To the Stars

by Molly McAdams

  Sender: Tothe

  92960 Stars Way

  Thatch, WA

  “Tothe?” I whispered the unfamiliar surname out loud, then slowly walked inside and shut the door as I looked at the address, and froze. Thatch . . . it was from Thatch. Where Knox lived.

  The name and street, everything finally made sense, and I couldn’t run to the kitchen fast enough to get a knife to open up the box in my hands.

  To the stars. The closest star was the sun, and it was 92,960,000 miles away. Knox had told me that years ago, and it was a ridiculously large number I had never forgotten.

  My hands shook as I sliced open the tape with a knife I’d grabbed from the block, and even though Collin had never once come home early from work in the years we’d been married, I kept looking over my shoulder in fear that he would barge through the door at any moment. Looking back at the box when I had it opened, my excitement turned to confusion, then dread when I pulled out a cell phone and charger covered in bubble wrap.

  I powered the phone on once I had it uncovered, and after waiting for a minute, saw that the only things on the main screen were the texting and call apps. Despite the fear creeping through my body, my lips curved up when I saw that the sole contact on the phone was Knox. I don’t know how long I stood there chewing on my bottom lip and staring at his name, but my shaking only increased by the time I finally tapped down on it.

  It rang and rang, and finally on the fifth ring it cut off, but there was no answer and no voice mail.

  “Knox?” I whispered.

  “Jesus, Low,” he breathed out in relief. “I kept wondering if he would get the phone before you, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get it to you. I thought if I took it there someone would see me and say something to him, and then he would—”

  “Knox, stop!” I said, cutting him off. “Why did you send me a phone, and how do you know where I live?”

  “I told you I would think of something—this was it—and it’s disturbing the things you can find on Google,” he said, then blew out a heavy breath. “How are you?”

  I covered my face with a shaking hand; he’d asked how I was doing as if he hadn’t just put both of us in danger. “Knox, no, that’s not—I know what this is. I meant why is it here? Why would you risk sending me this? Didn’t you hear me when I told you that he searches everywhere for anything?”

  “Because you need a way to be able to call for help—whether that’s me or someone else. Put other numbers in there, I don’t care. Just hide it somewhere he won’t look for it, and use it if you need help. I need to know that you’re not alone there with no way to let someone know that it’s going too far when you’re afraid to use your own phone or even call the cops.”

  “But this is dangerous, Knox! You just put your life in danger, too,” I said through clenched teeth. Why couldn’t he understand that?

  “Letting you live with that man is dangerous, Harlow! If you can make me watch you walk away with that bastard, then you can let me do this. I need this, too.” After a few seconds he said, “It hasn’t even been a week, but knowing what you live with, this week has felt longer and more exhausting than a year. And knowing you have this phone gives me the smallest peace of mind. Please, just . . . please.”

  I shook my head slowly, but whispered, “Okay.”

  He let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Now how are you?” he asked again. “Has anything happened this week?”

  “No. I told you, he thinks I’m pregnant.”

  “And you bought yourself a week, which is bullshit and is also about to be over. What happens when he finds out you’re not?”

  My stomach churned. “It doesn’t matter.”

  There was a pause, then in a low tone he demanded, “When is that week up?”

  Tomorrow, I thought miserably. “It doesn’t matter,” I repeated.

  “Harlow,” he whispered. The raw pain and fear in his voice shattered me, but I couldn’t do this.

  “Thank you for this phone. This stupid, dangerous phone,” I said, and laughed lamely. “I will find a place to hide it for when Collin is home, and when I can, I will let you know that I am okay. But, Knox . . .” I trailed off and worried my lip as I tried to figure out how to word what I needed to say. “Unless the day comes where I’m ready for you to take me away, I won’t tell you what goes on in this house.”

  “Low—”

  “Trust me, I am doing this for you!” I sobbed, cutting him off.

  There was a long, heavy silence, interrupted only by my hushed cries. “Okay. Okay, then I’ll wait for that day.”

  “Thank you.”

  The sound of a loud firehouse bell filled the phone, and Knox swore. “I need to go. I love you, Harlow. I always have.”

  The call ended before I could respond, but I wasn’t sure what my response would have been anyway. The I love you that had slipped out the night of the fund-raiser came out so easily—as if my soul had said it for me. Now I was afraid to let my soul free. If I did, I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep myself safe in this house anymore, because my heart, my soul . . . my everything was reaching for the man I could never have again.

  I slid down to the floor with the secret phone still in my hand, and cried for the love I’d thrown away, as I had every day for the last two and a half years.

  When my tears had run dry, I slowly looked over to the clock on the stove, and scrambled to get up. Collin was going to be home in an hour, and I still needed to shower, figure out dinner, and get rid of everything that was currently sitting on the kitchen island.

  I made a quick call to a restaurant to place an order, then took off through the house, glad that I’d cleaned everything obsessively all week, since I didn’t have time for it now, and ran to take a shower. Once I was clean and dried, I threw my hair up, put on a little bit of makeup and clean clothes so Collin wouldn’t think I’d been in the same thing all day, then ran back to the kitchen to grab up everything on the counter before leaving the house.

