Chapter 114
Mireya
Galaxy of stars
Play - Light by Sleeping At Last
The days after Milo’s birthday settled back into routine.
I go to classes, train harder, study until my eyes burn.
Damien’s presence is somehow omnipresent, which helps a lot because of how often my thoughts find him when they should be somewhere else.
Hayzel is also strangely studying a lot more.
And Ethan.. Ethan is still avoiding us both now.
A week or two passes without anything dramatic happening. And it feels almost suspicious.
Friday afternoon finds me back in my dorm, staring at the lighter he gave me months ago. I use it a lot, when I want to smoke, when I feel overwhelmed too. I wonder where he got it.
I focus on the task at hand, the pair of jeans on my lap that is waiting for me to do something, and the door opens without warning.
“Coffee,” he says as he comes in.
I just make a small noise to let him know I heard. Blue however, reacts immediately. He jumps off the bed, crosses half the room, and pounces directly on my sewing supplies.
“No, wait—” Too late. A disgusting amount of sequins roll all over the bed, a half-finished star falls to the floor, and the thread unravels.
I freeze for a second, then I sigh. “He's decided to ruin my life,” I whisper.
Blue is very proud of himself. He rolls around in the middle of the fabric as if he's won something. And Damien chuckles a little as he closes the door behind him.
“So you’re getting into sewing now?”
I finally look up, meeting his eyes. “I’m trying.”
He approaches with the coffees, places one on the desk and then crouches down by the bed to pet Blue.
“Is he helping you or sabotaging you?” He asks softly.
“Both,” I say.
I bend down to retrieve the star that has slipped under the bed, and feel his gaze on me, but I pretend nothing’s wrong.
Damien straightens up, and this time he sees the rest of the room. The box on the bed, the old album Edna wanted me to keep, and Hayzel’s camera.
He settles on the edge of the bed, and Blue immediately decides his lap is a better option than the chaos of the bed and settles in.
Traitor.
I look at him and smile faintly, “Great. He chose you.”
“I understand,” he replies quietly. “I'm more stable.”
I chuckle and shake my head before returning to my jeans. The stars keep coming, one by one. Damien watches my hands move without speaking for a few seconds. Then he tilts his head. “How long have you been doing this?”
A long exhale falls out of my lips as I reply, tired, “Forever.”
He smiles slightly and I feel his gaze drift toward the box of seashells. “What’s this?”
“Mister Caldwell, you’re in this dorm more often than you should and you just realized there was a box of seashells on my desk?” I ask as I follow his eyes.
“I see you’re being very descriptive today,” he replies, voice low.
I glance in his direction and smile then continue sewing. Blue is now asleep on the bed as Damien takes one of the seashells from the box, then turns it between his fingers.
“Why do you keep them?”
I think for a moment. “For Milo.”
His gaze then drifts to the album on the bed. A few minutes pass as he goes through some of the pictures there. His eyes meet mine while I observe him get lost in memories I don’t like.
I speak before he even has to ask the question, “I hate having my picture taken."
“Why is that?”
I shrug slightly. “I… I don’t have many pictures of me when I was a kid.
” I grab the album from his hands carefully and look at the ones Edna took from when we were younger with Hayzel.
The way some bruises would still show but she would lie and tell me that I still looked beautiful and she wanted to take a picture of me. “I don’t look happy in any picture.”
He takes them back, and stares at them before letting out a long breath and turning back to me with a smile. “Let me do something.”
“Sure.” I nod and watch him grab Hayzel’s small camera and walk toward me.
I frown. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Damien. No.”
“Yes, Mireya.”
I stare at him and he completely ignores my objection. He places the camera on the desk, sets the timer. Blue opens one eye, as if participating in the collective decision to betray me today.
I remain motionless when he speaks again, “Come here.”
Before I can decide whether I was going to move or not, his hand is already there, warm against my wrist, steady as he pulls me toward him, closer than I was before, close enough that my knees bump into his and I have to catch myself on his shoulder, which only makes it worse because now I can feel him everywhere at once.
His hand, his breath, the way he doesn’t rush to let go.
His fingers slide up and settle against my face, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.
“Don’t do that,” he says softly, almost amused.“Look at me.”
And I do, without thinking.
