The one good thing about living in the middle of nowhere is that you can see the stars. They stretch out across the heavens like specks of diamonds scattered over a blanket of dark blue. The constellations seem to swirl together in a trapeze of wires. Or, it could be all swell and pretty if every star didn’t look exactly the same. It really bites the big one when you can't figure the big dipper from Orion’s belt. I don't even know if they’re in the same constellation.
I raise a star chart up toward the sky and turn the pinwheel around so that the stars align. Or at least I think they align. I never really paid attention when Micah used it.
It used to be that the stars foretold your fate. I’m not sure how much of that I believe, that the stars can predict who and what you will become, but I imagine it’d be . . . peaceful . . . to know where you were heading before you got there. Like a road map. You will graduate college here, and you will marry here, and if you look a little farther down you’ll see your kids, and your job, and how happy or sad or indifferent you will be about them.
Mine would probably be pretty boring, stagnant like millions of those stars.
“Damn stupid . . . ,” I curse at the star chart as I try to find the right constellations.
“I think we’re in the northern hemisphere, Igs.”
Startled, I sit up and glance over my shoulder toward the voice. Micah, a dark-blue beanie pulled low over his head, comes to meet me in the middle of our yards.
“Hi,” I greet.
“Hi,” he echoes. “Nice middle ground you have here. Mind if I join?”
“Only if you’ve brought the meteor showers.” I pat the ground beside me. He shuffles over to sit down beside me on the grass.
“We haven’t done this in a while,” he says after a moment.
“No, we haven’t.” I turn the star chart the other way. He leans in close to me, shoulder brushing against mine. I remember when he used to lean so close to me my skin felt ignited with a million little fireflies underneath. Like there was no one but me and him, and the universe was ours. But now . . . now all I can think about is Billie dancing with me at the Sunflower Festival, and the whine of LD’s teal violin as it plays “Whatsername,” and the possibility of Dark and Brooding.
Now all I can think about is how much of the universe I’ve missed all this time, thinking that he was it.
“So, have you seen any tonight?” He tilts his head back to gaze at the stars. I like the way the shadows accent his pronounced jaw, and the way the planes of his face darken and stretch, like he’s something else entirely. I can see why Heather likes him. He really is gorgeous.
“Nah—but you’re supposed to see Mars really well tonight, too. All I see is the moon and a bunch of tiny stars.”
He laughs and gently plucks the star chart out of my hands. “Here, lemme show you.” Turning the spinner so it reflects the night sky, he holds it up, one eye closed, and points to a red-looking star above us. “That’s it right there. If we leave right now, we’ll get there in eight months.”
“Ick, I haven’t even packed. What do you wear on Mars?”
“They’re very fashion forward; you know how those Martians are.”
“I wouldn’t fit in there, then.” I fall back against the grass. The blades prickle against the back of my neck. He lies down beside me and puts his head on my shoulder like old times. I wish it felt like old times, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel new, either. It just feels . . . sad.
“And if we want to go to Venus,” he goes on as if I hadn’t said a word, “it would take one hundred and ten days.”
“But you’ll never leave,” I reply. “You’ll stay here forever.”
“Steadfast is as good a place as any. I heard about Grams. You’re putting her in a home.”
“Yeah.”
“Because you want to leave?” His voice is oddly detached. “Because you’ve got better places to go?”
“What?” I sit up with a jerk. “No! I just—I can’t do this anymore.”
He sits up, too. “You barely even tried.”
“You don’t live with her every day! And who are you to judge me?”
“I’m not judging you. I’m your friend, Ingrid!”
“Friend?” I scoff. “You haven’t talked to me in a month!”
He throws his hands up. “What do you call those orchids?”
“Oh? You mean the orchids for your girlfriend?”
“You know they were for you!”
“But no one else did!” I snap back.
His eyes grow wide with anger. “I’m doing my best, Ingrid! It’s kind of hard to be a good boyfriend when my best friend won’t even try to play nice! You don’t even care about me being happy! And I’m happy, Ingrid. I’m so damn happy and you don’t even care.”
His words feel like a sucker punch in the stomach. I fist my hands. “And your girlfriend is just an innocent bystander in all this? Forgive me if I don’t believe that horse crap!”
“No, the problem is you.”
“Me!” I echo.
What feels like anger begins to well up in my chest like a heartburn after too many cheesy fries, but the longer it sits on my chest, the more it begins to sour. No, it isn’t anger. It’s disappointment. I don’t point out all of the years we “trespassed” on Heather’s parties in the past. I don’t mention the times we busted up a barn party or filled her pool with Jell-O or wrapped all of her guests’ cars in plastic wrap. I don’t mention the years that hang over us like stars, because he isn’t looking at the stars anymore. He hasn’t been stargazing since he met her.
“Keep out of my life, Ingrid.” Turning on his heels, he stalks across the grass, over the footprints he laid just minutes before.
A knot grows in my throat. “Wait!” I blurt, but he doesn’t stop—like he doesn’t even hear me. Or he ignores me. He’s never done that before, and I never thought he would. He stomps up the steps onto his front porch and slams the front door behind him. “My . . . star chart,” I mutter weakly.
“Hon, who are you talking to?” Grams calls out from the front door.
Sighing, I stomp up the steps and knock the dirt off my boots. “No one, Grams.”
She holds up a hand before I get inside. “You got a dirty behind.”
I mock hurt. “Why Grams, you’d deny a warm and loving home to your only granddaughter?”
“If she messes up my furniture, quite right.” She watches as I wipe the dirt off my butt, and cocks her head. The rollers in her snow-white hair clink together. “Was that an argument?”
“Maybe.”
She gives me a hard look, and I cave.
“Yeah, we’re having an elongated argument.”
“It’s about the mayor’s daughter, isn’t it?”
“Sorta.” I turn around so she can inspect my now dirt-less butt, and it must be acceptable enough because she lets me in again. I put my shoes on the rubber mat by the door as she totters off to the dining room table, where she’s been putting together the same flower puzzle since April. If Grams is anything, she’s persistent—even when she doesn’t remember it.
But today is good. Today is a good day.
I hope she has a lot of those before she leaves.
She picks up one of the last pieces and begins fitting it in one of the holes in Santa’s beard. It’s nowhere near Christmas. “It doesn’t surprise me. Love makes you do crazy things. Both the right and wrong kind.”
“Do you think Heather’s wrong for him?”
She shakes her head. “I’m glad he isn’t dating you. I have been worried about that for a while.”
“Gee, thanks,” I reply glumly, sitting down at the table to watch her fit the last pieces in.
“Oh, don’t give me that.” She throws her hand out and slaps me on the arm. But then she pauses, and really looks at me. The crow’s feet around her eyes scrunch together. “Do you love him?”
“I thought I did,” I reply, and realize just how earnest it is, “but now I don’t think I do. Micah says he loves Heather. He’ll do anything for her. He’ll take her side, believe her over me, practically ruin our friendship because I’m not pretty enough or not smart enough—”
“Sweetie, it’s never your fault. You are never not enough. You are never too much. You are smart, and you shine brighter every day.” She pats my hands and smiles. “And that’s why I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore.”
A knot forms in my throat. I’ve been putting off talking to her about the retirement home. I don’t want to ask the questions that I have to ask—why she arranged it all without me, why she didn’t let me have a say.
I hug her tightly. “You’re never a burden to me.”
“Oh, but I am, sweetie,” she says into my hair. “Love’s a heavy burden.”