She Dims the Stars (6 page)

I’d had an entire conversation with my father in my head by the time I reached my front door, sweating and trembling with anticipation of what was to come. Patrick Byrd worked from home, but Miranda did not, so imagine my surprise when I heard them arguing in the living room as I walked into the foyer. I wanted to call out and let them know I was home. Wanted to announce my presence somehow. But the yelling rendered me mute.

“I can’t have this conversation again, Miranda. You knew coming into this marriage that there would be no children.”

Her voice was shrill and hateful in response. “No one in this town knows that you’re sterile. We can use a surrogate.”

“No.”

There was a shuffling sound like something was being pushed. Maybe the couch. Maybe Patrick. I can’t be sure, because my eyes were squeezed tight.

“You haven’t had a problem raising another man’s child for the last fifteen years. Why would it be an issue now?”

That darkness, that feeling of desperation I’d been fighting for so long, hit me in the chest like a physical blow, and it took every last ounce of strength in my body not to hit the floor in a crumpled heap.

I’m not proud of what happened after, but that was the day Byrdie ceased to exist.

Or, at least, it was the day I tried to make her disappear.

It feels like all the air in the room has been sucked out with a vacuum. Cline is staring at Audrey with the most intense expression, and I’m trying to decipher if it’s betrayal or disappointment. Like what she’s just divulged came out of her so easily. She’s just admitted to having one of the saddest origins I’ve ever heard of, and yet she’s standing here, holding my hand and shaking it like we’re making a business wager of some kind.

“Is that not tragic enough for you?” Her head leans a little to the left as she lets go of my palm. “There’s more, if you need it. But I’d like to make a request for my character.”

“Sure.” It’s really all I can offer at this point.

“I want my girl to ride a unicorn. And I want the unicorn to shit rainbow cookies as a defense.”

The mental picture of Audrey atop a unicorn as it drops rainbow-colored cookie bombs breaks whatever heaviness there was in the room mere seconds ago, and I let out an awkward laugh that’s a cross between a choke and a hyena bark.

“I’m serious. Cookie-shitting unicorn or nothing, Elliot.” Her smile is shaky, but her voice is strong, and it does not go unnoticed by Cline.

“Are you being serious right now?” He is bracing himself against the counter, his full attention on the girl staring back at him with a blank expression.

“Yeah. If I’m gonna be in a video game, I want some artistic license. I have no idea what he was planning to do with the character of the ex, but I’m sure it wasn’t half as bad ass as—“

“Shut up.” He slams his fist down and steps toward her, making her take one back. “Just,
shut up
. Why are you even here? It’s been, like, six years since you’ve even spoken to me after you ran away, or whatever, and now you’re in my place and hanging out with my best friend. You're gonna ride a unicorn in his game?”

“If I can interject, there really isn’t use for a unicorn in the game at all. It’s a military game based off of my father’s old journals.” I raise my finger to stop them from going further, but it goes unnoticed.

“What part do
you
get to play? Are you the best friend in the game?” She’s seriously asking, and Cline’s face goes bright red. “You’re a great best friend until you’re not anymore.”

“That’s called projecting, isn’t it? I took a psych class, too.” He spits back at her.

The stand-off in my kitchen makes no sense to me at all right now. I notice Audrey’s left hand twitch, and her fingers start tapping against her palm one after the other as she stares directly at Cline. It’s a pattern, but I can’t make it out. Suddenly, it stops and she turns to me.

“I don’t have very much information on my mom. My grandma keeps all her stuff at her house in North Carolina, and she doesn’t have anything to do with me since I’m the devil spawn that killed her only daughter. And if you want to know about my dad, I don’t have any information on him either.”

“Bullshit. What are you talking about? Your dad gave you everything you ever wanted. I know. I was there. You have been
so messed up
since you ran away when we were fifteen.” Cline reaches out and pushes her shoulder just the slightest bit to make her acknowledge him again.

