Bring Down the Stars

by Scott, Emma

  Copyright © 2018 Emma Scott

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Melissa Panio-Petersen

  Interior formatting by That Formatting Lady

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  Playlist

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Part I

  Prologue

  Part II

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part III

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part IV

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part V

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part VI

  Chapter 32

  Sneak Peek

  More from Emma Scott

  Robin Hill, if I never wrote another word, I’d still email or text you a hundred times a day and never run out of things to say. Thank you for every day. Love you so much.

  Melissa Petersen, you are family and have shown that a thousand times over. You’re in my heart forever.

  Joanna, I found the energy and confidence to finish this book because of you. Thank you for giving me that last push over the hill. Love you.

  Grey, Sarah, Joy, Angela, Suanne, and Mom for helping me chisel the raw mess of words into something I hope pays proper tribute to Edmond Rostand’s masterpiece. Love you all so much.

  Amy Burke Mastin, I see the house you built for her and I feel stronger. Thank you is not enough.

  Joanne and Sharon, for LP. For connecting me directly to one of my deepest sources of comfort. Thank you, and with so much love.

  Danielle Sanchez and Kelly Brenner Simmon of InkSlinger PR. You both have been more than business associates from Day One, but have proven to be an amazing support system, above and beyond. Thank you for being there for me. <3

  Jade West, for knowing the rarity of a decent night’s sleep; we are stronger and will get stronger every day. <3

  Kate Stewart, just knowing you are there, in the world, being Kate, brings me peace. All my love.

  Kennedy Ryan, you are a gift to the human race, and I thank the universe every day our paths crossed and now run together, hopefully forever (and with a beautiful curb running alongside with which we can stop and serenade the unwilling masses.) Love you.

  And to the book community. I have no words. Not enough. The volume of support, care, and love, you have shown me and my family has been extraordinary. I will never be able to thank you for not only being there during the sharpest agony, but through the longer, lonelier days where the ache dulls but doesn’t fade. Thank you for not leaving me alone. For remembering her. For being the best collection of women supporting women—not just me, but so many others too. I am indebted forever. Thank you and with much love.

  Father of Mine, Everclear

  Ocean Eyes, Billie Eilish

  Be Mine, Ofenbach

  I Feel Like I’m Drowning, Two Feet

  Just Friends, Morgan Saint

  Little Lion Man, Mumford and Sons

  The Night We Met, Lord Huron

  &Run, Sir Sly

  Give Yourself a Try, The 1975

  This book was written in the Before. Before my life changed forever. Before I stepped into the dark forest and realized I could not go back the way I’d come. It was closed to me forever. The duet itself is a story of transformation and overcoming tremendous adversity, and it’s happened more times than I can count in my writing career, that art and life intertwine in mind-boggling ways. There are no coincidences. I cannot go back, only forward, and so I give you this book, from the Before, with all my hope, best intentions, and my love because the first lesson the After taught me is that love is all that’s ever mattered; now, then, and forever.

  For Katy,

  a gift from the universe; the kind of person Izzy would have run up to and hugged on sight.

  For Bill,

  my love, my partner in this life; we clasped hands tightly when the forest became impossibly, agonizingly dark, and we’re still holding them as we slowly emerge into the light. All my love, honey. Always.

  “Almost Empty”

  by Weston J. Turner, age 12

  I was seven-years-old when my dad left us. That morning, he showered, shaved, and dressed in a suit and tie, same as always. Drank his coffee at the kitchen counter while we ate breakfast, same as always. He kissed Ma on the cheek, told my sisters and me to be good, and drove off in his Nissan Altima. Same as always.

  At school, in Mr. Fitzsimmons’ math class, I got a funny feeling in my stomach. By noon, my stomach churned, and my skin was hot. I barely made it to the big gray trash can at the end of the row of tables in the cafeteria before puking my guts out.

  The lunch supervisor sent me to the nurse, and the nurse called Dad, but he wasn’t at his office. Ma had to come and get me, grousing the whole time that she’d had to take a bus from work—Dad drove our only car.

  Ma and I got off the 9 bus and walked down the street toward our house. We lived in Woburn, a little north of the city, in a shabby little house with blue siding and a white roof at the end of a cul-de-sac. On the street, with two huge suitcases in hand, was my father. He was stuffing one into the trunk of his car and the other was at his feet. He froze when he saw us.

  Ma started walking fast, then running, demanding to know what my father was up to, louder and louder. She let go of my hand because I could hardly keep up, and left me on the curb while she rushed to him. They talked but I couldn’t hear what they said through the fever that stuffed my head like cotton.

  Ma looked more scared than I’d ever seen her. She started crying, then screaming. Dad talked in a low voice, then threw up his hand and slammed the trunk of the car. In my delirium, the sound was huge. A bomb going off. A meteor smashing us out of our home, destroying everything, leaving behind a huge crater. A hole blasted in the center of each of us.

