Stella

by Helen Eve

  Chapter Forty

  Stella

  In my room I tip out the contents of a wicker sewing basket, finding the letters from Syrena that Mary-Ann keeps emptying from my pigeonhole and pushing under my door. They are unread and I think Syrena knows this as she’s written on the envelopes of the last few. ‘HELP!!!’, ‘I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING’ and ‘STELLA I NEED YOU NOW’ are accusingly visible. She’s at a dramatic age.

  I put the letters aside and leaf methodically through the pile of photographs beneath that chronicle the path I’ve followed like stepping stones from the moment Paula packed my belongings for my first term at Temperley High. I waited for her to go home before opening the cases and throwing armfuls of my own possessions back onto the floor.

  I packed instead from the mausoleum of Siena’s room, feverishly filling my cases with everything that could be used or altered, and many items that could not. Then I climbed inside the largest trunk, tucking my feet under me and closing my eyes until she was all around me. When Syrena clambered in and wrapped her arms tightly around my waist, I let her bend my legs in a way that gave me cramp. She kissed me and buried her face in my hair and whispered, so close to my ear that it tickled, that I shouldn’t leave her.

  I look at the images that exist like beacons to take me and keep me where Siena went; to build me into the success story she was; to make me sure of my decisions.

  Tonight, for the first time, I’m sure that the path she would have chosen for me would not be this.

  I close my eyes and try to imagine her. Is this worth it? she’s asking me.

  Yes, I try to say, but without conviction.

  Without Luke, without the Stars, without Edward, what’s left for me at Temperley High? This might have been Siena’s victory but it’s never going to be mine.

  I want to withdraw from the election, I type into my phone. After a moment’s hesitation, I send the message to Mary-Ann.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Caitlin

  I’d never seen Edward so furious.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ he shouted, throwing a pile of books against the wall with a crash.

  Luke was waiting for me to own up and admit I’d instigated everything. My knees shook and my vision swam, but it wasn’t for that reason I said nothing. It was because, in the instant before Edward appeared, I was sure Luke had been ready to kiss me back.

  Luke got to his feet and started to stammer an apology. It had been a misunderstanding; Edward needed to calm down. Before he’d finished his first sentence Edward had punched him in the face. The force of it knocked Luke into the table, but I knew he wouldn’t hit back even to defend himself.

  I couldn’t hold Edward on my own, but Mary-Ann and Lila appeared from the next workstation and stood in front of Luke to separate them.

  Edward dropped his arm and turned to me. ‘I was right, wasn’t I?’ he said softly. ‘There’s nothing you won’t do to be like her.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered as the enormity of what I’d done started to sink in. ‘I’m sorry for hurting you.’

  ‘Hurting me? Don’t flatter yourself. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Surely you know why everyone wants to date you?’

  He picked up my hand. ‘Anyone who manages to get that ring off you would be a legend. We’ve been taking bets on you for months. That’s why.’

  He let go of me and walked away as Mary-Ann and Lila watched in shock.

  ‘Whatever Stella’s done,’ Lila said, ‘kissing Luke is never going to be okay.’

  Luke gave me one last look and walked in the opposite direction.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Stella

  I sit on the grass by the rose garden. I no longer fit easily inside the tunnel, but sometimes I still like to come here when no one’s around, and tonight it’s a good way to avoid the hall, where the voting booths are being set up for tomorrow and no one will talk about anything else. It’s a warm evening, but it’s drizzling steadily and no one else is out here.

  Mary-Ann replies to my message. Sleep on it and decide tomorrow. And you’ll have to tell Luke yourself.

  * * *

  I’m listening to my headphones when he comes around the corner. He draws to a halt when he sees me. I had no idea he still came here too: I guess we’re both sentimental, or masochistic.

  For a second I think he’s going to leave again, but he strides towards me instead. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demands furiously.

  Up close I see that his left eye is rapidly closing and his cheek is swelling up. He’s always sustaining injuries on the football field so this isn’t a big deal in itself, but something tells me I don’t want details about this particular incident.

  ‘It’s a public space!’ I protest, standing up. ‘I have a right to be here too.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to be around you – I don’t even know who you are anymore.’

  ‘Then leave me alone.’ He’s making no sense and I wonder if he has concussion.

  ‘I’ve left you alone for weeks and what good has it done? You owe me more than this.’

  He forces me to look at him. His eyes are still angry, but they’re hurt as well, and I realize now not only what I want, but what Siena would have wanted for me. It might be too late, but that doesn’t change anything. I stare at his beautiful hair that kinks and curls in the rain, and my chest contracts.

  ‘I came out here because it reminds me of you,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I’ve invaded your space, but I didn’t know you’d be here.’

  He gives a short laugh. ‘What a joke. Do you remember that you followed up our first meeting here by telling me to stay away from you, like I was some kind of stalker? God, I’m so stupid. You showed me exactly what you were like and I still fell for you.’

  He hits the palm of his hand on a tree trunk and makes a noise that’s somewhere between frustration and pain.

  ‘Did you hurt yourself?’ I ask, reaching for his hand.

  ‘No.’ I can see tears in his eyes as he shakes me off. ‘I didn’t hurt myself. You hurt me.’

