Unlit Star (33 page)

Rivers inhales deeply, his eyes moving away from mine as he says, "I want you there with me. I mean, you don't have to live there, but I'd like you to stay with me for as long as...as long as you want. But if you want to sort of move in, that would be okay with me. I mean, I want you to, but if you don't,  I understand. I know you'll love it out there. Nothing but trees, green grass—and bugs, but I can't help that. Sleeping without you beside me...it's...reprehensible. I went out there this morning and got it cleaned out. I thought it would take longer than it did. There's running water and electricity. It's small, but it's in good shape. It can be ours, for however long we want or need it to be. And—"

I shut him up with my mouth to his, effectively cutting off his indefinite rambling. A zing goes through me at the touch of his lips to mine, a tremble forms in my legs, and my stomach dips. He ends the kiss only to suck air into his lungs, and then we're kissing again, his hands molding to my back and lower, pulling me against him so all of me touches all of him.

"I'll go pack now." I turn to the door, tugging at his hand when he refuses to move. "Why aren't you moving?" I ask as I face him.

He opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "I don't know. I just thought that would be harder than it was."

"You underestimate your power over me." I smile as our eyes connect. "Are you apprehensive now? Maybe you don't think you can handle me."

His eyes narrow and he finally moves. "I think I'll be okay finding out." He runs his fingers down my back as we walk through the doorway and I shiver. "In fact, I think I'll be okay even if I can't handle you." Bringing his mouth close to my ear, he whispers, "I'm sort of counting on it."

I swallow with difficulty, knowing it is beyond time for us to move past the point of what we are to delve into what we need to be. I also know, with absolute clarity, that it will break me, but in the most wonderful of ways.

"One condition," I tell him, lifting my eyebrows.

His answer is swift and firm. "Anything."

I blow out a noisy breath. "You cannot—
cannot
—treat me like an invalid. You do and I go. Promise."

Rivers takes my hands within his and declares, "Delilah Marie Bana, you have too much life in you to ever have me mistake you for being anything other than one hundred percent functional."

I sigh, but it is a sigh of tranquility. Then I grin. "Did you totally just hear me sigh? I'm sighing for you."

"You act like you haven't been doing that all along."

The scent of baking cinnamon hits me as I step into the house and sorrow forms around the edges of my excitement. My mother and I are finally bridging the gap between us and now I am going to blow it apart once more with my distance. This time it is a physical instead of mental distance, but does that really make it any less painful? My mother needs me too. And I need her.

As though Rivers senses my thoughts, he enfolds my hand in his and squeezes, giving me support without saying a single thing. I tell him I need to talk to my mom for a minute and he nods, releasing my hand and moving into the living room. I watch him, the embodiment of all that I treasure, and I turn away, toward the woman who gave me this gift of life I cannot keep.

Her back is to me, and even so, I can see the stiffness to it that tells me she knows something is up. She wipes her hands on a dish towel and places a pan of dough in the oven, finally turning to look at me. Her smile is brave, but I still catch the hint of melancholy in her eyes. They are darkened by it. "You're going to stay with Rivers," she states softly.

"I am." I hover by the doorway, looking at the one person I have looked up to, resented, loved as long as I have been alive, and miss even as I am in the same room as her.

"You'll call me?" She blinks her eyes and lowers her head, the trembling of her shoulders betraying her valiant effort to remain dry-eyed.

"I'll do better than call you. I'll visit." I smile as she looks up. "I can't promise every day, but every week. And you'll come see me too. We should plan something now, in fact. How about this weekend? We'll invite Monica over too. I'll cook supper." My smile widens. "Not anything with peanut butter, I promise."

"I would love that."

"I'll have Monica pick you up since she knows the way. I'll tell her four on Saturday?"

The sadness fades as brightness takes over her face in the form of a smile. "Yes. I look forward to it."

I cross the room to give her a hug, pressing my forehead to hers before letting her go. "Don't worry about calling me or visiting too much. There is no such thing as too much."

Her voice cracks as she replies with, "Right. Like fun and booze."

"Exactly like that."

She moves away, turning back almost immediately. Her eyes trail over my features, as though she is trying to memorize me as I am right now. "It is so hard to let you go, knowing...knowing what we know. But I also know I can't keep you here and I wouldn't want to try. You deserve to be happy and positive and you need to be with Rivers too. I just wanted to tell you that."

I take her hands within mine, squeezing them. "Thank you. I love you."

"I love you too. Go on. I'll see you soon. Oh, and take some cinnamon bread with you before you go."

"I will."

Rivers meets me at the bottom of the stairs and wordlessly lifts his eyebrows. I shrug and head upstairs with him following me. He sits on my bed and examines my room as I find my black and white polka dotted luggage I plan on taking on my Amtrak trip.

"The Brewers game is next Sunday."

I fall onto the bed beside him, pulling him down with me. "I can't wait."

"You know, before I would have thought you were speaking with sarcasm, but I know you really can't wait. All it took was one baseball game."

"All it took was one
awesome
baseball game. And you."

"I just made you go."

I shake my head, brushing strands of hair from my face. "No. You played baseball. You ran. You did that for me."

"I did, yeah. I also did it for me. I needed to try it. I needed to prove to myself, and everyone else, that I could do it."

"I know." I touch his cheek. "Thank you for not treating me differently, for not acting like I am about to break."

"How can I do any less than you have done for me?" He faces forward, briefly closing his eyes. "I keep telling myself it isn't real. I keep telling myself it is impossible that one day you won't be here, smiling at me, teasing me, making me feel like I am someone special with just one glance of your golden eyes my way."

