“You don't have to.Do you remember that one time when I was in ninth grade when…”
Somewhere in the back of my head, I can still hear her voice,but it's become an odd drone.My eyes have caught movement out the window.
Something in the shadows between the trees on the other side of my backyard is moving.
At first, I think it might be a wild animal, butthen I realize it's a person, definitely on two legs, not four.
And then the figure steps out from between the branches of the trees.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“What? What is it?” Mackenzie asks,but I'm already up out of my seat. “Mason!” I hear her call, but I ignore her.
I throw open the back door, go down the concrete steps, and stop.
Starlight has stopped, too,on the other side of the yard, on the edge of the dirt path that goes from my back door tothe woods.
He's so blue today, bright and soft-looking, and definitely not a wild animal.
There's a lump in my throat, and I'm afraid if I open my mouth, I might throw up.
Finally, after a long stretch of seconds, Starlight says,“I came as quickly as I could.”
I run toward him—I don't know if I've ever covered so much distance that quickly—and throw myself into his arms, clutching at his shoulders like he's going to dissolve right in front of me.
“Star,” I whisper, “you're here. What are you doing here?”
His fingers are in my hair,running down my back, clutching at my hips. “You told me to come back.”
All the breath rushes out of me. I'm afraid that I'm going to turn into dead weight in his armsfrom relief, from happiness, from want.
“You heard me?” I pull back and take his face in my hands.
He nods. “I did. I thought you would not want me to come because—” His voice breaks. I’m not sure anyone has cried in front of me as much as Star has, and itkills me every time.
“I never wanted you to go,” I say, “but we didn't have a choice.”
“And what has changed?” he asks. There's this tug of desperation in his voice, and I get it.None of it makes sense.
“I might have a solution. I think Idohave a solution.We just have to try.”
“Okay,” he says, without hesitating. “Your solution worked last time.”
I set my forehead against his shoulder and laugh. “I think maybe Marty is smarter than me.”
His mouth stretches in a smile, and I can't keep myself from kissing him.That beautiful mouth, his lips so soft, so pink.I bury my hands in his curls. I never want to let him go.
But he pulls back enough to look me in the eye. “I love you,”he says.
I think I'm starting to feel that pain that he knows so well,right in the center of my chest.
“What?” is all I manage to spit out.
He smiles, but it's almost sad, his eyes looking through me. “I learned a lot while I was back home.”
“Learned how?” I ask.
He lifts one shoulder. “As I told you, consciousness is different there.I was not sure before of what I was feeling, but I learned about love. I have seen things and heard themthrough the shared consciousness of the sky.”
