Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Iwas thinking Elle’s for dinner. Have any thoughts on that? Hello? Mason?”
Fuck.
Mackenzie's voice pulls me out of what I'm doing. “Can you not multitask while you're on a video call with me, please?” she asks.
“Sorry.” I slam my work laptop closed and move my cell phone a little closer to me. “Things have been crazy at work.”
“Yeah, I know,” she says, her voice gentle. She's not mad that I've been kind of out of it. She gets it.
“Anyway, yeah, I think I'm free if you want to go to Elle’s.”
A line appears between her eyebrows. “What? I don't want to have dinner with you, you knucklehead. I'm asking if you think it's a good choice for me and Marty. You know he doesn't eat dairy.”
I sigh. “Right, Marty. I’m sure Elle’s is a great choice for someone who doesn't eat dairy.”
She glares at me. “You could try to sound a little more supportive.”
“I don't know if I am supportive.”
“Why? Marty is nice and he did you a huge favor when he totally didn't have to and when you were kind of a jerk to him.”
“I wasn't a jerk.” I sit back in my seat at my kitchen table. I always sit on this side of the table now, facing the window. It's become a bit of a habit. I used to sit in the other chair, but now I always sit in Star's seat.
I still think of it as Star's seat, even though he only sat in it once.
“You're right,” I tell Mackenzie. “I should be nicer. I think I'm just feeling protective.”
“I know,” she says. “That's why I haven't kicked you in the balls for it yet.”
I laugh. On the screen, she's going through her closet. “Oh, so you're allowed to multitask?”
She holds up a pair of jeans and looks at me over her shoulder. “Yeah, because I'm not reading emails from my boss. I can look through my clothes without it taking my entire brain capacity. Even though I know you think my brain capacity is smaller than yours.”
“I’ve never said that.”
“You don't have to. Do you remember that one time when I was in ninth grade when…”
Somewhere in the back of my head, I can still hear her voice, but it's become an odd drone. My eyes have caught movement out the window.
Something in the shadows between the trees on the other side of my backyard is moving.
At first, I think it might be a wild animal, but then I realize it's a person, definitely on two legs, not four.
And then the figure steps out from between the branches of the trees.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“What? What is it?” Mackenzie asks, but I'm already up out of my seat. “Mason!” I hear her call, but I ignore her.
I throw open the back door, go down the concrete steps, and stop.
Starlight has stopped, too, on the other side of the yard, on the edge of the dirt path that goes from my back door to the woods.
He's so blue today, bright and soft-looking, and definitely not a wild animal.
There's a lump in my throat, and I'm afraid if I open my mouth, I might throw up.
Finally, after a long stretch of seconds, Starlight says, “I came as quickly as I could.”
I run toward him—I don't know if I've ever covered so much distance that quickly—and throw myself into his arms, clutching at his shoulders like he's going to dissolve right in front of me.
“Star,” I whisper, “you're here. What are you doing here?”
His fingers are in my hair, running down my back, clutching at my hips. “You told me to come back.”
All the breath rushes out of me. I'm afraid that I'm going to turn into dead weight in his arms from relief, from happiness, from want.
“You heard me?” I pull back and take his face in my hands.
He nods. “I did. I thought you would not want me to come because—” His voice breaks. I’m not sure anyone has cried in front of me as much as Star has, and it kills me every time.
“I never wanted you to go,” I say, “but we didn't have a choice.”
“And what has changed?” he asks. There's this tug of desperation in his voice, and I get it. None of it makes sense.
“I might have a solution. I think I do have a solution. We just have to try.”
“Okay,” he says, without hesitating. “Your solution worked last time.”
I set my forehead against his shoulder and laugh. “I think maybe Marty is smarter than me.”
His mouth stretches in a smile, and I can't keep myself from kissing him. That beautiful mouth, his lips so soft, so pink. I bury my hands in his curls. I never want to let him go.
But he pulls back enough to look me in the eye. “I love you,” he says.
I think I'm starting to feel that pain that he knows so well, right in the center of my chest.
“What?” is all I manage to spit out.
He smiles, but it's almost sad, his eyes looking through me. “I learned a lot while I was back home.”
“Learned how?” I ask.
He lifts one shoulder. “As I told you, consciousness is different there. I was not sure before of what I was feeling, but I learned about love. I have seen things and heard them through the shared consciousness of the sky.”
“Shared consciousness…” That's not something he mentioned before.
“I was taught what love feels like. And it was like learning a new language, learning a word for what I was feeling for you, what I do feel for you. I love you, Mason.”
Fuck. For as much as he cries in front of me, I'm going to cry in front of him just as often.
“I love you too,” I say. I knew it before, and I knew it after he left, and I know it now, with him in front of me, with his skin under my hands and that look on his face that he gets, his mouth pursed a little, his eyebrows curved in. It's like being alive is painful for him in an exquisite way.
“Can I stay?” he asks.
“Fuck, yes. Yes, stay,” I say, pressing my forehead to his. “Stay forever. I can't give you a normal human life, but—”
He shakes his head. “I do not need what humans consider normal because I am not normal. As long as I have you and Mackenzie…”
“Probably Marty too,” I add.
He laughs. “Marty, yes. The one who makes it all possible.”
“Alright, he's not all that great,” I say.
Something about my tone sets Star off. He thinks it's so funny. And all I can do is hold him against me while he laughs. His skin is cold, even though I know he can't feel it.
“Come inside,” I tell him. I take his hand and we go in.
“Mason, I swear to God, if you don't answer me right now, I am going to call the police!” Mackenzie is shouting.
I’m suddenly grateful that I decided to switch chairs at the kitchen table because my phone is facing away from the back door and Mackenzie is not getting an eyeful of Star's penis right now.
“Oh, shit,” I say, rushing over to the table. There's a pair of sweatpants draped over the other chair, and I toss them to Star and take my seat. “Hey, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.”
She’s sitting on the floor in her closet now, her hands buried in her hair.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I thought someone broke into your house and tried to murder you, but then it was really quiet, so I thought maybe that wasn’t what was happening, but then I thought maybe you were mauled by a bear and—”
“Mackenzie.” Star's voice cuts her off, and her mouth snaps shut.
“Starlight?”
He comes up behind me and settles his chin on my shoulder. “Hello, Mackenzie.”
“Holy shit,” she breathes.