She Dims the Stars (19 page)

“Is it this fork … or this one?” Cline asks, holding up the map and shining his phone light on it. There are two splits off of the main neighborhood road, and the map doesn’t exactly differentiate between the two.

September speaks up, pointing her finger to the left. “I’m going to assume it’s the split with all the scary fog and no light coming from it and not the one where you can see houses and stuff.”

“Shit. She’s probably right.” Cline huffs and pulls her to his side. “I cannot
believe
none of us brought a gun. Or a knife. Or nunchucks.”

“What would you have done with nunchucks?” Elliot hisses at him in the darkness.

“
Hit them in the balls
,” Cline loud-whispers back.

We are almost to the location now, and just as we near the end of the road, a chain link fence comes into view.

“Damn. There’s a fence. Guess we have to turn around and leave now—“ Cline begins to turn just as Elliot lifts his phone again, using it as a flashlight straight ahead. Like some sort of sick joke, there is a massive hole cut right in the middle of the links. Fog is still rolling out of it, and right as I step off of the asphalt onto the grass in front of the opening, the temperature drops a few degrees.

“Nope. Not worth it. This is some voodoo shit right here, Byrdie. Is that really a cemetery we’re supposed to cross?” Cline’s eyes are silver reflections of the moon as I step through into the cemetery.

“We have to cross a bridge, too,” I call over my shoulder.

“Fuck. No.” I can hear him saying it, but he’s right behind me, following and pulling September along with him. She’s whispering something to herself, and after a second, Elliot is directly by my side.

“What is she saying?” I ask him when he gets close enough.

“She’s reciting The Lord’s Prayer,” he answers back before he stumbles a bit and stops cold. “I’m sorry. That was a grave. I stepped on a grave. Fix it.” His eyes are huge.

I push the little cement piece back into place and do a curtsy. “Our apologies.”

“That’s not how this works!” Cline is freaking out behind us, and suddenly I feel his hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward as he pulls September along, and Elliot is running alongside all of us. There’s a sound in the trees to our right, and he quickens his pace before moving his girl next to me and shoving us both in front. With one final nudge, we’re in the trees, and Cline is fumbling for a flashlight on Anderson’s keychain.

“We have
got
to come prepared next time,” he says through gasps of breath. The light from the tiny flashlight hits the small curved bridge that my mom had written about, and he mutters for us to keep moving, so we do. Within minutes, the trees suddenly grow sparse, and the night sky appears once more, the moon in full view above our heads.

There, right in front of us, surrounded by nothing but tall, thick grass, is the biggest tree I have ever seen in my entire life. At least, what’s left of it. The roots are enormous, exposed and expanding fifteen feet or more in each direction. It’s just as my mom had described it, though older and more worn. The top is gone, but still stands almost ten feet tall. The base looks like you could fit furniture inside of it and hang a television … make it a living room. At least the kind of living rooms we’re used to seeing at college.

We move around the front to the side, and there, as promised, is the carved out opening. The door to The Confession Tree.

“What time is it?” I ask, looking over to see Elliot staring down at one of the larger exposed roots.

He glances at his phone. “It’s just about 10.”

“Perfect. Who wants to go first?” I ask, knowing that no matter who answers, I’ll have the final say. My mind is racing and every nerve is on edge.
This is it.

“I’ll go first with Cline,” September offers. Her smile is sly, and my hands begin to sweat, wondering what she has to say, but glad that he’s going to have something sweet to remember about this night if I end up ruining everything.

“Cool. Head in,” I say and point to the entrance. We’ve gone over what the tree is for. The rules have been established. Once they’ve disappeared, I step away so that I can’t hear what’s going on. I need to focus anyway. Plus, what they say is none of my business.

Elliot sounds so far away, but when I turn to find him, he’s barely a foot to my right.

“What did you say?” I ask.

His eyes are gazing upward at the moon, and his jaw is set before he speaks again so I can hear. “Are we going in? The two of us, I mean. Did you decide you had something to confess to me?”

“I said we were going in if
you
had something to say to
me
.”

A small smile plays along his lips and he nods. “Then I guess we’re next.”

