13. Star-Shaped Scar
Chapter Thirteen
Star-Shaped Scar
Grant
The drive to Neve’s place is quiet at first, just the hum of the road and her shifting beside me in the passenger seat, moon boot wedged into the footwell.
She’s drawing little invisible shapes on her knee, tapping a restless staccato.
Every so often, she glances at me, then away, like she’s trying to pretend she’s not studying my reactions.
I want to say something, but I don’t know where to start. I want to fill the silence with anything but the frantic, bruised echo of her crying in my arms. I’d do anything to never hear that sound again.
“So… do you want to tell me what got you like that?” My voice comes out a little loud. “Why don’t you like the ER?”
“Does anybody like the ER?” Her eyes stay fixed on the windshield. “I feel like that’s a universal no.”
I keep my hands loose on the wheel. “Yeah, maybe, but it was more than that for you. I could hear it. In your voice. That voice note—” I blow out a breath, tapping my thumb against the shiny leather as streetlights strobe over the backs of my hands.
“I could tell you were barely holding on. That’s why I kept calling.
That’s why I came. You weren’t in a place where you could talk yourself down, not on your own. ”
She huffs, but it’s brittle.
I glance at her. “That’s not a weakness, Neve. You know that, right?”
She doesn’t speak, but her lip wobbles.
“It’s all right. Panic like that is… awful.
I’m sorry it got that bad. I don’t want to say you should have called me sooner, but—” I cut myself off, clearing my throat.
“—I want you to know that you could have called me sooner. We all get to that place sometimes. It’s okay if you can’t talk yourself off the ledge. ”
“You know that little star-shaped scar Fia has on her cheek, right below her eye?” Neve says, not looking at me.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed it.” I chuff a laugh. “Comes out when she smiles. Or when Cade says something… particularly inappropriate.”
She laughs, but there’s a weird catch in it, like it’s stuck on the sharp edge of memory. “You know how she got it?”
I shake my head, trying to keep my cool, but my knuckles are white on the wheel.
“She was thirteen. I was six. We were up at this lake with our parents for, like, a day trip? My dad taught Fia how to bait a cast, but nobody actually showed me, because I was the baby, and they thought I’d mess it up.
So, I stole a rod when no one was looking and tried to cast it anyway, and…
yeah. Hooked my own sister in the face. Right under the eye.
” She’s still staring out the window, and her voice has gone small, like it’s echoing out of a well.
“I still remember the sound she made. There was blood everywhere.”
A spike of nausea flashes through me. I want to reach over, cover her hand with mine, but I’m afraid that if I touch her, I’ll just make it worse.
“We spent, like, three hours in the ER. I thought I’d killed her. Or blinded her. The doctor said it missed her actual eye by a couple of millimeters. That’s why I hate hospitals. I hate the lights, the smell, all of it. But mostly I hate it being my fault.”
My chest goes tight.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say quickly. “On either count. You were six. And tonight… You just tripped. You’re clumsy.”
She looks at me, patient, but I see the ghost of a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth.
“Can I be honest?” My voice is raw. “When I listened to your message, I thought something terrible had happened. I was worried you’d been attacked, or—” I clear my throat forcefully. “I don’t know. Something awful.”
Her laugh is soft. “Yeah, well, no. Just dumb and overreacting.”
My jaw sets. I keep my eyes on the road, hands locked tight at ten and two. The adrenaline is everywhere, shoulders refusing to come down from around my ears.
“You weren’t overreacting,” I argue. “I mean it, okay? You felt what you felt. If anything, you underreacted. You tried to tough it out alone. That’s what people do when they’re struggling and in trouble, and it’s a mistake.” My mouth twists, but I push through. “You’re allowed to need help, Neve.”
She doesn’t answer, and when I risk a glance, her head’s tipped against the seat, curls painting shadows against the glass.
She’s hugging herself around the middle with both arms, and I want to reach over and touch her, just to anchor her, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t just pull over and hold her until she fell asleep in my lap.
It’s insane, but the urge is so intense it’s almost physical.
I drive the rest of the way in silence. By the time I pull up outside her building, she’s asleep, breathing shallow and slow, lips parted. The sight of her like this makes something in my chest thud, deep and heavy.
She’s totally out cold, the kind of sleep that doesn’t even break when I jostle the seatbelt loose and scoop her up, one arm cradling her under the knees, careful to keep the boot from knocking against the doorframe.
She shifts, folding in closer, cheek pressed up against my chest as if she’s breathing me in.
Something about the weight of her in my arms is so perfect; it makes every muscle in my body go warm and tense at the same time.
Her apartment is quiet. I don’t want to wake her, so I find the key in her bag, bumbling through the entry and into the dark of her place. I know it vaguely—from visiting a couple of times when it was Fia’s—but I still have to turn the light on to get around.
Her bedroom smells like citrus and those weird off-brand dryer sheets I recognize from campus laundry. It shouldn’t affect me, but the familiar scent of her makes my knees weak.
I set her down as gently as I can on the bed.
She barely stirs, just a soft exhale, lashes fanning over her cheeks.
I want to brush her hair away from her face, but my hands are way too big and clumsy, so I remove the moon boot instead—as recommended at the ER—set it carefully by the bed, then I tuck the comforter up to her chin.
That should be it.
I should leave.
Instead, I linger a second too long, spine steeled, every sense keyed up.
I could write a note and slip out, but the thought of her waking up alone after this sits wrong with me. I’m not an animal—I’ll take the couch and keep my distance, but I can’t leave her alone.
I walk out to the living room and check that the door is locked.
The couch is corduroy, the kind that scrapes gentle little valleys into my palms. Everything about this place is so clearly Neve.
There are tarot cards on the coffee table, dog-eared at the corners.
A stack of art books with Post-Its sprouting from the pages.
An empty bottle of lavender soda sits on the windowsill next to a collection of tiny succulents.
I stare at the closed door of her bedroom. I can still hear the faint echo of her breathing.
The rational part of me—the part that’s survived a divorce, a custody battle, and half a decade of emotional reactivity masquerading as adult conversation—knows I should get up, go home, and leave all of this alone, that it was stupid to even respond to that very first message. I know it was.
I stare at my hands, then glance down at the front of my shirt, where the faint outlines of her tear tracks still linger from her breakdown in the ER. If I close my eyes, I swear I can smell her shampoo. My heart knocks against my ribs.
As I lie back, dragging a blanket from the back of the sofa to throw over my body, I try to convince myself I’m not worried. I’m sure there’s absolutely no way this could backfire on me at all.