Flying (9 page)

He nods again, and she thinks now’s the time for him to cut his gaze from hers, but he doesn’t. “Yeah. I think so.”

“This won’t change any of that.” Damn, her feet hurt. She wants to get out of her heels and this dress and this wig. Wash away the makeup under a hot shower and crawl into the big, soft bed with its crisp white sheets and sleep until her alarm wakes her in time for a leisurely breakfast...alone...and then her plane ride home.

“But the next time she accuses me, I won’t be able to say it’s not true. Not without lying.”

Stella’s eyebrows go up again. “And?”

“And nothing, I guess.” Truax frowns.

Stella sighs. “I’m going to head out. It’s late and I’m tired. You get some sleep, okay?”

He doesn’t answer her.

Stella gathers her things. At the door, she looks back at him, knowing she should feel pity even if he doesn’t want it, and unable to find any. Something’s cold in her. And broken. But it’s her own fault, she supposes, for picking men she knows are already damaged because it feels easier to justify breaking them.

“Good night,” she says, waiting for him to answer.

He doesn’t.

* * *

She’s not surprised the next day when Truax is the pilot on her flight back to Harrisburg. She’s not even surprised when he doesn’t say a word to her as she boards, and it’s not because she’s not traveling as a blonde. She is surprised, though, when he won’t even look at her. It shouldn’t sting her, but somehow it does.

She should’ve known better, Stella thinks, as she settles into her seat for the swift trip home, than to fly with someone she knew she’d have to see again.

CHAPTER TEN

“Didn’t your dad say he’d be here by eight? Or do I have to drop you off?” Stella’s phone buzzed in her pocket as she turned from the suitcase she was unsuccessfully trying to pack with everything she’d need for a week away from home. She’d been offered the chance to take a weeklong seminar on advanced Photoshop techniques in Chicago on the company dime, and she was taking it. She ignored the buzz. No time for a call right now.

“He’ll pick me up.”

Something in Tristan’s tone made Stella look at him. He lounged in the doorway, headphones around his neck, a bottle of soda in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. She straightened.

“What time?” she asked.

Tristan shrugged. Stella looked at the clock. Her flight wasn’t until tomorrow morning, but it left at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m., and it was inching on toward 9:00 p.m. at this point. It wasn’t unheard of for Jeff to be late, of course, but something in Tristan’s shifty gaze tipped her off to something going on.

“Tristan.”

He scowled. “I’m going there after school tomorrow. Okay? Not tonight.”

Stella scrubbed at her eyes, behind which a steady pressure had been building for an hour. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to stay here an extra night, okay? I like my own bed.”

She couldn’t blame him for that. Tristan had had his own room at his dad’s house since the divorce. She could argue with her son that his bed in his father’s house
was
his own bed, but she understood. And, truthfully, there was also a quiet sort of vindication that Tristan thought of her house as home, no matter how many presents Cynthia bought him.

“I have to leave super early,” she told him now. “Can I trust you to get yourself off to school?”

“Don’t I get up on my own every day?”

This was true, but it was different when she wouldn’t be here at all, just in case he overslept or missed the bus. “Just making sure.”

“I’ll be fine.” Tristan took a long swig from the bottle, then let out a long, reverberating belch.

Stella burst into disgusted laughter. “Oh. Nice.”

Tristan, grinning, lifted a leg and prepared to let out a fart, but Stella made such a threatening gesture that he stopped and backed up into the hall, laughing.

“Yeah, that’s it,” she said, acting tough. “Don’t you bring that in here.”

So instead, he did it out in the hall. “Ten points! Gold medal stuff here, Mom!”

“You are repulsive, you know that?” she called after him.

Tristan stuck his butt through the doorway, wiggling it. “Shouldn’t have made chili for dinner.”

“No! Tristan, don’t!” But it was too late. He let out another long, ripping fart that sounded like hands clapping. Stella shrieked, running after him, but he was already ducking away from her. She shook her fist at him instead, shaking her head. “You’re a pig, you know that?”

Tristan pushed up his nose to look like a snout. “Remember that time he ate the chili dogs at the baseball game and farted so bad we had to roll down all the windows?”

All the laughter left her.

Carefully, Stella turned back to her suitcase, where she made an effort of sorting through her socks, tucking a couple pairs into an empty space in one of the packing cubes. “I think you should call your dad and have him come get you tonight. You won’t have to get up as early tomorrow morning if you’re at his house, and I’ll feel better knowing you’re not here alone.”

