Starstruck

by Cyn Balog

  “Tell me about it. I wish I could get rid of it. But people have tried to have them removed and I guess it doesn’t work.”

  “I know. You could tattoo over it. It makes it less powerful.” He gives me a questioning look. “Christian told me.”

  “Oh.” He looks at the mark and then starts to scratch it. “Gah. It itches like crazy. And even if I tattoo over it, it will still have power over me. I’m screwed.”

  “No, you’re not. I’ll help you. We can do it together. Okay?”

  He looks at me doubtfully. “We just went over this. Nothing can help me.”

  “You are not screwed. You just need to know that you can do this without the stars. Because you have something better than them. Me.”

  I put on my most determined face. I have no idea where I mustered the confidence for that, but it works, because he laughs, and not in a “you’ve got to be kidding” way, but in a way that says he believes that maybe I can help. “All right. How do you expect to help me?”

  “Remember what you said in your email? About how you wanted to …”

  He doesn’t even take the time to think it over, as if it was at the top of his mind, all this time. “Kiss you?”

  “Yeah. Do you still want to?”

  He nods. “Very much. Every day.”

  “Oh.” I’m full-force blushing now. “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “You didn’t seem interested.”

  “Oh, no, I am. Just, I’ve never …” Am I really going to admit to this? I must have been hit on the head harder than I thought.

  He puts a finger on my lips. “It’s okay.” I never imagined that my first kiss would take place on a hospital bed, under horrid fluorescent lighting, surrounded by beeping machines and bedpans. I always imagined stars, but screw that; I don’t like the stars very much right now. I also thought candlelight, classical music, soft tropical breezes would come into play. I also imagined that I would have just returned from a victorious whirlwind trip to The Dr. Oz Show, where I’d told an entire audience of jealous housewives how I’d managed to lose a hundred pounds.

  I thought that I would be wearing something other than a gown with pink bunnies on it, open down the back. That I would have makeup on, and that my hair would smell of something other than seaweed and dead fish. That I would have, at the very least, brushed my teeth.

  Oh, no, I think as he moves closer. No no no. “Wait, I need to, like … I just woke up. I’m disgusting. Do you have any toothpaste?”

  He straightens, pretends to check his pockets. “Um. Not on me.”

  “Oh.” The bathroom seems like miles away, but this is more important than a concussion or whatever is wrong with my head. This is an emergency. “Well, I can just—”

  Then he grabs my hands in his own warm ones and laughs. “You’re perfect.” He puts a hand through my hair, starting at the crown and reaching to the back of my head, then gently pulls me to him, his soft lips meeting mine. I feel the heat of his skin against my clammy body, and maybe it’s enough to make steam, because everything blurs so much that I squeeze my eyes closed and just concentrate on the taste of him. It’s something even my mother’s best baked creation could never come close to. “See? You’re so sweet. Salty, actually,” he whispers.

  “You’re not so bad yourself.” I can barely get out the words, since every part of me is trembling.

  “You know,” he murmurs into my neck, “I think you may have just discovered the cure.”

  And it only takes a minute before I am really, really glad we’re not just best friends.

  38

  MELINDA’S CORAL SUITE has so much lace and macramé that it makes a young person age a few years just looking at it. But it’s home, for now. Amazingly, the top floor of her hotel got practically no damage, so she offered my mom, Evie, and me the best room. It’s cramped for three people, but it’s better than our other two options: the street or the Whitecap Room, in the attic. That’s Christian’s room. One morning, a week after the storm, I creep up there, and it’s stifling. Plus the ceiling is only six feet high, so it feels like living in a box.

  I knock on the door and a voice calls, “Come in.” When I open it, someone is flopped on his stomach on the bed. Not Christian, though. Someone else.

  “Um, I was looking for …”

  He turns over. And I recognize the face. It is Christian. The tattoos are still there, but the dreads are gone. Instead, he has a buzz cut and looks like he’s about to join the navy. He closes a dusty old book, probably another coma-inducing literary masterpiece, and smiles a little. “Tell your boyfriend thanks for me.”

