“Yeah, Adam. I’ve seen the North Star before.”
“Okay, now slightly to the left. Do you see that star too?”
I tried to follow his finger across the sparkling inky sky. “What star? There are lots of stars.”
“Go back to the North Star.” There is a sigh in his voice.
“Adam. I-” I try to turn around. He holds me firmly in place.
“Just humor me, please Sage.”
“Okay, North Star. Got it.”
“Now directly left from there is another star. Right there.” This time he moves his finger in silence, moving me with him until we’re looking at a faint glittery dot.
“I think I see it,” I try to turn around again, but Adam stops me. He presses a finger to my lips. This is getting really weird.
“There’s a planet that circles that star called Perseida. A planet with life and with people……Perseidians. It’s my father’s home planet and technically, I guess, my home planet too.”
I spin around to search his face and this time he lets me. I look for the teasing in his eyes, and the threatening grin on his lips. His face is still and grave.
“You’re teasing, right?” My voice feels weak, shaky, not mine.
“I know what this may sound like.”
“Sound like? What are you trying to tell me— your father’s an alien? And you’re an alien?” He looks down and away from me. There is no glint in his eyes, no sparkle, no Adam-my-best-friend-teasing. “Adam, please?” I whisper.
“I’m sorry.” He’s quiet, solemn, a stark contradiction to the waves building behind me.
“This is crazy,” I say. “I’ve seen your baby pictures, Adam. I’ve known you for a long time. No green scales or big eyes or funny antennas. Adam, you’re human. You were born here. I’ve seen the pictures. Please. This isn’t funny.”
“No—yes. I was born here. So was my mom. But my dad—” He points to the sky. “He’s Perseidian which makes me part Perseidian.”
“This is…” I have no words. No thoughts. No explanations. How is this even possible? Adam? His dad? Aliens?
This is crazy. So, so crazy.
Adam’s hand clamps my shoulder, and his face presses close to mine. “I know what this must sound like, but you have to believe me. I need you to believe me.”
His words swirl around me like I’ve been sucked into the vortex of a tornado.
“Believe me, please.” There is fierce desperation in his words. “Perseidians are more advanced than humans. They have greater technology and greater abilities. Last night I was at my dad’s in California. I was in bed and then I was here. In the lake. That’s not something your everyday human can do, Sage. It’s--”
“Stop,” I say. “Stop.” Crazy, I’m going crazy. That’s what this is. I turn in a circle on the beach, blinking hard. I stop to face him and take a long deep drag of air into the far reaches of my body.
“I’m really, really confused right now,” I say. “I-I’m trying to figure this out, to get what you’re saying.”
“I know it sounds crazy, Sage. But I need you to believe me. So ask,” he pleads, “ask me anything.”
“Okay. You’re saying your dad is from another planet?”
“Yes.”
“An alien?”
“Yes.”
“Like Men In Black? Or Avatar?”
“Well I’d like to think a little more human than—.” A smile creeps on his lips as he speaks, but he stops at the look on my face. “Yes.”
“But you weren’t born there?”
“No. I was born here.”
“Your mom?”
“Completely human. Which means I’m part human.”
“Part alien? What does that mean Adam? Are you different inside? And you were in bed and then suddenly in the lake? How?” He bites his lip and looks away. “Adam?”
“Yes,” he whispers. “I used something—something powerful that’s not human—not from earth.”
I take in a breath. “Last night…the light? Was-was that it?”
“Yes.”
“What? Why?” I ask. “Why did you come here last night…and why to the middle of the lake? And how did you do that? I’m just…just so confused.”
He swallows air until his cheeks puff up and then he blows it out slowly. “I was thinking of you. I could feel you almost. You were crying and in so much pain. And I knew I needed to get to you. I can’t completely control it yet, this powerful thing. We call it the Nexus and I’ve been trying to master it. And last night I picked it up and thought of you and I wanted to be here so bad. And then I was.”
I blink, shake my head, step forward, step back.
Step forward. Blink again.
I—.
This is impossible—absurd.
“You’re…” I can’t even—. And why is he telling me this now? My best friend. I tell him everything. Everything. My heart cracks.
I thought—I thought he did too.
“Why? Why?” I fight to get the words out. “Why are you telling me this now? Why not last summer or the summer before or the summer before that. Why?”
“Sage.” He reaches for me, but I step back.
All these secrets…kissing Brianna, having abilities, powerful or magical devices, being an alien. They’re punching holes into me that fill with anger. “No,” I shake my head. “You’re supposed to be my best friend. My best friend. We tell each other everything. Well at least I do…but you-you-”
I can’t breathe. Everything hurts and I can’t breathe.
“And you kissed Brianna. I—”
“Sage,” he pleads, “please. I told you this doesn’t change me. Or us”. He says more, but the words are lost in the wind and the air.
“I can’t.” I shake my head and tears fall on to my cheeks. “I just can’t.”
I turn around and do what I seem to do best. I run.
Chapter Fourteen
Fifty-four days after Adam saved me from the rip current, I faced the first anniversary of my dad’s death. It was a sunny August day when Adam showed up on my porch with a bouquet of white carnations.
