Starstruck

by Cyn Balog

  35

  AN HOUR LATER, I’m still cold and wet, sitting in the apartment, watching the gradually lightening sky out the window. I think it might be almost morning, but it’s hard to tell, since the clouds are so dark. I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring the sirens when I hear a new noise. It sounds like the ocean. In the winter, when the ocean is choppy and rough and the wind is blowing from the east, if a person stands outside, he can sometimes hear the waves crashing as if he’s standing right atop the surf.

  Then something crashes against the side of the building, shaking all the walls. A loud clap of thunder sounds and the floor begins to pitch. I throw myself down beside the couch. With my cheek pressed against the linoleum, I hear it again, almost as if I’m right on the sand: the ocean. Another crash, and another. The house shudders with every noise.

  I swallow as I stand and move toward the back window, the one in the bathroom. It’s small and frosted and we never open it, but I remember that it does have a little view of the ocean, if you look past the roof of the south wing of Melinda’s hotel. Well, not the ocean, but the boardwalk, and beyond that, the softly rising dunes, spotted with grass. The humid weather makes everything stick in this house, especially the old windows, so I force it up with the heel of my hand, almost knowing what I’ll find there. When I crane my neck, it’s even worse. The dunes are gone. It’s nothing but sea.

  All that’s there, among the waves, is the top of Melinda’s hotel.

  I gasp as a small wave passing the hotel separates, then comes toward the apartment. It splashes me as it crashes against the side of the apartment. Our bakery is in the middle of the ocean.

  And not only that … in the distance I see something I’ve only seen in movies. I’m a Jersey girl, and these things don’t happen in Jersey, but I’m almost positive that beyond the shoreline, I see a gray funnel weaving its way across the horizon.

  A freaking tornado.

  A sinking realization hits me. Wish isn’t coming. How could he? Even if he wanted to, it would be impossible. He’d need a rescue helicopter or something. My only hope is that he got through to emergency services and they are on their way. But are they? Even with a helicopter or a rescue boat, nobody would steer themselves right into a tornado.

  Wish’s words ring in my ears. Do I go up to the roof? Is it safer there? How do I get up there? I turn and see the water lapping at the bottom pane of the window, like I’m looking into a giant fishbowl.

  I can’t stay here.

  I throw my Windbreaker back on, pull open the heavy wood door, and shriek. Water pours through the screen door, into the kitchen. I try to push it open, but the water is too much. It won’t budge. I whirl around and run toward the window over my bed, and it rattles as it opens, scaring a few seagulls from their place of refuge. Some water pours in, but I can at least get through it. I crouch on my bed, trying to get up the courage to climb onto the ledge and hoist myself up to the roof as water pools on my sheets and comforter. The edge of the window digs into my feet as I position them there, then reach up toward the eave, looking for a gutter or something else to hold on to. The white peeling paint catches in my fingernails as I grab for the gutter, but it’s not close enough to use to lift myself. I’d have to swim out and get ahold of it that way, but I’d sink like a rock.

  But I need to go. I can’t stay here. I taste blood on my lips and realize I’ve chewed them raw. I can maybe doggie-paddle my way out a few feet, and then I can quickly reach up and grab that gutter, as long as a wave doesn’t carry me away. I look over my shoulder. The water is covering the linoleum.

  I try to imagine Wish standing near me. It’s the next-best thing to him, I think, because at this moment, I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. I swallow the sob in my throat.

  A wave slides by under the window, and then the water subsides a bit. It seems calmer, maybe deceptively so. My fingernails digging into the sides of the window frame, I silently say a prayer. I let go.

  I paddle. I reach. I see a wave, over my head. I taste salt. I see the white foam above me, and then everything is tinged in green, like in a dream.

  36

  “GWEN?” A soft voice pulls me back.

  Wish.

  He’s standing over me, his eyebrows arched in concern. Everything around me is white, plastic. Beyond him is the sky, just as blue and cloudless as on a perfect summer morning. The world around me pitches and tosses, making my stomach feel queasy.