I don’t even realize I’ve pressed my lips together until his mouth is on the corner of mine. Soft and gentle. A kiss there. Then another on the other side. And I smile…that smile that always comes too quickly when it's him, as if my mind agrees to yield if it's in his hands.
“There,” he whispers. “Better.”
The camera clicks somewhere behind him, counting down, but it feels far away.
“Now focus on me, little miss sad eyes,” he adds, softer this time.
And I don’t know when it happens, I don’t know what changes, but something does, something small and quiet inside my chest. My body is not tense anymore, and the smile is still there, for him.
His expression changes the second he understands.
And then he kisses me, like it was always going to happen the second I let go enough for him to reach me.
His hand still holds my face, his thumb is still there like he doesn’t want to lose the shape of that smile even as it disappears into the kiss.
The flash goes off at the exact same moment, and for a second everything freezes. The light, the breath in my lungs, the way my hands tighten slightly in his shirt without me meaning to. And all I can see is him, too close and not close enough at the same time.
He pulls back barely, enough to look at me, and there’s this quiet, almost disbelieving exhale that leaves him. Satisfaction and pride.
“Now you have one,” he murmurs. “A picture where you actually look like you.”
I don’t answer. I can’t, because I’m still somewhere between the flash and the way his mouth felt against mine, still trying to gather myself back into something that makes sense, so instead I look down, back to the jeans in my hands, to the stars I was sewing like they could anchor me again.
I can still feel him, and when I glance up again he’s already looking at me, like he never stopped.
“Wait here,” he says under his breath, already standing before I can ask anything, and for a second I stay there with my hands resting in my lap, feeling oddly unfinished without his presence holding the space anymore.
The printer hums on the desk, but.I don’t look at the photo when it slides out.
I look at him instead. At the way he takes it between his fingers like it might bruise if he holds it wrong, his thumb hovering over the paper before he looks back at me.
“I’m keeping this one,” he says.
I shake my head, a soft chuckle coming out of my mouth. “You can’t just—”
“I can,” he cuts in gently, already closing the space he had created earlier like it had started to bother him more than he expected, “because I don’t have any picture of you.”
His warmth is back in the space between us. He crouches down in front of me without breaking eye contact.
“Let me try.”
I blink. “What?”
“The sewing,” he says, reaching for the needle. “You’ve been doing it this whole time, it looks easy enough.”
I let out a small laugh. “I don’t think you can do that.”
“Yeah?” His mouth curves slightly, something hardens underneath the softness now. “You’d be surprised how good I am with my fingers.”
I tilt my head, watching him with a stupid smile. “Oh really?” I murmur. “Want to show me?”
He takes the needle from my hand, sets it aside, and then his hands are on me again, guiding me forward until I lose my balance enough to fall into him. Onto his lap where he’s still sitting on the floor.
“Yeah,” he says softly, close to my ear now, one arm steady around my waist like he’s not planning on letting me move away anytime soon. “I do.”
My hands find his shoulders without thinking, fingers curling slightly into the fabric of his shirt as I steady myself.
“You’re distracting me,” I whisper, but there’s no real complaint in it.
“That’s the point.” His thumb brushes absentmindedly against my side, almost thoughtful. “You asked me to show you,” he adds, softer this time. “And I remember you liking what I do with my fingers.”
I let out a quiet breath, half a laugh. “Do I?”
“Mmh, enough to cry out my name and ask for more,” he smiles against my neck. “Plus it’s your birthday month if I remember correctly. You need another gift don’t you think?”
“You bought me a car.”
“I know.” His lips brush slowly below my jaw, enough to make me shiver and push myself deeper onto him. “I want to do better.”
His hand shifts slightly against my back, fingers tracing something there, and I feel the shape of it before I understand it. A star.
“Can I make a wish too?” he murmurs against my skin.
His finger moves again, softer this time, writing something I can’t see, only feel, each letter lingering for a second too long before the next one begins.
And when he’s done, he presses his lips there, right over it, like he’s sealing it into place. “Happy,” he whispers.
I close my eyes. Because for a second, just a second, it feels like I might be. And that’s the part that scares me the most. I think I’ve been waiting for something like this without knowing if I could ever feel it.
There’s something humiliating about how easily I trust the weight of his hands. If I close my eyes, it feels like he’s the only thing holding me in place. I don’t know when it stopped being simple attention and started being gravity.