"You are someone special."

"I only feel that way with you," he insists.

I partially sit up, resting my chin on my hand as I look down at him. "Then you need to change the way you think about yourself."

He rolls his eyes and pulls me back down, wrapping his arms around me to keep me next to him. "You should have been a motivational speaker, you know that?"

"Well, I
am
multi-talented."

He strokes my hair and my eyelids turn heavy. "I'm not going to treat you like you're helpless. You didn't do that to me and I'm not going to do it to you. But I also refuse to accept what life has decided to give us. It's crap. Pure
crap
." Sighing, he releases me. "Come on, let's get your stuff ready."

THE MOON IS OUR SPOTLIGHT
and we are the performers. Around us is a barrier of tall pine trees, the stars are our blanket, and we are safe within our dark world. Nothing can touch us. Nothing can take me away. The cabin is along the edge of trees to our right, alight with the soft glow of a single lamp in its window, and beyond it is a forest of life.

And we dance.

With our bodies, hands, and mouths, we say what is needed. With every touch, I tell him I love him. With every kiss he places on my lips, he tells me it back. I close my eyes, rest my cheek to his heart, and inhale deeply. It doesn't matter that our movements are a touch uncoordinated. I find the limp in Rivers' gait the purest form of elegance. When his expression shows a hint of frustration, my smile dispels it. He is beautiful to me. Perfect. I whisper this into his ear and his arms tighten around me.

There comes a point where the sweetness of the moment turns into something more. Our kisses are more urgent, the clothes between us are too heavy, and I step away. The flash of disappointment in his eyes is clear to see, but fades as soon as I grab the hem of my top and tug it off, throwing it as far away from me as I can. I laugh at the look on his face.

"Surprised?" I reach around me and unhook my bra, slowly sliding it down my arms, and let it drop to the cool grass.

He sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes going black.

"I guess so." Next come my shorts.

When I reach for my underwear, Rivers says in a harsh voice, "What are—"

I step out of them, whatever he was going to say dying on his lips as he stares at me. I think I catch a curse word, but his lips are on mine before I can ask. The tremble to his hands as they trail over me makes me smile, the raggedness of his breathing turns mine just as disjointed. I feel his heart thundering. I feel the way he wants me. I am alive in him, in this moment.

"You won't forget me." I'm telling him, but I am also asking him.

He steps back, his hands falling from me. A minute passes like this, with him wordlessly watching me, and I in turn watching him. Even now, he is forming me into a memory so he cannot.

"I am incapable of that," he solemnly says.

I reach for his shirt, kissing the bare skin it regrettably covered. Within seconds, his clothes are in a pile and he is against me. When the heat of him becomes flush with me, I cannot breathe. Every nerve-ending of mine is standing up, bristling with desire. I need him. I need him in ways I cannot name.

He grabs me and pulls me under him as we fall to the ground, cushioning my landing with his arms beneath my back. My hands are all over him, feeling the corded muscles of his back and chest; my lips tasting his salty skin. His mouth burns a trail over my collarbone and down my stomach and moves on to my neck, my body shivering despite the heat of the night. He pauses above me, his eyes scalding mine as they ask a silent question. Instead of answering him, I push against him, a low moan leaving him as our bodies connect. My breath hisses through my mouth at the feel of him. I move my hips and he responds. It's fast, frantic, and shatters me.

And it happens again.

And again.

Slower each time, but no less passionate. He devours me, he loves me, he ignites my fire and puts me out. It is exquisite torture. And when we are finally sated, we lie in the grass as I silently replay each magnificent detail, a smile of content on my lips.
This
is what it's supposed to be like.

“I want forever with you,” he whispers into my ear, his body naked and still wrapped around mine. Enough time has passed for our breathing to even out and my heart to steady in its beat, but I cannot let him go yet. He apparently has the same idea, his limbs still intertwined with mine, his arms around me, his chin next to my cheek.

I smile into his flat chest, my hand running up and down his arm, liking how his muscles tense and the skin pebbles beneath my fingers. “You'll have me for forever. No matter what, I'll still be in your heart. You know that. That's how I'll live.” I set my palm on the place above his beating heart and feel it pound. "You'll live for me," I whisper, kissing the spot my hand just moved away from.

"Are you afraid? Because I'm terrified."

I move to sit up and he grudgingly allows me to. “I don't want to be afraid. I'm trying really hard not to be. It wasn't exactly easy at first, but now...it is
so hard
knowing this is all temporary. And you know what's really stupid of me?” I take a shuddering breath and tears form, trailing down my cheeks in rivers of despair. “I still have hope. There is still some part of me that thinks the doctors were wrong and that I am not dying.” I stare at my clasped hands.

Rivers puts his boxer briefs on, handing me his shirt. I put it on, enveloped in the scent of him, and wait until he is sitting before me to continue.

“I was so angry at first,
so angry.
I didn't understand. I couldn't believe it. Why me? That's what I kept thinking. And why my brother? And why...
why
...my mother? She is a good person and she doesn't deserve this—not any of this.” I look up with burning eyes and meet his stricken gaze. “But even in the corner of my mind and heart, there was you. I saw past my pain and saw yours instead. And it helped me. Don't you see? All of this, everything I've experienced with you this summer, has made me able to cope with it. And you,
all of you
, are going to get through this,” I tell him in a voice thick with sorrow, but also conviction.

"My accident...the start of the summer—it all feels like it happened a really long time ago. I don't even remember why I was feeling sorry for myself." His eyes dim. "I was feeling sorry for myself, and there you were, with...
this
. I'm such a jerk."