  “Oh, thank God,” he says. “How are you?”

  The sun burns my forehead and nose. My throat feels like I’ve been sucking on razor blades. My skull feels like it’s being squeezed in a vise. I sit up and rub my head, but my hair is gritty and matted and wet. Everything around me is clammy and uncomfortable. When I blink a few times, I realize we are on a boat, rocking in the middle of the sea. I try to remember where I was the moment I lost consciousness, but I can’t. When did I decide to go on a boating trip with Wish? How did I get here?

  “Wish? Where are we?”

  That’s when I see it, only a few yards away: the roof of a building. A familiar one. Melinda’s hotel. It’s the only thing visible on our island except the enormous flag that flies high over the firehouse, looming in the distance, a few feet above the waves. These are the only things not underwater.

  Suddenly, it hits me. The storm. The tornado. Climbing out onto the windowsill and slipping into the black waves. And Wish. Wish, who caused it all.

  I turn to him, shivering uncontrollably in my wet T-shirt. But he is no longer looking at me; he’s staring at the horizon, toward where the shoreline usually is. But it’s not there, either. I can hear the wind whipping in the distance. Raging all around us. But not here. Not where we sit, on a fairly calm ocean, under a sun-filled sky.

  We’re in the eye of the storm.

  “Wish,” I say. But he keeps his eyes fastened on the sky. Commanding it. “Wish! What are you doing?”

  He bites his lip. “I will not let anything happen to you.” His voice is strained. “Don’t worry.”

  I’m worrying. I’m more than worrying. I stand, rocking with the waves, and put my hand on his shoulder. He tries to shake it free, his eyes never leaving the wild squall upon us. “I know everything!” I shout at him. “I know all about the Luminati!”

  He turns to me. “What?”

  “I know,” I say. “I know that you’re using the stars to change the way people see you. Stop it. You have to stop it now.”

  “No,” he shouts back. “I can’t. You don’t understand—”

  “Of course I do. You think I don’t understand what it’s like to be ordinary?” I ask him, trying to keep my balance.

  He doesn’t answer. My head pounds. The boat pitches again. I lose my footing, toppling backward. The last thing I remember is two screeching seagulls circling above, stark white against the sky, a sky black and menacing, waiting to close in on us.

  37

  SOMETIME LATER—it feels like years—I open my eyes again. A ceiling greets me. I’m inside, but somewhere I don’t recognize. Everything is white. A hospital. There’s a television mounted to the wall, with some news program on; a white-haired reporter is droning on about politics.

  “Hey, hon.” It’s my mom. She fluffs my pillows. “You have a bump on the head. How do you feel?”

  I groan. My head throbs. I reach up to touch it and feel sand in my hairline. Everything at the bakery—the flooding, the boat with Wish—seems like a faraway memory. The bakery. “What happened to our house?”

  She shrugs. “I hear it’s not very pretty. But thank goodness you’re safe.”

  I remember Wish’s promise to come get me. Did he? Or was that a dream?

  I scan the room, but I already know that my mom is the only person here. I think of the blinding sun making a halo around Wish’s head as he commanded it, with the black storm clouds swirling around us. I remember the entire island, save for the top of Melinda’s hotel, being underwater. That had to have been a dr
eam. There is no way on Earth any of that could possibly have happened. “How did I get here?” I ask.

  “The coast guard had you airlifted here by helicopter. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I tried,” she whispers. “The island was closed; they wouldn’t let anyone on. They said everyone had been evacuated. I tried calling you again, but when you didn’t answer, I thought you must have gotten a ride to the high school with Melinda. But then I went to the gym to look for you, and you weren’t there.… I was so worried.” She buries her face in her hands.

  “I think I must have slept through the evacuation,” I say, feeling stupid. “I woke up and the water was already so high. And everyone was gone.”

