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She rushed over to comfort me but stopped the second another person walked past the glass panels of our study room. I hated that she had to have that hesitation. I hated that I couldn’t wrap her in my arms and hold her.
“Nothing. Everything just went dark for a short period,” I explained, taking my seat. “I got the pictures from up north developed and—”
“What do you mean everything went dark?” she questioned, alert and concerned. She took a seat across from me and didn’t tear her eyes away from me. I didn’t know why I expected anything else from her. I did fall out of my damn desk and have a full-blown panic attack in front of the whole classroom.
“I don’t know. That’s exactly what I mean. Everything went black. I couldn’t see for a while. It’s fine now. Everything’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” she disagreed. “You were having trouble seeing when we were up north, too. And I noticed you squinting a lot. You need to get your eyes checked out.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry about me, Teach. I’m fine.”
She reached a hand across the table and placed it on my forearm. “Please, Milo.”
The concern in her voice made my chest tighten slightly. “You want me in glasses that bad, huh?”
“It could be something serious.”
“It’s not anything serious.”
“But it could be—”
“Okay,” I said, tossing my hands up in the air. “I’ll get an eye exam if that makes you sleep better at night.”
She nodded. “It will. Thank you.”
“Now, can we stop being serious, and can I show you the photographs?”
She sat back in her chair, removing her hand from my forearm. I missed her touch before it fully disappeared from my skin. “Yes, I’d love to see them,” she said, combing her hair behind her ears. She did that when she was nervous. She was probably still working through her worry about me, but I’d be fine.
I was always fine—even when I wasn’t.
“Star.”
“Yes?”
“I’m okay.”
“Promise me you’ll go?” Her gentle brown eyes stared into me, into my soul, and that was when it happened. They say one couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when they began to fall in love, but I could. It was in the study room at the public library on a cold winter afternoon. I was falling in love with Starlet Evans and knew I could not stop it.
No, it wasn’t because of her concern for me that I was falling in love with her. It was her concern with…everything and everyone. I knew I wasn’t special when it came to Starlet’s gentleness. I’d watched her interact with a few of the other students. I’d watched her extend her time and energy to help whenever others approached her. Starlet was the definition of love, and I was falling into her with every passing second.
When I looked at her, I was filled with light. That was what she did to others. She added light to the darkest corners of their spirit.
I wanted to tell her, but I knew it was too soon.
But it was there.
The love had begun, and I knew it would only keep growing as time passed.
Starlet was the kind of girl where love only grew stronger over time.
“I promise,” I told her. “I promise on my mother’s heart.”
Her lips pursed up, and those doe eyes blinked a few times before she nodded. Her shoulders relaxed as a tiny smile found her lips. “Let me see the photographs.”
CHAPTER 22
Milo
My father had been drunk for the past few weeks, but that was nothing new. He didn’t even question where I’d been the weekend I’d run off with Starlet. Most of the time, it felt like he was a ghost, more than my mother had been. He’d sometimes walk past me to the kitchen to grab another beer, haunting me with his slight presence. I was surprised he was able to keep working his job.
He was officially losing himself in his depression and alcoholism, and I wasn’t sure what his story's next step or phase would be. Some nights, I worried about walking into the house and finding him dead in a puddle of his own piss and beer. I hated those thoughts because I wasn’t sure if my heart could take another break like that. It felt selfish to think those kinds of things, but even though we weren’t currently close, I had more good memories with my father than bad.
He was the man who taught me how to ride a bike.
He was the person who showed me how to drive a stick.
He taught me to play the saxophone and introduced me to jazz.
He told me he was proud of me every night until Mom died.
Before the tragedy, my father was my hero. The man I looked up to at all times. He was my family’s protector, and I was almost certain that he could pull us out of the darkness if anything ever went wrong. And if I lost him…if he lost the battle of depression and lost his life…I was almost certain I’d lose the last small bits of me, too.
