She Dims the Stars

by Amber L. Johnson

  My attention is back on her as my thoughts turn in my head and I can see her staring back up at me, the flashing lights in the distance reflected in her dark eyes. I lean forward and she doesn’t move, just keeps watching as I advance.

  “You want me to kiss you so badly right now,” I say.

  Her eyebrows draw together and she snorts, her eyes darting away instead of holding steady with my own. “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. I can see it. But, I’m not going to. Not until you ask me. Because I think that’s a thing for you—asking people to do stuff. Asking for things. So, when you finally decide you’re ready for that kiss, you just let me know.”

  She leans back on her elbows and looks up at the sky, her ponytail dragging along the grass as her eyes close and the rain hits her face lightly. “Nah. You’ll be waiting forever and a day, Elliot. I’m not gonna ask you to kiss me. We should keep it just like this. All this yearning. This build up to nothing. Will they? Won’t they?” Her eyes open and she looks over her shoulder at me, teasing, but her face is serious. “We’re gonna be the greatest love story never told.”

  Somewhere along this trip I was supposed to find my mother. Some shred of closeness to her or a glimpse of who she was that would help me feel bonded to her in some way. But I feel more detached as the days wear on. I don’t feel like I’m learning more about Wendy.

  Maybe I’m figuring myself out instead.

  There’s a heaviness that’s settling on my shoulders as we travel into Mississippi, because it’s our final stop and the one that I’ve been both looking forward to and dreading the most. First, this is September’s home state, so once we’re done here, she’s staying, and I have no idea how this will impact Cline. Second, this is the place where I tell him everything, and afterward, I think maybe he’ll want to stay with her, and I might be a complete mess. The weight of what is to come gnaws at my insides and makes my stomach hurt, causes my head to feel heavy, the medications running through my veins protesting against the impending drop in serotonin.

  My instinct is to curl into a ball and sleep. Maybe this was a bad idea. Perhaps everything I think will turn out okay is actually going to blow up in my face, and it will end a thousand times worse than anything I could even imagine. With shaking fingers, I reach beneath my seat and blindly grab for my bag. I’ve become so used to having it there in my time of need that it’s second nature to pull it out now. There was a time where I thought maybe feeling too much was better than not feeling anything at all, but I learned quickly that I was very, very wrong.

  Elliot’s voice breaks through the chatter in my mind that sounds so loud it’s as if I’ve been having a full conversation out loud in the cab of the car by myself. And yet, we’ve been driving in silence, just the sound of the radio playing on low as background noise. “We’re going to grab some lunch at this place right up here. Are you hungry?”

  The concern in his eyes jumpstarts my heart just the tiniest bit, working its way beneath the fog building around my brain. I place a smile on my face, as usual, and nod. “I’m starving.” I want bread. Carbs. Sugar. I’m suddenly craving anything I can get my hands on which might make me feel a little bit better about myself. Miranda would call this “eating my feelings.”

  Cline and September are waiting in the parking lot, leaning against the back of her car, sucking face as we approach.

  “Get a room,” Elliot jokes, poking Cline in the neck, knowing damn good and well that’s his most ticklish spot.

  The Giant giggles like a girl and folds in half, then stands and straightens like he’s a man and narrows his eyes at his roommate. “We had a deal, man. That was a secret to the grave.”

  Elliot shrugs. “I didn’t tell anyone you were ticklish. Technically, I just showed them. It’s more of a loophole than anything.”

  They’re still arguing over semantics as we’re being seated and handed our menus. I’m sitting across from September, who is clearly enjoying the majestic display of manly ego. Her halter top is a bright orange and brown Aztec print, and she’s wearing turquoise jewelry that offsets her tan and dark coloring. I can’t stop staring at how incredibly pretty she is and marveling at how inferior I feel in her presence, yet how much she makes me feel at ease.

