A Sky Full of Stars

by Melissa Josias

  Ben comes to sit on the edge of the bed, his right leg bent at the knee. “Okay, first of all, you’re here on a tourist visa. You can’t stay here forever. Secondly, you are sorely mistaken if you think that I am leaving here without you.”

  I still can’t meet his eye. “This isn’t a rescue mission, Ben.”

  “No, it’s not. You’ve never needed anyone to save you.” He pauses and looks at me like I’m every lie he’s ever told. “What would I tell people if I came back without you? What would I say? That I failed? That I wasn’t good enough?”

  “No,” I say, picking at the frayed edges of a pillow. “Tell them that you found me. Tell them that you couldn’t convince me to leave. Tell them that I was happy.”

  “Abby,” Ben says, sternly, “I’m not going anywhere without you. What’s so bad about home, anyway?”

  I shrug. “Nothing. It’s just...” I sigh, and finally look up at him. He has his brow up in expectation. “I don’t want to go back and end up like I did.”

  Ben reaches out and touches my knee. His hand is warm. “Abby, you didn’t end up any way. You’re still in the process of things, still very much in the middle of it. Your life is so unfinished, Abernathy.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of. That there are still so many things to do but I have no idea how to do them.”

  Ben slides closer to me, balancing the beer bottle in the air, and rests against the headboard. “We’re young. You’re going to figure it out. You still have time.” He smiles softly. “Just stick with me, kid. I’ll show you the ropes.”

  We spend the rest of the night talking about home. Ben doesn’t treat me differently. He still cracks jokes at my expense. He tells me how worried my family is, which eats at me terribly. Mostly he speaks and I listen. Ben’s voice calms me. It’s magical, the way that he uses his voice. He makes me laugh too, so hard that I get a cramp in my stomach. I haven’t laughed like this in a very long time.

  Ben drinks all the beer, and then becomes restless. He leaves the room to find ice, and it takes him twenty minutes. He reappears at the door just as I am ready to go out looking for him. He has another six-pack of beer in his hand, a different brand. His eyes are glassy and he smells like he needs a shower.

  “Okay,” I say to him, locking the door behind me and hiding the key in my suitcase. “You’ve had enough for the night. Come lay down.”

  Ben doesn’t fight me. He sort of plops down on the bed, bouncing up toward the pillows. “The people at the shop couldn’t even understand me,” he says into the covers. “I had to repeat myself a hundred times. I still speak English.”

  It’s almost midnight. I take a brief shower and climb into bed with Ben. He is still slumped on the bed, his legs dangling over the mattress listlessly.

  “Benji, get under the blankets,” I instruct, taking off his shoes. He curls up on one side of the bed, breathing heavily. I don’t think jetlag will be a problem for him tonight.

  I switch off the lights. The room falls into semi darkness. I listen to Ben breathe for a while, my body succumbing to the pull of the dark.

  “Abby?” Ben says, just as I am closing my eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “How long have you felt this way? Wanting to die?”

  “A while, but the last year has been really bad.”

  Benjamin lets my answer settle. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking at this point.

  “Remember that day? When Morgan jumped? You asked me why I brought you to see it.”

  I sigh, and turn myself into him. “Not now, Benji. I’m tired.”

  “I needed you to be there,” he continues. His eyes are still closed. “I absolutely had to see if she would do it. I don’t even know why. I just had to. I wanted to know if she would be brave enough.”

  I close my eyes and images of Morgan on the bridge with her arms spread appear to me. “But I didn’t want to witness it by myself. Sure, the others were there, but I wanted you. I needed you then. And I need you now, Abs. I’m always going to need you. I can’t do any of this without you, okay?”

  From past experience I’ve learnt that Ben always tells the truth when he’s drunk; he can’t help it.

  “Okay.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Benji.”

  Ben stays quite for a while. I think he’s fallen asleep, but then I hear him ask, “If you love me, why’d you leave me?”

  I open my eyes to look at him. From across the bed, Ben opens his eyes too. “I didn’t leave you. I left. There’s a difference.”

