We Will Change Our Stars

by Nicole Thorn

  “Jasmine, Jasper,” our father said from the kitchen doorway.

  My brother tensed up. A bright smile plastered itself over my face when I looked up at my father. I couldn’t remember my mother, but we had to take after her. Our father was forty-six, the same height as Jasper, and very broad through the shoulders, and waist—a purely muscular thing. His features looked sharp, taking him away from being handsome, and making him more interesting to stare at. But his hair was the same brown that my siblings and I shared. His eyes were a medium brown, and always looked a little cold to me.

  Dad paused, looking at me. I scrambled off the counter so that I could give him a hug. His arms tightened around me. When he released me, I smiled up at him. “Hi, Daddy. I didn’t know you were coming by.”

  “I hadn’t planned on it, but I figured I should check up on you kids. What have you been up to in the last couple of months?” Dad asked, smiling at all of us.

  “Not much,” I chirped, perching on the counter again. “The usual stuff, for the most part. Jasper’s been working really hard on his little village things, and Juni—”

  “So, you’re still relaxing,” he interrupted me, nodding. He looked around the house like he saw it for the first time. His hands stuffed in his pockets. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said for perhaps the tenth time since we’d moved into the house. He said it every time he came over.

  “Thanks,” Juniper said from behind him. She moved so that she could stand with me and Jasper again. She smiled nervously. “Is there something you wanted, Dad?”

  He smiled back at her. “I just wanted to check on you kids. I haven’t heard from you in a while. Since you stopped giving me money, so that I can relax the way that you kids do.”

  I flinched, and looked down at my shoes. A few months ago, Jasper talked us into cutting him off. I didn’t know why, but Jasper didn’t seem to like our father much anymore. We hadn’t seen much of Dad since Kizzy decided to ‘fix up’ his house after the furies destroyed it.

  “You have plenty of money, Dad,” Jasper said, quietly.

  My father turned cold eyes onto my brother. “I don’t, actually. I’ve had to go back to work. But that’s not the point of this visit. You’re my children. I want to make sure that you’re all doing well. Are your friends still in the house?” he asked. “The ones that I met a few months ago?”

  “Yes,” I said, smiling. “They’re upstairs right now. Jasper and Kizzy are dating now.”

  Dad glanced at Jasper. “So, you’re definitely not getting back together with that other girl?”

  Jasper shook his head. Jasper had only had one other girlfriend in his life. Celeste. Or, as I liked to call her, The Skank. She had treated my brother horribly, and then tried to drive Kizzy away because Celeste feared he wouldn’t be there at her beck and call anymore. Luckily for all of us, Kizzy wasn’t that easily deterred when she didn’t want to be.

  Dad made a small sound. “That’s a shame.”

  Jasper shrugged, and I watched Dad’s face changed. When he moved forward, I flinched, knowing what would happen. Only, it didn’t. Jasper moved away from our father before Dad could touch him. “Don’t,” Jasper said, and his voice sounded completely different from anything Jasper ever said to Dad before. This voice, he only used when someone threatened me.

  Dad did not like it, and he got right up in Jasper’s face. “Don’t what?” he demanded. “All I ask is that I get a little respect from you. I raised you, and I deserve to be treated kindly for all the sacrifices I made.”

  Jasper stared at our father, and didn’t say anything for a long minute. He had never been the confrontational type, which was why it shocked me when he spoke up, real low. “I have given you enough respect, so just don’t.”

  I heard a noise from the hallway, and Dad moved away from Jasper, still looking irritable. Kizzy stepped into the kitchen, looking sleepy. The second she saw Dad, all that sleepiness vanished, and she suddenly looked on high alert. “Oh. Hello,” she said, as coldly as those two words could’ve been spoken.

  Jasper put two cinnamon rolls on a plate, and took her hand. “We should get to work early, if you want to get any gardening done today,” he said in a clear redirection. Kizzy narrowed her eyes at our father, like she wondered what he had done, but she followed Jasper into the garage.