If time could stand still, it does in those minutes that we are outside the tree, and yet, once the other two emerge and it’s time for me to go inside with Elliot, I’m suddenly feeling like I need more of it. There’s a glow about September, and Cline’s smile is a mile wide, but I’m being weighted down more by the second, even as we move through the door and stand inside the dilapidated tree to face one another, toe to toe.

My heart is beating so fast, but I force myself to look up at Elliot’s face as it tilts down to mine. His shoulders look so broad all of a sudden in this intimate space. I study the curve of his nose, the thickness of his lips, those moles on the side of his face. Then I close my eyes and take in the deepest breath I can gather.

“I didn’t bring you on this trip so I could use your story for my game.” His confession comes rushing out faster than my brain can keep up with it.

Eyes open again, I am staring up at him, calm as can be, his truth spoken in the air between us. I’m a little shaken by his words.

“Yes, you did. Why else would you do it?” I ask.

He shrugs, those shoulders rising upward while he shoves his hands in his pockets. “My dad did a bunch of great things while he was alive. I haven’t done anything. I think, in the moment, I figured that by helping you find out about your mom, it would be me doing a good thing for someone else. But if I told you that, you wouldn’t have accepted it. I wanted to do a selfless thing, I guess.”

“And?” I ask, my throat constricted. I want to be grateful. I want to be mad. I want to be so many things, but looking at his face, all I am is scared.

His mouth pulls up on one side. “It wasn't selfless at all. Because I got to be with you. I got to know you … and that was unexpected.”

I nod and clear my throat. “So, I’m out of the game, then? No unicorn?”

He laughs, and the sound cracks the tension in my chest. His fingers brush my hair away from my right shoulder and he sighs. “I’ll try to fit it in.”

“Good. I was really banking on having an action figure and stuff.” I smile up at him when his thumb traces my cheek, and I close my eyes under his touch. One step forward and I’m close enough to grasp onto his belt loops, anchoring our bodies even closer. I rest my forehead against his chest for a second, letting his fingers move across my neck before I speak again.

“You know how I said I wasn’t going to ask you for that next kiss?”

“Yeah,” His voice rumbles through his sternum, and I look up with a smile.

“I didn’t need to ask. I’ve already kissed you before. That girl with the pink hair at the bar … the one you told me about with the bad pick-up line about not being able to feel her lips? That was me. In a wig … obviously.”

His whole body relaxes and he looks up at the sky, blowing out a huge breath. “Oh, thank God.”

“What?” I’m laughing at his reaction.

He steps into me and wraps me in his arms, his face hovering above my own as we hold eye contact. “Now I don’t have to feel bad about fantasizing about two separate girls. You’re the same. This makes things so much easier.”

I press a finger to his lips and ask quietly, “You fantasize about me?”

“You have no idea,” he says against my digit.

Slowly, I draw my finger down his lips then trace his jaw upward to his ear. “I want that kiss now,” I tell him. And before I can finish the sentence, his lips are on mine, his body pressed in close. When he moves to pull away, a hushed moan leaves my mouth, and he goes in for another kiss, lips parted and tongue seeking. It’s euphoric, being in this place, in his arms. I have to step back and remind myself of where we are. Every part of my body tingles and pulses, aches and wants.
I feel wanted.

He straightens his black t-shirt and angles away from me to adjust himself in his jeans. Turning around sheepishly, he grins and comes in like he’s going in for another kiss, but I hold out a hand to stop him.

“I’m sorry. I have to talk to Cline here. Then we can go and do this some more. Is that okay?”

Elliot’s tongue wets his upper lip, and his lashes lower as he breathes. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I’ll go get him.”

I swear, I blink and he’s gone. The emotions dammed up inside of me are threatening to burst under the happiness I’m feeling, and I’m lightheaded under the onslaught of it.
Joy
. I am
wanted
. He thinks about me. Being around me isn't something that bothers him or that he finds to be a burden; it’s something he seeks out.

I don’t know what butterflies are supposed to feel like in your stomach, but I’m pretty sure this is as close as it gets for someone like me.

And then Cline’s head appears in that entrance, and those butterflies start to drop dead, one by one.

“Are we doing one of these, too?” he asks, and he looks genuinely perplexed.