  Her green eyes meet mine across the table and she grins, all white teeth and freckles. “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Why? Do I look like I’m not fine? Because, I am.” My fingers are tearing at the edge of the menu, and I can’t get situated in the booth’s seat comfortably to save my life.

  Her face turns serious, and she reaches out like she’s going to comfort me, but I retract my hands from her reach. I don’t need attention drawn to what’s going on right now.

  “Are you upset about something? Do you need to talk?” she’s asking, and the fact that she looks like she cares, and her voice sounds like it, too, is making tears start to form in my eyes, and I blink furiously to keep them at bay.

  “I said I’m fine. Really. I just want to get something to eat. And I don’t exactly know where this tree is that we’re supposed to go to tonight, so that’s stressing me out a little bit. Then, you know, this is your last day with us … but otherwise, I’m fine.” I haven’t noticed that the entire table has gone silent and all eyes are on me. Somehow during my speech, I’ve decimated two napkins and they are laying in a torn-up pile in front of me.

  “You seem like you’re handling things like a champ,” Cline says lowly, eyeing the wreckage on the table.

  “You think this is stressed?” I ask. “Did you know that an octopus will eat itself when it gets stressed out? That’s not handling things well. That’s overdramatic. I’d say I’m doing just fine.” I nod my head, eyes wide, trying to convince them of my sanity but fear that I’m failing miserably.

  Cline narrows his eyes. “Given the fact that there are certain species of male octopus that detach their own dick and throw it at a female so she can get herself pregnant and then grow a new dick afterwards, I don’t think that’s the animal I’d be comparing myself to if I wanted to maintain any level of normalcy.”

  Elliot’s laugh cuts through the tension, causing me to flinch. “Wait … The octopus just throws it at her? Like, javelins it through the water?”

  Now September is laughing, too, making a motion with her arm like she’s throwing a dick. “Here, take it, you hot piece of eight-armed ass! You’ve earned it. I’ll just grow another one, see?”

  Cline leans in close to the side of her face and kisses next to her ear. “You’re so hot. Do you really have to stay here? Can’t you come back with me for the rest of the summer?”

  When she turns her head, they are only an inch apart, and I can’t tear my eyes away from them.

  “We’re only one state away. I have stuff I have to do here. I’ll visit before I go back to school, I promise,” she says quietly.

  “I’ll go wherever you want me to,” he whispers back.

  “Oh, gross. Stop. You sound like those crappy love songs on the radio, and you’re making me want to throw up.” I hold my menu up to my face to block them out.

  “What do have against love songs on the radio?” Elliot asks to my right as he looks over his menu, not making eye contact.

  “Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff. Come on. All of that ‘if the world came crashing down, I would be holding you, watching the sky fall on us, waiting for the earth to explode …’ That’s not even feasible. And let me tell you something, okay? If the world was spinning into another planet and the sky was falling or the core of the earth was about to explode, I’d be running. And you’d better be running, too.” I chance a glance over at Elliot, and he’s grinning down at the menu. “What?” I ask, lowering mine to my lap.

  “I mean, I get what you’re saying. I don’t really believe in love songs, either. And that was a great speech you just made. But I think you might change your mind one day.”

  “And why is that?” I ask, my heart anxiously skipp
ing a beat in my chest.

  His grin grows wider, but he still doesn’t look my way. “Because you said I should be running, too. I was part of the ‘we’ in that scenario you just made up.”

  September’s house is bigger than expected, and her family is nowhere to be found.

  “They’re on vacation until next week, so we have the place to ourselves. You’re all welcome to stay as long as you want to. You don’t have to leave unless you really need to go. I have enough room for all of you.” She walks us through the large foyer and shows us around the downstairs, pointing out the fully stocked, spotless kitchen. The living room has a seventy inch television hung above a fake fireplace, and her backyard has a full-sized pool, complete with a diving board. Upstairs are five bedrooms, and she immediately invites Cline to stay with her, which he does not object to at all. She offers the guest bedroom to Elliot and myself, but also points out that I’m more than welcome to stay in Thursday’s room if I prefer.

