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As we walked out of the library, she thanked me for opening up to her in such an intimate way.
“It’s not a big deal,” I told her. “But thanks for today. Even though we didn’t study.”
“You’re right, we didn’t,” she agreed, “but we did learn a lot, and I think that’s important.”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“Asking about her.” I didn’t know how deeply my soul needed someone to ask me about my mother.
Her smile came back. “Thank you for asking about mine. I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
“Yeah, see you.”
As she rounded the corner, I stood there, a bit dumbfounded about what had taken place over the past few hours.
Her smile lingered in my mind that night. As I lay in bed, I replayed our earlier conversations nonstop. I couldn’t remember the last time I stayed up thinking about a girl, but Starlet seemed damn near impossible to get off my mind. I couldn’t even process how she’d made me feel alive. She did that to me—she made me feel a little bit more alive than I had the days before.
Damn…
She made me feel again.
I almost forgot what that was like.
After she had to deal with me and my being high the other day, I should’ve not made her life harder than it had to be. So I did my homework that evening. I figured that would make her proud or some shit.
CHAPTER 13
Starlet
For the past few weeks, Milo turned in almost 70 percent of his missing assignments. He showed up to our study sessions each day without complaint, too. He gave me some of his sass and sarcastic remarks, but I was learning that that was just who he was as a person. I liked the bark behind his comments because I knew they didn’t hold any true malice.
Some days he’d share a few details about his mom, and others, I’d share about mine. It felt like a safe place for us to talk about things that many people our age didn’t have to deal with.
After one of the nights I shared with him, he frowned, shook his head, and said, “No thirteen-year-old should lose a parent.”
“You shouldn’t have lost yours either.”
“Life’s a bitch.”
Another day, he told me that for weeks after his mother passed away, he’d walk into the kitchen, close his eyes, and pray that once he opened them, she’d be back there whipping up his breakfast.
He didn’t know it, but I cried in my car for him after he shared that fact. My heart ached for him and the things he’d lost when his mother passed away. He was a shell version of himself, which was heartbreaking. I wondered what he was like before the heartbreak. I wondered what it was like for him before he lost his way.
Starlet: I have an idea for your photography class final project.
Milo: Am I going to hate it?
Starlet: There’s a good chance you’ll hate it. But that’s just because you seem to hate everything.
Milo: You’re not wrong.
I smiled down at my phone as I sat on my dorm bed. Sometimes, I wondered if it was okay that I smiled the way I did when Milo’s name popped up on my phone. Or I was playing a dangerous game that would end like a Shakespearean tragedy.
Milo: What’s the idea, Teach?
Starlet: The assignment is to showcase an emotion or feeling. I want it to be as authentic as you are, and I want it to be your truth at this moment. I think that would be best.
Milo: Which would be…?
Starlet: Empty. Coldness. Closed-offish.
Milo: I’m glad you’re discovering who I am.
Starlet: I’m a quick study. So your theme would be winter. We have plenty of snow around, and even if you wanted to travel up north for some photos, that’s a possibility since they’ll have more. I can go with you on these shoots to help you stage the photographs and whatnot.
Why? Why did I offer that? Why did I want that? Why did I want to find reasons to be around him when I wasn’t supposed to be? Why did I wish for more days, more hours, and more minutes with Milo?
I waited patiently for Milo to come up with some sarcastic remark or tell me it was a dumbass idea. But all he said was…
Milo: Cool. I’m in.
Cool, I’m in.
Nothing more, nothing less, yet somehow it was a lot more than I thought I’d get.
He then sent a photograph of his completed math homework, which I looked over. Every answer was correct. I’d quickly learned that Milo wasn’t unintelligent. He might’ve been one of the smartest individuals out there. He simply didn’t apply himself. After learning about his mother, I understood him a lot more, too. I didn’t want to learn those first few years after losing my own mother. I didn’t want to feel anything. If it weren’t for my father pushing me, I wouldn’t have made it, if I were honest.