  Dad tore out of my mother’s slapping, grasping hands, and climbed into the front seat to start the car. Ma screamed and screamed that he was no kind of man, and then collapsed to her knees, sobbing and telling him to go and never come back.

  Dad drove the car off the curb and around the cul-de-sac. He slowed in front of me and waved once from behind his closed window. Guilt had turned his features into someone unrecognizable.

  I shook my head no, and kicked the passenger door.

  He kept going. I slammed my hand on the trunk. No!

  He didn’t stop.

  For a second, I stood with my pulse rushing in my ears and my face on fire, watching the car roll away. Then I ran. I ran after him as fast as I could. I shouted at him as loud as I could, hot tears streaking down my burning
skin.

  Did he see me in his rearview? He must have; a seven-year-old boy screaming for his dad to come back, while running as fast as his legs could carry him. Not fast enough.

  He sped up, turned the corner, and was gone.

  The ground tilted out from under me. I stumbled to the asphalt, scraping my knees and palms, my breath wheezing through hard sobs.

  We later found out he’d quit his job weeks ago and hadn’t paid the mortgage on the house in three months. Instead, he kept the money for his escape.

  Did he wonder what we’d do with only Ma’s pay from cutting hair? Did he care that we’d lose our little house in Woburn? In the months to come, did he ever wonder if we cried for him? Did he consider my sisters and I blamed ourselves, because of course we did. If we were good enough, he would’ve stayed.

  Or taken us with him.

  Instead, he took his clothes and the stuff from his bathroom. Dad scraped out his closet and drawers, taking everything…except for one dress sock. Black with gold-colored thread at the toe.

  I looked at that lone sock in the drawer and pictured the other one in his luggage, now traveling with him—wherever he was going. He couldn’t be bothered to grab the other one.

  Like us, it wasn’t worth going back for.

  His children were left behind, like a sock in a drawer that was almost empty, and that was a million times worse than if there was nothing left at all.

  The bank took the house. Ma started drinking a lot of beer at night and had to ask Uncle Phil for money to get us into an apartment in Southie.

  I burnt the sock.

  I was only seven but the anger in me felt so much bigger. Hotter. Like a fever that would never go away. I had to watch the sock turn to ash. That way, if Dad came back looking for it, I could tell him, “It’s gone. I burnt it. There is nothing left for you here.”

  He’d say he was sorry, and I’d say it was too late, and I’d make him go. I’d be in charge, and when his car drove away, I wouldn’t run after it.

  But that was five years ago. He isn’t coming back.

  “You only got this shirt so keep it clean. You hear me?”

  Ma cinched the maroon-and-gold striped tie up to my throat hard enough to make me wince. “You come home messed up, there’s nothing I can do for you. You want to look like a poor bastard from Southie?”

  “I am a poor bastard from Southie,” I said, earning another jerk on my tie from Ma.

  She wagged her finger in my face, last night’s beers still lingering on her breath. “Watch your language or you’ll get kicked out before you even start.”

  Holy irony, Batman.

  My language was how I wound up winning a scholarship to the most expensive school in Boston in the first place. My essay beat 3,000 other entries to get me a full ride to the Sinclair Preparatory School for Boys, and the high school Academy. Unfortunately the ride came with no transportation, so I was getting up at five in the morning to catch the 38 bus into the city center.

  I looked myself over in the mirror on the back of the door, not recognizing my own reflection. At public school, I’d worn jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life. A long-sleeved shirt on picture day. A jacket in winter. Now I stared at the maroon blazer with gold around the edges, black trousers, and white shirt with the Sinclair logo. I wondered who that guy in the mirror was trying to fool.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Ma said, fussing with my hair.

  She’d cut it short but left some of the front long. She was a stylist down at Betty’s, and she was good at her job.

  “Don’t you look handsome?”

  I ducked from under her hand and scowled. “I look like I’ve been sorted into Gryffindor.”

  Ma sniffed. “What the hell you talking about? You look great. Just like one of them.”

  One of them.

  I dropped my gaze to my old, worn out Chucks. They were the only thing that was the same about me, and a dead giveaway that I wasn’t ever going to be ‘one of them.’ The other boys would have dress shoes, but shoes didn’t come with the uniform, and Ma couldn’t afford them this month. Maybe next. Maybe never. I was okay with never. You can’t run in dress shoes.

  I ran a lot. When I got mad, I ran around the old, pitted track at my public school as fast as I could, for as long as I could. I don’t know why; I didn’t particularly like running, but I was fast. I still had dreams about chasing Dad’s car, so maybe that’s why. Maybe I’m still trying to catch him. Stupid. Running on a track, you just go in circles. You always come back to where you start.