  Leaving me and Juniper alone with the man. He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that boy. Actually, I do.” He looked at Juniper. “He’s the reason you don’t want to give me any more money, isn’t he?”

  Juniper shuffled her feet. “We just feel like it would be a bad idea,” she said.

  He nodded. “That’s what I thought. It’s okay, Juniper. You can’t keep everything under control. You’re just a twenty-one-year-old girl. One day you’ll figure everything out, and stop being so scatterbrained, and letting other people run your life for you.” He patted her head.

  Juniper curled into herself, and I wanted to hug her.

  Without warning, the image of Bill shifted through my mind. The way his eyes lit up when he talked about his children and grandchildren, and how proud he seemed of each and every one of them.

  Whatever happiness I had been feeling earlier, started to drift away. It left behind a bitter, burning anger in the back of my throat. I didn’t understand it, and worse, I couldn’t control it. With all the stress I’d been under lately, I couldn’t shove it to the back of my mind, where it belonged.

  Instead, I glared at my father. “Don’t talk to her like that,” I barked. “It’s our money. It’s our choice if we want to give it to you or not, and right now, I’m happy that you’ve got none of it.”

  My father blinked at me. “Jasmine,” he said, sternly. “Don’t talk to me like that. You don’t even know what it takes to run a household. You should just be thankful that your sister lets you do whatever you want with the money that you didn’t earn. The least you could do is give me a little, after everything that I did for you kids.”

  And the anger burned hotter.

  “Everything you did?” I demanded. Something in me snapped. I couldn’t say what caused it, or why it happened, but I felt the snap. “You didn’t do anything!” I shouted, much louder than I should have if I wanted the demigods out of this fight. “You shoved us in a room together, all day, with workbooks as our only teachers. When we didn’t listen to you, you’d put us in a dog crate for the night, and you made us blackmail our neighbors using our vision so that you didn’t have to work. Everything you did? You’re lucky that we didn’t kill you in your sleep!”

  The next thing I knew, my legs got tangled together, and I landed on the floor. My cheek stung violently. I sat there, staring at my father. I could sense Juniper behind me, doing the same thing.

  “What the fuck!?” Juniper shouted. I blinked in surprise. She knelt next to me, getting her arms around my shoulders. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said, “But you need to leave.” Her voice shook as the last words came out of her mouth.

  Dad stared at her. “Excuse me? I need to leave? Did you not hear how she was talking to me? The three of you need to get your shit together, and before everything that you have comes crumbling down around you.”

  Juniper kept staring at him, and her eyes filled with tears. Her throat worked as she spoke. “Yes, you need to leave. And right this second.” It sounded like the words squeezed through her throat.

  Our father’s face shut down. His eyes turned to little bits of ice, and he shook his head. “When everything comes falling down around you, don’t expect me to pick up the pieces. Don’t expect me to do anything.” He turned around and walked out, leaving me and Juniper on the floor.

  I touched my cheek. It still hurt.

  “Are you okay?” Juniper asked, pulling me to my feet. She had tears in her eyes. I watched them dart around the kitchen, like she looked for something to clean. Her hands felt very cold, and they shook.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m
fine. Why don’t I get out of your hair, and let you straighten up?”

  Juniper nodded, giving me one last hug before I stepped outside. And thought of Bill again. This time of his funeral. All those people that had been there. His wife and children mourning him, and caring so much about the man he had been, and the fact that they wouldn’t have him anymore.

  Everything aligned in my head, and I ended up sitting on the back porch, with my legs stretched out in front of me, frowning at my lap. Tears came, and I couldn’t stop them anymore than I could stop the rain falling from the sky. I finally understood why Jasper didn’t want us giving Dad any money.

  I understood what my brother understood. I wondered when he figured everything out, and why he hadn’t tried to explain it to us. I wondered a lot of things, but most of all, I mourned. Cried, and mourned some more.

