by Kelley York
I clean up a bit. Play around online. Check my e-mail and reply to a message from Rachael. I’d written to make sure she got home all right the day after her plane left Maine. She wrote back to say she was home safe and sound. It was curt and cold, not at all like the e-mails I usually got from her. But it’s to be expected. Honestly, I’m lucky she wrote me at all. Situations reversed, I’m not so sure I would’ve been as kind.
I make a lame attempt at conversation, asking if she’s looking forward to classes starting back up after winter break. It’s the least I can do. Just because we split up doesn’t mean I don’t care about her, and it doesn’t mean I want to lose her as a friend. I don’t exactly have many of them. Not close friends. Ashlin, Chance, and Rachael were the closest I had.
It’s entirely possible and, in fact, pretty damned likely that I’ve lost Rachael as a close friend. But I’ll always have Ash. And Chance—
I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
After an hour of trying to focus on a late-night TV show, I flick off the television and slump back, sighing, staring up at the stars on my ceiling. Chance’s stupid stars. I always told myself I never took them down because Dad put so much effort into getting them up there, but in truth, I think it was more because Chance loved them so much and I never had the heart to see his face when he realized they were gone.
I trace the outlines of constellations with my fingertip, pinpointing every one of Chance’s favorites and wondering what it is about them that fascinates him so much. Is it a resemblance of freedom? Of being somewhere so very far away from where he’s at?
He’s an idiot. Not for the stars thing, but for everything else. For every lie he’s told and every time he’s avoided the help I could have—would have—gladly offered. As hard as I try, I can’t picture it from his side. If he were in this shitty situation for so long, wouldn’t he be desperate for an out? Willing to try anything? A few years ago, they would’ve taken him from his parents and put him in a foster home, but I don’t doubt for a second Dad would’ve prevented that. He would have taken Chance in himself, and the courts probably wouldn’t have told him no. Not an upstanding ex-cop like him. And now that Chance is eighteen, what’s stopping him from leaving? I can’t entertain the thought that he’s run away. Not without Ash and me. Not without telling us.
Restless, I kick off the covers and get out of bed. What if something’s gone wrong, something unfixable? Like Ash said, if he truly, honestly is missing, whose fault will it be? Chance’s for not coming to us for help? Or ours for not forcing our help on him when we knew he really needed it? Or am I the one over-thinking all of it?
I pace the length of my room, trying to work out the anxious itch in my legs, rubbing a tension spot from my shoulder. Passing by the window, I come to an abrupt halt and do a double take. I rub at my eyes, convinced I’m hallucinating.
Chance is on my back porch, in the snow, head tipped back as he watches my window.
When he catches my gaze, he lifts a finger to his lips, signaling me to be silent.
There’s no easy way to tear through the house without waking everyone, but I manage it. Chance is waiting at the back door, ankle-deep in snow in shoes but no socks, and without his coat. I’m going to throttle him—except it looks like someone else already has. He doesn’t say anything. I take his ice-cold hand and lead him to my room, and he goes, docile as I’ve ever seen him.
“You’re freezing.” At least for the moment, I’m too overtaken with distress and relief to start yelling about how worried we’ve been.
I’m not even entirely convinced who I’m staring at isn’t a ghost.
Chance releases my hand and sits on the bed, flexing his fingers like they’ve forgotten how to bend. The remnants of bruising cross one side of his face—they must be the bruises Ash told me about. But there’s more of it. Recent work. Bruises that are brand new and still forming along his jaw over the old ones. Bruises in the shape of fingerprints around his throat. The undeniable proof someone has hurt him. There is no way to make excuses for that. If he tries to tell me he fell, I’ll be tempted to hit him myself. As it is, Chance isn’t saying anything, and I haven’t found any words just yet.
I grab a pair of socks and a set of clothes from my dresser. When I crouch down to peel off his half-frozen shoes, I’m expecting a toe or three to come with it. His feet are solid blocks of ice. I shiver just looking at them.
