it since finding out. Somehow, I managed to keep it all in. I was okay with it. I mean, sure, at first I was devastated, more for my mom than me, but I was dealing with it. But now there's Rivers and there's even Monica, and how can I keep telling myself I am okay with this?

I am
not
okay with this.

Trembles wrack my body and I hug myself, closing my eyes against the pain. The tightness in my throat grows until it is hard to swallow. I hear Rivers on the other side of the door—I can
feel
him on the other side of the door. He asks me to open it. I know he can't see me, but I shake my head. He is so different from what I really thought. He is...so...good. He is determined, and yes, arrogant, and beautiful. So beautiful. He is strong-willed and stubborn and imperfect and how can I leave him? He is living again. He is smiling and talking and thinking about his future.

And I have his heart clasped between my two hands. If I let it go, it will fall and break. If I squeeze it too tightly, it will hurt. And if I continue to carry it around, I am responsible for it.

I have to quit. July just started and there is August to think about as well, but I can't keep working here. It's going to suck being without the income, but maybe my mom will hire me on at the flower shop, at least part-time. And that isn't even the biggest problem. The problem is Rivers, and what I feel for him. My original intentions got switched around and altered to the point where I should have refused to stay here in Monica's absence. I should have known it was a bad decision.

I never should have asked her about the job to begin with. But she'd looked so sad, and he'd looked so broken, and I figured...I could do this one thing for someone else before I couldn't do anything again. And now look at me—crying in the bathroom of my employer's house with my employer's son pleading with me to come out and tell him what he did wrong.

He did nothing wrong but care about the ghost of a girl.

With the end of my employment at the Young residence set in my mind, I stand on legs that shake, wipe tears from my eyes, and splash water on my face before opening the door. The red eyes and nose can't be hidden. His scent wraps around me and the stinging comes back to my eyes.

I refuse to look at him as I stride for the front door. “I'm going to go for a walk. I'll finish cleaning when I get back.”

“I'll go with you.”

I stiffen by the door with my back to him. “No.”

“Why? I want to go with you. I can keep up.”

I whirl around and glare at him, hateful words I don't mean spewing forth. “No. You can't. You're too slow and you'll only slow me down and I want to be alone.” The openness of his face that I've become accustomed to seeing, closes like a door slammed before my eyes. All expression is wiped from his features, but it stays in his eyes. They're hurt and angry. Pain lashes through me like the burning caress of a whip against my heart. I want to take my words back, but I don't. I tell myself it's better this way, that he has to get used to being without me, but my convictions sound hollow as I walk out the door.

I walk for hours—the sights, smells, and even the temperature are all vague and without form. I walk in a world of gray, my emotions dark and overcast, obliterating anything that could give life to my surroundings. I walk with the hurried steps of a woman who is trying to outrun something she has no control over, trying to escape something complete in its certainty. I am angry and not even sure who I am angry at. Is it Monica for putting me in a position to stay at her house and fall in love with her son? Is it Rivers for being lovable? Am I angry at myself for thinking I somehow had the right to meddle in their lives and yet had the audacity to think I could stay distanced from it all? Or is the anger at my mom, though I am not even really sure why? I guess because it just pisses me off that she is going to be shattered once again and I am the one to blame.

The house is dark when I return. As I walk up to the front door, I realize dusk has fallen while I was lost in myself. Even before I am fully inside, I know he isn't here. It is devoid of his light. This knowledge causes an ache inside me. I fumble with my phone, staring at his cell phone number when I get to it, and slowly put it back in my pocket. I pace the length of the sun room, glancing out at the star-filled night, wondering where he is and if he's okay.

And then I stop.

Coldness seeps into me with the knowledge that I do not belong here. This room—with its fire and life—it isn't mine to stand in. This isn't my life. Rivers isn't mine. I've just been pretending. In two days Monica and Thomas will be back, and what then? Then I'll fade back into the corners of their lives where I should have stayed to begin with. I need to get out, before Rivers returns. Because I know, when he comes back, I won't be able to fool myself into thinking that he cares so little for me as to just let me walk away.

With fingers that tremble, I call my employer. As soon as she answers, I tell her, “I'm quitting.” It's blunt and harsh, but effective. I can
feel
the shock through the phone. I inhale deeply. “I'm sorry for not giving more notice.”

“But...what...why? Did something happen?”

Did something happen? What
didn't
happen? I can't very well tell her I fell in love with her son and that I know, with absolute certainty, that he will end up getting hurt because of it. Either way, he gets hurt. If I stay, he gets hurt. If I go, he gets hurt. There really is no way around it. But if I put distance between us now, maybe it will hurt him less later.

I respond evasively, “Nothing happened. I just...my mom needs me at the flower shop.” I wince at the lie. I'll have to make it a truth as soon as I can. The wrongness of what I am doing hits me and I feel nauseous. I'm leaving. The fact that I don't want to makes no difference. Does what I want
ever
matter? Not lately, not when it counts. My heart feels torn in two, like I know I will be leaving a part of myself with Rivers when I go.

“Is it because I didn't pay you more for staying? Because I had every intention of doing so when we returned. I didn't mean to take advantage of you. I hope you know that. And...I don't know, I thought maybe you and Rivers—I mean, he just seems so much better...” she trails off, clearly hesitant to voice her thoughts.