Silence from behind her. Then a long, snuffling sigh. “I’ll be fine. It’s a few hours in the morning, God.”

Stella kept herself focused on what she was doing. “Don’t argue with me, Tristan.”

“I want to sleep in my own bed tonight. It’s already going to suck that I have to be there for a whole week!”

“It’s only half a week,” she pointed out. “You have your ski trip for the second half.”

“Whatever.”

She turned. “What’s wrong at your dad’s house? Is there something going on I need to know about?”

“No.” But his gaze shifted from hers in a way that told her otherwise.

“Is it Cynthia?”

Tristan shrugged. “She’s fine.”

“Is it your dad?” His look gave that away, even though he shrugged again. Stella sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Is he giving you a hard time about something?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just like being here better.” The stubborn set of his jaw was more Stella than Jeff. The resemblance wasn’t often there except when he made that face.

“I understand that, but, sorry, kid, you can’t be here by yourself for a week. Or even half of one. But, fine, you don’t have to go tonight. Just...go to bed,” she told him wearily. “I’m tired, and I have to be up early, and I have a lot to do before I leave tomorrow.”

Tristan didn’t move at first. The look he gave her was calculated, sort of aggressive, and somehow wary at the same time. “Cynthia told Dad I should see a counselor. I heard her talking to him about it.”

Stella blinked rapidly against this unexpected news. “What the hell?”

“Yeah.” Tristan’s shrug looked casual, but she knew it wasn’t. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Stella shoved aside the suitcase and patted the bed. “Come here.”

He wouldn’t at first, but then did, dragging his feet. His recent growth spurt meant he was a head taller than her even while sitting, and for a moment the fist of emotion squeezed tight around her throat, making it impossible to talk. Instead of words, Stella put her arm around her son’s shoulders and squeezed gently.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked.

“No.”

“No meaning not at all, or no meaning not with me?”

Tristan shrugged. Incredibly, for a moment, he leaned against her, and all Stella could do was hold on to him as tight as she could. She stopped herself from petting his hair—Tristan had never been her snuggler.

“I just don’t like going there as much as being here,” Tristan said in a low voice.

“Why, honey? If it’s a problem with your dad or Cynthia, you can tell me.” It would’ve honestly surprised her to find out that Cynthia had ever been anything but sweet as sugar to her stepson. That was just how she was. Jeff, on the other hand, could be a pain in the ass.

“He never lived there with us,” Tristan muttered, so low Stella had to strain to hear him.

She went cold inside. Involuntarily, her fingers tightened on him hard enough to make him shift. She let him go. They sat in stolid, awkward silence, side by side, for half a minute.

“I know, sweetie,” Stella said finally. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not okay for
you
to live there.”

Tristan looked at her, blue eyes narrowed against the tears he was bravely trying to hold back. Her heart ached for him, but when she tried to hug him, he pulled away just enough to make it clear he didn’t want her embrace.

“If you need to talk to someone,” she said, “we can find you someone to talk to, but only if you want to.”

During the divorce, Stella had taken Tristan to a round of counseling, first with the school guidance counselor, then with a child psychologist who specialized in grief issues. Tristan had hated going then; she couldn’t believe he wouldn’t hate going now. Again, in this he’d been unfortunate enough to inherit the worst of both his parents. Jeff’s quickness to dissatisfaction and Stella’s reluctance to open up emotionally. But she had to offer it.

Something shifted in his gaze, something flaring brightly before it faded like a firework arcing through the sky and fizzling to darkness. He shook his head. “Cynthia just thinks I should, like, be going out with girls and stuff. And doing more than playing video games with my friends. She’s too into social stuff.”

“Hmmm. I can see that. I think she was one of those popular kids in high school.”
Which was, like, last year,
Stella thought meanly, and was proud of herself for not saying aloud.

“Dad says my grades are shit too,” Tristan added.

Stella frowned. “He thinks B’s aren’t good enough?”

“Yeah.”

Stella sighed and patted his shoulder, then stood. “I’ll talk to him. Are you doing your best?”

“Yeah,” Tristan said.

“Then that’s your best. And that’s what matters.”

He gave her a small grin, and it was better than nothing. “Thanks, Mom.”

When he hugged her, Stella was too surprised to do more than stiffly accept the embrace for a few seconds, and by the time she moved to return the hug, Tristan had already broken away from her. He paused in the doorway to look back at her, his mouth open as though he meant to say more, but instead he shook his head and disappeared. She heard his door close, then the faint blare of music she was too tired to tell him to turn down.

