Bring Down the Stars

by Scott, Emma

  “Fine?”

  “No, God no. It’s more than fine.” He gathered me into his arms and held me against his chest. “I’m just…a little overwhelmed by everything. Boot Camp was hell, and we’re shipping out in a little more than a week. And now this… It’s a lot to process.”

  I stiffened. “I didn’t mean to add more to your stress.”

  “No, no, you’re not stressing me. No.”

  “I thought you felt—”

  “It’s okay,” he said, holding me closer.

  I waited for him to speak again but only thick, deep silence. When I craned up to look at him in the dimness, his eyes were heavy and his mouth drawn down.

  “Connor, what is it?”

  “Babe, I’m just tired. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in months and don’t know what to say that…”

  “Yes?”

  “That you want to hear.”

  “I want to hear you,” I said. “Anything you have to say, I want to hear it.”

  He nodded. “Let me sleep a little. I’ll be better once I’ve had some sleep. Promise.”

  “All right,” I said slowly, and settled against him. “Of course. You must be exhausted.”

  Within minutes he was asleep. I lay awake, trying to calm the turmoil in my heart and evade the nagging thought that I’d made a terrible mistake. All the while, Connor’s chest under my cheek rose and fell with the steady cadence of his breath.

  He’s tired, just like he said. That’s all.

  I finally dozed, waking again in the gray light of early dawn as Connor slipped out from under me. In the dimness, I watched his silhouette draw on his clothes.

  I held perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe.

  What is happening?

  I needed to ask him. To sit up and turn on the light and ask, but I was too afraid of the answer. Too afraid I’d see those rocks come racing up to meet me, and break me apart again.

  Connor bent, kissed me softly on the forehead and left.

  Weston

  I lined up at the starting gate with the other racers. The red-brown track stretched out before me, divided into perfect white lanes. I glanced at my competition, a sneer and a joke ready on my lips.

  But it was Connor smiling at me from the lane to my left. On my right, Autumn was beautiful in the morning light. One by one, Ma, Paul, my sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Drake—all took their places, crouching in their street clothes in their lanes as the announcer told us to take our marks.

  Set.

  The gun went off, and the runners ran. Except me. I fell to the ground, the strength sapped from my body instantaneously. I tried to press my hands to the turf and push up, but my body was made of lead. I could only crane my head to watch the other runners —everyone I cared about most—run ahead and around the curve until I couldn’t see them anymore…

  I woke with my body heavy and my breath squeezed out of my chest.

  Five a.m. and the apartment was empty and silent. Ten weeks of getting up at 4:30 had been ingrained in me and sleep wasn’t coming back. I thought about going out for my ten-mile morning run, but I’d done so much running in Boot Camp, the ritual didn’t mean anything to me anymore. Lots of things, I realized with a dull pang, didn’t mean anything to me anymore.

  You’re letting things go.

  “I have to,” I said to the ceiling. “I’m fucking shipping out for a year. That’s all.”

  The nightmare clung to me as I sat at the dining table with a cup of coffee and the Object of Devotion poem in all its messy, unfinished glory.

  Finish it, Professor Ondiwuje whispered. For your sake. Put your heart on the page and your signature at the bottom.

  He was right. I had to finish it and put it in a drawer with the rest of my writing. Get it out of my system. Get her out of my system. Autumn wasn’t mine no matter how I’d pretended throughout Boot Camp. The longer I played this impersonation game, the greater the chance she’d be hurt.

  The front door banged open and shut, making my pen stutter across the paper.

  Too late.

  “Jesus, man,” I said. “Scare a guy to death, why don’t you?”

  Connor tossed his keys on the side table, put his hands on his hips and stared at me. His clothes were rumpled, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and I’d never seen his eyes so hard or dark.

  I set the pen down. “What?”

  “What?” Connor said with mocking imitation. “Yeah, what? As in, what the fuck, Wes?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The letters.”

  I swallowed. “What about them?”

  “Don’t play stupid. You know goddamn well what. I told you to write about news and weather, and tell Autumn I missed her.”

  “I did,” I said, my throat dry. “I wrote that and made it pretty. I did exactly what you asked for.”

  Pull the other leg, Einstein, Sarge barked at me, it’s got bells on it.

  Connor shook his head, lips pressed together.

  “Dude, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh nothing,” he said with a harsh smile. “Everything’s great. My girlfriend’s in love with me.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I could contain the sudden pain that clenched it. I expected it. I actively worked to make it happen. Yet the reality hurt more than I’d been prepared for.

  Let them be happy. That’s all that matters.

  “Well, that’s good, right?” I said, clearing my throat. “Isn’t it what you wanted?”

  “Yeah,” Connor said, his voice hard, but pain swam in his eyes.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is my soul.”

  “What?”

  “She said she loves my soul. But my soul…” he said with biting bitterness, his index finger unfolding right at me, “…is you.”

  I blinked. The two quiet words slapped my face, leaving my lips numb, then wrapped warm arms around me, whispering, she loves you.

