BRIGHTON
It’s really sinking in how short life is.
I walk back to the cottage, thinking about how I’ll never own a house I can show off to my family. How everything I always wanted for myself—fame, power, success, family—won’t ever happen. I made some stupid, arrogant choices and I’m paying the price for it now. But the conversations I’ve had lately with Ruth and Emil are inspiring me to make some better decisions before my time runs out.
Prudencia was in the shower when I left to go kill some tension with Emil but she’s nowhere to be seen inside now. I go back outside and I find her in the grass clearing by the toolshed, sitting cross-legged in the air. Her eyes are closed and she’s wobbling but mostly keeping her balance. There’s always been something attractive about Prudencia concentrating that distracted me so much that I would sneak peeks, like whenever we did homework together or made signs for protests or the couple times she helped me edit my videos. But she’s stunning in this moment, fully in her own element—wet dark hair pulled back by a rubber band, one of Ruth’s Every Body Is Super shirts tucked into sweatpants, and elevated by the power she’s kept secret for too many years.
I feel weird standing here and watching her, so I whisper her name to get her attention, louder and louder, until I accidentally scare her and she drops to the ground. I run over and help her up with my left hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
Prudencia sucks in a breath while she massages her elbow. “It’s okay.”
“Do you need ice?” I turn to go back inside.
“No, it’s fine. Between all the battles lately I can handle a little fall.” She wipes the dirt from her hands onto her sweatpants. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was looking for you.” The seconds of silence that follow are too much, so I quickly add, “How about you?”
Prudencia points at the Cloaked Phantom. “We didn’t get a chance to appreciate the Crowned Dreamer at its zenith, so I figured I’d come out tonight and feel these stars on my skin.”
I start backing away. “Okay, I’ll leave you to that.”
I need to be better about respecting her background.
Prudencia sits on the grass and stares ahead at the bay. “I could use a break,” she says and I stop retreating. “Balancing myself in the air is pretty taxing. So, you were looking for me?”
“I just wanted to talk.”
“About . . . ?”
“Everything. Nothing. Whatever feels right.”
She pats the grass beside her. “Come sit.”
The last time we got to sit like this in nature was on my birthday. I hosted that underwhelming meet-up for not even a dozen Brightsiders and went home with too much merch. I have way more clout now, I’m sure I could get hundreds of people. But this focus on strangers has always been my problem. I’ve always had a real friend right here by my side. Someone who could’ve been more if I put her before others.
“I’m really sorry,” I say. It crushes me when I realize I have so much to apologize for. “My ego won every battle against you and Emil but it especially wasn’t fair to you. Emil and I have been able to turn to our parents whenever we got on each other’s nerves, but you’ve been alone with Maia, who hasn’t been a good aunt to you. She didn’t even let you be yourself. And I failed by not being someone you can trust.”
Prudencia folds her arms over her knees and nods. “I really appreciate that, Brighton. I never wanted to take my powers to the grave, but I didn’t want to embrace them anymore. It’s been really lonely, though.”
I don’t want to ask because I’m scared of how it will make me feel, but this is the work I got to do to make up for all the times I put myself before her. “But you had Dominic, right? Celestial boyfriend who understood you?”
“It could’ve,” she says. “If I’d told him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It didn’t feel written in the stars,” Prudencia says. “His family is very proud of their gleamcraft. Practically purists. I liked Dominic a lot, but I wasn’t going to lay out all my cards so my high school boyfriend’s parents would like me.”
“You were always too good for him anyway,” I say.
“Is this still because he wouldn’t do a CONY interview?” Prudencia asks with a grin.
I laugh. “All I’m saying is that if he was so proud to be a celestial he would’ve let me profile him.”
“He would’ve if he didn’t feel so competitive. You always had higher marks and more followers. I explained to him over and over that growing your platform was important for your dreams of hosting your own TV show and that it didn’t matter for his ambitions as a pilot. But he still kept tabs on you.”
It’s strange to think that someone who could travel through shadows was jealous of me. “Well, he was lucky enough to date you. That’s a big win.”
The starlight on Prudencia’s blushing cheeks tightens my chest. The constellation is about change and I hope she’s as open to honoring that as I am. Her eyes glow like skipping stars and she looks like a maestro as she makes small rocks and branches dance around us. The movements are mostly delicate; even when a couple branches snap, she catches them before they can hit the ground and adds them into her telekinetic current.
