Chapter 7 Clarke
Clarke
I lay in bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. When we were kids, Collins and I had created meticulous constellations of stars just like these on the ceiling of our shared bedroom. Dad had always called them our “lucky stars.”
The buzzing had always plagued me the most during periods of increased anxiety.
Collins never had that problem, because she doesn’t have that particular side effect of our unique “skills,” so whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she never knew what to say.
She thought it might help to find ways to make our room calmer and came up with the idea for the stars.
We spent days crafting our sky, our necks aching from spending so much time craned upward.
But I had always found that staring up at the ceiling and focusing on the stars would help.
I hadn’t planned on bringing this part of childhood whimsy into adulthood, but last year, before Collins came back home, the buzzing had gotten bad again, after being fairly manageable for years.
I expected it to go away after we were assured Toades was safe and the Sullivan threat went away, but it didn’t.
If anything, it got worse. While I’ve always been an anxious person, I’d also been feeling…
blue. I could make it through the whole day just fine, but then at night, when it was just me, my thoughts, and the buzzing, the headaches would come, and there was no one around to help me but me.
It felt like I was free falling.
* * *
So I decided I needed my lucky stars again.
My constellations weren’t as elaborate as the originals, but featured Orion and Cassiopea, my favorites.
When I was alone under the stars, all the parts of me that everyone else saw and expected got to fall away.
I didn’t have any responsibilities or things to get done.
I didn’t have to make anyone like me or worry if they still did.
I didn’t have to be the better sister or the perfect daughter. I just got to be.
So as soon as I had gotten home tonight, I had made a beeline for my bedroom, the anxiousness fizzing up in my chest. I hoped a little stargazing could help keep it at bay.
But as I tried to take deep, calm breaths, the relief didn’t come as quickly as usual.
It still felt like my skin was vibrating, my heart tight and going a thousand miles a minute.
Because with all the other pieces of me stripped away, the faint glow of my lucky stars seemed like a spotlight on a part of me I tried to never see: the part that hoped and longed for love and wished for someone to hold it close.
I didn’t mind being alone. Most of the time, I liked it.
But over the past couple of years so much time alone had grown and shifted and morphed itself into this loneliness that I couldn’t shake.
And tonight, the memory of Leith’s mouth on mine, the imprint of his hands on me, left me feeling emptier than ever, isolated under the cover of darkness and so, so alone under this blanket of stars.
I rolled onto my side, grabbed my phone off my nightstand, and navigated to my messages with my sister.
Lars: You up?
I knew she was. Neither of us had ever slept very well. Maybe the ghost-talking thing made us genetically predisposed to be awake when they were the most active.
And I would argue that I got the more annoying end of the deal because not only did I not sleep very well, I was also a natural early riser. Collins was not. I didn’t know if there was anything else she hated more than mornings.
Olly: Did you mean to send this to your booty call?
Olly: Are you okay?
Lars: Yeah. Miss you, though. Can’t sleep.
Olly: Miss you too. Keep an eye on those lucky stars.
There was no one on the planet—on either the natural or supernatural plane—who knew me better than Collins.
There’s also no one who frustrated me as much as her or made me as proud.
But for the last two years or so, I felt so…
disconnected from her. She felt fuzzy in my head, and the bond that had held taut our entire lives was uncharacteristically loose.
It took her coming home, me letting years’ worth of bottled-up frustration spill out, and both of us doing a little yelling for us to start prioritizing our relationship again.
It was going well so far, which mostly just made me realize how much I missed her when she was gone. It also made the loneliness louder.
Lars: *sigh* word
I wanted to tell Collins about Leith, but I also…didn’t. Maybe I felt like if I told her, what happened would become a novelty—something that everyone else got to know about and have an opinion on.
And that was already coming. There was no way Ron would keep it to himself. So I decided not to share it with my sister. It was just mine for now, and Leith’s, too, I guess. And even though the kiss didn’t mean anything, the secret felt fun to keep.
I typed out one last message to my sister, telling her good night, and then I did what she said—kept my eyes on the stars until they finally became heavy enough to close.
* * *
The rest of the weekend was surprisingly quiet.
On Saturday, I took Pearl for a walk, and then I tried to find the motivation to deep clean my house.
Normally, when I was stressed or anxious, I liked a good toothbrush-to-the-baseboards type of clean, but I just couldn’t get to it.
Instead, I lay on my couch and wallowed in my anxiety.
On Sunday, I made myself leave my house and went to my parents’—eating their food and lounging on their couch watching old reruns of Family Feud and The Newlywed Game.
My dad was leaving for a long haul on Monday morning, and I liked to spend time with him before he left, even if I was trying to avoid my mother.
Wilder hadn’t appeared since Friday night, and I took that to mean that job was done—and so was letting the spirit realm meddle in my life.
I fulfilled my end of the nonexistent bargain by helping Leith get ahold of those documents, and for me, that meant I didn’t have to give son or father any more of my brain space.
So I did my best not to think about Leith. Or the kiss.
Easier said than done. Leith had a very nice mouth.
* * *
It wasn’t until Monday morning that things began to go sideways. My phone started buzzing with a phone call while I was making breakfast. Sadie.
“Isn’t it an hour earlier in Arizona?” I asked in greeting. “Why are you awake?”
