Starbright (The Starbright Series)

by Higginson, Rachel

  “Great,” my mouth said, but my head was already dreading it.

  Then I saw the people ahead of him start to stand one by one as their names were called.

  “Kyle Jacobson.” He looked back and grinned at me once more as he made his way on stage. There were still about eight people before me. I watched him make his way to the stage and saw his parents and a large group of others stand and applaud loudly for him, a couple whooping and hooting. He grabbed his diploma and then made a show of muscles. Everyone laughed as he bounded down the stairs. He was a crack up. Everyone liked him and voted him class clown in superlatives. He was popular, but never really dated anyone. He was always nice to me though. I used to hang out with that crowd, before everything happened.

  After my mom left, my dad was lost. He went a little ‘nuts’. He quit going to work and got fired from a job he’d had for over fifteen years at the school board and now works at the wood mill for a quarter of what he made before. So, I had to get into the work release program and get a job because we had no extra money for anything other than food that I needed or wanted.

  When I told my mom all this, when I explained how I had to get a job to help and how Dad was so destroyed by what she’d done, she said it was good for us to experience a little bit of heartache and hard work for a change. That was it. That was the last straw.

  That was the day I decided to never speak to her again.

  “Maggie Masters.”

  I heard my name and looked up. Everyone was looking and I realized that my name had been called more than once. I blushed and giggled nervously as I made my way up to the stage. I chuckled under my breath as I half expected the announcer to call out Mags or Magster or Maggsie. No one called me by my real name hardly ever.

  I took my diploma and turned to look for Dad. He was sitting there. Just sitting there, not taking pictures, not clapping, not smiling, just watching stoically.

  I frowned and made my way down to the end of the platform and was lifted into warm arms. Familiar warm arms.

  “Congratulations,” he whispered into my hair.

  “Chad. Don’t.”

  “Mags, come on.” He put me down, but didn’t let me go as he looked at me pleadingly. “We graduated. Let’s celebrate! Can’t you let go of the past, just for today?”

  I looked up to his black hair. The dark short locks that any girl would love to run her fingers through. His tan skin and brown eyes with his lean Friday night football arms that always held me like I mattered. Oh, how I missed him, but he was the one who left me.

  “You certainly know how to let go of things,” I countered.

  “Maggie.” He sighed exasperatingly, like I was being unreasonable and it made me fume even more. “Look. That was almost year ago. And you know I wouldn’t have broken up with you if you’d told me what was going on with your mom and all.”

  “Oh. That makes me feel so much better,” I said and let the sarcasm drip.

  “You know what I mean. We’d had that talk, a lot. I’m leaving, we both knew it when we started seeing each other. I thought we agreed it’d be easier if we calmed down a little and just were friends the last year of school. I didn’t date anyone else, you know that. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you.”

  It was true. He hadn’t been on one date this whole school year that I’d known about. He and his friends even made a pact to go to prom together as a group. There were a lot of angry girls over this pact as it appeared it caught on and almost the whole football team went stag.

  “I know that. But you haven’t talked to me all year,” I said softly.

  “Maggie. You wouldn’t return my phone calls. You avoided me at lunch and then started working after school. What else could I do?”

  He was right. The only time I talked to him was to yell at him one month after he broke up with me and my mom left. Coincidentally, it was three days after she left that he decided to make the decision for the both of us; the decision that we’d talked about but not come to a conclusion to.

  I told him he sucked for deciding that right then was the time to dump me. He said he was sorry, he was there for me. He tried to take it back, even tried to kiss me and hold me but I would have none of it.

  I missed him. He was such a nice guy but his timing was just terrible and I was angry at him for it. I was angry that he still wanted to leave me here and go through with his plans. Everyone left me. I tried to summon a semblance of calm.

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “I just needed you and I wanted you to want to be there, but not for you to come back because I begged you to.”

  “You didn’t beg me, silly girl,” he crooned and pulled me closer for another hug. He spoke into my hair. “I’m so sorry, Mags. I thought I was making things easier for you, for both of us by just trying to be friends instead. I knew how hard it was gonna be to leave you. Look at me.” He waited for me to look up, which I did with a sigh. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. I’ve missed you.”

  “Chad, you’re still leaving. Don’t, ok? I’m sorry for how I acted, but it doesn’t change anything does it? You’re still leaving, University of Florida football.”

  “I know. I just hate that this year was wasted like this. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” I pulled from his embrace and boy, was it painful. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Please write me. Or call me, text, something. I miss you. I never intended for us to just never speak to each other again. I want to know how you’re doing.”

  “I will. I promise. Congrats on the UF scholarship. I always knew you’d get it.”

  “Thanks, Mags. I still love you, you know,” he whispered and kissed my cheek, so close to my lips and I fought for composure.

  Then he was gone.

  I turned to look at him once more and he was walking backwards, watching me, his black grad gown flapping at his sides and his diploma in hand. He waved sadly and then took off towards his truck. If possible, I felt worse than I already had.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “It still boggles my mind how you can eat those things,” my dad said, as he’d said a hundred times before, but this time he sneered it instead of joking with me. “I mean, it’s pure sugar. Sugar and starch and bad for you carbs.”

