We Are the Stars

by Teagan Hunter

  Carsen: You’re mad.

  I whip my head his way, finding him nonchalantly wiping down the ball return on lane seven, as if he didn’t just send a text instead of approaching me himself.

  Me: I’m not. More like confused.

  Me: You are not polluted. Why do you think that?

  I watch as he sets down the rag, reads my message, and glances up at me. His brows pinch together as his fingers hover over the keyboard.

  “Water in the ball, kids!” Cal hollers, letting us know the ball he’s using is weak.

  Carsen heads his way as my phone goes off again.

  Jase: Still pissed @ me?

  Me: Yes.

  Jase: Y?

  Me: Because you’re a jackass.

  Jase: Y?? Cuz I don’t like hanging w criminals? Wtf, E! U need to call me. Gotta work this out. It’s not u.

  Me: Funny. I could say the exact same thing to you. Since when do you start judging people you don’t know based off rumors and no evidence? That’s not YOU, Jase. What’s up lately? It’s like you’re not even you.

  Jase: WTF. Nthg wrong w me. Ur the one being crazy here, E. Call. We need 2 talk.

  Me: Sorry. Busy hanging with criminals. Can’t talk now.

  As expected, my phone starts ringing. I don’t hesitate to hit ignore. I’m not dealing with Jase’s shit right now. I have enough going on with Carsen, and I don’t need to add in the ass chewing I know Jase wants to give me. Scratch that—I don’t deserve it. He doesn’t run my life and he won’t be the one making decisions about it. Screw him.

  My phone pulsates and I roll my eyes, prepared to hit ignore again, but I see it’s not him at all.

  Carsen: Everything okay?

  Me: Meaning?

  Carsen: You’re scowling. That’s my move.

  My lips twitch at his unexpected teasing.

  Me: Just some jackass texting me.

  Me: You didn’t answer my question.

  Carsen: I don’t know how to answer it. It’s just how I feel.

  Me: We’re sharing feelings now? Oh good. My turn…

  Carsen: Cute. I… I can’t explain it, or at least not very well.

  Carsen: Busy tonight?

  My instant childish reaction is to say yes to give him a taste of his own hot-and-cold attitude. But, I’m an advocate of honesty and the truth is that I have nothing going on tonight. Also, if things don’t start looking up with Jase, I won’t have anything going on for some time.

  I won’t lie, the flirty version of Carsen is alluring in a way I’d like to get myself more familiar with. I don’t make a habit of hanging out with near strangers, and I have a feeling Carsen doesn’t make a habit of asking them out.

  But maybe I need to. Maybe he needs to too. Maybe we should be that push for one another.

  Might as well start tonight.

  Me: Depends.

  Carsen: On?

  Me: You.

  Carsen: Me what?

  Me: Are you going to be a dick the entire time or…

  Carsen: I promise I’ll try to be on my best behavior.

  Me: There is no try.

  From across the room I hear an echo of that same dry, deep laugh from lunch.

  Carsen: *swoon*

  6

  Carsen

  “You brought me to a cemetery.”

  Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I rock back on my heels. “Yep.”

  “Huh.”

  That’s all she says, and I like that it’s all she says. I also like that she’s giving me a chance to change her first impression of me.

  Sure, I’m a surly asshole now, but I haven’t always been this way. That all came about when my father murdered my mother two years ago.

  That kind of shit can change a man.

  I glance over at Elliott, mesmerized by the way the last rays of twilight play against her light blonde locks. She looks up at the night sky, her lips parted in a soft sigh. Her presence is the direct opposite of mine: she’s airy and bright, I’m dark and coiled with unreleased fury that lurks beneath my surface.

  She sees it—hell, she was on the receiving end of it yesterday—yet she’s still here, standing next to me. Three days ago, I didn’t even know who she was.

  Well, that’s technically not true.

  I knew of her. Elliott Mathers. Daughter of Nigel Mathers, former best friend of Faith Wheatley, my mother. The way my mother used to talk about him when I was a kid was heartbreaking. She loved him, and it was in more than a friendship sort of way, but it was never their time. Instead, my mother married a monster that coldly took her life in a fit of anger, irrevocably changing my own.

  The moment I saw Elliott up close in Vern’s, I knew she was his daughter. I’ve seen enough pictures of Nigel to know those eyes anywhere. They’re an identical match to his. And, from what my mom said of Nigel, she has his spirit too.

  I’ve always liked his spirit.

  “Want to sit?”

  “Is that what this blanket you’re making me carry is for?”

  “Yes.” I take it from her and spread it out over the ground on my right. “Here is good.”

  “We’re…sitting here?”

  I pat the ground next to me. “Come on. The dead don’t bite.”

  She slowly sits next to me, scooting closer than I think she realizes. Her eyes dart around the grounds, scanning over the names etched on the headstones. When she finally turns to face the one we’re sitting in front of, she lets out a hesitant breath.

  “This is…”

  “Yep. Faith Wheatley, meet Elliott Mathers.” I lean in and faux-whisper, “Ma, she kneed me in the nuts.” Elliott pinches my arm. “Fine. I deserved it, Ma, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

  “It was supposed to hurt, you ass.”

