Starry Eyed Inside

by Rochelle Allison

  By nightfall, word had gotten out and dozens more people had arrived, some of them with presents. Kai pulled me into the house, placing a small package into my hands.

  “What is it?” I asked breathlessly, a little hopped-up on sugar.

  “Open it,” he said, punching my arm.

  “Ow.” I ripped savagely into the wrapping paper, and then slowed down, surprised. It was a set of pens, different colors. Elegant, expensive-looking pens.

  “For your diary,” he said. He smirked, but there was something vulnerable in his eyes, too.

  “It's a journal,” I said, throwing my arms around him. “Thanks, Kai. These rock.”

  My dad grilled burgers in the corner and talked with his friends, while my mother flitted around like the social butterfly she was. Niki, Teig, and I danced beneath fairy lights and flirted with boys, capturing moments in pictures. It was like the parties my mom had thrown me as a kid, full of crêpe paper and balloons and sugar, but all grown up.

  And for the first time in years, I actually made a for-real wish when I blew out the candles:

  I wish the next two years would fly by. And if they can't well... I wish they'd be really, really awesome.

  The next day my dad took me down to Ft. Pierce to find a car. A friend of his sold “pre-owned vehicles” at one of the lots, and by the end of the day, I was the owner of faded blue Ford Explorer. One window didn't work, and it smelled faintly of patchouli, but it was mine.

  When I got home that night, after cruising over to Teigan's to show her my new ride, I had a new Snap. It was practically buried amidst the dozens of other "happy birthdays," but I noticed it because of the user handle beside it.

  It was a private message from Skyler: Happy birthday, Rory. sorry I'm late. ;)

  I thanked him right away, my heart doing funny things as I typed, but that was the last I heard from him.

  For a while, it seemed as though my birthday wish might come true. The months flew by as I immersed myself in schoolwork and my job. I was still working at the Imaginarium, after school and sometimes on Saturdays.

  Our social dynamic was definitely different from the year before. Some people had graduated and moved. Others had just shifted into other groups. We were driving now, which meant more freedom, but I was working, and Niki was still training hardcore in dance, so we were busier.

  Niki and Finn were going strong, and Teigan had started dating some new guy, a junior who went to private school. At least, that's what she said. I knew for a fact that while she and Rocco had "an open relationship," she wasn't going to get too serious with anyone else.

  A lot of the guys we hung out with were fun, some of them even adorable, but it was impossible for me to see them as anything other than friends. I missed having someone to crush on, to be excited over. I finally started saying “yes” when cute boys asked me to the movies or whatever, but nothing ever happened. I couldn't settle; the only way I was ever going to be with someone is if they made my heart race.

  Teigan said my expectations were unrealistic, but I didn't think so. I knew what it felt like to be consumed, and I wanted to feel it again.

  In early February, we went to the Martin County Fair over in Stuart. Niki drove her mom's car; sometimes we preferred it because the three of us could ride up front together. The weather was still pretty nippy, so I pulled on my new purple hoodie before climbing out.

  Inside the gates, the fairgrounds were pulsing with people and lights and stands selling cotton candy and weird, fried, fair food. Guys hawking games and selling balloon animals weaved in front of us, trying to tempt us into participating. Rap blared from the Tilt-a-Wheel; a Ferris wheel glittered brightly in the distance.

  Niki texted Finn, trying to find out where he was. He messaged right back, saying that he and his friends were right by the carousel. We wandered around until we found it, and then we made a beeline for it, not wanting to get caught up in another throng of people.

  Teigan linked her arm through mine and leaned in, lips brushing my ear as she bitched about some girl she hated. I was laughing at her awfulness when my gaze snagged on a guy headed in our direction. He was walking with friends, too, his hands stuffed in to the kangaroo pouch of his dark, gray hoodie, and he was cute. Really cute.

  He was the first guy I'd seen in months that made my heart stutter. I couldn't see much of his hair, because it was covered, but it looked light. He glanced up just then and caught me looking. In fact, he stared right back, and then my trio passed his. Pretty eyes; green, maybe. I waited a beat and turned my head to see if he looked as good going as he did coming, and he peeked back at me, already smiling a little.