  “Are you saying I need to lose some weight, Dad?”

  We sat at the kitchen dinette. I say dinette because it barely fits two people. This is where we’d been ever since that ride home from graduation. It was an utterly silent ride except for one ‘congratulations’ muttered from Dad, nothing more. I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour now, checking my phone and waiting for Kyle to text me. I never thought I’d ever be waiting for Kyle, but I would have done anything to get out of this house tonight.

  I did, however, have a text from Bish.

  Congrats, kid. I’m really sorry I couldn’t come but the boss is on me and interns can’t really negotiate, you know. But I love you and can’t wait to see you. I’ll come home soon for a visit, I promise.

  “No.” Dad cut through my moment of happiness with more grumbling. “I’m not saying that, stop being dramatic. I’m saying they’re not good for you.”

  “Dad, I’ve eaten honey buns almost everyday since birth, along with thousands of other Americans. I’m sure they’re not lethal.”

  “Stop the sarcasm, Maggie. I’m just saying you could watch it to make sure your weight doesn’t get out of control one day. Your mother always said-”

  “Ok. Stop right there, please, Dad. I have no interest in what that woman thinks of me. She left so she definitely doesn’t get a say so anymore. She doesn’t care.”

  She was always on me about my weight. Of course, back then I just thought it was motherly protection, you know. Now, who knew what was going on in her head.

  I’m kinda short, I guess; five-three. My mom has always said I should watch it and maybe start doing more activities, such as joining the cheerleading squad again. I quit my sophomore year. I was already on the track
team, but apparently, our running shorts weren’t cute enough for her.

  I have always liked my body, always. I wasn’t fat. I wasn’t one of those girls that griped and complained and had conniptions every time I had to put on a bathing suit. And I’d never had any complaints from anyone else either. Especially not Chad who constantly told me how he loved that I ate real food and looked normal and didn’t ask him if I looked fat every time I changed my clothes. No one except her ever had a problem with it or ever said anything to me about it. I refused to get a complex because of one high strung woman. And now Dad had to start this crap?

  “She does care. We just didn’t do what we needed for her. We took advantage. She wouldn’t have left if we had been more...”

  “More what, Dad? More perfect?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. You don’t love people for what they can give you. You don’t love them because of what they do for you or how good you make them look. Love is blind, love does not boast, love is not vain. Remember, Dad?”

  “I know what the bible says, Maggie, but since when do you care what God has to say about anything?” Ouch. True, we hadn’t been to church not one Sunday since my mom left. “Your mom loved us, we just didn’t show her enough love to keep her here. We failed her.”

  I stood up, not caring that Kyle hadn’t texted me yet. I looked at the sad, mean, black haired pale and thin man in front of me with his wrinkled navy blue shirt and his hair greased back, uncared for.

  “Dad, I love you. But I’m not taking the blame for something she did. I’m going out with a friend. I won’t stay out too late.”

  “Chad?”

  “No, not Chad. Chad’s too busy trying to leave this town.”

  “Well, good for him and you knew it was coming. You could learn a few things from that boy. He was a little out of your league anyway, I think, probably why it didn’t work out. You’ve gotta be more realistic, Maggie. You expect too much from people,” he muttered.

  “Ok, Dad. Bye.”

  I left without another word from him or me. I grabbed my green cargo jacket from the hall coat rack and stuck my phone in my pocket. I looked at myself in the hall mirror. I remembered this mirror. It was bulky and huge, made from antique silver. Dad had to wrestle to get it in the car after mom found it at an old out of the way antique shop. I looked in it and I saw my light brown hair with a little wave at the ends passed my shoulders. I saw my green eyes. I saw the freckles smattering my nose and cheeks on tan skin. I wasn’t gorgeous but I still didn’t understand why I wasn’t good enough for anyone.

  I searched through my backpack for the ten dollar bill I knew was there and stuffing it in my pocket with my phone, I headed out the door.

  It was cold and humid. The air was thick with fog and moisture, making a glow around the street lights as I made my way down Broad Street. One street over was Main. I lived right smack in the middle of town my whole life. I didn’t have a car because I didn’t need one. I could walk anywhere I needed to go and the diner I worked in was only five blocks down and over.

  But I wasn’t headed to the diner. I had no idea where I was going but I just needed to get away. Dad had completely changed. We used to get along; play games, go to movies, cook together, rake leaves together. We were a typical uptown normal street family from Tennessee. But, when my mom left, my dad may as well have left too. He would never have said anything about my weight before, especially since there’s nothing wrong with it, and never ever would have just sat there while his only daughter graduated. He also wouldn’t have let me get a job just so I had money to buy things I needed because he was too buried in his grief to go to work anymore. He was not the same man and I missed him.

  I also have an older brother, Bish, who was adopted, but he’d been out of the house for a long time now. My parents decided when I was eight to adopt a kid from the state. They got a boy, a sixteen year old kid who’d been pulled from a foster home. He’d apparently been in lots of them and was pretty happy to actually be adopted being so old.

