by Tay Marley
He stared down at me, finger pointing at his room with his lips parted, no doubt to suggest the en suite. But before he could, I spun around and beelined down the hall. The second-floor living room was warm; the electric fire cast a moving shadow on the off-white walls as I moved across to the patio doors.
It was too cold to hang around outside, and it was a rather inconvenient gift, considering the weather, but it was all in place. Sitting on the ground beside a two-seater outdoor sofa draped with rugs and pillows was a lantern, a silver gift box, and a paper bag of snacks. At the edge of the patio, in front of the stone railing was a telescope.
The space was enchanting. There had been a light snowfall since Josh had put this together, but the roof extended far enough that the patio was protected. White powder coated the tree branches, and the railing was illuminated with twinkling white lights that glowed a soft blue against the crisp white.
There were times when I considered the coating of Colorado in ice and snow a total disadvantage, but without a doubt, it was magnificent. The snow appeared so soft, and flurries of snowflakes danced in the wind. In those moments it was easy to forget just how destructive the snow could be.
My appreciation for the scene in front of me was interrupted when I heard the glass door being tapped behind me.
“What’s all this?” Drayton asked as he came outside.
“Your birthday present.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he said as I scuttled over to the sofa and picked up the gift box on the ground. “What’s that?”
“Questions,” I drawled with boredom and shoved the box into his hand. “Open it.”
His curious stare remained on me while he lifted the box lid. I could feel the pom-pom on the top of my hat bopping while I bounced with anticipation. It seemed that I was more excited than he was. He discarded the lid and inside of the box, among blue satin lining, was a framed certificate issued from the Star-Name-Registry.
Abigail Eleanor Lahey
The gift came with its own coordinates and a letter of confirmation. He read the certificate over and over again.
“You had a star named after my sister,” he murmured.
“I swear that it’s there.” I turned around and stared up at the clouds. “It’s just . . . not the best night for stargazing. But the telescope is here, so we can hang out and hope that it clears up. I also bought this lantern to light in her honor.”
Drayton told me that he usually got blackout drunk on his birthday. It was a coping mechanism and I hoped that I wasn’t overstepping. My heart beat a bit harder when I picked up the lantern and realized that he might hate this entire thing.
“We need a lighter,” I said, aware that he was unresponsive. I was afraid to look at him now. I was afraid that he’d tell me I needed to butt out. “I know that you don’t smoke a lot now, so I brought one with me. We ca—”
My sentence was halted and the perpetrator was his warm mouth. The lantern almost slipped from my grasp when his large hands cupped my neck and his body crushed mine. Drayton ran warm no matter the weather, and the winter chill dissipated as I melted into his kiss.
“You know this is the best thing that anyone has ever done for me?” He sounded breathless as he held my face.
“Really? I was worried that you would be upset.”
“Up-Upset?” he stammered. “No, Cheer. Not a chance. This is so fucking thoughtful. It’ll be as if she’s right here.”
His hands continued to hold me while he stared upward. I wasn’t going to complain about the human heater keeping me cozy. If he didn’t want to let me go, I wouldn’t object. His tortured gaze glistened. It was as if the universe was in his orbs. Dark but so bright.
“She was always meant to be a star.”
“Do you want to light this?” I asked, holding out the lantern.
He dropped his hold on my face and nodded. We wandered over to the railing. Not all aspects of the gift were going in our favor tonight—we couldn’t see the star because of the clouds—but there were no leaves to hide the lantern when it went up. And the snow wasn’t falling.
I handed Drayton the lighter, and the flame glowed, casting a shadow that flickered. There was a cute surprise when the lantern candle was lit—the paper casing had silhouettes of a little boy and girl on all four edges. Each edge had a different action.
The boy and the girl were holding hands.
The boy and the girl were flying a kite.
The boy and the girl were throwing a football.
The boy and the girl were hugging.
Drayton was quiet as he turned the lantern in his hands. There was a small tremor. It was almost unnoticeable, but it was there. Still, he smiled. Even when two or three tears rolled down his face, he smiled.
This was his moment, so I remained at his side but kept quiet as he lifted the lantern into the cold, dark sky and let it go. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and tucked me into his side. He smelled like cologne and the leather seats in the Jeep.
We sat down on the sofa and watched the lantern. It was a speck now. A beautiful, glowing speck among the miserable-
looking clouds. Sort of like Abigail’s memory, I imagined. The circumstances and devastation around her death were wretched. But remembering her was enough to make Drayton smile, and that was a testament to what a light she was in his life.
The throws and pillows provided shelter against the light wind that picked up. I cuddled into Drayton’s side. We chewed on chips and sour worms.
“She used to tell me that she was going to end up marrying one of my friends,” he said. His arm held me close. “She said that it was obviously going to happen because she’d be at all of the football games and all of the practices.”
“Naturally,” I chuckled.
Billows of white air were expelled with each breath.
“I didn’t approve. We were, like, eleven and she was talking about her future wedding. I hated it. We used to argue, and she’d get in the shit with me.”