“What’s that for?” I asked as I bent down to tie a sneaker.
“You said you wanted to leave flowers for your dad,” he said.
“I said I wanted to leave flowers at his grave.” I moved to tie my other shoe. “Like they do in the movies. Can’t do that here though if he’s buried in Arizona.”
Adam squatted down next to me. “My mom says he’ll still get them. He’s with you, wherever you go. She said white carnations mean remembrance.”
“Okay.” I shrugged and followed Adam to the lake, where I laid the flowers in the water and whispered to my dad, I miss you.
“He used to bring me a pink rose when he came home.” I told Adam while I watched the carnations sway in the waves. “After every route. Red roses for my mom and a pink one for me.”
That night, Adam knocked on my window. “You need to come see this,” he said, helping me climb out. We ran through the woods back to the beach. At the spot I left the carnations was a single pink rose.
I picked up the flower and closed my eyes, inhaling the sweet smell, desperately wanting to believe the rose was from my dad. I opened my eyes to a dark sky salted with stars.
“Do you think he’s up there?” I asked Adam.
“Do you?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “Last year for science we poked holes into black construction paper in the shapes of the constellations. When we held them up to the light, it looked like the night sky. I wonder if that’s what it’s really like...stars are just where little bits of heaven are leaking through.”
Adam was quiet for several minutes, before he finally said, “Maybe.”
The memory burns in my cheeks. Why didn’t he tell me then? Had he secretly been laughing at me?
I pull out a plastic baggie from my top dresser drawer. It’s full of dried pink roses, one from each anniversary of my dad’s death. Even t
hat first year, I knew it was Adam leaving the rose, but I still pretended to believe.
I pinch the shriveled petals through the plastic. Fragile. Brittle. All lies.
Just like my friendship with Adam.
I drop the bag back into my dresser and slam it shut. Tears burn beneath my eyelids and an ache curls in my chest. Was there anything real?
My phone vibrates from the top of the dresser, and I pick it up. It’s another text from Adam. After I left him Saturday night, he called, texted and even showed up at my door. I asked him for time to think and he has given me that. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday all went by without a word. But last night, he had sent me four text messages.
Sorry to bother you, but please. We need to talk.
I didn’t answer. They started up again this morning too. In the past half hour, there’s been two messages and a phone call. I press the ignore button and toss my phone onto my bed. School starts in less than half an hour and I’m not even dressed. I don’t have time to deal with this.
I’ll answer later...maybe.
Voices build in the hallway outside my room, followed by a steady pounding on my door.
“Sage?” Adam’s voice. Adam is here. Oh god, Adam, is here.
I scramble for clothes, my hands trembling as I clumsily slide into a pair of jeans and attempt to finger comb my messy hair. Why don’t I have a mirror in here? Or a brush?
He knocks again.
“Hold on,” I say. “Just a sec.”
My room is a mess. I dart across the room, grabbing several pairs of scattered underwear and two bras, tucking them into a drawer. One of the straps gets jammed. I pull the drawer open and stuff the bra in deeper before shoving it closed. Only a tiny patch of the pink material shows now. That will have to do.
He knocks again. “Sage?”
“Coming,” I glance around the room, scanning for any further embarrassing items. Tampons. There’s a box of tampons on my nightstand. I lunge for them, anxiously turning around looking for a close place to hide them.
Adam knocks again and I shove the box beneath my pillow and throw the blanket across the bed. It looks made—sort of.
“Sage?”
I cross the room and swallow a breath. My hand hesitates on the door handle. Well…here goes nothing. One. Two. Three. He stands in the hallway in dark jeans and a black flannel, his hands shoved into his pockets and a nervous smile twitching across his face. My heart jumps, beating an erratic rhythm against my ribcage.
“Hey, your mom let me in,” he says in nearly a whisper. “I know I promised to give you time, but please can we talk? For just a minute?” His foot edges into the doorway, but he pauses for my permission. I take a step backwards and shrug letting him enter. His arm brushes mine, waking an electrical current beneath my skin. He’s warm, so warm, and my room is too small. I can feel him all over like he’s the sun.
Why can’t I think straight around him?
“Okay.” he asks. “Please. Hear me out, and I promise to let you ignore me all you want after that. You don’t even ever have to see me again.”
I shrug and wrap my arms around my chest.
“I’m leaving today, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. That’s why I couldn’t wait any longer.”
I freeze. What? Where is he going? Back to California? Back to his dad? I mash my lips together to keep the questions in. I can’t ask. I don’t want to ask.
“Sage, I’m sorry for not telling you any of this until now. I was afraid...afraid you wouldn’t believe me.”
“You could’ve tried,” I said.
“I know.”
“Was any of this real? You and me—our friendship?”
“Of course.” He steps closer and his hand cups my shoulder. “Every part of it.”
“You left out a rather big part of it?”
“I’ve never told anybody that before.” His eyes plead with his words. “Nobody until you. You are my best friend. The closest person to me…nobody knows me like you do.”
“Just a friend?” I ask. “Because last summer before you left...” I can’t finish the words. A smile plays on his lips as his eyes search my face. They’re soft with the answers to the questions I want to ask. His breath mixes with mine and we are frozen in this moment, every atom vibrating between us. Pushing him away, pulling him closer.