“Yes. You’re the main reason I wanted to do this at all, in all honesty. Which is exactly why we’re here: honesty.” It’s all rushing out so fast. I’m not calm or collected like I had hoped to be. The headspace I had wanted to be in has been obliterated. “I need to tell you everything that happened back when we were fifteen, so you can understand the situation. And if you still want to hate me when I’m done, then that’s fine, but you have to listen to me say this just once, okay?”

He’s stone still, staring down at me like I might explode if he moves. “Okay.”

I start to pace around the area between us so that I can concentrate. “You were my very best friend in the entire world. I trusted you more than I trusted anyone. You knew everything about me, and I never felt like you judged me for anything. Until that day in the cafeteria. Do you remember that day? The day Patrick and Miranda said I ran away?”

“You were acting spaced out and weird and then ran away from the lunch table and didn’t come back for, like, a week.” Cline is standing his ground, his eyes following me as I move.

“You called me out at lunch, asking me what was wrong with me.”

“Shit, Audrey. I asked you if it was all my fault.”

“It wasn’t!” I stop and hold both hands up to make him be quiet. “This is the part I need you to understand. You asked me what was wrong with me, and Cline, I knew there was something going on with me for a while before that. I just thought I was keeping it a secret. But if
you
saw it, then I wasn’t as good at faking it as I thought. I was sitting there feeling alone in the middle of a cafeteria full of three hundred students and my very best friend in the entire world.

“So I went home to ask my dad about it, and that’s when I heard Miranda talking to him about having more kids. But he said, no, because
he can’t have kids
. Not because of a vasectomy. Because he could
never
have kids. She’s screaming at him that he’s raising another man’s kid already so why not do it again?” My feet stop moving, and I take a huge breath, turning to gage Cline’s reaction. His mouth is slightly open and his eyes are wide.

“You know how Miranda treated me. You remember. Then I find out that not only did I kill my mother during childbirth, but the guy everyone thinks is my dad, isn’t? On top of that, I’m … drowning. Just
drowning
. I don’t have anyone to turn to, because the entire town thinks I’m this person … this baby who they helped save and raise, but it turns out I’m not even related to Patrick Byrd at all. My grandma hates me. Miranda hates me. And the only person who knows me has no clue who I really am, because
I have no clue who I really am.”

“So you ran away,” he states it and clenches his fist, wanting so badly for it to be true.

I shake my head. “I tried to disappear.”

“What does that even mean?” His voice is barely above a whisper and I can’t bring myself to look at him when I continue.

“I’d been feeling that way for months. Maybe longer. I don’t know. Like, maybe if I just disappeared, everyone else’s life would just be better. I would think of scenarios where I never existed in the first place. My mom would still be alive—all that. And it just became so clear that the problem was me. Miranda had been telling me … but for the first time, I really understood that if I wasn’t there, then things might be better for everyone. So after she went out with her friends and Patrick went to bed … You know that detached garage where we parked the cars?”

“Don’t, Audrey.” He takes a step forward and I stand firm.

“You see it in the movies. It’s like going to sleep, I guess. I just didn’t count on Miranda coming home so soon and finding me. She was
so
pissed. Thought I was trying to get Patrick’s attention. They took me to a hospital outside of town where no one would know and then made up the story about me running away. I got a shrink. I got these meds. I got a girl who calls me every Tuesday to check and make sure I’m still alive. I got fat. And I lost everything I ever knew … including you. Because I couldn’t face reality. And I didn't want you to think it was your fault.” Finally, with sweaty hands and a heart that is beating way too hard in my tightened chest, I allow the feelings to rush in.

Tears begin to prick my nose, and my throat closes a bit as I stare into the face of the one person who meant more to me than anyone else in the entire world. “It wasn’t your fault, and now that I’ve told you, I know you’re going to look at me differently again. More than you did before. And that’s okay, because what I was supposed to do here was ask you to forgive me for not telling you the truth sooner. I’m sorry I cut you off and didn’t believe you’d still be my friend if you knew. Maybe you wouldn’t have, but I never even gave you the chance one way or the other. So, I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault …” I can’t form words anymore because I’m crying so hard.