“Mamí wasn’t a celestial, but Papí was. The first in our family in seven generations. That’s why our telekinesis isn’t as naturally powerful. He didn’t have anyone to teach him how to use his power, but I was lucky to have him. The most important lesson was focus.” Prudencia’s fingers move more forcefully, like she’s giving the air a deep-tissue massage. “To suspend something in elevation, you have to maintain focus. You can’t forget about a single rock or stick. You have to decide on the movements for each. It gets trickier when you’re also carrying yourself . . .” She ascends, not as high as when I found her out here tonight, and then I suddenly feel like I’m being slowly sucked up to the sky. “. . . and when you’re carrying others.”
We’re sitting across from each other in the air with nature swirling around us. She’s beginning to sweat as she gracefully lowers us to the ground.
“Better landing this time,” she jokes.
“Thanks for telling me all of that. It’s like I get to know you all over again.”
“I’m happy to tell you everything as long as it doesn’t end up on Celestials of New York,” Prudencia says with a smile, even though I know she’s serious. She lies down on the grass and stares at the stars.
I’m running out of time to see her smile and float together. I’m so stupid, the kind of stupid that could’ve only been salutatorian if he cheated. I put hours and hours into Celestials of New York so that I could be the go-to platform for news about a community I don’t belong to—one I had hoped to belong to if Abuelita’s psychic powers manifested in me. I always dreamed of profiling myself: Brighton of New York. But that’s never happening.
I inch closer and lie down beside her. The Cloaked Phantom is this sparkling, gigantic reminder to be the change you want to see.
“You know I’ve always wanted more in life than likes and views, right?” I ask with my heart in my throat as I rest my hand on top of Prudencia’s and squeeze. “I’ve always had feelings for you, Pru. I even broke up with Nina because I saw you as more than a friend, but then you were dating Dominic, and I waited and it hurt and now we’re single but all of this is happening. It’s always felt like we’ve had this unspoken thing between us and our timing has never been great, but seeing as I could drop dead any moment there’s literally no time like the present. I’m sorry for pushing you away at Nova when you asked me to choose you. I should’ve stayed and told you I love you.”
Prudencia doesn’t move. She doesn’t rip her hand out from under mine but she doesn’t embrace it either. My stupid streak continues thinking that if she ever had feelings for me that they would still exist after every awful thing I’ve done.
I pull my hand away. “I’m sorry. You’ve always been too extraordinary for someone like me. I’m not even talking about the powers.” I get up. “I’ll leave you alone. Enjoy the constellation.”
Every step I take away from her I expect her to call my name but she never does. I sneak one last look over my shoulder and Prudencia is still stretched across the grass with her eyes on the Cloaked Phantom. She clearly doesn’t want anything to change between us and that’s that.
I go inside. Wesley is in the kitchen giving Esther her bottle. His hipster bun is down and his brown hair rests behind his neck and he looks exhausted. He mentions something about the constellation being beautiful tonight but I go straight to my room, switch off the light, and lock the door. It’s like I told Emil earlier: Screw these constellations.
Screw the Cloaked Phantom for inspiring me to make a fool of myself.
Screw the Crowned Dreamer for killing me instead of making me immortal.
In bed, I feel fevered and itchy and nauseous as I think about how much stronger I’d be if I hadn’t failed so many times in my short life: I wouldn’t feel like such a runner-up if I’d gotten valedictorian instead of salutatorian; I would’ve felt more valued if my so-called fans bothered to come to my meet-up; I would’ve felt more powerful if I could’ve somehow stopped Dad from dying or had the means to avenge Ma or the Reaper’s Blood to protect myself eternally; I could’ve built something with Prudencia if I didn’t obsess over Celestials of New York; I could’ve been living my own life if I hadn’t followed Emil to save his.
Ultimately, I’m always the sidekick and never the hero.
I won’t have to be tired of that for much longer.
I grab my phone, its light harsh on my eyes until I lower the brightness. My Instagram feed is mostly pictures of people posting the Cloaked Phantom with captions about changes they want to make moving forward as if they ever honored their New Year’s resolutions. These pictures are pissing me off all over again.
Someone knocks on the door and I shout, “What?!”
I’m not in the mood for some check-in from Emil or Wesley.
“Can I come in?” Prudencia asks from the other side of the door.
“Yeah,” I say reluctantly. Here comes the I’m-sorry-you-took-so-long-to-get-this-right talk.
She tries to let herself in, but the door is still locked. A second later, she telekinetically unlocks it from the outside. Prudencia walks straight through the darkness, the constellation’s light filtering through the window, and she crawls on top of me in bed and kisses me. I’ve wanted this for years, wanted it like having powers of my own, and her lips feel better on mine than every cheek kiss she’s given me as a friend. This isn’t some quick kiss either, it has life to it. Her hands touch me all over and I give in and explore her too.
Everything about this kiss feels like she’s telling me that she’ll be sad to see me go.
When she starts taking off my shirt and telekinetically closes the door, it tells me something else.