  “Don’t curse in front of my mother. She hates that shit.”

  She laughs, and for the first time in two years, I feel a spark of something other than hatred zing through me. It’s fast and vanishes nearly as soon it appeared, but for one whole second, I felt happy.

  Because of Elliott.

  “So, do you come here often?”

  “You talking to me or Faith?”

  “Oh my god. That’s a terrible joke, Carsen!”

  I lift a shoulder. “Ma would have loved it.”

  “Were you two close?”

  My chest is hit with a familiar heavy weight. “She was my best friend.”

  Elliott’s quiet for a couple minutes, and I appreciate the silence. It’s as if somehow she already understands when I need an emotional break from it all, a second to regain the strength I’m trying so hard to hold on to.

  “I hate that she’s gone.”

  “You say that with such conviction, but you didn’t even know her.”

  Her profile is illuminated by the harmony light I put in, so I can see her soft smile. “I don’t have to have known her to hate that she’s gone. I can tell she was a great woman.”

  “How so?”

  “I can feel it. You speak of her with warmth, and any mom who has raised a son to talk so fondly of her after death warrants the ‘great’ title.”

  I twist my lips up, trying to hide the smile threatening to overtake my face. It’s a hard feat, but I do it, because I don’t want Elliott to see how much I like her words. It feels…silly, like I’m a dog anticipating the treat in my owner’s outstretched hand, the one I’m getting for being a good boy. I can feel my figurative tail wagging back and forth at how excited I am to receive the praise.

  Makes me feel pathetic. And normal.

  Only I’m far from normal. Normal ran out the door and didn’t look back years ago. Now all I have is anger and this gray world.

  I lie back on the blanket and stare up at the stars; Elliott follows my movements. Folding my hands under my head, I listen to the sounds around me: the water lapping on the shore of the nearby lake, insects speaking their own language, the rustle of squirrels playing in nearby trees. The loudest one of all? My own heart
beat. If I can hear it like I can, there’s no doubt Elliott does too.

  “Did you have a good life? You know, before?”

  I should be upset she thinks it’s okay to ask me such a personal question, yet I’m not. I’m oddly okay with it. It feels almost natural coming from her.

  I don’t know how to feel about that.

  “It wasn’t all bad.” I sigh. “Had good friends. I was eighteen, so the world was at my fingertips. College was on the horizon, had a steady girlfriend…it was all in place. Then it wasn’t.”

  “What college?”

  “UMass Boston. I ended up deferring a year. By then everything was absolute shit so I enrolled online at Amherst.”

  “Did you decide to go online because…”

  “Because everyone pinned me for the murder? Yeah. I could hardly go up to the local market and grab groceries without being yelled at or having things thrown at me. It was horrible. Still is. People have calmed down with the shouting and tossing things, but you can feel the room shift temperature any time I walk in.”

  “It blows my mind I never knew about you until…”

  “You Googled me?” I supply.

  “Yeah. That.” I can hear the blush in her voice. “I was away at college. UMass Boston, actually. I guess because so much crap happens in the city it wasn’t as big of a buzz there as it was here in a small town, and my family is very against smack-talking and spreading rumors, so they never spoke of it when I came home. It was never on my radar.” She pauses before saying, “You were never on it.”

  “I’m glad I wasn’t on your radar. That wasn’t a good time for me.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “How’d you end up here in Wakefield? I mean, it’s not all that far from Boston—that’s where you grew up, right?”

  “Right. This is where Ma’s from. We had a house out here, and it felt better than being in the city, more welcoming.” A heavy feeling settles in my chest when I think back on all the crap I’ve endured since the murder. “Guess I was wrong though.”

  “What’s your major?” she asks before the conversation gets too dark.

  “Human Services. I want to be able to help people.”

  She nods. “I can see that. What about the friends?”

  “What about them?”

  “You said ‘had’. Are they not around now?”

  I chuckle. “You’re very observant. Two still are. They live with me now.”

  She nods again. “And the girlfriend?”

  “Uh…” I wince, thinking back to the last night I was with my ex.

  It was the last night my life was normal. I was over at her house and we’d just had sex for the first time when I received a phone call from my mother that sent me into a panic. If I were a religious man, I’d say it was God punishing me for having premarital sex, but I can’t be sure.

  All I know is that after that night, I didn’t speak to my ex again.

  “Let’s just say it didn’t end on a high note,” I tell her.

  Elliott doesn’t respond.

  The quiet engulfs us again, only this time it’s not relaxing. I’m getting itchy, wanting to talk to her more before I inevitably screw this night up.

  “Ma knew your father,” I say to break the silence.

  I expect her to scramble around, maybe turn on me with accusations, anything. Instead, all she says is, “I never knew.”

  “I’ve always known.”

  “Will you… Will you tell me?”

  I respect her calm demeanor. Hell, I’m envious of it. I don’t have that stillness in me anymore.

  “She called him Gelly be—”

  “Because he was pudgy when he was a kid,” she finishes for me. “I hear Uncle Bryan call him that from time to time.”

