Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
That night, I can't stop thinking about what Marty said. It makes sense, and I know it makes sense, but I feel stupid for not seeing it before. Of course, Star's body would have needed something to sustain it.
And even if the electromagnet is not the answer, what could be the harm in trying? Except, in order to try, I'd have to bring Star back, and that’s definitely something I don't know if Marty's right about.
Yes, Star said he wanted to stay when he was here, but that was because of whatever was going on between the two of us. Maybe he wouldn't have actually liked living here.
He wouldn't have been able to go into town, except for maybe the way we did it that once, if it was dark enough wherever we were going and people were too drunk and distracted to know anything was amiss.
Or maybe in weird situations, like Halloween…
It’s not like he could live a normal life. But would that even matter if his normal life is, you know, up in the clouds?
Maybe he wouldn't be bothered if he couldn't go to the grocery store or to parties. Not that I'm getting a lot of party invites these days.
I lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling. Winter is over. It's been spring for a whole week. It's still cold, but most of the snow is gone.
I could go out there, to the woods. I've thought about it a million times, but part of me knows that being out there would feel like death by a thousand cuts.
Another part of me was afraid that if it happened again, if there was an electromagnetic storm, that Star might do it all over again, reach down for me in whatever way he was capable of, and I didn't want him to come back if he couldn't stay.
I don't know if I'm strong enough to ask him to come back and then send him right back if Marty's plan doesn't work.
I sort of wish I had asked Mackenzie to come and stay tonight. She's been my emotional stabilizer over these last few months. She misses Star, too. And when it all gets to be too much, she comes over and talks me through it, or makes me laugh through it, or watches bad movies with me through it.
But it's three in the morning, and I can't wake her up. She just started a new job… and apparently has some weird thing going on with Marty that I didn't know about.
It's like there are ants crawling under my skin. Now that I have Marty's theory in my head, I don’t know if I can bring myself to stay still.
Because there's a chance. Or there was a chance. I don't know anymore.
Is Star the past, or is he the present?
I sit up and throw my legs over the side of the bed.
I shouldn't do this. I should go back to my life and let Star go back to whatever his version of life looks like.
I get dressed and grab my keys. It's the middle of the night, so it's fucking freezing. I pull my beanie down over my ears, pull my jacket tighter around myself. Then, I drive out to the waypoint.
It's only about a thirty-minute drive and then another fifteen-minute hike into the woods. But I would have driven a thousand miles, hiked even further, if it meant there was a real possibility that Star would come back to me.
I know how stupid it is to be out here in the dark. There are bears, wolves.
I take my flashlight out into the woods, the beam of light falling on the tell-tale dead tree that always tells me I'm in the right place. Right where lightning struck.
I turn off my flashlight and stand there in the dark for a moment, listening. It's so quiet, but then not quiet at all. The bugs. The whistle of the wind. The quiet rustle of leaves. And even though I feel kind of silly doing it, I tilt my head back and look up at the sky.
My stomach clenches the way it does every time I look up. It's hard to look at the color of it, no matter what time of day it is, and not see him. That robin's egg blue when there's not a cloud in sight, that orange-pink, first thing in the morning, the hazy purple at sunset.
And now, just like it is: a vast ocean of midnight blue, the stars twinkling between the limbs of the trees.
I don't know how long I stand there, staring, until I realize that my face has gone a little icy. The tears that have been tracking down my cheeks have frozen on them, and my nose has gone numb.
Finally, I do what I came here to do.
“Starlight,” I say, and a fresh wave of tears, these warm, slips down into my ears, “I don't know if you can hear me…”
I let my head drop, catch my breath, and then, without looking back up, say, “Come back. Please, come back. I need you.”
Everything is quiet again, just the tremble of my own breath.
I don't know what it was like when he fell from the sky the first time. I never asked. Did it hurt? Did he actually fall or just appear, the same way that he went back?
I stand for a long time, until I hear the howl of a coyote off in the distance. I switch back on my flashlight, and I go back home.