  He seemed familiar. I'd definitely seen him before, at school. He was a senior, I thought, or maybe a junior.

  We joined Finn and his friends, mostly guys from swim team. The adrenaline of noticing someone who was noticing me started to abate, and I took a deep breath of cool, night air.

  "You want to go on this?" teased Finn, nodding toward the carousel.

  "After you," Niki said, letting him pull her on.

  Teig and I hopped aboard on a whim. I regretted it in seconds; the circles and lights made me sick to my stomach and I begged off, dragging Teigan with me to find food. We goofed off for the next couple of hours, riding rides and snacking on crap.

  Eventually we ended up at the Ferris wheel, where the line was so long it was starting to wrap around. "I need to pee," I told Niki.

  She nodded, wrinkling her nose. "Me too."

  By the time we made it back, the others were nearly to the front of the line. I blinked, squinting as we got closer. Finn was talking to the guy in the gray hoodie. I frowned, wondering if they were friends. Niki reattached herself to Finn, and Teigan was chatting up some other guy. Feeling like a loser, I was seconds away from texting someone, anyone, when Finn touched my arm.

  "Rory, you know Tristan, right? He's captain of the swim team."

  Tristan was pretty tall up close. I still couldn't make out the color of his eyes. He took his hands from his hoodie and extended one toward me. "Hi."

  I shook his hand, smiling like a goof. "Hi."

  And then he sort of just... got in line next to me. "So you're a sophomore? Like Niki?"

  "Yeah. Swim team sounds cool," I said, wondering why I sounded like a bimbo. "I've never been to any of Finn's meets."

  He shrugged. "This is my last year, but I love it."

  "That's cool," I said, chewing on my lip. "So you're a senior?"

  He nodded, glancing down at me.

  "You mind if I take this one with Niki?" Finn asked, pushing his hair back.

  I looked up, surprised. We were at the front of the line. “No, of course not. Go ahead.”

  The next seat came forward, and I stepped uncertainly toward it, looking around. Teigan was behind me, still talking to the same guy.

  "Do you want to go?" Tristan asked, holding out his hand.

  I deliberated for a second. It was just a stupid ride, right?

  So I took his hand and let him help me on. The attendant lowered the bar over our laps, and we jerked forward, pausing every few moments as people got on and off. Then it started to glide smoothly, bringing us higher and higher until the entire park was laid out before us like a massive, sparkling wonderland.

  It was almost too high, and my stomach dropped the way it did on rides like that.

  I tried to ignore my proximity to Tristan, how the side of my body was pressed to the side of his. I'd been on Ferris wheels where the seats were circular, and four or five people could fit inside. This was not that way, though. Its seats were tiny, probably to facilitate necking underneath the stars and all that jazz.

  Tristan reached over suddenly and touched the ring on my finger, putting an end to my fidgeting.

  "This is pretty. Your boyfriend give it to you?" he teased, a sly half-smile creeping onto his face.

  I cleared my throat. "Yeah, he did."

  Tristan's eyes snapped up to mine, and
he frowned slightly, pulling his hand back.

  Too easy. Grinning, I lifted my hand, studying the ring I'd gotten for my birthday. "This was my mom's. She gave it to me when I turned sixteen."

  He grinned back, shaking his head. The twinkly lights all around us reflected in his eyes, and I could finally see that they were an unusual shade of green. I didn't think I'd ever seen anyone with eyes quite that color.

  We'd been staring at each other for longer than was necessary. Swallowing hard, I looked away. We'd stopped near the very top. I leaned over and looked down; Niki and Finn had graduated from cuddling to full-on kissing in the seat below. I twisted around and looked back. Teigan smiled and blew me a kiss. I blew one back and straightened up, not wanting Tristan to think I was being rude.