First things first, I try rubbing some warmth back into his skin and get a pair of socks on to do the rest of the work. Then I stand, mumbling instructions for him to get up and change. Chance rises on command, needing my help to get out of his shirt and pants. A task that ought to be a lot stranger than it is, and yet my eyes are too busy scanning over every inch of revealed skin, taking note of the bruises. His ribs. One of his arms. Even a mark on his back when he turns away from me to put on the dry shirt.
A bruise lines one of his shoulder blades, close to but not quite touching the constellation of his dragon. He stills, shirt in his hands, and I realize I’m touching it. Touching him. Tracing a finger down the length of his tattoo because it seems to be the one piece of flesh safe from assault. Chance turns around and asks, “Do you want to know why I got a dragon?”
I open my mouth to ask him what the fuck is wrong with him. He’s been missing for days and shows up on my back porch, bruised, barely dressed in the snow, and he wants to tell me about dragons? But Chance’s eyes are dark and distant, his lips slightly parted. His expression is so still and calm, but I can see his fingers trembling, twitching slightly at his sides.
So I say, “It’s your favorite constellation. Always has been.”
Chance hmms. “Do you remember what you were wearing the day we met?”
A lifetime ago. How could I possibly? I shake my head. This had better be going somewhere profound.
“A red shirt.” He touches a hand to my chest, just above my heart, fingers splayed out. “With a dragon on the front.”
Against his palm, my heart beats a notch too quickly. Can he feel it? “What are you—”
“And the first present you got me, do you remember what it was?”
“It was years ago, Chance.”
“A green dragon in a snow globe.”
Yes, I remember now. It was something silly and small from the dollar store. The green had reminded me of Chance’s eyes, and I used my allowance to buy it for him our second summer at Dad’s. Chance held it so delicately, as though breathing wrong would cause it to break.
“The notebook the three of us passed back and forth with stupid letters and treasure maps the summer you left had—”
“A dragon,” I finish, quiet. There are other things, too. Other things flooding to the forefront of my brain. A trip to the planetarium one year, just so Chance could learn more about the stars, but Draco in particular. The book on dragon mythology he snatched from a garage sale. A plastic lunchbox with a generic star pattern, in which Chance swore he could pick out the dragon’s design.
Was it my subconscious or his that did this? That somehow associated Draco, the stars, dragons, to Chance and me?
“Some Eastern civilizations thought dragons were protectors. Guardians of Earth and fortune and all that.” He stares at his fingers against my chest as though mesmerized. His hand has grown warm, leeching the heat from me.
Exasperated, I pull away, putting a few inches between us. He could still reach out to touch me but doesn’t try again. “Where the hell is this going?”
His gaze hardens, snapping up to my face. “When I was ten, I brought home that baby bird we found by the creek, remember? The one I thought I could save?”
The temperature in the room plummets.
I want to look at anything other than him, but his faraway, sharp stare has rendered me immobile.
“You asked me the next day what happened to it, and I told you I set it free. Actually, Dad found it in my room and had a fit. He threw it out in the woods and hit me so hard I couldn’
t go swimming with you guys for weeks.” He laughs, short, weak, and turns away, hands in his hair. “It was always stupid shit like that. Because I left something where it didn’t belong. Or because I tried bringing home an animal that needed me. It was best if I stayed gone as often as I could and I thought…I’d just hang in there. I thought it would get better. Until—”
I know where this is going. I know. And I don’t want him to say it.
“Chance, please…”
He doesn’t turn around.
“Fifteen. Where did you and Ash find me that summer?”
I brace myself against the bedpost, resisting the urge to sit down. Near Harper’s Beach. The cliffs overlooking the island where Chance stood, too close to the ledge, staring at the water and sky and everything in between.
“I was imagining what it was like to fly,” he says dreamily. “I was going to jump. No one would have found me. Even if I managed to fuck it up by surviving the fall, I’d be hurt too badly to climb back up. The tide would’ve swept me away, and no one ever would have known.”
