The Stars Will Shine (32 page)

***

It’s the day I head back to California. Dad told me I don’t have to go, that he’ll fly back and get my things and I can finish out the summer and the new school year in Arizona again. But as upset as I was at him for sending me away, he was right to do it. I needed to leave this place, to see myself through other perspectives, to break free from all the negative experiences and people I’d gotten myself tangled up with here.

“I think—I think I need to go back actually,” I told him. “I think I need to see it through to the end, you know?”

I visit my mother’s grave before I go. I bring flowers, too, even though it feels like a pitiful way to show my love. After all, flowers are only temporary, and in this desert heat, they’ll dry out in no time. I stand silently over her headstone, flat in the earth, my thoughts all blurred together. I don’t know what to say to her, where to start, because there’s so much that I wish she’d been around to talk about with me. And now I’m just left talking to a stone that bears her name. I stare at that stone, and the words engraved into it, meant to memorialize her…for at least a few centuries, long after anyone who ever knew her passes away:

Samantha Swan

1966—2002

Forever loved by her friends and family

It’s so generic. Had I been old enough at the time of her death, I would have insisted on something inimitable, something that would commemorate who she truly was. A mother, a wife, an artist, a humanitarian, a free spirit, an angel on earth.

“I’m sorry,” I finally whisper. A breeze passes through the cemetery, stirring the hair from my shoulder and making me shiver, despite the heat it carries. A car door closes in the distance, and I look up briefly to see a young couple with flowers walk hand in hand toward another grave a ways away. The cemetery is large, with hundreds of graves and even more empty plots waiting to be filled by the dead so that their families have something to hold onto.

It’s only now that I realize how much we, the still living, need this.

“I’m so sorry, Mom.” I fall to my knees before her grave and touch the headstone with my fingertips, tracing her name. “I’m sorry I was ever angry with you for leaving us. It wasn’t your fault. You had no say in it. You fought with everything you had, I know you did. I know you didn’t want to leave me.”

I lie back in the grass beside her, and I confide to her everything about my life since she’s been gone. I tell her about Tommy, how I wish she could have been there to help me see things the way the really were. I tell her about Dave and how this trip made me realize how much I missed having a brother. I tell her about Dad, how he’s doing, how he and I had a long rough patch but that we’re mending things now, thread by thread, day by day. I tell her about Dylan and how I think he and I are more similar than different, how we both have trouble expressing ourselves…and respecting ourselves. I talk about Leah and how much she reminds me of my younger self. Her innocence, her outlook on life. I mention the dress Leah convinced me to buy.

“I used to love dresses, remember that?” I say. “You would love this one so much. It’s so you.”

I’m silent for a long time before I go on because this next part will be the hardest. Still touching her name, I find the strength to tell her about everything I did after Tommy. The stories come out in whispers…how I slept with random guys for the feeling of nothingness; how I came back from parties wasted, sometimes so dangerously close to the edge; how I made life hard for Dad; how I couldn’t find it in me to care about anything or anyone, not even myself. Another breeze passes over me, and this time the warmth wraps around me, reminding me so much of my mother’s hugs. She’s here with me.

Finally I tell her about Aiden. How, after everything I’ve done, I don’t think I’m worthy of his love.

“He told me he was falling in love with me,” I tell her. “But he barely knows me. One day, he’ll realize he can do better. And if he doesn’t realize that, I’m scared that I’ll just drag him down with me, and that’s not fair to him.” I wipe away a tear as I quietly admit, “In some ways, he reminds me of you. He’s always smiling and laughing…and loving…everybody.” I think of his parents, and of all the blame he takes for Dylan. “I don’t understand how somebody can be so whole when they have reasons to be broken.”

A hush falls over me again. I listen to the distant cars driving by, to everybody living their different lives, heading in different directions, occasionally crossing paths and steering each other way off course.

“I care about him,” I finally tell her. “Probably more than I should.”

***

With big hugs Dad and Dave drop me off at the airport. Tommy, unsurprisingly, made some excuse to bow out of my send-off, of which I was more than accepting. I don’t know if I will ever tell Dave what Tommy did to me. I definitely won’t tell my father. Maybe it’s not enough for some people, but I feel I’ve found the closure I need, as is. The healing process isn’t over, but I’m slowly starting to see a shine amid the shadows.

Leah runs up to me as soon as I walk through the door of the Kyler’s house, and wraps her arms tightly around my waist. I pet her hair as I laugh.

“I was scared you weren’t coming back,” she says. “Can we go shopping again? Can we paint our nails tonight? Can you help me paint my room? I want to do orange, too!”

Later, as sundown approaches, I open my bedroom window to let in the cooler air and catch myself staring across the backyard at the stone wall, where Aiden and I had our chance rendezvous so many weeks ago. It’s strange how quickly time has passed since then but how long ago it feels. I back away from the window and fall backwards onto my bed. Leah and I just finished painting our nails a matching magenta color she picked out, and I stare at them now as a distant beep from somewhere deep within my laptop case signals the slow death of my phone. When I rummage around for it, my hand finds something else—something I forgot about in the aftermath of Aiden and me.

With a racing heart, I pull the CD case out.
Songs for Delilah
. I never listened to the entire thing—I remember now—because Aunt Miranda knocked on my door before I ever got to the end.

The end…when Aiden was saying something, confessing something to me.