  I drove to the restaurant to pick up the food, ditched the box that the secret phone had been delivered in in the dumpsters behind the building, and headed back home with just minutes to spare. Once there, I grabbed a couple of Ziploc bags and went into the backyard—the only place I thought Collin wouldn’t think of—and looked around for a spot to hide what now suddenly seemed like my most valuable possession.

  I hated gardening, probably because I was horrible at it, and Collin laughed if anyone ever mentioned plants and flowers around me. I killed everything I tried to grow here because I’d grown up with so much rain and wasn’t used to all the sunshine, so we had a landscaping crew to make it look as amazing as it did. And as far as I knew, whenever Collin went tearing through the house and cars looking for birth control, “hidden” credit cards, or whatever else he thought I was hiding from him, he’d never once looked in the garden.

  Choosing one of the large, potted plants up on the porch, I pushed aside the annoying amount of greenery coming out of it and played with the soil inside, judging where and how deep I needed the phone to go. After making a little hole, I sent Knox a message, powered down the phone, double-bagged and buried it, then went inside to get any remaining soil off my hands.

  I looked over at the clock as I finished drying my hands, and exhaled in relief. Collin would be home in two minutes . . . I’d done it. I had all the food set out and had just finished putting drinks on the table when I heard the key in the lock and Collin walked in.

  “Harlow?” he called out in excitement.

  “In here,” I answered, and held back an eye roll. Of course I was in the kitchen. I was always in the kitchen when he came home from work. I was just caught off guard by his tone.

  Collin rounded the corner and stopped short when he saw the takeout on the table. “Chinese?”

  “Um, I fell asleep. I just . . . I got tired, and I crashed. The next thing I knew it was too late to make dinner, and I’m sorry.”

  He closed th
e distance between us and wrapped his arms tightly around me. “Hey, it’s okay! It’s okay. I’m sure you’re tired, and you haven’t been feeling well. This is great. Chinese sounds perfect.”

  Collin couldn’t stop smiling, and it was scaring me so much that I was shaking. Collin only smiled like this on Saturday mornings before I took the test, when we were out with other people, or after he’d finished giving me a punishment and was trying to make up for it. He’d been extremely gentle and somewhat caring all week, but he hadn’t been like this.

  “H-how was work?”

  “Fine,” he responded offhandedly. “I decided I don’t want to wait. What do you say?”

  My eyebrows rose in confusion. “What? What aren’t we waiting for?”

  “Tomorrow morning!” He said the words like I should have already known what we were talking about. “This is all I think about at work, and it’s driving me crazy to wait. I have to know.”

  My face and stomach fell. “Um, but—”

  “What difference is a night going to make?”

  “B-but it is evening, and . . . and . . . and you shouldn’t take the tests in the evening. They say on the box to take them first thing in the morning, right? Didn’t you tell me that? That’s why I take them after I wake up.” I was going to be sick. I hadn’t eaten once today, but it felt like I was going to lose the imaginary contents of my stomach.

  Collin’s smile vanished just as suddenly as he stepped away from me. “Why are you trying to put this off, Harlow?” he asked darkly.

  “I’m not!” I tried to assure him, but judging by the way his breaths were slowly getting rougher, I wasn’t succeeding. I scrambled to think of anything to say, and thought back to what I’d said to him while we were dancing at the fund-raiser for the firehouse. “I’m just scared! I’ve thought that this was it, but what if it’s not? What if I’ve gotten both our hopes up? I told you that I was worried about that. This test has been looming over my head and terrifying me, because what if I let you down again? I hate letting you down, Collin!” I choked out.

  I didn’t have to fake the fear, the shaking, or the tears. All of it was very real. Letting Collin down was the last thing I wanted to do, just not for the reasons he thought.

  The loving Collin was back as if a light switch had been thrown, and once again he wrapped me tightly in his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad? I would’ve done anything to let you know that no matter what, I love you, and we’re going to get through this. No result on a test is going to change what I feel for you, baby. But that’s even more of a reason to just do it now; then you won’t have to lose sleep tonight worrying. Let’s just do it.”

  “Collin, please don’t—”

  “Harlow,” he snapped, then collected himself again. “We’re doing the test. Now.”

  Gripping my wrist in his hand, he led me back to our bathroom and bent down to get a test. The tears began forming once the foil-wrapped stick was in my hand, but I kept my eyes away from him so he wouldn’t see them. I’d thought I still had time. I was wrong. I suddenly wanted Knox’s phone. I was wondering why I hadn’t let him take me away, and why I knew even still that I wouldn’t.

  Collin took the stick like he always did and set it on the counter before pulling me into his arms to wait. A couple of minutes later his breathing stopped, and I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself.

  “Harlow!” he shouted, and my eyes shot open to look at the stick.

  “What?” I choked out, and gripped the counter when it felt like I was going to faint. There were two lines instead of the normal one.

  Collin turned me so I was facing him, and pulled me close to press his mouth to mine, and I cried through the kiss. I tried to play off the tears as something happy, but all I could think was that my world was crashing down around me, and I had already ruined this baby’s life by letting it have Collin as a father.