  Elliot’s face is completely smooth and expressionless when I place my bag in the guest bedroom with his.

  “The tree is about twenty five miles from here, so we should get changed and head out around nine, according to what my mom wrote about the place,” I tell him as I start pulling things out of my overnight bag.

  “What exactly is this again?” Elliot asks, sitting heavily on the queen size bed and falling backward onto it, his head rolled to the side so he can face me as I continue to pull out clothes for the night.

  “It’s called The Confession Tree. It’s in the woods off the side of these intersecting neighborhoods, behind a cemetery. The tree itself is dead, and the top is rotted off, but the base is really tall. It’s hollow and someone carved out a hole, like a doorway, where people can get inside. Wendy’s journal said that she went there with a group of people she was traveling with right before she met Patrick, and they took turns going in two at a time and confessing things to one another. I don’t know exactly what.” I gather up my toiletries and turn to face his curious gaze.

  “You already know what you’re going to say, don’t you.” It’s not a question. Elliot is too smart for that.

  “I have things I need to tell him, Elliot. And this might be the only way I can get him to listen to me and not judge me or yell or run away. It’s worth a shot. And if it backfires, then at least I’ll have tried.” My hands are shaking, and I hold everything closer to my body to stop it.

  He sits up and looks me over, his dark eyes searching. “And me? Am I coming in with you?”

  I smile. “Depends on if you have something to tell me, I guess.” I don’t wait for his answer before I leave the room to take a shower and prepare myself for what’s coming next.

  Anderson’s truck is made for the type of trip we’re about to embark on, and September assures us that he wouldn’t have an issue with us taking it. Cline is giddy with excitement, climbing behind the driver’s seat of the Chevy extended cab, adjusting the mirrors, sliding his girl closer to his side before roaring out of her driveway and into the warm Mississippi night.

  We ride with the windows rolled down, a faint knowledge of where our destination should be, and nothing but headlights in front of us and the radio turned up to almost deafening levels. Cline has his head out the window, hair blowing in the wind, shouting into the night like he’s lost his damn mind. Then I realize he’s just happy. I’ve forgotten how that looks on him; it’s been so long.

  My hand instinctively grabs for Elliot’s across the seat, and he takes it, twining our fingers together and placing our hands on his left thigh. He shifts closer, only an inch or so, but it’s enough to make the tension in my shoulders relax. I chance a look at his profile in the darkness of the backseat, and he has his eyes closed while the air from the windows hits his face, the wind ruffling his dark hair back and making his eyelashes flutter in the breeze. I have fought the growing attraction inside of me with every ounce of willpower that I have, but in this exact moment, I know I can’t anymore.

  I have feelings for him, and I am scared shitless by what that means.

  After a few more minutes of staring, his eyes open, and I look away, out my window, trying to tuck my hair behind my ear like I’ve been enjoying the scenery outside instead of inside the cab of the truck. A pulse of his hand against mine alerts me to the twitching in my fingers, and I take a deep breath and turn to look at him again. He licks his lips and leans forward, but this time I don’t back away or stay still, I move toward him, too. His cheek grazes mine and he places a soft kiss by my ear.

  “We’re almost there,” he says, low and deep, causing me to shiver. I nod in response, and he pulls back to give me a smile of encouragement. I focus on his words and his mouth. How he says his s’s. The way they come out different and thicker than anything else he says. I think about his eyes and how kind they are or how concerned he can be. What they looked like when he jumped from the cliff and came up out of the water, his head emerging and eyes seeking me out to grab me and hug me to him while he yelled in excitement.

  I think about his promise and hope that after tonight he still feels the same way.

  Cline slows the truck down to a crawl, and September turns from the front seat to look back at me, her gaze darting to my hand in Elliot’s for only the smallest of seconds before she speaks. “Do we park here? When I looked it up, all of the sites I saw said that if the people in the neighborhood catch you they’ll call the cops.”