I remember.
I remember Ash and me being late to get here that summer. Riding our bikes the achingly long trip to the beach without telling Dad because it was the only place besides the creek we knew to search for Chance.
And, God, I want to say he’s lying again, but the pieces fit too well. Ash spotted Chance off the bike path, catching sight of his bright yellow T-shirt through the trees. We dropped our bikes to the ground and ran to him, calling his name. Chance, who stood on the edge of the cliffs with his arms spread wide, slowly let his hands drop to his sides as he turned to face us.
“You have great timing,” he’d said.
I remember the haunted look in his eyes, the way I thought he’d slip right off that ledge if I so much as breathed his name. I think back to New Year’s, watching him on the edge of the rooftop and feeling so sick to my stomach because he was too damn close and I wanted to pull him back.
Chance is right. He could have jumped, and no one ever would have known unless his body washed up on shore weeks, months later.
“At that point,” Chance says, “I was sure I’d be okay as long as I held onto the knowledge you would always come back. You and Ash and Mr. J… You’re the only good memories I have, Hunter. Then you were gone for those few years and although I knew in my head why—there was this nagging feeling you had left me and you were never coming back.”
I wanted honesty. If this is honesty, though, I’m not sure how much of it I can take. My legs are weak with the weight of it all. I sink onto the bed. “What happened to you?”
Chance holds up one finger with a shake of his head. “I got the dragon because it reminded me of you. A reminder that the guy I loved would always come home to me, and he’d always have my back.” He smiles a tired smile and rolls his gaze to the ceiling. To the stars. “How’s that for ridiculously sentimental?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think. Except— “You don’t love me.”
His smile fades. “Sorry. Forgot you know my feelings better than I do.”
“No,” I say sharply. “You don’t, Chance. If you did, there wouldn’t be all these secrets. You wouldn’t have hidden so much. You wouldn’t be avoiding telling me what happened.”
Chance turns full-circle once, a distressed look pulling at his bruised features. “When I was little, really little, Mom told me she and I would get away from him. She had these hand-me-downs from a relative who died. Barbies. Collector’s editions, I guess; they were worth some good money because they were in such great shape.
“For three months, all I thought about was her selling those stupid dolls and getting us the hell out of there. Then…for whatever reason, she told my dad. I overheard them talking about what they would do with the cash. What they would do.”
Realization dawns. “The day we met you…the dolls you were playing with…”
He got rid of them. Because he refused to let his dad have any part of the money that was supposed to rescue him.
Chance crawls onto the bed beside me, his skin cold now but not as bad as it was. “And it’s not like Dad has a shortage of money. He’s a fucking mechanic. But he blows it all gambling, or on drugs, or whatever else catches his eye. Because of him, we lost our nice house, we lost our car, and whenever something goes wrong, he blames Mom and me. It’s why I could never leave. Someone had to be there to protect her. She’s the only family I’ve got, and I let her down.”
I seek out his hand, fingers wrapping around his thin wrist, one finger at a time. “You haven’t let her down. She should’ve been protecting you, Chance. Not the other way around. She’s as much to blame as he is.”
Chance’s shoulders sag, like a weight bearing down on him has been lifted. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m so tired, Hunter. I’ve been so desperate for something to change.”
There is so much I can say. So many things I’ve thought to say the last few weeks. Comforting words and reassuring statements…but nothing comes to mind right now. Just, “It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you. Let us help.”
He shakes his head with a faint smile. Slowly, his arms slip around my shoulders, his mouth finds its way right beside my ear. “Do you love me?”
A shiver courses down my spine. The moment of truth, isn’t it? I think back to Rachael on the way to the airport, to the night on the phone when I accidentally told her I loved her when I didn’t mean it because all my thoughts, all my attention, were focused on Chance looking so beautiful in the snow. My mouth tingles at the memory of him kissing me, the kisses from Rachael after that, and how I couldn’t stop comparing the two.
