She Dims the Stars

by Amber L. Johnson

  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 t
hat’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.

  Telling the truth is supposed to set you free. It’s supposed to give you a new beginning. For me, it simply feels like every last thing I thought about myself is true, and now that I’ve said it out loud, I’ve given it life. I’ve relived it and made it real instead of letting it stay on a movie reel inside my mind.

  My knees begin to shake, and I reach out to support myself on the inside of that hollowed out tree, but I’m met with the strong arms of my former best friend as he pulls me to his chest for the first time in over six years. There’s comfort there that I’ve sought after for so long that it knocks the wind out of me. I find the strength to wrap my arms around him, too, when he assures me, “It’s not your fault, either, Byrdie. I’m so sorry for my part in it. I had no idea.”

  He makes a strangled sound, and I pull away to look up at him through my tears. “Are you crying, too?” I ask, wiping the wetness from my face.

  Cline’s eyebrows are drawn together, and his face is sweaty as he shakes his head back and forth. “No. There’s a bug crawling up my leg, and it’s getting really close to my boxers. I don’t want to ruin the moment, but another two inches and it’s gonna be on my balls.”

  I push him away and crouch down, folding over as I laugh and cry at the same time, listening to Cline let out a scream like a little girl as he unbuckles his belt and turns his back on me to run out of the tree and drop his pants outside. I don’t care that there are bugs on my feet and legs. I don’t care that I’m alone laughing through my tears. I don’t even care that I’m covered in sweat from telling him everything I’ve been holding inside for six years.

  I did it.

  I did the scariest thing in the entire world: I told my truth.

  There’s something to be said about seeing your roommate run out of an old haunted-looking tree, dropping his pants and screaming like a woman while a beetle is heading straight for his nut sack. On my list of Hilarious Shit I’ve Seen, this ranks in the top five. Watching September run to his rescue, catch the beetle off of his manhood, and carry it away, though? Completely priceless.

  Cline is sweating and pulling up his pants, breathing hard and staring after her as I walk up next to him, unable to hide my laughter. “What? Were you not covered in bugs in there? Am I the only one because I’m taller than you? Is it my musk?”

  “I don’t think height has anything to do with it if they were coming from the ground, so, no. And I had a few ants, but they were worth it.” I clap a hand on his shoulder while we watch the beetle being set free a hundred feet away.

  “I’m gonna marry that girl. She took that beetle right off my balls like it was nothing. I have the weirdest boner right now.” His face is twisted in confusion while he palms his zipper.

  It is at that moment I realize Audrey is still inside the tree. “Is she still in there? Shit.”

  He waves his other hand at me. “We had a good talk. She’s just getting herself together. She’ll be out in a minute.”

  The fact that he says it was a good talk leads me to believe him, because had it gone sideways, his demeanor would have been very different standing outside. My gut instinct tells me to go after her anyway, so I approach the manmade door and poke my head in, hoping she’s not covered in bugs and too terrified to move.

  Audrey is crouched down, holding her knees and bouncing, her fingers brushing ants off of her shoes. She hears my footsteps and looks up, her eyes glistening in the limited moonlight. Without a word, she’s on her feet and in my arms, hugging me harder than she’s ever held me before. Her hands pull my face to hers, and she kisses me with so much force, I almost trip but find my footing just in time.

  When she pulls away, I can see that she’s been crying, but she’s smiling while she sniffles.

  “So it went okay? Did you get to talk to him about everything you wanted to?”

  She nods and presses her cheek to my chest, squeezing me once more. “Yeah. I think we’re going to be okay. I think everything’s good again.”

  She’s quiet on the way back to the house, staring out the window at the sky, but holding onto my hand as tight as she can. Her fingers don’t tap, and they don’t shake while in my grasp. I lift her fist and kiss her knuckles, watch her mouth pull up into a smile even though she doesn’t turn to acknowledge me in the backseat of that truck.

  Inside the Worley house, Cline pulls Audrey into the living room, and they speak quietly for a few minutes. I keep my distance, because it’s not my business, but my friend has a big mouth, so I’ll find out soon enough exactly what’s being said anyway. I have patience. He holds Audrey’s hands between the two of them, and after she nods a few times, he tugs and she falls into him for a hug where she almost disappears inside his embrace.

  It’s hard for me to imagine them as kids, but seeing them like this now, it’s obvious how they could have been best friends all those years ago. They just fit together. When he lets her go, her eyes find me and she
gives a smile, tilting her head in the direction of the room we’ll be sharing. I follow her silent invitation, and we meet on the stairs so that she can lead and I have a fantastic view of her ass the entire way.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she says and starts to pull out some clothes from her bag. I have a sense of deja vu from just a few hours before. “I feel disgusting after being out there. Don’t you?” There’s suggestion in her question and tone. “Plus … we shouldn’t get these sheets all dirty. It would be really rude.” Before I can respond, she’s disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.

  I’m stuck in one of those moments where I don’t know if I’m supposed to follow her into the shower, or if I’m supposed to wait for my turn. There’s a chance that I could use the bathroom in the hallway, and we could just shower at the same time. Why the hell are there so many scenarios? Can’t girls just say what they mean? Elliot, come get in the shower with me. So easy. Damnit. Cryptic girl shit.

  I’m going to go with the third option of showering at the same time so that I don’t look too eager but also want to be clean, that way if she’s ready to go to sleep, we can do that. Or if she’s up for something else … I’m ready for that, too. My bag is pressed up against the nightstand where her phone is charging and I jostle it, causing her cell to fall to the floor. It buzzes as it becomes unplugged, and I reach over to grab it so I can plug it back in when I notice the green texts and notifications along the face.

  25 missed phone calls and quite a few very angry-looking texts in all caps from her step-mother, Miranda. It’s as if Audrey hasn’t even touched her phone—hasn’t opened it—since we left school. I don’t remember hearing it ring once, and she hasn’t made or taken any phone calls as far as I can remember. I’ve spoken with my mom at least twice. Cline has talked with a few friends and had a call from his mom more than once. But Audrey hasn’t used her phone for anything. I wonder if this is the first time she’s even turned it on.