  Ben closes his eyes. I feel tired. I don’t want to fall asleep until I know that he has, too.

  “You know what, Abs? I think it would have been so much better if we had gotten married.” Benjamin’s voice is soft in the quiet room, like he’s whispering a secret to me. “We could have been happy. You would have wanted to stay. We wouldn’t be in this shitty motel, or whatever it is.”

  I half smile at him through the dark. “But you don’t love me like that, Ben.”

  He blinks slowly for several minutes, not disputing my statement.

  “It’s okay to go to sleep, Benji.”

  “I’m afraid that if I close my eyes I’ll wake up somewhere else.”

  I reach across the bed and hold his hand. “I’ll hold onto you. That way you can’t go anywhere.”

  Ben finally closes his eyes. I am tired from a long day and he has exhausted me. I settle myself down too, ready for sleep.

  “Hey, Abs?”

  “Hm?”

  “It’s okay that you never married me.”

  I smile softly, loving him intensely.

  “Benji?”

  “What?”

  “It’s okay that you never asked.”

  I sleep fitfully. Unfamiliar noises keep waking me. The light in the room keeps changing. Ben moves around a lot in his sleep, and I had become so accustomed to sleeping alone that his movements wake me every time.

  I have several dreams, about airplanes and lakes and a guy with an armful of tattoos. Then just before dawn, when all I can think about is Eric, I wake up to an empty bed and the sound of Benjamin dry heaving in the bathroom.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Benjamin sleeps for a long time after that. I shower and get dressed through his snoring and lock him inside the room. I book another room for the night, using some of Ben’s money that I find in his suitcase. I’ll pay him back eventually.

  It’s mid morning and the air is cool and soft and smells like the ocean. It reminds me of early mornings in Camps Bay, with the ocean thundering in my ears and mists of seawater cooling my skin. The sun is always too bright on that beach, but that’s what summer is like back home, on that stretch of ocean drive.

  I order two large coffees and pancakes from a small diner on the corner. I make my way back through bright sunlight. The sun feels good on my skin. My lungs appreciate the crisp air.

  Ben is up and rubbing his eyes when I open the door. He squints at me, the left side of his face bearing pillow marks.

  “Morning,” I say, setting everything on the small table. “I brought coffee.”

  Ben blinks several times, clearing his vision. “You’re here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  “I thought I dreamt it. I thought you were still gone.”

  I sit down next to him to let him know I am real. “I went to get breakfast. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  He half smiles. “What day is it? And what time?”

  “It’s Wednesday. Just before twelve.”

  “I need to call Nina. It’s almost tomorrow.”

  “Shower first,” I tell him, getting up to switch on the TV. “You smell really bad.”

  Ben cleans up and makes his phone call outside of the room. Through the sounds of the TV and the outside world, I can only catch snippets of the conversation. By the sounds of it, Nina does most of the talking. Ben mentions me, gives a vague description of what’s happening. He
says a few more things I don’t catch and then hangs up. He joins me at the table and drenches his pancakes in syrup.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  He nods, and jabs a plastic forkful of pancake into his mouth. His eyes roll back in his head. “This is the best thing I’ve ever had in my life. God bless America.” He says, through a mouthful of half-chewed food.

  “Ben,” I object, kicking him on the shin.

  “Sorry,” he says, after he has chewed. “This is everything I want right now. Coffee and pancakes. And you.”

  We finish our breakfast, and then walk around town, talking. We don’t venture far, afraid that we might get horribly lost and never find our way back. I tell Ben everything – about Eric and everything that happened with him. I speak about Jodie and Bay, and what it was like at the lake. I tell him about how I felt, about what it’s like inside my head. He listens well – always has – and by the time we get back to the room Benjamin seems to have a better understanding about the whole thing. He hugs me hard when we are back inside, whispering to me in that way he has that everything is going to be okay.