“I think we both know it’s more than just a friendship,” he whispers.
“If that’s true, why did you kiss Brianna?”
Adam sighs and drops his hand. “I didn’t kiss her. Not really. My dad had a Christmas party for some local business partners last December, and he asked me to come downstairs for it. I hate those things, you know that. I wasn’t paying attention, until this girl taps me on the shoulder and points up at the ceiling.”
Suddenly, I see them at the diner and her hand is on his shoulder and he’s smiling. I see the party where they’re surrounded by trees and ornaments and Christmas carols. Standing under green leaves and red berries in fancy clothes holding fancy drinks.
I see them. Oh it hurts.
“Sage? Are you with me?” he asks.
“Did you know she was Lucas’s Brianna?” I blurt out. “That they were going out last year?”
His mouth drops, and his eyes widen. He shakes his head and starts to speak several times before answering in a raspy voice. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, he really liked her. Still likes her. They started going out right before Homecoming. He took her to the dance.” My words rush from my mouth, fast and hot and cruel. Lucas and Brianna were over before Christmas, but I leave that part out. The more guilt that wells in Adam’s eyes, the more the images of him and Brianna fade in my head.
“I didn’t know she was the Brianna you knew,” Adam says quietly. “I didn’t know her name or where she was from. She pointed at the mistletoe, and I didn’t want to embarrass her. I swear that kiss lasted like two seconds. I left the party after that and didn’t see or talk to her again. It was nothing. Nothing. I’ll tell Lucas that, and I’ll tell you that until you both believe me. I already told her that last week at the diner. She keeps calling and leaving messages. I don’t know how she got my number, but I’m not answering, Sage. I swear.”
He leans closer, takes my hand, squeezes my fingers. “Last summer, before I left, when we kissed…I’ve never kissed any girl ever like I kissed you.”
“Really?” My heart beats like a symphony, all allegro and fortissimo. Blood dances through my veins, singing as it runs, flooding me with excitement and heat and a breathless terror.
“Yes,” he whisperers and his finger traces my cheek. “Really.”
I close my eyes and wait for his lips.
And wait.
When I open them, his gaze is drifting over me to my dresser. He moves, passing me, reaching for something. Reaching for my locket. The broken chain dangles from his fingers.
“What happened?” he asks.
“It—” I scramble for a good enough lie, but can think of nothing. “It broke.”
He lifts an eyebrow as if he knows there’s more before reaching into his pocket like he’s about to pull something out. He pulls his hand back out. It’s curled into a fist and he opens it slowly.
Nothing but an empty palm.
“Do you see anything?” he asks.
“No,” I shake my head, trying hard not to roll my eyes. I’m not really liking this strange new Adam.
“You can’t see it. No human can.”
“See what?”
“The Nexus.” His voice is low and grave and his eyes are focused on his empty palm. “It’s the powerful weapon I told you about, Sage. It’s what I used to come here the other night.”
“How powerful can it really be? I can’t even see it.”
“Humans can’t see it. Only Perseidians. But watch what it can do.”
He picks up the chain on my dresser with his free hand and carefully lets it drop onto his palm. Then he curls his fingers around it in
to a fist. His skin changes, white to red to white to red. His forehead scrunches until the skin folds and his cheeks shine like the red glass globes they hang on the diner’s Christmas tree every December. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s not Adam—he’s not even human. He’s—
He’s—
Scream Sage. You should be screaming. But my voice is frozen inside of me. The air in the room thins and the walls shake. Fear tears through me and I can taste blood and sweat on my tongue. I step for the door, for the way out. The floor begins to buckle beneath me and I nearly trip. There is an earthquake in my room. An earthquake. Michigan doesn’t get earthquakes, do they?
I try to remember back to ninth grade earth science when Mrs. Beckett had discussed the risk of the Upper Peninsula ever seeing a major earthquake. Didn’t she say the odds were better that you’d die of a lightning strike?
But this isn’t an earthquake. Blaring blue light explodes from Adam’s fist, illuminating every dark corner of my room. It grows, brighter and brighter, burning my eyes and I look away. The door is too far, so I back into the crevice between my dresser and my bed, and press my hands behind me until I feel the shuddering wall beneath my fingers. It’s shaking. It’s really shaking.
I let go and press my palms against my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
The light sneaking through my eyelids darkens, and I crack them open. Adam stands in the middle of the room, his red skin fading to a normal color and his wet, black curls clinging to his damp forehead. When he turns to me and meets my eyes, a grin plays along the edges of his lips.
“Turn around,” he says stepping closer.
“What?”
“Turn around,” he says again twirling a finger in the air as he speaks.
Is he crazy? I’m about to say no. I’m about to walk out of the room and down the road and to school, where walls don’t shake, and people I’ve known all my life don’t light up and tell me they’re from outer space.
But his expression is soft and familiar. There’s the hint of a dimple and the crooked lips wanting to smile. The smile. His smile. The one that I’ve only seen him give to me. The smile of my best friend.
One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1) Page 8