Pain tainted his words, tarnishing memories with the inevitable hurt. But his light laugh made it a little less heartbreaking to listen to him reminisce.
“But we had this thing,” he told me. “We didn’t have to talk. We could just . . . communicate. She’d run up to me after a fight, hug me, and it was good again. She hated the fact that I was so protective of her.”
The end of his words were bitter, like he didn’t think he’d been protective enough. I didn’t want him to do that to himself. “Did she look like you?”
“Same eyes. Similar nose. Hers was smaller. Girlier, I guess. I have photos on my phone.”
He reached into his back pocket. The chip bag slid off the blanket and onto the ground, where I left it. The sour worms had been forgotten as well.
“There’s a whole room dedicated to her downstairs,” he said, excitedly tapping his screen with his thumb. “Mom and Dad agreed not to have photos of her around the house when I started bringing friends home. No one wanted to answer any questions.”
“Here.” He held the phone out in front of me. It was a portrait shot. One that would have been done at school. “That was taken three months before she died.”
She was beautiful. Olive skin like her brother. Long light-brown hair pulled into twin braids. Looking at her smile, seeing the innocence of a child who had experienced nothing but good in her life and knowing that her end was so evil and brutal, my stomach churned into a nauseated knot.
Abigail had had her entire life in front of her. A smile like hers was impossible to fake. It was in her eyes, shining like the sun should have on all of her long living days. I could feel sorrow swelling in my chest, which was tight and filled with regret over something that I could never have controlled. But I didn’t want to spoil the moment. “She was gorgeous.”
“She would have been too pretty,�
�� his voice hitched as he locked the phone again. He pulled the blanket up farther around us. “I can just imagine all of the attention she would have had. I would have ended up in so many fights,” he laughed.
“I should have ended up in those fights,” he said quietly. I let my head rest against his chest. He wrapped both of his arms around me. “You would have liked her too. She had attitude. It made my dad real proud.”
“They were close?”
“Closer than he and I ever were. I think he still blames me for what happened.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know anything about Leroy apart from the fact that he seemed mildly controlling. But even Drayton said that he used to be cool. Perhaps the father that he once had was hidden beneath grief. A parent should never have to bury their child.
“How did you guys celebrate your birthday?” I kept steering the conversation back to topics that I hoped would make him smile to remember.
“We had the same group of friends.” His cheek rested against my head. “We didn’t split up our parties. Mom and Dad did something pretty cool every year. Themed parties until we were ten and then it turned into big sleepovers with games. Spotlight and capture the flag. That sort of thing.”
“That sounds fun.”
“It was.”
There was relief again when his tone was lighter. I wasn’t sure how long we spent outside. Drayton talked about Abigail for hours. He laughed and I listened to his stories. Perhaps this was what he needed—someone to encourage remembering in a way that didn’t have to be so painful. It would always hurt. Loss was a wound that never totally healed. It left a scar. And time didn’t mend the damage; it just changed the pain. It became different. But honoring a loved one’s memory was remedial.
Which was why I found it so heartwarming when Drayton asked me about my mom and dad. He took his turn to listen to the memories that I had. We offered each other strength. An ear. A shoulder to lean on.
When it got too cold, we went inside. The fire crackled in his bedroom, casting an ambient lighting and we lay beside each other, still sharing tales of a time that was different. We did that until we fell asleep, and I had never felt more in tune or connected to Drayton than I did that night.
Chapter 22
In the morning, I cooked breakfast for Drayton. It was his birthday, so it seemed appropriate to deliver it in bed. We ate together. We kissed, we cuddled. He was in a good mood.
He politely asked that I give him a bit of time alone so that he could go to his sister’s memorial room. I obliged without hesitation and let him know that I’d be showering.
Josh and Gabby appeared from his room in the middle of the afternoon. They must have come in late last night. The four of us spent a while getting the house organized for the party. We hid valuables in a spare bedroom that could be locked. And not just valuables. Vases. Ornaments. Whatever could end up broken or damaged.
By nine the house was crawling with not only Archwood students but students from some of the other schools in Castle Rock. Music thudded through the built-in sound system. Voices competed with the songs. The main area of congregation was the rec room downstairs, but there wasn’t enough room, so the first floor was crowded as well.
People were gathered around the pool table; others had set up a beer-pong match in the kitchen. There was dancing, and the amount of alcohol that flowed through the house was insane—Maxon’s older brother had bought everything for tonight. No one was supposed to know who it was because of the implications, but I was trusted with the information.
“Hey,” Gabby latched onto my arm the moment I came back from the bathroom. She was wrecked and it wasn’t even ten. “Can you come to the bathroom with me?”
Never mind the fact that I had told her that I was going two minutes ago and she told me that she didn’t need to.
We held hands and attempted to get up the staircase, which for some unknown reason had turned into a gathering point. Not to sound like that annoying mom who was constantly reminding everyone that microwaves were cancerous and cell phone towers were going to kill us, but I really didn’t understand why people chose to hang out on the staircase. It was dangerous and it was narrow, hardly the most convenient social setting.