  When three o’clock rolls around, I poke my head outside to see if I can spot Eric’s Jeep. The parking lot is vacant for the most part. Every time I hear a car pull up I check to see if it’s him. Ben is stretched out on the bed watching TV. We are both bored with being in the room, and the beach – or anywhere really – seems so much better than where we are.

  By three-thirty, I use Ben’s phone to call Eric. He still has the number saved on his log. I immediately get voicemail.

  “He’s probably stuck in traffic,” Ben says dully, eyes still on the TV.

  I assume his meeting with Charlie had run longer than he’d thought, or maybe he got caught up at the coffee shop. I try his cell a few more times, but by four o’clock there is still no answer.

  “Maybe he forgot,” Ben placates, when I announce that we should take a taxi to Eric’s apartment. “Or maybe he just needed some time by himself, you know.”

  I shoot him a look as I lock the door. “I resent that statement. He said that he would be here. He keeps his word.”

  I hold onto Ben’s phone in case Eric calls. I realize that I don’t know Eric’s address, but Ben had used Google Maps to get the location when he’d been out on his walk yesterday so he acquires it easily enough. We use almost all of Ben’s money to pay for the cab, me making promises that everything will be repaid once we are home.

  Eric’s Jeep is parked in the street when we pull up to the apartment. For a moment all I do I stare at the car, wondering. If he’s home, why didn’t he come pick me up? Why isn’t he answering his cell? A sense of uneasiness starts to trace its way along my skin.

  I walk warily up the stairs to the second floor with Ben, trying not to get too wild with the scenarios in my head. The hallway is empty, but I can hear voices from within the other units. We’re just reaching Eric’s apartment when the front door suddenly flings open, startling me, and Eric stampedes right past us. He’s moving so fast that I don’t even think he sees Ben and me standing there, perplexed.

  “Eric! Hey!” I call out to him just as he’s reaching the stairwell. He stalls for a second and looks back at us. “What’s going on?”

  “I have to get out of here,” he shouts back and disappears down the stairs.

  “Abby,” Ben tells me and nods towards the inside of the apartment when I look at him. Luna is standing in the living room, sniffing back tears, her eyes red from crying.

  I sigh. I want to know what’s going on but I need to hear it from Eric. “Do me a favour,” I tell Ben, already moving toward the stairs. “Stay and make sure she’s okay.”

  I don’t wait for him to protest, but race down towards the lobby and out the front doors just in time to hear the Jeep roar to life. I manage to run to the passenger side door before Eric can take off.

  “What the hell is going on? Is everything okay?”

  “Get in or get out of the way, Abby,” Eric instructs, his face stern. There is no way I am leaving him when he’s this upset, so I clamber into the passenger seat of Eric’s car just as he pulls out into the street and speeds off.

  For a moment, I am so distracted by locating and securing my seatbelt that I have no hope of speaking, but when I’m strapped in and holding onto the dashboard, I look over at Eric and try to gauge just exactly what is going on. “Eric?”

  His face is flushed, and he’s white-knuckling the steering wheel so hard I think it might break under the pressure. We are zooming along the streets at quite a fair pace, bypassing other motorists, side streets blurring past us.

  “Eric. Hey, can you slow down a little?” I ask. It doesn’t seem like he’s even hearing me. I lean forward, and put my hand on his arm. “Eric, please. Slow down.”

  He locks eyes with me and it’s like it’s the first time he’s even realizing I’m there. His foot comes off the accelerator a bit, and the Jeep jerks suddenly, then eases back into a smooth pace.

  “Sorry,” Eric tells me, running a hand over his face. “Shit, sorry. I was supposed to pick you up. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” I tell him in a soft voice. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Eric fumbles for something in his left pocket. He pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to me. Ahead of us, I spot a traffic light and relief washes over me. Eric will have to slow down or stop soon. I take the paper to stall.

  “What’s this?” I ask him.

  “Luna did the paternity test,” he tells me. My heart jumps violently. The back of my throat goes dry.

  The paper shakes a bit in my hand, but I don’t open it. “What does it say?”