  “Connor…”

  “She’s in love with the ‘words of my heart.’ The letters. The poems. The goddamn phone call in Nebraska. That wasn’t me, man. That was you.” His jaw clenched. “It was always you.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not the only thing she loves. She loves how you make her laugh. How you take care of her—”

  “Yeah, I make her laugh,” he said. “That must be it. That’s why she was in bed with me last night, tears in her eyes, saying she’s falling for me because I make her laugh.”

  He crossed to the kitchen and popped a beer. At five in the morning.

  You selfish ass, it was too much. You said too much in those letters and fucked everything up…

  “I’m so tired of this shit,” Connor said, after taking a long pull. “So fucking tired of not being enough.”

  “You are enough,” I said, firming my voice, desperate to fix this. “You have what she needs. Things no one else does.”

  What I could never give her.

  “What’s that, money? She doesn’t give a shit about money.”

  “Not just money,” I said. “Who you are. You make people feel better just by being in your presence. Everyone loves you. She deserves someone who…”

  “Who what, Wes? Is rich? And popular? Who doesn’t have the nickname, Amherst Asshole?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice hard. “Exactly.”

  “So.” Connor slid into the chair opposite me. “How long have you been in love with her?”

  “I’m not in—”

  Connor reared in his seat and for a moment I thought he was going to throw the beer bottle at my head. “Tell me the fucking truth, Wes. Stop lying to me and yourself.”

  “They’re just words,” I said. “Fiction. They’re—”

  “You’re telling me you wrote all those letters and it’s all bullshit?”

  “Connor, man. Listen—”

  “She doesn’t love me, Wes,” Connor said, his voice thick with pain. “She loves you. Your w
ords. Your soul. She said so herself. Rich or poor, popular or not, she doesn’t care.”

  “Sure, she says that now,” I said, my voice low. “But she would care. Eventually, she would care a lot. What I am…it would wear her down. She’s luminous, and my ugliness and my mean streak would do nothing but dim her…”

  My mother’s words from years ago, that all men were trash—hammered into me, over and over again—came back, along with my worry that I’d hurt any woman I might someday love.

  So I vowed not to love anyone.

  I shook my head and looked to Connor.

  “Something’s fucking wrong with me. Broken or missing. Whatever it is, you have it.”

  “Now you’re really talking bullshit.”

  I loosed a frustrated sigh. “You know, man, you need to give yourself a chance.”

  Connor’s eyes widened. “Me? I need to—?”

  “The point is,” I said quickly, “I’d suck the happiness out of her while trying to figure my shit out. At the end of the day, love letters are just words on a page. You can’t live off them.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Connor leveled a gaze at me. “We fucked with her heart. When she finds out, she’s going to hate us both.”

  “She doesn’t need to find out.”

  “You expect me to just go on being with her, knowing you love her?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Wes, for fuck’s sake,” he cried through his teeth.

  “You said it yourself,” I said. “She’ll hate us. It’ll break her heart. You want to do that to her? For what? So I can fuck up whatever’s left?”

  Connor turned his beer bottle around and around. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “So don’t.” I leaned over the table. “It’s too late to tell her, and that’s my fault. I’m sorry I…got carried away. So fucking sorry. But we’re shipping out in a few days. Deployed to the goddamn front lines for a year or more. That’s scary enough for her. We don’t need to add to her pain. I took it too far, but I did it for you. And her. To give her everything I can’t give her myself.”

  The best of both of us.

  Connor slumped back in his seat. “I should call her.” He shot me a look. “Or you should. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell her what you feel.”

  “My best friend is in love with my girlfriend. How exactly, am I supposed to feel about that?” There was no animosity in his tone, only heavy sadness. “Maybe you could write it down for me.”

  “Connor, just…” I rubbed my eyes. “Forget me. Forget this conversation. I’ll get over it. Her. I have nothing with her. You do. Love her back, man. It’s so easy.”

  He shook his head, a wry twist of his usual smile on his lips.

  “You know, for a second there, with her tonight, I was happy. No girl’s ever said she was in love with me. I’ve never said it. I’ve never felt it. I never thought to take things that far because it’s not easy. It’s fucking hard work. And work was never my thing. It’s your thing. You do the work and I reap the benefits.” He clinked his beer bottle to my coffee mug. “And I don’t know why you do it.” He rose to his feet. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Connor…”

  “It’s fine, Wes. I’m not going to tell her. Everything’s going to change once we step on that plane, anyway.”

  “Yeah, it will.”

  You and I are going to change. Maybe irrevocably.

  Connor gave me a little salute with his beer bottle and took it with him to his room.

  I slumped down at the table, my head in my hands. A few of my poem’s words swam into focus while three words screamed across my mind.

  She loves you, she loves you, she loves you.

  “She loves me.”

  If I reached out and took that love, it would blow up three lives. Connor signed up to go to war to prove he was worthy of love. Autumn gave him her heart and body. I couldn’t see past next week, but I knew the truth of right here and now. I was the one who fucked with their hearts, and if I didn’t fix it, I’d lose them both.

  Autumn

  “Hello? Young lady?”

  I blinked and whipped my gaze to the customer at the counter. “I’m sorry, what?”

  The woman fumed and shook her pastry bag at me. “I wanted a bear claw. This is not a bear claw.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll fix it.”