The bathroom was empty, much to Gabby’s relief. Not that it would have mattered because there were three on this floor alone. I shut the door behind us and she ran in, her heels clacking against the tiles.
“I am busting. Holy shit,” she stumbled as she hiked up
her pink satin dress and fell onto the toilet. A satisfied sigh left her
glossed lips.
I stood in front of the mirror and assessed my hair and makeup as if it could have changed in the minutes that had passed since I was in here last. The new long-sleeved black dress that I’d found on clearance last weekend was fitted with a low-cut neckline and a zip at the front that went from top to bottom. Pairing the short dress with a pair of black platforms gave the illusion that my legs were a hint longer. Silly little stumps.
Gabby flushed the toilet and stumbled toward the basin with a slurred smile.
“You look so-o-o-o-o hot,” she gushed, banging on the top of the soap dispenser with a careless thwack. “I’m drunk.”
“No shit,” I laughed, turning the tap on for her because she’d forgotten to do that before her hands got all slippery with soap.
When we left the bathroom and headed downstairs in search of another drink for me and a water for Gabby, we bumped into Emily, who was beautified to perfection in a blood-red chiffon dress. She looked down at me as if I was a peasant, unworthy of her presence. What else was new?
“I was hoping that I might see you tonight,” I said, remembering an idea that I’d had that morning while I was flipping eggs for breakfast. She raised a brow and I let Gabby’s arm go so that she could escape to the kitchen. “I have a favor to ask.”
“No.”
“Come on, hear me out.”
She pushed her perfect auburn curls over her shoulder and checked her cell phone. “Maybe on Monday. I’m leaving.”
“You’ve been here for like fifteen minutes.”
“Yes. That’s long enough. Believe me.” Her lips curled with distaste as she peered around at all of the excitement. “You’re new to this, but let me explain how it goes. There’s drinking. More drinking. Perhaps a fight. Too much PDA and then Drayton gets so drunk that he can’t stand and it’s embarrassing. But one of these girls is hoping to be his chosen birthday screw. Just be aware.”
I exhaled and attempted not to laugh at how ironic it was that our roles had sort of switched. I would have been the one leaving in the past. I’d still prefer a quiet night in. But this was about Drayton.
“Let me guess, you used to be the chosen birthday screw.”
She looked at me and pursed her lips. “I’ve never slept with him,” she admitted with a small voice. Somehow, she still sounded confident. “He never wanted to.”
It was hard to determine how serious her crush on him was, but for a brief moment, she seemed hurt, and I once again felt sort of bad for her. It was an unnatural, unwelcome feeling. And then I felt relieved to know that she’d never touched him.
“Anyway.” She lifted her head and gave me a tap on the shoulder. “I’m leaving. Lincoln is waiting. See if I care about this favor of yours on Monday. You never know.”
I watched her leave and figured that going an entire conversation without an insult or the urge to throw down was progress.
The kitchen was bustling. The large glass doors were shut, but the windows were cracked open because despite the fact that it was freezing outside, the copious amounts of bodies inside were causing a claustrophobic heat. I didn’t love having my phone jostling around against my boob, so I switched it off, dropped it in the utensil drawer, and snatched an unopened bottle of vodka from the cupboard.
“Dallas.” Gabby shoved her phone in my face, recording a Snapchat while I poured a shot. “Do a keg stand.”
“You do a keg stand,” I scoffed and threw back my shot. The afterburn made me wince. Gabby recorded me pulling the same face that a baby makes when they eat a lemon wedge.
“No, I hate beer,” she argued, still filming the conversation. “You’re one of those weird people who actually likes the taste of beer.”
“Hey, Maxon,” I called to the linebacker who was currently manning the kegs. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and he was well and truly off his face.
“What’s up, Cheer?” he shouted.
“Don’t call me that. What’s the current record?”
“Mitchum!” He pointed at one of our defensemen, who was slouched in a corner, I don’t even think he was conscious. “A minute fifty-six.”
“That’s a long time to be drinking beer.” I winced. I’d wanted to do it for a challenge, but I also valued having a functional liver.
“Come on, Cheer.” Maxon lifted the hose and started gyrating around the keg in some sort of disturbing ritualistic dance. “You know you want to.”
I stood in front of him and scowled. “Call me Cheer again, and I’ll be shoving that hose up your ass.”
He recoiled and lifted his free hand in surrender.
“Come on, Dal,” Gabby whooped. “You can do it. I really do believe in you. If Mitchump can do it, you can too.”
We peered over at the boy who was now throwing up. With the help of his girlfriend, it was being directed into a bowl rather than all over the wall and floor.
“If I end up in that state,” I pointed out, “you’re looking after me.”
“Absolutely!”
“Fine.” I laughed at her intoxicated enthusiasm. She clapped her hands and stepped back, familiarizing herself with her phone again as she began to film.
“All right, usually you’d need two guys to lift a dude onto the keg,”—Maxon stepped behind me and put his hands on my hips—“but I think I can manage you by myself.”
“Good attempt.” I stepped out of his hold. “I’m a cheerleader. I can manage a handstand just fine.”