  I couldn’t have been out there for more than ten minutes before the back door opened. I knew who it was before he sat down next to me. I glanced at Zander, and he still looked a little tired. I wondered if he woke up when I screamed at my father, or just after. He hadn’t even changed out of his sleep clothes.

  He turned to look at me, and I saw the lipstick mark still on his cheek. I smiled, because I liked the thought of him not even knowing it was there. Just walking around like that until he showered. I kept those thoughts to myself, though, because the look in his eyes said a lot more than what I thought mine did.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. His voice even sounded sleepy still.

  I scooted closer to him, so that I could feel his warmth along my side. I wanted to put my head on his shoulder, but I didn’t know if he’d be okay with that. I thought about it for a few seconds, and maybe he sensed it, because he pulled me against him. I rested against his side, and just basked in his attention for a few seconds.

  “Are you okay?” he repeated. Then he stiffened. I sat up straight, and moved my hair out of my eyes. His blue ones locked on my cheek. It must’ve been red from when Dad hit me. I still couldn’t believe that my father had hit me.

  “I’m fine,” I said cheerily. “This is nothing, don’t worry about it.” The lie rolled right off my tongue, and I felt like shit for it, but I let it stand. If Zander didn’t already know what happened, I’d rather not tell him. I didn’t care much for my father right then, and I might never again, but that didn’t mean I wanted to kill him.

  “What’s wrong,” he asked, and this time his voice sounded brusquer.

  “I’ve just been thinking,” I said. “Turns out there’s only so much time you can spend with your head in the sand before you have to come up for air.” I smiled, and hoped it didn’t feel as watery as I suspected it did. But Zander didn’t judge. His hand took mine, and some of the tears receded.

  “Jasmine?”

  “Didn’t it seem weird that I was mourning so much for a man that I barely knew?” I asked. “It seemed weird to me, but I figured it out. We hadn’t been talking for long, but he was so nice, and he loved his kids so much that it shined through his every word. And I remember sitting there, and thinking that he was a great dad. The kind that I would have loved to have, and I didn’t think much beyond that, because then I’d have to look at my father,” I said. “I’m not mourning Bill. I’m mourning what my father should have been.”

  Zander didn’t say anything. His hand squeezed mine again, and I sniffled. “He’s not a good man, is he?” I asked.

  “Your father?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “No,” Zander said. “He is not a good man. Kizzy and I haven’t liked him from the moment that we saw him. There’s something wrong with him, Jasmine. Something broken, and that broken thing needs to make sure that everything around him is broken too. He’s not a good man.”

  “I knew that even before you told me. Is this what happened with Jasper? He just couldn’t hide from himself anymore?”

  Zander thought about that for a second. “I think what happened with Jasper was that he couldn’t keep going like he was. He couldn’t keep falling down, and ignoring it.”

  I put my head in my hands. “He used to do so many terrible things to us.” I glanced aside at Zander again. “When I freaked out all over you, it was because of him. He used to put us in a dog crate outside when we wouldn’t cooperate with him. I’d sit in there for hours, waiting for the sun, wondering if I’d die from the cold that night, convinced the sun would never rise again. Jasper used to take so many hits for me, but he couldn’t take them all. He would have died trying to keep Juniper and me safe.”

  I watched my friend’s jaw clench, and his hands ball up. Yet my words kept coming. “He used to take pictures whenever we did something bad, so that we’d never forget what we did wrong. Dad would hit Jasper upside the head all the time, whenever he wasn’t being what he was supposed to be. I found a puppy once, and wanted to keep it, so I hid it in our bedroom. When Dad found the puppy, he took it to the shelter and had it put down for being aggressive. For the next week, he’d only feed me puppy food . . . ” I shook my head. “There are so many things that I’ve chosen not to look at.”

  “You’re looking at them now,” Zander said.

  I nodded. “It hurts.”

  “It should.”

  I put my head back down on his shoulder. “Can we sit here for a little while? If I go in all upset, Jasper will kill Dad.”