Chance is so still, but I can feel the slow rise and fall of his chest pressed against me; I can’t see his face because we’re cheek-to-cheek, and I think that might be a good thing, not being able to see him. I don’t know that I could speak otherwise.
Because it’s the simplest of questions, really. One I’m over-thinking when there’s nothing to think about. It’s that I don’t like the truth of it, because it’s terrifying, because it opens myself up to being the one person in the world who can save Chance Harvey, and what do you do with that kind of pressure? That sort of expectation? How do you open yourself so completely to a person you don’t trust?
He isn’t asking if it’s a good idea, though, or if I want to do anything about it. He’s only asking if I do, and I owe him that much. Maybe in a way I owe it to Ashlin, too, for encouraging me even when it had to have broken her heart.
“Yes,” I whisper, the words splintering in my throat. “I love you.”
Chance draws back with eyes wide, lips parted. Startled, almost. Like he expected anything but that. I search his gaze, grappling for something to say to make me feel less naked and vulnerable. I don’t get the opportunity before Chance leans in and kisses me.
It’s no different than last time on New Year’s Eve. The simultaneous thrill and fear that snakes through every nerve in my body, kick-starting my adrenaline. Only now there is the absence of guilt over Rachael, just the worry and unease of not having any idea what I’m doing, kissing the boy I’ve thought about kissing for years.
Chance cups my face in his hands, and my arms go around him, itching to pull him closer. It occurs to me I could be hurting him, triggering every bruise, but if I am, Chance doesn’t tell me, so instead I’ll focus on kissing him the way he deserves to be kissed. There’s a stark contrast between the heat of his mouth and the chill of his lips.
My hands clutch at his hips, adjusting to how different this is. How different it is from kissing someone like Rachael. Different. Better. Because it’s Chance and why wouldn’t it be? I’m aware of everything about him. Every breath he takes. Every beat of his heart, lost somewhere in time with mine. Aware of his mouth and the way it sends heat and light like stars to every nerve in my body.
I don’t know what we’re doing. If we should be doing it.
If I even car
e about all that anymore.
All that matters is Chance. The solid, angular feel of his body, the taste of him, the way he sighs against my mouth when we lay back and I lean over him on the mattress. And no matter my level of worry or uncertainty, despite it all, this feels good. Right. Chance-and-me. Two people derived from the same star billions of years ago, searching for each other in a vast universe and only now really finding each other.
“I’ll keep you safe,” I mumble into his mouth. “I’ll protect you. I can. I promise.”
Chance’s lips curve into a sad smile. His hands smooth up and over my ribs, my shoulders, into my hair. Like he’s mapping out every part of me. I’m content to do the same to him—until he winces, and I know I’ve hit a bruise.
Immediately, I draw back, the rest of the world coming into focus. “Sorry, I’m—”
“Shut up.” He chuckles and drags me down to lay beside him, my head against his shoulder. Strange, yes, in the sense we don’t fit like some magical puzzle pieces. He doesn’t mold to my body like Rachael would have. But it’s still perfect, and I won’t question it.
Chance stares up at the stars on the ceiling through half-lidded eyes, absently stroking my hair. “Look how bright Draco is,” he says.
They’re just plastic stars, I think to remind him again. But if it makes him happy, I hardly see a reason to argue with him. I close my eyes, though sleep is the last thing on my mind, and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to now with the way my blood is still thrumming with electricity. “You’ll stay, right? We’ll talk to Dad tomorrow?”
The noise he makes is a noncommittal one. But he says, “Maybe,” and that’s likely the most I’m going to get out of him. He buries his face in my hair and breathes in deep. “Say it again.”
“Say…?”
“That you love me.”
I grope blindly around by our legs to drag the blankets up and around us. Going to take some getting used to, hearing things like that. “I do love you.”
“No matter what?”
“Yeah, Chance. No matter what.”