  She nods. “By the time I found out you weren’t there and told the police so they knew to look for you, the wind was too much. They couldn’t go, either.”

  I shake my head. My vision is blurred, and maybe there’s water in my ears, because nothing makes sense. “So they called the coast guard?”

  She nods. “But they couldn’t get out there right away. There was a tornado.”

  Oh, so the tornado was real? I was thinking that had to have been part of the dream, too. “I remember the water coming up into the apartment. And then I tried to climb out onto the roof. And then …” I swallow, and I can still taste salt. It’s all hazy, but I clearly remember the flash of fear from losing my footing. Tumbling into the water, everything in my sight washing green-gray. Fighting to stay above the waves. “I fell in. But somehow I must have gotten onto the roof. I guess. I have no idea how.”

  “Well, you’re safe now.” She plants a kiss on my forehead, I think because my Nancy Drew meanderings are getting me a little worked up. “Just rest.”

  Still, the more I think about it, the more I know it’s a miracle I was able to get out of the water. “But …”

  “I think you were lucky the boat came along.”

  My ears prick up. “Boat? You mean Wish?”

  And then he walks in, carrying a big bouquet of balloons. “Duh.”

  “Oh” is all I can get out at first. I feel like I haven’t seen him in ages, because my heart starts to flutter. I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see him. “Was that your dad’s boat?”

  “Yeah,” he says with a smile. “It’s more like a yacht, if you ask him. And I’m going to be grounded for the rest of my life. He never lets me use the thing.”

  He looks different somehow. For the first time, he’s wearing something other than that black shirt—a white crumpled tee that he probably slept in and equally wrinkled khaki shorts. He deposits the bouquet on the radiator under the window and sits beside me. “What’s up?” he asks, taking in my expression.

  “Um. You got me out?” I ask.

  He looks at me like I’ve grown antlers. “I said I would.”

  “But there was a … tornado.”

  He smirks. “I didn’t say it was easy.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “Hey. That’s what friends are for, right?” He says it like he just offered me half of his Tastykake.

  My mom backs toward the door. “Well. Better go check on Evie,” she says.

  That’s right. Evie. Suddenly, it comes to me: Evie’s sick. “Is she …”

  “She’s fine. Her fever is down,” my mom says before ducking out of the room.

  Wish is sitting beside me, looking sheepish. He saved me … because he had to. He knows he’s guilty. All those suspicions must be evident on my face, because he narrows his eyes and says, “I’m sorry, Gwen. I would have told you everything if I thought you would believe me.”

  “I would have believed anything you told me. You’re my best friend,” I say. “No matter what.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you everything.” He looks away, takes a breath. “I lied to you.”

  I brace myself, wondering which thing he said was a lie. “I’m a manly, godlike creature.” Or “I stayed with you all night in the bathroom.” Or maybe even “I don’t want to break up with you.” What? “About?”

  “When I said I came back east to live closer to my dad because he wanted me back,” he says, shrugging. “You know my dad and I have never been on the best of terms. Truth is, I had to leave.”

  “You had to?”

  He exhales slowly. “It’s crazy.”

  “Using the stars to control how people see you is crazy. But I believe you. Why did you have to leave?”

  “How did you know about the Luminati?”

  I’m relieved that he doesn’t deny it this time. “Christian. The guy who works at the bakery. He told me. He’s former Luminati.”

  “Is he the one that you …” He scratches his head. “I guess that’s not important. I had to leave because I was in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The fevers. There were a lot of people in my school getting sick and my grandmother found out I was responsible for it. She warned me to stop but I couldn’t. And then this girl—someone I didn’t even know, from another school—died. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but some Luminati did. Her mother wanted answers and some people came forward and then suddenly there was this media storm and everyone was talking about the Luminati. It turned into this big witch hunt. My grandmother told me and my mom that we needed to leave, to get as far away from the hysteria as possible. And so we did.”