  I liked him right off and he liked me. He let me follow him around and pester him. He played games with me and took me shopping. I helped introduce him into the youth group at church because he’d never been to church before. But he left to go to art school on a scholarship and moved to New York to be an intern for some jerk at a law firm. I rarely saw him anymore. We text, but he was so busy and I couldn’t seem to find anything to talk about but how much life sucked here without him.

  I made my way to the stop light and waited for it to turn red so I could cross. There was only one other person there, a guy with his back to me. He was wearing his earbuds and bobbing his head a little to whatever beat he was listening to with his hands in his pockets. He looked back, smiled slightly and nodded before facing forward again. I checked my phone again and saw that I still had no text. I wondered why I was so worried about it. I wasn’t even thrilled about going with Kyle in the first place, but now I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.

  I thought maybe I’d get a coffee while I waited. If Kyle didn’t text me, at least I could sit there. Maybe read a little from the kindle app on my phone before heading home. I put my phone back in my pocket and looked up just in time. The light turned red, but the guy was already walking without looking to the side first and was crossing. I saw the red truck turning, the driver’s head turned left, but he was turning right.

  It all happened so fast I didn’t even get a chance to think. I just reacted. I ran forward, grabbed the back of the guy’s jacket and pulled him backwards with all my strength just as the truck sped by in front of us. We tumbled back and he landed hard on top of me, his backpack banging against my face. My breath slammed into my chest painfully.

  I heard a screech and looked to see the truck slam to a stop just a ways ahead of us. He yelled some obscenities out his window; something about stupid kids but more colorful and then sped away.

  The guy immediately rolled off me, yanking the buds from his ears and looking at me with awe and concern.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Uh...yeah, I think so,” I groaned.

  “I can’t believe I just did that. You- you saved my life.”

  “It’s fine. It’s a good thing I was here, I guess.”

  He scooted a little closer and winced as he brushed my hair back from my face.

  “You cut your head,” he said breathlessly and looked a little dazed.

  “I did?” I felt it with my fingers and squinted as it stung. My fingers had a little blood on them but nothing alarming. “I guess I did. It’s ok, really, just a bump.”

  I tried to stand but he held me down with a hand on my shoulder.

  “Whoa. Wait, ok? Let me call an ambulance. If something happened to you after you saved me...”

  “Really, that’s not necessary. I’m fine.”

  He frowned and paused, screwing up his lips like he was debating it. I looked at him in the soft glow of the streetlights. He was tall, that I’d seen from before, and broad, but his hair was brown and shaggy, curling around his ears and forehead, and his eyes were light, blue maybe or hazel. His lips were fascinating as he sucked them in and out of his mouth in contemplation. He was wearing a gray hoodie that said ‘VOLS’ in big orange letters on the front. Great.

  That was one of my biggest problems with Chad. He’d been so set to go to Florida to be a Gator when the University of Tennessee was right here. Right down the road. His dad went to UF, I get it, he wanted to follow his dad’s footsteps but it just felt like he wouldn’t compromise. I don’t know.

  The guy’s eyes drifted to mine and we just sat there, eyes locked on one another’s. Then the corner of his mouth rose slightly. And it was unnerving.

  “Please, let me take you to the hospital at least.” He brushed my hair back again and leaned closer to inspect. I heard my swift intake of breath at his closeness and he did too. He looked down into my eyes again and watched me closely. “It doesn’t look too bad
but...let me call someone for you. I’d feel better,” he said softly.

  “There’s no one to call,” I muttered but wished I could take it back when I saw his face. “Really, I’m fine.”

  “I’m so glad you were here. I can’t believe I did that. And I’m sorry you got hurt. I must have hit you with my book bag when we went down. That’s a pretty good grip you got there,” he said and smiled and I had one of those moments where you stare and can’t look away.

  He smiled wider when I didn’t say anything and chuckled right as I came back to myself.

  “Uh, thanks. Are you all right?” I asked and he nodded.

  “So. There’s no one to call? Your parents? A boyfriend?”

  “My dad won’t come and my boyfriend and I- Well, we aren’t together anymore. I wouldn’t feel right about calling him now.”

  “You don’t think he’d come?”

  “Oh, he would. That’s why I don’t want to.”

  He seemed confused and amused at the same time.

  “Ok. I’m gonna assume there’s a story there and you’re not just suffering from a head injury.”

  I realized then that we were still sitting on the sidewalk next to each other, in the middle of town.

  “No, I’m fine. Look, I’m sorry. I’m fine, I promise. I didn’t mean to hold you up,” I stammered and stuck my hair behind my ear.

  “Are you kidding? You saved my life. The least I can do is make sure you get where you’re going. Here.” He grabbed my arm gently and helped me stand, keeping it there to make sure I was steady. “You good? No stars, no spots, no blurs?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “I have no idea. Nowhere. I’m just waiting for someone to call and needed to get out of the house.”

  “Did you go to graduation?”

  “Yeah, I graduated.”

  “Really? You look too young to be graduating.”

  “Seventeen. My birthday’s in a few weeks. I, uh, skipped a grade so I graduated early.”