  “What?” I’m too busy taking in his new look to hear him. We haven’t seen much of each other in the past week, but that’s because I’ve had so much going on. Recovering from my concussion. Sorting through the remains of the bakery. Spending nearly every other free moment with Wish, helping to cure him of his addiction to perfection. Obviously a lot of lip balm has been involved.

  “I much prefer this weather.” Christian runs his hands through his bristly hair. “You like it? I’m trying something new. The clean-cut thing.”

  “Oh. It’s nice.” I can see his eyes completely now, and they’re big and blue and totally intense. In fact, they’re so intense I find myself blank, trying to remember why I came up here. Oh, right. Melinda. “Melinda wants you downstairs. She needs help moving something. Something big. Like a sofa or something.”

  “Ah. She needs the brawny man-help,” he says in a low, gruff voice. I expect him to begin flexing his muscles. Instead, he just gets to his feet and, ducking under the low ceiling, says, “Cool, thanks.” Then he smiles, and there’s a little shyness in the way he fidgets in front of me. “You look nice.”

  I glance down. I was able to salvage some clothes from Melinda’s bag, so I’m wearing a red blouse instead of the ratty gym shorts and tee I’ve been wearing all week, while we were trying to sort through the mess in the bakery. Today’s the first day back to school, so I felt the need to take a little care with my appearance. “Thanks.”

  He shrugs. “I guess things are finally working out for you and your boyfriend?”

  “Yes, they are, thank you very much,” I say. I could say that it’s completely thanks to him, which it is, but I’m afraid he’ll get a big head.

  I wait for the inevitable sarcastic remark, which comes a second later. He digs his hands into his pockets and says, “Too bad.”

  I scowl at him.

  “No, I mean …” He grins sheepishly. “We could have gone out or something. If I’d been the one to get you out, instead of that boyfriend of yours.”

  I nearly gag on my tongue. Is he serious? “What?”

  He takes a step toward the staircase and says, “I’m glad you’re okay now. I was worried about you.”

  “Oh, well, th-th-thanks,” I stammer.

  He’s staring at me like I have something in my teeth. “Wh-wh-what? You don’t believe me?”

  “Honestly, no. I thought … I thought you hated me, really.”

  He winks. “Maybe that’s just what I wanted you to think.”

  “Oh, right. You are a scumbling screwfinger,” I groan, but I can’t help smiling.

  He grins. “Have fun at school, beautiful,” he says, leaving me alone to listen to the creaking of the hardwood floors under his feet.

  Beautiful. I repeat the word to myself once, twice, three times. This time, though, I don’t turn around to see what supermodel is standing behind me. I may even believe that he’s right, that that’s a perfect way to describe me, and has been all along.

  I follow him down the stairs and go back to the Coral Suite, where Evie is standing by the window and munching on a handful of Cheerios. “I miss sticky buns so so so so much,” she groans, looking at the tiny little O’s in her hand with disdain.

  “Tell me about it.” I thought I’d eaten enough white cream donuts to last me a lifetime, but it wasn’t even close.

  She turns and studie
s me. “You’ve lost weight.”

  “Really?” I ask, looking down at my body. Maybe it’s just the clothes. Or that ever since Evie got home from the hospital, she’s been super-nice to me. It’s her way of repaying me for the lie she told me about Wish and Erica, without having to come straight out and say “I’m sorry.” I can’t say I’ve paid much attention to my body recently; I just haven’t had the time. I know that not having the bakery around has made getting morning, afternoon, and evening pick-me-ups difficult, but I haven’t wanted them much. I’ve been busy with other things. I realize I haven’t even thought about weighing myself in days, which must be a new record for me.

  She sighs and pushes a lace curtain back into place. Her head hangs. “My ride is here. Oh, joy.”