  I look around at our surroundings and point beyond a stop sign. “Park in that church lot. Seems like a good place to be if we’re going to be trespassing in a cemetery, right?”

  Cline mumbles something, pulls in, and then puts the truck into park and waits. I look at the map I found and take a deep breath before letting go of Elliot’s hand and getting out. Illuminated by only a street light, the map is lightly drawn, and I have to squint to see which direction it’s pointing us to. With one flick of my wrist, I have the streets aligned and every nerve in my body is on high alert.

  “It’s this way,” I say, turning to the group as they stand behind, waiting for instructions. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

  The night is eerily quiet as we walk the length of the darkened streets of the neighborhood from one stop sign to the next. The sound of our footsteps is near deafening, and I almost want to tell everyone to tiptoe just in case anyone is out on their porch this late at night with a shotgun. I’m not a runner, but I will run from guns, ghosts, and zombies.

  “Is it this fork … or this one?” Cline asks, holding up the map and shining his phone light on it. There are two splits off of the main neighborhood road, and the map doesn’t exactly differentiate between the two.

  September speaks up, pointing her finger to the left. “I’m going to assume it’s the split with all the scary fog and no light coming from it and not the one where you can see houses and stuff.”

  “Shit. She’s probably right.” Cline huffs and pulls her to his side. “I cannot believe none of us brought a gun. Or a knife. Or nunchucks.”

  “What would you have done with nunchucks?” Elliot hisses at him in the darkness.

  “ Hit them in the balls,” Cline loud-whispers back.

  We are almost to the location now, and just as we near the end of the road, a chain link fence comes into view.

  “Damn. There’s a fence. Guess we have to turn around and leave now—“ Cline begins to turn just as Elliot lifts his phone again, using it as a flashlight straight ahead. Like some sort of sick joke, there is a massive hole cut right in the middle of the links. Fog is still rolling out of it, and right as I step off of the asphalt onto the grass in front of the opening, the temperature drops a few degrees.

  “Nope. Not worth it. This is some voodoo shit right here, Byrdie. Is that really a cemetery we’re supposed to cross?” Cline’s eyes are silver reflections of the moon as I step through into the cemetery.

  “We have to cross a bridge, too,” I call over my shoulder.

  “
Fuck. No.” I can hear him saying it, but he’s right behind me, following and pulling September along with him. She’s whispering something to herself, and after a second, Elliot is directly by my side.

  “What is she saying?” I ask him when he gets close enough.

  “She’s reciting The Lord’s Prayer,” he answers back before he stumbles a bit and stops cold. “I’m sorry. That was a grave. I stepped on a grave. Fix it.” His eyes are huge.

  I push the little cement piece back into place and do a curtsy. “Our apologies.”

  “That’s not how this works!” Cline is freaking out behind us, and suddenly I feel his hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward as he pulls September along, and Elliot is running alongside all of us. There’s a sound in the trees to our right, and he quickens his pace before moving his girl next to me and shoving us both in front. With one final nudge, we’re in the trees, and Cline is fumbling for a flashlight on Anderson’s keychain.

  “We have got to come prepared next time,” he says through gasps of breath. The light from the tiny flashlight hits the small curved bridge that my mom had written about, and he mutters for us to keep moving, so we do. Within minutes, the trees suddenly grow sparse, and the night sky appears once more, the moon in full view above our heads.

  There, right in front of us, surrounded by nothing but tall, thick grass, is the biggest tree I have ever seen in my entire life. At least, what’s left of it. The roots are enormous, exposed and expanding fifteen feet or more in each direction. It’s just as my mom had described it, though older and more worn. The top is gone, but still stands almost ten feet tall. The base looks like you could fit furniture inside of it and hang a television … make it a living room. At least the kind of living rooms we’re used to seeing at college.