  I studied him sideways, taking in his profile. The slope of his nose, the curve of his mouth. The way he drummed his fingers and licked his lips. And, yeah—I was attracted to him, like, really attracted, and I could tell he was attracted to me, too. I liked the way it felt, full of possibility. It was exciting.

  Even so, I clasped my hands in my lap and prayed for the ride to be over soon. I didn't mind sitting in cramped spaces with beautiful boys per se, but this was starting to feel contrived and tense.

  Tristan put his arm around the back of the seat, almost, but not quite, touching my shoulders. "Is this okay?" His breath was warm against my ear.

  Fighting a shiver, I thought about the things I wanted and the things I missed. It had been months and months of holding onto something that had faded away; how much longer was I going to wait?

  I glanced up at Tristan, melting a little when our eyes met. The boy gave me butterflies.

  "Yeah."

  And it was. It really, really was.

  Stolen

  It wasn't hard to fall for Tristan Becker.

  I mean, yes, he was hot. Really hot. But there was more to his sexiness than the way he looked. The way he walked down the hall, for one. All confident and laid back, like he knew where he was headed, but it wasn't a production to get there. He sought me out by my locker as soon as I got to school on Monday, his eyes crinkling when he smiled at me.

  When we talked, it was like there was no one else around. Tristan focused on me like I was the only thing that existed to him in that moment, and it was intoxicating. I found myself anticipating him, hoping for sightings in the hallway.

  I didn't want to be an easy catch this time around, but damn it, I liked him. Game playing was stupid, and I knew that, but I just wanted to protect myself from another broken heart. That shit hurt. It still hurt. And despite all of that, the heart wants what the heart wants, and in this case, it was beginning to want Tristan.

  He didn't make it easy to ignore him, either. He'd never sat at our lunch table before, but on Monday he plopped right down next to me, slinging an arm around the back of my chair. No one else even blinked. He and Finn were teammates, so maybe it wasn't that out of the ordinary. I played it off, but I was very aware of his presence.

  From then on out, he was always around: at our lunch table, during the few spare minutes between classes, after school but before practice. He always found a way to talk to me, or sit next to me and pull me into a one-on-one conversation. The attention was flattering, so different from what I was used to, that I found myself wanting him to single me out.

  One day when Niki and I both had free time after school—a rarity for us both—we went down to the pool to watch the swim team practice. Because of dance, she'd only been a couple of times, and I'd never had any reason to go. The coach didn't mind if students and parents came to watch, as long as we stuck to the bleachers and stayed quiet.

  It wasn't hard to see why Tristan was the captain. All the guys were strong swimmers, but he was by far the best. His signature stroke was the butterfly, and it was fascinating to watch him swim up and down the lanes, his muscled shoulders spread like wings. He was the biggest cheerleader, too, whooping it up every time one of his guys hit a personal best.

  Eventually, the coach blew his whistle and the guys pulled themselves out of the water. Tristan snapped his cap off, running his hand through his hair and over his face. All that shiny, toned, bare skin... by the time I actually looked at his face he'd already seen me ogling him. He grinned at me, and winked.

  Yeah, it wasn't hard to fall for him at all.

  It didn't take him long to ask me out; it took even less time than that for me to agree.

  On our first date we went bowling. I hadn't done that since I was a kid, and even though I was a little rusty, we had fun. There was a lot of laughing, and a lot of his hands on mine while he taught me the "correct" way to throw a strike.

  I stole his receipt from the evening and stuffed it into my purse, wanting to memorialize the evening. When I got home, I glued it into my journal, along with a few notes.

  He held the door open for me. Every time.

  He's got the greenest eyes I've ever seen. Like grass. Leaves, when the sun shines through them.

  For our second date, we went out to eat at this quiet little place in downtown Stuart. I got to know him a lot better that night. He told me how he'd been swimming competitively since childhood, and how his father had been his first coach. Even though his parents were divorced, his father lived nearby and they were close.

  Like me, he was an only child.

  The post-date process was the same each time: he drove me home, walked me to the door, kissed my cheek, and waited for me to let myself in. Both times, I was relieved he hadn't tried to kiss me, and then vaguely disappointed.