I toss the case to the side and retrieve my laptop. Popping open the disc drive verifies that the CD is still in there, so I open up the media player and click the last track, titled “The Stars Will Shine,” artist unknown. I’m no detective, but by now I have a guess as to who it’s by.

The track opens with a fuzzy silence, and then Aiden starts to speak, just like last time.

“Delilah,” he says. “Delilah Swan. I hope you like this CD. I—I don’t know why I made it really, just that these songs often remind me of you.”

I close my eyes and imagine Aiden’s fingers touching my neck, his breath fluttering across my cheek.

“And so I was thinking of you as I often am when I hear one of these songs…and I thought, why not, you know? Why not make her a CD. She likes music.”

A long pause follows, and I open my eyes to stare at the screen. But I stare through it; all I see is Aiden’s face. How, I don’t know, but I know his expressions so well. I can see him now, ducking his head then looking back up with a sheepish smile, a hesitant but hopeful look in his eyes. He takes a deep breath, and it sounds so soft, even as it comes loud through the speakers.

“When they’re on my mind, you’re on my mind, and…Well, I’m going to stop rambling now and just play you a song I wrote.” He softly taps the body of his guitar, finding his rhythm. “I wrote—I wrote it for you actually. So, here it goes.”

He fades into it. A slow plucking of the strings of his acoustic guitar, a quick and catchy fingerpicking pattern, intermixed with the rhythmic tap of his thumb against the guitar’s hollow body.

And when his vocals being, double-tracked and ethereal, I’m pulled under and shown a beautiful world, left behind and long forgotten but still at the edges of my fingertips, still in reach if I want it enough.

I’m told you can’t win a race against the light,

That to vie for it is a futile fight.

It’s said life is harder without a friend

To be with you, to help you mend

To see you through until its end.

So, if you need a hand to hold

A body to mold into

Someone to invigorate your soul

A mind to make you whole…

I’ll be a light for you on your darkest days,

Walk with you when you’ve lost your way

I’ll soothe you when you breathe uneven

Smile with you for what’s been given.

I’m told you can’t win a race against the light,

That in the night, the stars will shine.

It’s said there can’t be despair without hope

With no light, there are no shadows

So I just mean to let you know

If you need a hand to hold

A body to mold into

Someone to shake up your soul

A mind to make you whole…

I’ll be a light for you in your darkest hells

I’ll be a confidante when you need to tell

I’ll soothe you when you breathe uneven

And laugh with you to higher heavens

I’ll sing you to sleep and kiss you awake,

Warm you with my true embrace,

Dance with you when the music starts,

Until you truly know my heart.

Until you truly know my heart…

Until you truly know my heart…

I’ll warm you with my true embrace

Until you truly know my heart…

When the song ends, the media player’s visual display goes black, and I’m left in a silence so strongly strung with sensations I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced. I swallow a thick feeling in my throat. My chest feels strange, squeezing in on itself and bellowing outward in a spin, almost like the fractal art that moved onscreen as the music played.

I want to talk to Aiden, but I’m afraid.

Another beep from my phone reminds me I need to plug it in. And when I do, I vacantly watch the light blink red, my heartbeats slowing to match it, and somehow, with Aiden’s song still swimming through my body, I find the courage to text him.

Can you meet me at the swing set at 9:00?

Over the next forty minutes, I receive no response. So I send another.

I’ll wait there for thirty minutes. But if you don’t show, then I want you to know I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Aiden. And I’m so thankful that I got to know you, if only for a summer.

Chapter Twenty

Aiden doesn’t come. I wait for exactly thirty minutes, until the clock hits 9:30, and then I leave.

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning, I take a seat at the kitchen table, while Aunt Miranda stands at the stove, her back to me as she flips pancakes and cracks eggs.

“Delilah!” Leah squeals and leans over to hug me. Uncle Jim barely glances at me over his morning newspaper. Dylan gives a silent nod of acknowledgment, and I do the same back. But Aunt Miranda’s reaction is the one I’m waiting for. She turns around at the stove, spatula in hand, and looks at me in shock…and with such fondness…that I almost want to crawl into myself and hide. Why did I do this? I never come down to eat with them.

I’m the first person she presents with a full platter of bacon, eggs, pancakes, and hash browns. And as we sit and eat, she tries as inconspicuously as possible to watch me take bites, as if she thinks I might only be pretending to eat. At some point, I set down my fork and look right at her, words right on my lips but so difficult to release. She looks back at me, her eyes softer than I’ve ever seen them, and it gives me the courage to finally say something nice to her, but only after Uncle Jim has left the table because I don’t want him stealing the compliment for himself.

“I’d like to see your winery,” I tell her. “The pictures are beautiful. I can only imagine how it looks in person. Do you think—do you think you could show me sometime?”

Her face breaks into a smile, and for a moment, every tired wrinkle on her skin smoothes over. Even inside, sunlight rises in her eyes and turns them a brighter shade of blue.

“Of course,” she says gently. “I can give you the grand tour of the winery and vineyards any time you like.”

I text Aiden again after breakfast and once more ask him to meet me at the swing set tonight at 9:00 p.m. Again, he doesn’t respond. And again, my wait at the swing set proves futile.

On my way back to the Kyler’s that night, I wonder what I would even say to him if I saw him again. Do I even know what I want? Do I want him to give me another chance, or is what I want just to leave things on a better note?

What do you want, Delilah? What do you
really
want?