  I took the tongs and a small pastry bag to grab the last bear claw in the case.

  Three days. They’re shipping out in three days.

  The bear claw slipped out of my grasp and hit the ground, where it broke into pieces.

  “Well, isn’t that fantastic,” the customer snapped. “That was the last one, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, I can’t…”

  I covered my face with my hands, trying to hold back the rising wave of emotion. It crashed down and I bolted, rushing past Edmond to the back room.

  “Ma chère?”

  In the back, I sank onto an overturned flour bucket, hunched over and hugged my arms, sucking in deep breaths.

  “Philippe, take the counter,” I heard Edmond say. Then he was crouched down by my feet.

  “Ma fille, qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

  “I’m sorry, Edmond. I can’t concentrate. I’m a mess.”

  “You’re no mess. Tell me, why the tears?”

  “Connor and Weston are shipping out in a few days, for training, and then to the Middle East.”

  “I know Weston. Mon homme tranquille. Connor is your love, non?”

  I literally didn’t know how to answer. Since the morning Connor slipped out of my bedroom, we’d hardly spoken. A few texts here and there, telling me he was preparing for deployment, putting me right back to where I had been before he’d left for Basic Training—in the limbo of not knowing where we stood or how he felt. The love I’d given wasn’t lost, but stuffed in his back pocket as he walked out of my bedroom. I had no idea if he carried it with him or had thrown it away.

  He’s scared too, I thought. You put your heart on the line, but he’s risking his life.

  It was a hollow thought, but all I had.

  “Yes, Connor’s my boyfriend,” I said finally.

  “A grave situation,” Edmond said. “I fear for him, then. And for my quiet man. And for my thoughtful girl who cares for them both.”

  Waves of fear and love and pain rose up again, trying to drown me. Edmond de Guiche’s kindness was a life buoy. I could easily fall into his comforting embrace, clutch at him, cry my eyes out and ride the storm.

  Instead, I sucked in a breath and pressed it all down.

  “I’m scared for them, and it made me emotional. That’s all.”

  Edmond frowned under his thick black mustache. “That is all? That is everything.”

  Phil poked his head in from the front. “Mr. de Guiche? Things are getting rough out here.”

  “Do you need to take the day?” Edmond asked me.

  “No, no, I’m fine.” I dabbed my eyes on my apron. “I can do this.”

  I had to do this. I couldn’t afford any missed pay.

  Before we headed back out, Edmond stopped me and put his hands on my shoulders.

  “You have a thousand hearts’ worth of love to give. A thousand tears may fall when one heart breaks. But never cry for shame.” He cupped my chin in his thick hand. “Even love lost was well-spent.”

  I nodded and smiled, but silently I rejected his comfort. Love lost was only that… lost. I’d learned nothing from my failed relationship with Mark, except that I was gullible enough to keep trying. To keep loving, even if it hurt. Edmond would say that was a strength. From where I sat, on an overturned bucket with tear-streaked cheeks and an aching heart, I only felt lost too.

  Edmond went home at three, leaving Phil and me to finish the day and close at five. At quarter of, Weston walked in the door.

  My heart pounded. It was impossible not to notice Wes
ton’s post-Boot Camp physique. He’d been fit before but now, standing there in jeans, a dark shirt, and black jacket, the changes were tangible. Catlike—graceful and lean, but with a new, dark and dangerous beauty.

  “Hey,” he said.

  His expression stony. As usual. Half-scowling under furrowed brows and all at once, I was pissed. Angry at Connor’s unpredictable silences. Angry at the stupid wars of the world. Angry at farms that fail and hearts that give out. Angry at the tears that won’t stop coming. And angry at Weston for looking fucking beautiful and filling me with a confused desire to either slap the scowl off his face or kiss it off…

  “Hi,” I said, shrugging the last thought away. “Would you like something?”

  “I wanted to talk,” he said. “If you’re free.”

  “I’m free. We’re about to close. Coffee?”

  “Not tonight.”

  He went to his usual table in the corner. I followed, untying my apron. He waited until I sat before sitting, then folded his hands on the table, long fingers laced. I tried to imagine those hands holding a gun. Weston taking careful aim at another human. Sadness and fear welled to the surface again, wrapped in anger at both he and Connor for putting themselves in danger.

  “I wanted to see you,” Weston said in a low voice. “Talk to you. It’s been a long time.”

  “You must be busy getting ready for deployment.”

  He nodded. “Lot of shit for me and Connor to pack up.”

  “Oh really? Packing?” I asked, my lip curling. “That’s a full-time, 24/7 job, is it? Is that why Connor’s been so quiet?”

  “No,” Weston said in a low, heavy voice.

  I shook my head and let my teary gaze drift to the table between us. “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster I didn’t want to ride in the first place. But once I got on, I took the ride. Up, down. High, low. And now I can’t get off.”

  “I get it.”

  “Do you?” I snapped. I held up my hand before he could answer. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about him right now.”

  “Understood. I came here to talk to you. How’s your dad? And the farm?”

  “Dad’s better,” I said. “Still weak. I don’t know if he’ll ever be as strong as he was before. Not after a quadruple bypass. And the farm is suffering.”