The Stars Will Shine (26 page)

“We were never together in the first place…”

But even as I say it, I know it’s a lie. It’s just always been my easy way out. With Aiden. With Lyle. With everybody. So they can’t claim they ever had a part of my heart.

He exhales, I think saddened that I won’t admit to any of my feelings for him. “Leave me with more to remember?” he asks.

I shake my head, slowly, miserably. His thumb moves softly along the line of my jaw.

“Memories like that only haunt you later,” I say. “Trust me.” This is for his own good, I tell myself. And for mine.

But after ten minutes of walking hand in hand through the vineyard, taking in the ever darkening sky and the twinkling arrival of the first stars, we make our way back to the truck in silence. Aiden crawls onto the driver’s seat and reaches for a bag on the backseat. When he gets back out, he unloads a bunch of blankets and pillows, and spreads them out in the back of his truck so that they create a makeshift bed, a cozy cradle under the clear night sky. The two of us quietly crawl into it and lay on our backs for a few minutes, staring up at the sky. It seems like every second that passes, a new star peeks out from behind the dark blanket of the night.

“Do you think there’s any intelligent beings out there?” Aiden asks softly. I let my eyes stare unfocused at the vastness of the small part of the universe I can perceive with my eyes.

“There has to be.”

“I wonder if any of them have the technology to look upon our planet right now,” he says.

With one foot, I shift the thin blanket that covers us downward so that my arms are free. “They wouldn’t see us though. They’d see some time in our planet’s past.”

“I wonder if they’ve been watching us for ages. Witnessing our planet’s growth.”

“Predicting its demise…”

Aiden is silent for a long while after that, not bothering to counter my pessimism. We lie there in the bed of the truck, and as we look up at all the millions of dots in that dark sky, it almost feels like we’re floating.

“Aiden, why are you never home?” I ask, finally breaking our silence.

He looks at me, studies my face for a moment, then turns away and hooks one hand behind his head. He talks to the stars when he speaks. Maybe it’s easier for him that way. “I do go home.”

“You’re at the Kyler’s more often than not,” I point out.

He picks at a loose string on the blanket with his free hand then sighs, and the sound is tired, worn. “I guess I just don’t like being there.”

“Your parents?” I ask quietly.

He lets out a humorless laugh on a breath.

“Yeah, you know. They aren’t terrible or anything, don’t get me wrong. They’re great to me…separately. And they try to be when they’re together. But together, they’re just…wrong, incompatible, always fighting. I don’t even remember the last time they agreed on something.”

“Why don’t they, you know, divorce if they’ve had this many problems for so long?”

“I suppose
that’s
the last thing they agreed on,” Aiden answers dryly. “To not divorce. For my sake. Or at least until I’m out of the house.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. And here’s the kicker: I’d honestly rather they’d split a long time ago. I think, growing up, it was worse this way. Not a good environment for a kid to see his parents yelling at each other all the time.”

“That’s why you prefer to just avoid it all.”

He nods, a sad look in his eyes that breaks my heart.

“They were never in love to begin with. It was just a one-night stand that turned into a pregnancy that turned into a terrible marriage. I hate seeing them suffer for my sake. I’d rather they just be happy and free from the obligation they think they owe me. They can still be good parents to me, even if they aren’t together.”

“How long has the fighting been going on?”

“Since middle school. Third grade maybe. That’s also when I met Dylan.” He doesn’t say it, but I know the rest: Dylan became his escape. And more, Dylan became his family. I see how he looks at Dylan like a brother, how he would go to the grave for him.

“And then we started learning guitar together in fifth grade, and the rest is history,” he says, laughing a little. “Practicing music with Dylan became my biggest excuse for getting away from my parents without feeling guilty about avoiding them.”

Fifth grade. That would’ve been right around the time I last saw Dylan before I came this summer. And just two years before I completely stopped playing music myself.

I’m not sure at what point it happens. We’re silent for a long while again, each contemplating what we’ve been discussing—family, music, the possibility that somewhere out there in the cosmos there might be two intelligent beings staring up at the night sky like we are, just as curious to know whether or not they are alone in this immense universe—when suddenly we’re kissing.

In the next minute, we’re breathing like we’re on the last leg of a race, giving it all our body as to offer. Maybe it’s the fact that he just opened himself to vulnerability that I feel okay with letting myself be vulnerable, too, with him once in this way.

His skin is smooth as I map his back with my hands. Beneath his shirt, I dig my fingertips into the muscles of his upper back, begging him with my body to come closer. He pushes the hem of my dress up to my chest and places soft kisses across my stomach, and I whimper softly in answer. How is it that he does this to me? That every time he touches me, he melts me? That every time he breathes my name, it belongs to him, that my name on anyone else’s lips will never sound as sweet?

His thumbs skate under the edges of my bra, nervous but ready. I crawl to my knees so he can get my dress off. And when he does, he consumes me softly with his eyes. He comes back in to kiss me hard, and all I can think is that I want to feel all of him against me, skin to skin. He takes off his shirt and pants, so that we’re both in our undergarments, kneeling for a prolonged moment, face to face in the bed of that old pickup truck, just drawing in air as we take each other in. And then in quiet understanding, we come together into each other’s arms, and kiss like it’s the last kiss we will ever give and receive on this earth.

Slowly, Aiden lowers me to my back, never breaking the contact between our lips as he climbs over me. My skin burns with the heat of the fire he’s ignited inside me. It melts me into a puddle of desperation for his touch and his undivided affection, if just for this one encounter.