  “No fighting, Weston Jacob Turner,” Ma said that morning, taking my chin in her hand and turning me to face her. The curve of her acrylic nail touched the bridge of my nose where a small break hadn’t healed straight. “You can’t be carrying on at that fancy school like you do around here. One fight and you’re out.”

  That’s another thing I did when I got mad. I got into fights. I was mad a lot.

  I jerked my chin out of her grip. “What if some other kid gives me hell first?”

  “Let it go. You think the administration is going to listen to your side over one of them trust fund babies? Those parents donate.” Ma lit a cigarette, and shook her head of bleached blonde hair. She squinted through a haze of smoke and pointed her cigarette at me. “You fight with one of their kids, you’re going to lose even if you win. Especially if you win.”

  It was still dark out when Ma smacked a smoky-smelling kiss on my cheek and told me to “scoot” so she could go back to bed. My sisters were both still sleeping in the other bedroom. They were both old enough to move out and get jobs, but instead they took the big room. I had the tiny room off the kitchen. Ma had the couch. She fell asleep on it surrounded by empty beer cans and the TV on every night, and kept her clothes in the hall closet.

  By the time it reached downtown, the 38 bus had cleared out and I had a window seat as we rolled up to Sinclair Prep. All cement and statues—one of the old historical buildings since the time of the Revolution, not far from Trinity Church. I was twenty minutes early for first bell when I climbed the few cement steps to the heavy front door. I slipped down the quiet corridors where teachers worked to get their classrooms ready, careful to keep my Chucks from squeaking on the polished floors.

  The library at the end of the main hall was silent. Cool. All gleaming brown wood—tables, chairs, floors, bookshelves. I couldn’t believe this was a middle school. I had to remind myself that the library also served Sinclair Academy. Even so, you wouldn’t think it was any kind of school library to see the books they had.

  My fingers trailed over the spines. Grown-up books. Books I had to badger my sisters to check out for me at the public library. Books with sex and bad words and grown-up problems. I liked those better than the kiddie books. My problems didn’t feel like kid problems. When your dad leaves you behind like a forgotten sock, a piece of your childhood rots away—the part where you can just be a kid without worrying so much.

  I worried all the time. About Ma and how she drank a lot of beer most nights, and ranted to my sisters that all men were trash and would always end up hurting the women they were supposed to love. She didn’t know I was listening, but I was.

  I worried about the parade of scummy boyfriends that went in and out of our apartment over the years. Trash, just like Ma said. Maybe she was right about all men. I worried I would grow up to be trash too, and would hurt any woman I might someday love, so I vowed not to love anyone.

  I worried about money. Not for me, I could get by. But Ma had an ulcer from worrying about bills, and chugged almost as much Pepto as she did Michelob. They shut off the water last month for three days until Uncle Phil paid the bill.

  Getting this scholarship was going to help my family. I’d get into a good college, get a good job, and maybe cut out the worrying for a little while.

  In the library, I looked for one of my favorites, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. They didn’t have it. It was very grown-up. I’d read it twice, and c
ertain parts of it more than twice, under the covers in my bedroom with either my notebook, or a fistful of Kleenex at the ready. Or both.

  Henry Miller wrote about lice-ridden beds in Paris flats (a flat was a kind of apartment, not a woman’s shoe; I looked it up) and about being hungry. Always hungry.

  I was hungry a lot too.

  Miller also wrote about ‘crawling up’ a woman in bed, and used bad words for her body parts. His writing made me want to grab my notebook and pen to write down my own words. I shouldn’t love a woman, but I could write about the sex I would someday have, or admire her beauty from a safe distance. I’d write poems instead of books, where you choose only the words that mattered most, and you didn’t have to say who it was about. It was just a poem, and poems can be about anyone or no one.

  And anyway, writing helped. I stopped worrying when I wrote or when I jerked off.

  Ha! I should’ve put that in my essay.

  They found me at lunch, where I was reading Kerouac’s On the Road, and eating spaghetti and green beans from Sinclair’s gourmet cafeteria.

  One hot meal a day: check.

  “Look here, it’s the charity case.”

  Jason Kingsley. I’d already heard all about him and it was barely noon. He slid onto the bench directly in front of me, while his richie friends sat at my empty table, boxing me in.

  “What did you call me?” I asked, my heart pounding a slow, heavy beat of dread.

  “You’re the contest winner, right?” Jason asked. “The one who wrote that essay about your dad abandoning your family?”

  I slowly lowered my book, amazed my hands weren’t shaking as a rush of humiliation swept through me like a wild fire, making my skin hot.

  “Yep,” I said. “That’s me.”

  How the hell…?

  “They posted your essay on the Sinclair website,” said a redheaded guy with bad skin, who’d crowded in next to me. “Did you know that?”

  “He totally did not know that,” Jason said, watching me.