  “He called her Nut,” I continue. “Because she was the peanut butter to his Gelly. They were best friends for years. And your dad…” I pause, unsure how to approach talking about her father’s life before her mother. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  “Positive.”

  “Your dad loved my mom, and not purely in a friendly way. She didn’t… She knew, ya know? Always said there were hints. He’d take extra time on presents for her birthday or Christmas, go out of his way to sit next to her, and with the looks he gave her, she knew, but she didn’t feel the same way for a long time, believed she was too good for him because that’s the way she was raised.”

  Elliott sits up, resting her back against Ma’s headstone. I follow.

  “What happened next?” she asks. I don’t hear malice in her words, only curiosity.

  “Your mother came along. I swear, I have never heard my mom talk about another woman with such fondness. Ma said the moment Nigel met Kaye, my mom ceased to exist in his heart. It broke her in a way she wasn’t prepared for. She realized then that she loved him, and that she wasn’t too good for him, but he was too good for her.”

  Elliott sighs. “I want to be sorry things didn’t work out between my father and your mom, but I love my parents together, so I can’t do that.”

  “I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for them, or her. I told you because I wanted to be honest with you, let you know that I’ve known about you for some time.”

  Her eyes widen in surprise. “You have?”

  “Oh yeah. Ma kept up on all things Nigel and Kaye. I think she shipped them more than they shipped themselves. She was hopelessly in love with their story.”

  “They do have a good story. My mom was such a brat to my dad.”

  “So that’s where you get it from.”

  She nudges me playfully. “Probably.” She plucks a blade of grass from the ground and begins peeling it apart. “What happened to them after? Nut and Gelly, I mean.”

  “She met the asshole soon after and their friendship fizzled because of it.”

  “But she still kept up with them.”

  “Yep. That’s how I knew about you. When she heard through the grapevine they were having a little girl… Wow. She went nuts, sent gifts and everything.”

  “See, I told you. A great woman,” Elliott says with confidence.

  “She was.”

  We sit side by side, resting against the grave marker, the harmony candle ablaze between us. It’s kind of cool how I’ve known about Elliott, know a bit of her parents’ past, even when I don’t know her. When you’re a kid and your mom or dad tells you a story, you listen with rapt interest, soak up every detail. I made sure to pay extra attention any time Ma spoke of Gelly and his new family, especially the daughter. I’m not certain if it was the love she voiced that gained my interest or if it was something else; either way, I grew attached to the family the Mathers represented—a family I never had.

  “If you know about my dad, how did you not know Bryan?”

  “Ma never mentioned a Bryan.”

  “What about a Burt?”

  “Actually, yeah. Is that the same person?”

  She nods. “One and the same. Burt and Ernie is what my dad and Bryan were often referred to as.”

  “Why that?”

  “I guess the Burt part came from Bryan’s last name, Burton, and Ernie was a given after that.”

  “Makes sense.” I shake my head. “Damn. I’ve been working for someone who was close to my mom for nearly two years now and I had no idea.”

  “Apparently.”

  “That could explain why he hired me so quickly and quietly.”

  “Or because Bryan saw a good worker in you.”

  I’m too stunned to even doubt her words. I had no idea I’d been working for the Burt my mom sometimes spoke of. She wasn’t as close with him, but wherever Gelly was, Burt was there too.

  “Wonder why he never mentioned it,” I muse aloud. Bryan’s always treated me differently, never looked at me with wariness like nearly everyone else does. I think I just discovered the reason why.

  “Bryan’s always been a strange one.”

  “You’ve never hear
d of my mom either?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “Huh.”

  Several moments of silence pass before she says, “It’s odd how intertwined our lives are, yet we’ve never met before now.”

  “Ma would say it’s written in the stars.”

  “What is?”

  I glance over to find her watching me, her stare heavy and curious. “All of it,” I tell her. “She was a big believer that everything is written out for us in the stars, that whatever happens, happens for a reason—no matter how bad it is. She’d wake me up in the middle of the night sometimes to make me go lie on the grass with her and she’d tell me stories, tracing stars together, saying that’s the path she took. She’d be so happy because it brought me to her.”

  Elliott blinks several times, a lone tear drifting down her cheek. She swipes it away as quickly as it falls. “Sorry, it’s just…”

  “Sad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t bring you here to make you cry.”

  “I appreciate that, but Carsen?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why did you bring me here?” she asks.

  “To…I don’t know, talk? Show you I’m more than an asshole?”

  “You’ve done well then.”

  “Can I show you something?” She nods, and I shimmy down to lying on my back and looking up at the stars again. Once she’s settled beside me, I lift a hand and point toward the sky. “This is my path,” I tell her as I begin tracing the stars. Elliott scoots closer, moving until we’re huddled against one another.

  “Why do you keep stopping for a few seconds?”

  “It marks major life points.”

  “Which one are we stopped at now?”

  “My tenth birthday. It was the first time the asshole lost control and launched an ashtray at my mom’s head. I never forgave him.”

  “Was he always so violent?”

  I sigh and continue tracing my path. “No, and that’s the hardest part. He used to be an amazing guy. Then he wasn’t. It was like a switch flipped in him one day.”

  “Did he ever go back to being good?”