He reaches behind my back with one hand, undoes my bra and pushes it aside, and with the other, slides down my underwear. Never have I felt more seen than I do when Aiden looks at me now. He takes a second to hover over me, the stars surrounding his head like a halo, and then his hips press down to mine, the weight of his body covering me like a down comforter. His lips touch my neck, and my breath comes in sharp. Pulling back, he smoothes the hair from my forehead then takes off his boxers, never once breaking our gazes. I close my eyes briefly when he settles back over me, his knees on either side of my thighs.

He trails his fingers down my sides, the look in his eyes entirely earnest when he says, “Only if you want to.”

Yes, I want to. Oh, God, how I want to.
I’ve wanted to since I met you
. Never have I wanted something so much in my life.

I just can’t want more.

I nod and touch his thighs lightly with my fingers, dropping my gaze to the small space between the most intimate parts of us. “Please, Aiden.”

I can’t tell you how long we stare at each other. I just know it’s long enough to stretch us to our breaking point. The point at which we not only give in but we hold nothing back.

Afterward, Aiden holds me in his arms so that my body is curled against his. The sheet over us tickles my bare skin. There’s still the remnants of a flush on my cheeks, on my neck, on my chest. Still a wonderful wooziness in my head. Aiden made me feel things I never felt before. With him, the sex was all-encompassing, the pleasure intense and disorienting, hitting me like glorious ocean waves, crashing over and over and all through my body. It made my toes curl into the blanket beneath us and unfurl when I gasped for air. Yet the most beautiful feeling of all was the one that came over me when I watched Aiden succumb to that same wave just a moment after I did, so that we had each other to grasp onto as it carried us far out to sea.

Aiden sits up a little and kisses my temple. I smile as he scoots even closer to me, his arm tightening around my naked waist beneath the sheet.

“Have you ever been in love?” he asks me.

And just like that, I freeze. He pulls me closer to him, but it doesn’t warm my body. His arms tell me he never wants to let me go, but all I want to do is run.

“Once,” I answer truthfully. “But he wasn’t.” I let that hang in the air for a while. “Have you?”

“No,” he answers just as honestly.

We fall into a long silence again—no words, only breaths.

“Delilah,” he finally whispers. It is so completely silent around us that his whisper carries enormous volume.

Or maybe it’s the enormity of the emotion behind it.

I don’t want to look at him because I know what he’s going to say.

“Delilah, can you look here,” he whispers on.

Sometimes the barest of pleas are the most heartrending. The tiniest pool of water builds at the lower rims of my eyes, and when I shut my lids, a single tear rolls hot down my cheek.

I can’t.

I can’t look him in the eye when he says what he’s going to say.

Aiden kisses my temple again then hovers over me for a long moment, resigned to the fact that I won’t give him what he wants. He struggles to get out the words, but still he says them, even if they are barely there.

“I’m falling in love with you.”

I squeeze my eyes more tightly together, and more tears fall, enough that they form streams down my cheeks. Why did he have to say it? Why did he have to ruin this whole thing we just had—this one moment shared in time, never to be returned to or repeated? What was the point in laying ourselves completely bare for each other, in giving it our all, every ounce of our being, if there were still pieces of us left over to be picked up and strung together with a thread of deeper feelings? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Threads can always be worn thin; threads can always break.

I don’t say anything as I get up and dress. But when I hop out of the bed of his truck, I finally look at him, careful to keep my face as impassive as possible, and say “Take me home, Aiden.”

And he just nods a sad sort of nod that rips me to shreds.

Chapter Seventeen

Dad tries calling again. And instead of letting it go to voicemail this time, I pick it up and immediately end the call.

Maybe he’ll finally get the message that I don’t want to talk to him.

Dave texts me next.

Hey sis! Was thinking about you today. Just checking in to see how your summer with the long lost relatives is going. Can’t wait to see your face in a week!

And again the next day.

Did you lose your phone or something?

Never losing persistence.

Dad called me today. Admitted that you haven’t talked to him yet this summer. I heard you two had a bit of a spat before you left, but is everything okay?

I don’t respond to him either. That part of me that was even a little eager to see him again, the big brother I admired from birth until his best friend ruined me, is a dying flame. Just like dad, he was never there when I needed him. Why would I need him now?

And to verify how out of touch with me he’s been all these years, he sends this:

You know you can talk to me anytime you need to, k? Can’t wait to see your shining smile in three days.

My shining smile.

Until I walked into Miles of Vinyls on my second day in California, I don’t think I smiled a shining smile since I was thirteen years old. Even Simon, a total stranger, could see that. That’s why I’m fucking still in debt to him.

I’ll be leaving Saturday morning. Aunt Miranda has already said she’s taking me to the airport. A part of me vows I won’t get on the plane. I’ll hop onto another one instead and fly somewhere else, anywhere but home to the three men who’ve been the biggest disappointments in my life.

I’ve been a terrible employee this week, but whenever I zone out or snap at Trevyn or Amber, they are kind enough to let it go.

It’s only when my fangs fall on a customer that Trevyn pulls me aside and says, “I can see that you’re going through some things right now, Delilah. Big things, painful things. But either you need to pull yourself together when you’re here in my shop, or you need to take some time off.” It’s the first time this summer since dubbing me the nickname that he hasn’t called me “Squirt.”

With my tone colored in sarcasm, I reply, “Well, I guess my trip to the desert in a few days couldn’t fall at a better time then.” He bores his eyes into mine, and I can tell he wishes I’d let him help me in some way. “But be warned, I wouldn’t put it past me to return a more bitter person than I left.”