  “Oh. I think that’s why Christian came here, too. I think his girlfriend might have been the one who died. But he stopped,” I say.

  Wish sighs. “Good for him,” he says, his voice bitter. “I wish I could, Gwen. I wish it every day. I hate being someone I’m not.” He looks at the ground and rakes his hand through his hair. “I’ve tried to stop. I have. But I can’t. I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe you just need a little help,” I suggest.

  He sighs again. “I’d hoped that I could come back here and just be the old me. Really I did. I even postponed the flight because I was thinking that would allow more time for it to wear off. But then Terra emailed me, saying that all the girls in school had seen my pictures on Facebook and thought I was so hot, and they couldn’t wait to see me. And I knew I was in trouble. I know it sounds stupid and superficial but I was afraid I’d disappoint everyone if I showed up looking like my old self. It took everything for me to get on that plane and come here. I almost didn’t.”

  “But what is so bad about who you really are?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. Everything. Maybe it would have been okay if I had come here looking like a wallflower, if I had blended.”

  “You were never a wallflower. Everyone always liked you.”

  “But because of the pictures, everyone expected a rock star. And now everyone thinks that’s what I am. I don’t want to see the looks on their faces when they realize I’m just … me.”

  “Actually, I don’t really like the rock star.”

  He lets out a short laugh. “I noticed that. I think that’s the only thing that’s kept me sane.” Then he turns to me, a miserable look in his eyes. Even when he was the old Wish, I’ve never seen him look so uncertain about himself. “But I don’t think you will like what I really am. And you know, I don’t care about anyone else. I just don’t want to lose you.”

  “You’re crazy,” I whisper, tears flooding my eyes. “You’re an idiot. Do you really think I care how you look?”

  He shrugs. “Everybody else seems to.”

  “I’m not them.” I put a hand on his arm, but he’s so warm it shocks me. I quickly pull my fingers away.

  His frown deepens. “Sorry. We take on the properties of the stars. We glow. We radiate heat. My body temperature is over one hundred and ten degrees. And we pass that on to everyone around us. I guarantee you have a fever right now, too. A little one. But some people get it worse, are affected more.”

  “You mean Evie?”

  He nods. “I didn’t mean to hurt them. Destiny and Evie are skinny little things, so maybe that’s why.”
<
br />   So I guess there’s one positive thing about the junk in my trunk. I think about what Evie said to me, about Erica and Wish at the party. She made it up. She was jealous of me, however unbelievable that may sound. I smile and sing-song, “Or maybe it’s because they have huge crushes on you.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe. But big deal. They have crushes on someone who isn’t real.”

  I struggle for a bit, trying to think of a way to convince him that everything lovable about him has nothing to do with his packaging. “Um. Hello? Don’t be dense. Don’t you realize how easy it is to fall in love with you? Your personality, your sweetness, your sense of humor …”

  He studies me, as if to say, “Are you serious?” “I could say the same thing to you.”

  I feel my cheeks reddening, but I don’t think it’s just from the fever. “Oh, please.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Oh.” Once I’ve remembered to breathe again, I say, “So what are you going to do now?”

  He shakes his head sadly. “I want to stop, of course. I don’t know how, though. I am so sorry, Gwen. I screwed everything up. Everything. Because of my stupidity, I almost lost you. And you’re the only thing that matters to me.”

  I swallow. I think about pressing the nurse’s button, because if it’s possible for someone to die of happiness, I’m almost there. “Really?”

  “No, I’m lying.” His face is completely serious. Then he laughs. “Come on.”

  “Where is your tattoo?” I ask.

  “I’ll show you,” he says, and I hold my breath, wondering what possibly throbbing body part he might expose to me. But he stretches the neck of his T-shirt and there it is, in a nice, respectable place on his shoulder blade.

  I scoot to the edge of the bed to look at it. It’s only the size of a dime and it looks like a slightly elaborate asterisk. “Oh. I can’t believe that little mark has so much power.”