  Maybe that was part of his plan: to make me want him so that when he finally busted a move I'd be ready and willing. At least, I hoped.

  On our third date, we went to the movies at Treasure Coast Mall. I was a novice at Real Dating, so I found it both amusing and appealing that our outings were so typical. There wasn't much to do in Jensen Beach, but I was used to hanging on the beach or at people's houses, usually drinking or smoking. Or both. Tristan wasn't into that, though. He said weed messed with his lungs, in turn messing with swimming.

  It didn't make much of a difference to me. I liked smoking, but I'd always been able to take it or leave it. And anyway, it reminded me of other people, other times. It felt right to keep it all separate.

  The movie theater was only half-full, as we'd picked something that had been out for a while. We fell silent as the movie started, and as always, I was hyper-aware of his nearness. In this case, it was our hands, clasped on the armrest between us. I kept feeling him glance over at me, and finally, I couldn't take it.

  Trying not to smile, I met his gaze straight on. "What?" I mouthed, hoping it was what I thought it was.

  He leaned toward me, running his nose along my cheek. "Can I kiss you?"

  Suddenly, I was so, so nervous. I nodded, almost holding my breath, and he leaned closer. Our lips met and, after a moment, he slipped his tongue into my mouth. I was distantly aware of the half-eaten Snickers bar in my hands, melting in its wrapper as I squished it. This was intense, more intense than I'd expected.

  Tristan softened his kiss, pressing his lips to the corner of my mouth before sitting back. I opened my eyes and turned back to the screen, slightly breathless.

  And so it began.

  Whereas Skyler had always been a bit of a mystery, Tristan was more of an open book. He didn't seem to have any reservations about relationships, or about letting me know he liked me.

  Tristan always came to the front door, and never to my window. I was glad he wasn't into that. Only one boy had done that, and those memories felt sacred. I would've felt a little sick inside, being that way with someone else. I wanted new experiences, ones unique to Tristan and me.

  Because I often worked into early evening, he got into the habit of stopping by the bookstore after practice to wait for me to get off. He had this table he always sat at, in the coffee shop across the store, where he did his homework and sneaked glances at me. Sometimes, if it wa
s slow, I joined him.

  To no one's surprise, my parents liked Tristan right off the bat. My father always did have a good nose for shenanigans, and Tristan was as straight laced as they came. It was nice not having to worry about being caught doing...whatever.

  The girls liked him too, which was important to me. It wasn't like I needed their permissions to date, but we'd always looked out for one other. They kept it real; I trusted them. Plus, I wanted to feel comfortable when we were all hanging out together. Group chemistry was important. Regardless of how I felt for a guy, I didn't want to forget about my friends.

  I missed Kai, though. He'd been doing his own thing, hanging out with the same friends he'd always had, playing sports and chasing girls. He seemed indifferent toward Tristan, maybe out of a sense of loyalty to Skyler. That, or old feelings for me. I knew he'd never cross the line, but there were times I caught a vibe.

  Like at school, especially if he was between girlfriends. (Or, as Teig called them, playmates.)

  “Aurora Borealis,” Kai whispered, leaning over my shoulder. Needing to finish up my research for a comparative literature paper, I'd spent study hall in the library, sequestering myself in a computer cubicle.

  “Hey,” I whispered back, pressing my cheek to his briefly as I typed. I waited for him to say more, but he just nuzzled my cheek and disappeared into the stacks.

  Teigan plopped into a chair next to me, sighing loudly. I rolled my eyes, giving up on the dream of making progress on my paper. “What's up?”

  “I'm so done. You know how we're going on that cruise for Spring Break?”

  “Mhm.”

  “Now she and Jonathan want Jackson to come along,” she said, tossing her phone down with a clatter. “He's such a douchenozzle.”

  I giggle-snorted, clapping my hands over my mouth. Jackson was Teigan's older step brother. He was filthy rich and lived with his mother a few miles down the coast in Jupiter. Teig couldn't stand him.