  Chapter 9

  Knox

  Present Day—Richland

  AS SOON AS we got back to the firehouse and got our stuff ready for the next call, I headed back to my room to relax for as long as possible. I knew it was how the job went, but given the situation, I hated that I’d had to hang up on Harlow. She’d barely come back into my life, but I knew each time I spoke to her that it could be the last. Grabbing up my phone, I saw there was a message from her, and couldn’t open it fast enough.

  Harlow: To the stars . . .

  My mouth twitched into a smile as I stared at her words, and for a few seconds it felt like I was nineteen again as I tapped out a response. But I wasn’t. And the girl sending me that message was married to an abusive prick.

  Knox: Always

  As soon as I pushed SEND, I put my phone on the end table and fell onto my bed to try to relax until our next call. But relaxing didn’t come easy these days, and soon my body was tense and I was crossing my arms over my chest to keep them from shaking. All I could see was the way Collin’s fingers dug into her arm, and the marks that were already bruising. I kept seeing flashes of how thin Harlow was now. She looked sick, and after seeing the way her husband treated her in public—and hearing that her family was in danger—it wasn’t hard to see why. I needed to help her; I needed to save her. But I couldn’t do that if she wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t force my way into her marriage. And then all I could think about was the fact that she’d chosen him over me.

  The only thing I’d ever done to her was ask her to wait.

  Summer 2010—Seattle

  “HOW BIG DO you think they are?”

  I slowly cracked open my eyes, and glanced over to where Harlow was lying next to me on the blanket. She was leaving for college in a couple of days. This was my last chance to be with her until she finally turned eighteen. My last chance to remind her of what she had waiting for her back home. She might not understand why I was about to do what I’d promised to do over the next few months . . . but hopefully one day she would realize it was all for her. Everything always had been.

  We’d been out at a secluded spot for hours, and when just kissing hadn’t been enough, I’d rolled away from her and started counting the days until her birthday, over and over again to calm down. But her question about how big something was wasn’t helping.

  “Hmm?”

  Harlow gestured toward the sky with her eyes, then moved her body so she could face it. “How big do you think the stars are? They’re so far away, but they look so close. And if you said the closest star is the sun, then I want to know how big the others are.”

  “I don’t know, Low.”

  She elbowed my side and rolled back over so she was leaning over me. “You said you got an A in astronomy.”

  I laughed and brushed away the hair hanging in front of her face. “I only paid attention in that class because it had to do with stars, which makes me think of you.”

  She didn’t respond, just continued to look at me expectantly.

  “I don’t know how big they are, but I know they vary. Some are really small, and some are bigger than the sun.”

  Harlow’s head jerked back, and she looked up at the sky again. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” I confirmed. “A lot bigger.”

  After looking at the night sky for a few more seconds, she brought her face back in front of mine. The serious look on her face caught me off guard, but before I could ask what was wrong, she said, “I can’t begin to imagine how far away they are if they look that small in comparison to the sun, and some are bigger. And you love me to them.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. “I do.”

  “The years, my boyfriend and your girlfriend . . . how has it not all been too much?”

  It blew my mind that after all this time she still didn’t understand exactly what she meant to me. “I knew within days of meeting you that I wanted you for the rest of my life. Waiting a few years isn’t a lot compared to what I’ll have with you after. The others? They were distractions to help get us here, and you and
I both know they were bad ones. Otherwise the calls would’ve stopped and we would’ve grown apart—and that never happened. You said some people aren’t lucky enough to know our kind of love. For a lot of people, all that would’ve been too much. For us, it was just part of our story.”

  Harlow’s blue eyes widened in awe, and for a few seconds, she just stared at me. “You . . .” She trailed off and shook her head. “You are such a charmer, Knox Alexander; always have been. Are you this romantic with every other girl?”

  A short laugh burst from my chest. “Romantic,” I said, deadpan.

  “Yes.”

  I sucked in air through my teeth and shook my head. “Low, I’ve told you, I’m the opposite of romantic.”

  She lowered her body onto mine and leaned close enough that her lips brushed against mine when she spoke. “I want to love you to the stars? It was just part of our story?”

  I caught her mouth for a lingering kiss before saying, “But that’s all true.”

  “Romantic.”

  “Then it’s only you,” I promised. “No one gets this side of me; no one else ever has.”

  Just as she was leaning in for another kiss, she jolted and her eyes widened.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked when she didn’t say anything or move.

  “I think . . .”

  “What?”

  “Did a bird just poop on my head?” she asked in a horrified voice.

  I laughed loudly, and looked at her like she’d lost it. “In the middle of the night? I doubt it.” Still laughing, I rolled us over and pressed my body closer to hers. As I brought my mouth back down to hers, I felt the rain start falling against the back of my neck. I let out a sigh against her lips and said, “And that would be your bird.”

  “No, no!” Harlow scrambled out from under me and off the blanket, and tried to take off in the direction of my truck, but I was up and after her within seconds.

  I hooked an arm around her waist before she could get far, and swung her body back against mine.

  “Knox!” she screamed through her laughs as she tried to get away from me. “We need to get back to the truck!”