“Because Velma Moore has been blowing up my phone since five a.m.,” Sadie said.
I snorted. Velma was one of Sadie’s clients here in Sweetwater. She got a perm every three months and had an appointment for a wash and style every Friday at ten a.m. When Sadie told her she was moving, Velma threw a tantrum that could only be compared to a natural disaster.
“Is she begging you to come back home?” Maybe if Velma and I teamed up, we could make that happen.
“No, she’s been going to Ali.” My stomach turned a little. Leith’s Ali. She did hair too. “And she was calling to let me know that she is glad I’m gone and that she hopes I don’t expect a warm welcome if I ever decide to come back.”
“What?” I said, confused. Velma was Sadie’s longest-standing client. “That’s wild! You’ve been doing her hair since you got out of school.”
“Apparently…” Sadie said. Her tone was oddly light for someone who’d just been told off by one of Sweetwater Peak’s toughest old broads. “She doesn’t want her hair done by, and I quote, ‘The home-wrecker’s best friend.’ ”
“What?” I asked, even more confused. And then it hit me. “Oh my god.”
“You should probably look at Sweetwater Peakers if you haven’t already.
” Sadie giggled. The town hadn’t quite evolved to using social media or neighborhood apps as a way to communicate, so we still had an old-fashioned comment blog, Sweetwater Peakers.
It’s officially meant to be a place for important local news, like when the one road would be closed to fix potholes, reminding the town about local elections, or giving everyone a heads-up that some sort of farm animal was loose—that sort of thing.
But unofficially, it was the town gossip site.
And I had a not-so-great feeling that I knew what might be waiting for me on there.
Shit. I switched the phone to speaker and immediately opened my laptop. Sweetwater Peakers was bookmarked, so it took less than a second for me to get to the page and see the newest headline: “Leith Wilkes and Clarke Cartwright Caught in Compromising Position.”
“Oh, for the love of…”
“Is there something you want to tell me?” Sadie asked. Her voice was calm but amused. “Because I’ve got a list of questions for you a mile long.”
“It’s a misunderstanding,” I said.
“So Ron Rummager didn’t catch you and Leith bumping uglies in his office on Friday night?”
“No!” I protested. “We were not bumping uglies!”
“But you were with Leith in Ron’s office?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. But we just kissed. Like a small kiss—dainty, even!”
“That’s not what the site says. People are taking sides—Team Ali or Team Clarke.
And there’s also a bunch of stuff in the comment section about how you two were getting real close at the bar a few months back—apparently the night before I left was the night that him and Ali called it quits for good.
Is that true, by the way? That they’re super over?
Someone also saw his truck at your house on Friday.
” Sadie had one talking speed: a million miles an hour.
I wiped my hand down my face. “This is a nightmare.” If there was one thing I hated more than anything else, it was being part of the Sweetwater Peak gossip roller coaster.
Now that I thought about it, though, this might be the first time that I’ve been called out in the Sweetwater rag pages without Collins.
That was not what I meant when I said I wanted something that was my own.
“So, how was the ‘dainty’ kiss?” Sadie asked. I could tell she was trying not to laugh. Asshole.
“That’s not important,” I said, quickly scrolling through the comments. The word home-wrecker appeared. Several times. Clearly where Velma got her inspiration. “What’s important is that this is a gross overreaction and misrepresentation of what was going on.”
“I think you’ve been watching too many Law & Order SVU reruns, babe.” Okay, well, it wasn’t my fault that Olivia Benson was one of the greatest TV characters of all time. “But you’ve had a crush on Leith since I’ve known you, and you have nothing to say about finally kissing him?”
“Nope,” I said. “Not a thing. And I don’t have a crush on him.”
Sadie was silent for a breath. Impressive for her. “Hmm. Whatever you say.”
“I’ll talk to Velma,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sadie said. “She never tipped me anyway. And I care more about whatever is going on with you. This is, um, out of character?”
“You’re telling me,” I mumbled. “But it’s nothing.”
“Right…” I did not want to talk about this. I needed to think. If this was on Sweetwater Peakers, that meant it had already gone through the old-fashioned rumor mill, which was still alive and well around here, which also meant that—oh my god. It meant that everyone knew.
“Listen, Sade,” I said. “I’m sorry—I’m running a little late.
I’ll talk to you later.” With any luck, though, this wouldn’t reach Collins.
I suddenly felt overwhelmingly lucky that my sister and my best friend didn’t have a direct line of communication.
It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, they just didn’t have anything in common.
Besides me, I guess. “I will not be letting this go,” Sadie said. “Just so you know.”
“I’m aware,” I said, resigned. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”
“Love you.”
I hung up the phone and dropped my forehead to my kitchen counter. “Goddamnit,” I said. Pearl’s head appeared next to my leg. I didn’t know if she was checking on me or looking for attention—probably a little bit of both.
“You know that it was just a kiss, right?” I asked her.
Pearl’s giant eyes and wrinkly face always calmed me down.
Most of the time, I wished I had the ability to understand animals and not ghosts.
That would be way more fun. Probably more useful too.
And there would be no kissing involved. “Do you want to come to work with me today?” I asked her.
Pearl started wagging her tail. She was always down for a walk or a car ride—or the chance to make new friends at Toades. I didn’t want to face today alone.
“All right, girl, let’s go.”