Exhausted, Stella sank back onto the bed and rubbed at the pain between her eyes. She remembered her phone after another minute and pulled it from her pocket to find a message from Craig.

The voice mail was brief. “Hey, Stella, it’s Craig. Just trying to catch you before you leave for Chicago. Give me a ring when you get this, or else I’ll talk to you when you get back. Have a great night.”

Totally bland and casual, but she knew him better than that. At least, she had known him, once upon a time. And, once upon that same old time, she’d have been answering him so fast it would’ve made a rift in the time-space continuum, allowing her to call him before he’d finished leaving his message.

But that had been then. This was now, and now she was tired. It was late. She had a week’s worth of travel ahead of her, and she had to get up at two in the morning.

She called him back anyway, half hoping she’d get his voice mail. “Hey, you. Got your call.”

“Stella.” He sounded so pleased she was glad she’d answered. “I wasn’t sure I’d hear from you before you left.”

“Wasn’t sure you’d still be up.” She cradled the phone against her shoulder as she worked, shoving her suitcase full of everything she thought she might need and knowing she wouldn’t use half of what she was packing.

“Just wandering around the internet, wasting time. What time do you leave?”

She told him, and the conversation predictably meandered to the disgustingness of having such an early plane, and traveling in general, and how horrible it was to work but how nice it was to have a job. She and Craig had used to talk about their dreams and ponder things like the existence of the soul. Not this mundane cocktail-party chitchat. Then again, the sound of his voice had once been able to send her heart into pitter-pattering spasms.

“So...when you get back,” Craig said just as Stella was trying to wrap everything up, “can we have dinner?”

“Like a date?” As soon as the words came out, she felt stupid.

Craig laughed softly. “Well. Yeah. A date. Dinner, maybe a movie?”

There’d been a time when even the option of this had seemed impossible, but she’d spent hours dreaming about it anyway. And now here it was, the opportunity dropped in her lap like it had fallen from the sky, and all she could do was stare at it. Stella cleared her throat.

“I...guess... I’ll have to check my schedule, but...”

“If you don’t want to...”

“No, no,” she said hastily. “Of course I want to. Yes. Absolutely.”

Craig hesitated before answering, “You sure?”

“Yes.” She laughed, embarrassed.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated or anything, I mean, if you say no, I’ll just go back into my dark corner and listen to sad opera music.”

“Oh, God. Don’t do that.” She remembered now how easily he’d always been able to make her laugh, and why she’d fallen so hard for him in the first place. “I will go to dinner with you.”

“And a movie?”

“And a movie,” she said.

“Good.”

There was another pause, not so awkward this time. Stella yawned, hating to look at the clock but knowing she had to. “Listen, I have to get to bed. I’ll call you when I get back from Chicago, okay?”

“Get to bed, crazy girl.” The smile in his voice made her smile too. “Safe travels. I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

They said their good-nights and she disconnected, then put her phone on the charger as she went to take a shower. Under the hot water, though, it hit her. Nostalgia. Memory. The day on the riverbank, she’d been certain she’d never see Craig again.

But she had.

* * *

“I feel like I can tell you everything,” Stella says as the rain pours outside, battering the roof of the car and turning the windows blank. Their breath has fogged up the inside just as much, making them invisible.

“You can. You know that.” Craig’s hand pushes her wet hair off her shoulder. His fingers linger, brushing down her arm to take her hand. Linking their fingers. He squeezes gently.

But she can’t tell him everything. There’s too much of it to say to anyone, and how can she expect him to understand? He can try, and she knows he would. But he will never feel what she feels. He will never know what it’s like to have lived with what she has. And in that moment, staring at him across the expanse of his front seat, Stella wants to bare all of her scars to him.

But she can’t.

* * *

Shuddering, Stella bit back a cry, then covered her mouth with both her hands to keep herself from letting out the sob that threatened to surge out of her mouth. She would not let herself break open. Once she started, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. Making herself stone, Stella turned her face to the water as she twisted the dial to cold and forced herself to stand under the frigid spray until everything went numb.

It took a long time.

Finally, teeth chattering, she got out and dried herself off, ran a comb through her hair. Brushed her teeth. Dressed in flannel jammies, she peeked in on Tristan, who was sleeping, then got into her own bed, all without giving in to the waves of emotion that threatened to pull her under and drown her. She breathed, pressing her face into the pillow, thinking of how early the alarm would be going off.

Shit.
The alarm. Stella reached to make sure she’d set the alarm on her phone, and discovered a text from Craig. Short and sweet.

Can’t wait to see you.

This time, Stella didn’t answer.