  “Bus?” I ask.

  She nods and swallows as if she has a sore throat, then fixes her dark sunglasses over her eyes.

  “Wish’ll give you a ride.”

  She nearly jumps into my arms. “Really?”

  “Duh. Of course.”

  “Yes!” She shouts, pumping her fist. She runs downstairs to tell the bus driver to begone and returns a few minutes later. “Thanks, Dough.”

  “No prob,” I say.

  “Rick is a turd,” she says under her breath.

  “I could have told you that. In fact, I think … I seem to remember that I did,” I say.

  “Whatever,” she mutters, shoving the entire handful of O’s into her mouth.

  I shrug. “Well, he does have a really nice car. Who could blame you? I was kind of jealous myself.”

  She swallows and gives me an “are you kidding?” look. “Of me? You are so weird, Dough.”

  I hear a horn beeping outside. Wish. When we run out to his truck in the early-morning chill, he’s there, in his rumpled white T-shirt and sunglasses, chewing on his bottom lip and looking nervous. Supposedly, he’s different. I know that because when we go out together, he doesn’t turn heads like he used to. When we went to Friday’s, the waitress didn’t give him doe eyes and there was no drool glistening in the corner of her mouth. And his cell phone doesn’t ring every two seconds, like it used to. But to me, he looks perfect. He hasn’t changed a bit. If anything, he’s better than before. Can that be possible?

  He pulls the front seat forward for Evie, and she’s about to climb into the back when she stops abruptly and stares at him, as if she doesn’t quite believe it’s him. She’s been too “busy” to help with the cleaning, so she hasn’t seen him in a while. “Wish?”

  “It’s me,” he says, looking a little embarrassed.

  “What happened to you?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. “Were you sick, too?”

  “Um. Yeah. I guess,” he answers, looking at me and shrugging.

  We all climb in. “Everything will be fine,” I say to him as he throws the truck into gear so roughly that the transmission squeals.

  “Oh. I know,” he says. “I was just thinking.”

  “Of what?”

  “Whether I’d rather go to school today or eat a razor blade. I think school wins. Just by a hair.” He looks at me. “You?”

  “Is it a safety razor blade?”

  “No. Full razory goodness.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. School.”

  He thinks for a moment as we coast over the bridge. This time, the seagulls on the streetlights don’t seem to be paying us much attention. “Would you rather listen to Erica spout on about how awesome she is or lick the inside of a toilet bowl?”

  “Um …” We look at each other for a moment. At the same time, we both nod and say, “Toilet bowl.”

  Then we can’t stop laughing. Evie groans at us in the backseat and looks like she wishes she’d opted for the bus. “You two so belong together,” she mumbles, sinking in her seat and burying her face in her knobby knees.

  We ignore her. We keep playing. The game goes on and on until the inside of the truck disappears, and once again we’re in the back of the bakery, with a stack of board games and a long, lazy summer day stretching ahead of us. It’s just me and Wish. Me and my best friend.

  He fidgets with the radio buttons, unable to keep still, when we pull up to the school. I put my hand on his. It’s totally cool now, and mine feels hot against it. When we get out of the truck, Evie jogs ahead, pretending not to know us. Wish takes a big breath and looks at me. “Are you ready?”

  I shrug. “For school? Never.”

  He shakes his head, and for a moment I think he might just make a run for the woods and disappear. Instead, he stretches his arms out at his sides, as far as he can reach. “For Gone with the Wind.”

  I laugh, spreading my arms like wings. “Oh, yeah. Always ready for that.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  We start across the street, and he grabs my hand. Lacing our fingers together, we race breathlessly toward the school, on the wind, like two crazy people, two kindred spirits, laughing all the way.

  CYN BALOG is addicted to white cream donuts and once gained fifteen pounds over the summer working at a bakery. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and daughters. She is also the author of the young adult novels Fairy Tale and Sleepless. Visit her online at cynbalog.com.