  There are tears in my eyes too. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say through the lump in my throat.

  ‘You’re sorry? What for? Rejecting me? Ignoring me? Casting me off like a – like a shoe you don’t want? Do you have any idea how you’ve made me feel?’

  His outburst amazes me. Is it possible that I’ve caused him this much pain?

  Suddenly I can’t think of anything but taking his pain away. I reach out for his hand again and hold onto it when he tries to shake me off.

  ‘I’m going to withdraw from the election,’ I say. ‘It’s over.’

  I see something like hope in his eyes, but it dies away. ‘It’s too late,’ he says dully.

  I don’t know what to say, but suddenly there’s only one thing I want to do. Despair makes me reckless.

  I have to stand on tiptoes to reach him because I’m not wearing heels, and I worry he’ll push me away. He doesn’t; he just looks at me, waiting. I put my arms around his neck and kiss him. He starts to jerk his head back, but then stops. For a moment we look at each other, our faces damp from the rain, and then slowly he starts to kiss me back.

  At first I’m not sure what’s happening, because kissing Luke has never felt like this. I wonder how it feels for him. My breathing is ragged and I think his is too, but I can’t hear for sure because everything is mixed up and unclear. I’m getting a crick in my neck but I can’t bear to stop.

  At some point he pulls away and looks at me. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he murmurs.

  I’m lightheaded as I follow him.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Caitlin

  Sure that no one would want to speak to me after what I’d done, I hurried back to Woodlands, cursing myself every step of the way for acting so recklessly at this late stage in the campaign. Although at least the drama helped me to shut out Edward’s last words, which had stung more tha
n they should have. Who cared what his reason was for being with me, after all? I’d had an ulterior motive too.

  I stared at Stella’s locked door. It was obvious that I needed something from her room; something that might redress the balance that had just tipped away from me.

  Mrs Stone, a shrunken lady of indeterminate age, was vacuuming the far end of the hallway.

  ‘Could you let me into Stella’s room?’ I asked her, gesturing to the enormous bunch of keys on her belt. ‘She asked me to fetch something for her.’

  She looked unconvinced. ‘She never even lets me in her room, that one. Lord knows what skeletons she keeps in there.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ I smiled broadly as she launched into a long story about the time she’d stumbled across the family of Dutch rabbits that Edward was breeding under his bed along with some unidentifiable leafy plants. ‘Stella’s my best friend. We’re practically sisters.’

  She was still talking as she jangled her keys in her liver-spotted hands.

  ‘Come on,’ I muttered under my breath as she finally unlocked the door.

  ‘“Rats!” I shouted at the little buggers…’ she wheezed as I shut myself in and looked around Stella’s private domain for the first time.

  * * *

  I’d expected something more remarkable. The room was soulless and practically empty except for regulation furniture and a coffee table. Stella’s bed looked like it had never been slept in, its white sheets tucked tightly into the corners. Her books were lined up in size order; the inscription in each said Siena Hamilton in loopy cursive. A bunch of essays heaped on her desk were marked with the same.

  I’d modelled my own room on the other Stars’, decorating the walls with huge photo montages of us, littering the dresser top with make-up and piling new clothes, still in their bags, against the door of a closet already full to bursting. I’d assumed that, in copying Katrina, I was copying Stella, because what could her room be but a more fabulous version of ours?

  The walls were bare except for a mirror. In her closet, rows of her uniquely altered clothes hung before me, but, although I sifted through rack after rack of items marked with Siena’s name, I didn’t find anything that might be useful to me.

  As I walked the length of the room, hoping preposterously for a loose floorboard or false panel, I ran my hand along the heavy curtains at the end of the room and nearly fell through. There was nothing behind them.

  Holding my breath, I peeked through the gap in the curtains and jumped backwards at the sight of a figure standing there. Daring myself to look again, I relaxed to see that it was a dressmaker’s mannequin. Of course it was. Stella’s artwork – painted and otherwise – was famous on campus and it figured that she’d use her room as a studio. It also figured that she’d have a bay window, making her room way bigger than mine.

  Students had speculated about Stella’s Elevation dress for as long as I could remember, even taking bets on the colour and style she was going to wear. Having lost so much support, this was her only chance of getting votes, but I’d never really believed that a mere outfit could compete with months of canvassing.

  The dress on the mannequin was ivory silk, with a fitted bodice and gauzy layers. The full-length skirt was covered in gold roses and crystals, and thin gold leaf ran through the fabric. The steel-boned corset, beaded with appliqué roses and more crystals, was so tiny that no one but Stella would ever fit into it without breaking a rib. It was completely, utterly Stella, and, if she wore it, it was debatable whether anyone would notice me at all.

  I knelt on the floor and opened a wicker basket to reveal a pile of photographs. There was Stella as a Shell, dressed as Cinderella. As a Remove, her arm around Katrina as they held hockey sticks and an enormous trophy. In the Fourths, on a paintball team with a gang of Stripes. At first I couldn’t figure out why two copies of each picture were taped together, and as I tried to make sense of it I could think only of elementary physics: each force must have an equal and opposite force.