  Eric’s hands unclench from the steering wheel slightly and he starts to chew the inside of his lip. His eyes become watery for a second, until he blinks and smiles at me sadly. “I’m going to be a dad.”

  My body flushes all over. “You are?” I ask, and he nods silently. Somewhere in the distance a police siren goes off. A shout echoes out. Eric is shaking.

  The traffic light changes to orange and we’re forced to slow down. I take a few breaths, thinking.

  “Oh, my God. Wow.” I breathe again. A light year passes before I can think of something to say. “Are you happy?”

  Eric shakes his head and slows the car to a stop. I relax back into my seat, keeping my body angled toward him. “I don’t know yet,” he tells me, holding his head in his hands. I can appreciate his honesty. “I’m overwhelmed. It’s been a hard week.”

  I hand the paper back to him. Our fingertips brush.

  “She just came by this afternoon,” he starts. “She tried to tell me yesterday, but she was too scared. That’s why she was out in the parking lot. She was trying to find the courage to say something.”

  I imagine Luna sitting by herself in that parking lot with the realization of what her life would become, of what she would have to confess. This image of her makes her suddenly real to me. Before this, she was just a shadow in my periphery, a small detail that stayed ambiguous, but now she’s moved right into centre-stage to play one of the main parts of this story.

  “She seemed pretty upset when I saw her. What happened? How’d the conversation go?”

  Eric folds the test and stuffs it back into his pocket. He stares out through the windscreen absentmindedly. “She’s just really apologetic about everything. About how she handled things.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “She wants us to try to work things out, for the baby I guess. I told her I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  I let out a long breath. I think about what this all means. I think it means that it’s over. All of it. I think it means that I have to go back home and figure out my life. I think it means that Eric gets a chance to move on with his life, and prepare for this great big chapter he’s about to experience.

  The traffic light changes to green. The procession of cars ahead of us start to move.

  “Right. Okay,” I tell Eric, giving
him an encouraging smile. “You have time to figure out it. I mean, this is big news. You need time think about what you’re going to do.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “Yeah?”

  “Yes. No hurries,” I tell him as he slips the Jeep into drive. We start to slowly move forward.

  Eric smiles briefly. “What about you?” he asks. “How do you feel about this?”

  “I’m okay, I think,” I say, even though a part of me is proclaiming this to be a lie. I lower my eyes from his. “I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?” Eric asks, and I look up at him just as we’re about to cross the intersection.

  In the time it takes me to realize that there is a car hurtling toward us, that there are already horns blaring and people shouting in our direction, a few things happen. Eric takes my hand, unaware of the fact that we’re about to be hit because he’s looking in my direction and doesn’t see it coming. I picture him as a dad, years into the future, and the image is so beautiful my heart grows a few sizes in just a few seconds. I think about Bay and try to find courage, but all I am in that second is scared.

  When the car hits us, the impact smashes Eric’s window and the glass flies everywhere. The crash is sudden and deafening, and our bodies are not prepared for the onslaught. The Jeep careens to the other side of the intersection and tips onto its roof, metal scraping along the street.

  When the screeching stops, I hear screams. I’m not sure whether or not it’s me, but pain is registering everywhere on my body. My ribcage feels like it’s exploded. Every breath I take hurts. My shoulder is bleeding, a piece of glass jutting out just above my clavicle. I gasp and choke on my breath. I’m aware that I’m upside down, that I’m literally hanging from my seatbelt, and that the blood is rushing to my head so fast it sounds like a tsunami. My lungs empty and rattle along my ribcage. My elbow stings. Somewhere around my mid-section, my blood oozes around me, hot and fiery. It hurts like hell, sending pain signals through my brain and every nerve I have.

  I struggle for breath. Muted, muffled noise starts to seep through, images blurry at first, then clearing slowly. I search for where I think Eric must be, next to me, suspended like a marionette, but he’s not there. He’s lying on what is the roof of the car, body curled up, face turned away from me. A pool of blood is accumulating beside him, seeping into his clothes.