She braces herself before turning and facing him once more, some sort of helplessness in her eyes when she answers. “First, I’m glad the story about me running away has stuck after all these years. Patrick and Miranda did a great job selling that one. But since you’re finally interested in the truth, my father didn’t give me jack shit, Cline. Patrick Byrd took care of some other guy’s baby because his wife gave birth to it. Put his name on it. I have no idea who my real father is.

“I don’t know a thing about my mom. I have no idea who my dad is. And everything you thought you knew about me was a complete lie. How’s that for some bullshit?” She addresses me again. “Sorry. Is that enough to get me onto a unicorn in your game or not?”

My room is a mess, and I’m trying to throw piles of clothes into the corner so Audrey can sit down at my desk. Her fingers are doing that thing again while she waits but I ignore it while I shove the last sock under the bed with my foot and turn around to face her. With both hands splayed open, I shrug. “Have a seat.”

She’s looking around the room at my sculptures and wirework, her gaze lingering on sketches of faces and some renderings I’ve printed off to work on during the break. “You don’t suck at this, you know.”

I scratch the back of my neck and sit heavily on my bed. It’s been an insane night already, and it’s not even midnight. Cline left the apartment, so it’s just me and Audrey in my tiny-ass room filled with my stuff that only my roommate and my ex-girlfriend have seen up close. It feels weird. Like I’m naked, and not in the good way.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment, all things considered.”

She smiles and continues to look around before reclining in the chair and folding her arms over her chest. “A military game, huh? Based off your dad’s journals?”

“I didn’t think you caught that with all the back and forth between you two,” I admit.

“I caught it. Why are you doing it off his journals instead of asking him directly?”

My skin prickles, and I straighten my shoulders, because sometimes you have things in common with people in the strangest ways. “Because he died in combat and the journals and letters to my mom are all I have to go off of. He once wrote that he was right in the middle of Hell, and I just got this idea that I’d make a war game where the base camp was directly over the entrance to it.”

 “You believe in that stuff? Hell and heaven and whatever?”

I nod and look down at my hands before I speak. “Yeah, I do.”

“That’s just terrifying, don’t you think? I mean … if there actually is a heaven and a hell, and the Bible says that after we die, we’re supposed to keep existing forever, then … that’s frightening. We are never going to stop existing. At the end of the day, at least I know I get to go to sleep. But the thought that I’m gonna have to be awake and keep doing this kind of stuff forever? I just …”

I look up in time to see her blink and wipe her cheek as she swivels away in the chair. The light from my computer makes the side of her face glow in the dim lighting of my room.

“Anyway. I’m sorry for your loss. That’s what we’re supposed to say, right? How old were you?”

“Eight.”

“So you have some memories of him, then?”

“Yeah. Of course. They’re few and brief, but they’re enough to keep a picture of him in my mind. I guess that must be tough for you, right? You don’t have any of your mom or … the guy.”

She shrugs. “I have what I have.”

“Have you ever talked to your dad about it? I mean, Patrick. Have you confronted him about the entire thing?”

Audrey shakes her head and focuses on the
Fallout
poster above my bed before she answers. “I’ve done enough damage. To be honest, I can’t even talk to him about her. You can’t say the name Wendy without him physically flinching. If I brought up the other-guy thing, who knows what would happen? We have nothing of my mom in our house. It’s all at my grandmother’s, and I’m not even allowed over there.”

I lean back and cross my arms behind my head, looking up at the ceiling as I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “You should go anyway. I don’t have anything to do over break. I can go with you.”

I have no idea how my twin size bed withstands the weight as she jumps on me from across the room and makes me say five times in a row that I mean it.

How exactly does one go about packing for a trip that could change the course of her life? I’m standing in my room, staring blankly at the empty bag on my bed, distracted by the blue constellation print of my comforter beneath it. I can close my eyes and know where every single thing in this place is. Yellow desk under the window; sheer curtains open and blinds pulled shut. Laptop, last semester’s text books waiting to be sold, old papers and pencils all on the left-hand side. The right side remains clear. Silver desk chair pushed in until the metal touches the wood.