  Every photograph of Stella was mirrored in an earlier image of Siena. Stella was an angel at a Halloween party; so was Siena. Stella was on the netball court, hair pulled into a Stripes scarf; so was Siena. Stella was Éponine in Les Mis; so was Siena. Every single thing Stella had done at Temperley High was copied directly from her sister. I held up the images side by side in case they could be weird coincidences, but there was no way this was accidental. The poses; the outfits; even the expressions were the same, as if Stella had studied each picture before recreating it.

  Weirder still were the images of Siena and Edward’s brother Jack and the matching pictures of Stella and Edward. Then there were the shots of Siena and her clique. Three blondes, two brunettes, one redhead. The Starlets, she’d scrawled across the back. The Stars, Stella had written more carefully on her own. Katrina had told me, still dazed with pride, how Stella had made them all Stars – plucking them from homesick obscurity – in their first week at Temperley High, but apparently Stella hadn’t so much made friends as cast them.

  Alongside the photographs were Siena’s report cards, class projects, notes passed to friends: a life in miniature. Stella had chosen the same classes, generated the same gossip, played the same sports and written the same messages in identical handwriting as their lives unravelled in neat tandem.

  Next was a photograph of Siena standing on a stool as two handmaids worked on her ivory dress. She was barefoot but regal as tendrils of hair escaped from the diamond-studded clips. I made out one of her attendants to be a younger Stella, and the other became clear as I flipped to the final image.

  Stella and Siena looked uncannily similar to their mother as a radiant young bride. The bodice of her wedding dress – a replica of the dress that Siena wore and that hung before me now – had been let out. Her long hair was pale gold in clusters of sapphires that matched the ring finger she held protectively over the swell of her waist. Her expression was soft, as if she had nothing to fear from her future, and she was smiling at her new husband as if he were the centre of her world.

  At the bottom of the workbasket was a large purse, which I opened and felt inside. The contents were ashy, and, when I drew out my hand, it was covered in black dust. I brushed it off, freaked out, and crammed everything back into the basket.

  Meet me now, I texted quickly as I ran out of the room. We’ve got a lot to do.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Stella

  Luke doesn’t speak as he shuts his door behind us, which is unlike him, but then we aren’t acting very much like ourselves. Perhaps we don’t want to remember what being ourselves entails. Instead he takes my hand and leads me to his bed.

  Relief floods over me that I’ve never done this before. I wonder why I’ve been kidding myself, chasing something that doesn’t exist and cheating myself into believing I wanted more than this, because now it’s clear that everything I need – and everything Siena has wanted for me since Luke and I first met in the rose garden – has been mine all along.

  ‘I love you,’ he says over and over again, kissing my fingernails, my nose, my ears, my eyelashes.

  I kiss him too, again and again, because nothing will ever be better than being with him right now, in this second. It strikes me each time I do how beautiful he is; how strong; how reassuring; how perfect. My own shortcomings are swallowed up because he accepts me, and wants me, in spite of them.

  He traces the outline of my face with his finger like a blind person. ‘Don’t cry,’ he whispers, kissing my tears. ‘Aren’t you happy?’

  I try to smile. ‘Of course I am. This is the happiest moment I’ve ever had.’

  This at least is true. The emotion is unprecedented, unexplainable; as if I’m literally falling in a way I should never have feared. He’s all I can see and hear and feel: he’s everything.

  Afterwards I wonder how I could ever have thought of leaving him, and how I could have thought I had to hide from him what I am. He would love me whether I was fat, or thin, or
happy, or sad, or rich, or poor. All the things I tried to change for him, and to hide from him, never mattered. But the way I changed and hid almost destroyed everything we could have had. Only now do I see that losing him would hurt me in unimaginable ways.

  I’m not sure whether I sleep. I expect I do, but I don’t remember any part of the night when I’m not conscious of lying in his arms; of trying not to move in case he wakes up and moves away from me. Finally I force myself to be stronger.

  * * *

  He rolls onto his back and pulls me on top of him. I tense for a second but then I surrender and fold, laying my head on his bare chest so I can feel his heart beating. His skin is cool and smooth. He gathers my hair in his hand and tugs it gently, twisting and combing it between his fingers. He kisses my neck and shoulders until I raise my head and then he wraps his arms tightly around me, enveloping me in warmth. For a moment we look at each other, our faces close together, while I try to commit every detail of him to memory. Then I count down from ten and move away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he mumbles.

  I look at him through the gloom as I edge out of bed and pull on my clothes. His hair is standing on end.

  ‘I’m just going to the hall to withdraw us,’ I say. ‘I’ll come back.’

  He doesn’t argue, but I know he wants to keep me here with him, away from everyone, until the election has safely passed. But I have to make a clean break.

  ‘There’s something for you in the wardrobe,’ he says. ‘I got it for you to wear at Elevation, but maybe we could go out tonight instead and avoid the whole evening. We could actually leave school for once.’

  I open the wardrobe to see a dress. It’s made of black silk and covered with star-shaped gold sequins that cascade, waterfall-like, down the long skirt.

  ‘I had it made for you,’ he says. ‘Katrina helped a lot. It should fit you perfectly.’