  My pillow paused before he said, “Sure. We can sit here for as long as you want.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

  Halfway Out of the Dark

  Zander

  It felt like the nerve endings in my body told me to do it. As if they screamed at me as they forced my fingers to twitch. They wanted me to go make this right in the only way that would make the screaming stop. My hands ached to be around his throat, and to squeeze while his eyes begged me to stop. Every single thing in my being wanted to fix this.

  As much as I wanted him dead, I had more important things for my hands to do.

  Jasmine sat sideways on my lap, her head under my chin as I stroked her damaged cheek with my hand, and cradled her with my other arm. I wanted to make a safe place for her in this world of monsters. My body had been built to take hits and give them, but I wanted to be more than that. I wanted to be as human as the girl in my arms. I wanted to be human enough for her to love me, and for me to deserve it.

  It seemed obvious to me now, as I held Jasmine safely. I had a lot wrong with me. I had been lost without Kizzy to take care of, because I made myself her guardian. that role didn’t just fall on me. I did it to myself, because I thought Kizzy needed it. I turned into her crutch, and I put her progress back years. Then she met someone who made her want to be better, and I fell to the wayside. I looked for someone else to guard, because I didn’t know anything else. I found someone far less accepting of my behavior, and I lashed out. All the ugly parts of me came out again after years of sleeping. I didn’t turn into someone else. The rest of me just started showing through. All those bad things I said and the way I acted, it was just me. I had more to me than the guardian, and the boy that came from a goddess. I could also be that hateful person who killed two humans and loved feeling their fear and pain. I drank it in, and basked in the vengeance. I always sought out some kind of feeling that belonged to someone else, so that I could bury myself in that, and avoid what lurked inside me. I could ignore what I was when taking care of Kizzy, and I could do the same if I got on Jasmine about her drinking or putting herself in danger.

  But I couldn’t hide anymore; not when it burned my eyes, like the sun tried to set me alight. I saw what I was, and I saw who I needed to be. How I needed to stop doing what I forced on Kizzy. I needed to stop seeking out crutches to lean on so that I could stand on my own. I wanted to be better than I had been all this time. I needed to deserve the girl in my arms.

  I couldn’t be that yet.

  He hit her. Her father. The man had it in his DNA, the instincts to protect his own, and he chose to go against nature in his selfish
ness. That man hit my person, and he still breathed. I wanted that to end. Not just for today, but for two decades of this. For making Jasmine and her siblings grow up wrong. They would never be quite right, no matter how hard they worked at it. Like Kizzy and me. We were broken, and like bones that didn’t get set right, we’d never be anything else.

  The most terrifying part for me, was that the bloodlust didn’t fade. From the people who destroyed part of my sister, and from Jasmine’s father. Kizzy’s foster parents had long since rotted in the ground, but I wanted to do more damage. I wished that when I killed them, I’d made it last longer, drew it out some more. Kizzy suffered for years, and those animals died in no time. I wanted suffering for Jasmine’s father as well. Her suffering went on far longer than Kizzy’s. How could I get revenge for all of that? I honestly didn’t know how, but the thought consumed me, even now. Even as I should have been focused on comforting her. All I could think about was tearing him to pieces with my bare hands. I couldn’t have Jasmine because of that. I couldn’t be human enough for her.

  She stayed so quiet that I thought she had fallen asleep in the time we’d been here. Then she reached for my hand that had been on her face, and she held it to her chest, her little fingers curling around it. Her skin felt soft where mine was rough. She didn’t appear to mind, since every bit of her seemed reluctant to abandon my hand.

  I felt the little hums inside of her. The things that her emotions consisted of. They felt off to me, like they always did. I equated it to a river or a pond. When Jasmine’s emotions went wild like this, it felt like someone had thrown a stone in and now the water rippled. Hers never stilled or grew peaceful. I only felt true peace in a person, with Jasper. So, calm and settled. In those times, I would walk into the studio to talk to Kizzy about something, and he would be helping her with a project. I couldn’t feel the massive ripples like in his siblings. Just warmth under the surface. I wished I knew how to love someone like he loved my sister.