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So long as she’s okay, I don’t fucking care if she decided to… up and start a new life or whatever. One without Mason. Without Waylon. Without our parents. Without me…
I’d be pissed, sure. We’d all be furious.
But she’d be alive. And that’s all that matters.
“There’s nothing…” Mason says, his thick voice carrying on the balmy breeze.
Pushing up to a stand from where I was crouched by a bed of flowers, I brush the dirt off my hands, and go join Mason.
He’s standing in the center of the garden with his head thrown back, hands stuffed in his pockets. Like me, he’s wearing jeans, though far less baggier than mine. And whereas I wear an oversized gray t-shirt with a black skull emblem across the front, he’s got on an unbuttoned navy and black flannel over a white t-shirt.
Isn’t he warm? I think distantly.
But then I realize… I’m cold.
Hugging myself, I sidle up to him, and tip my head back, following his gaze to the stars.
“We’ll keep looking,” he says quietly, like maybe the words are just for him.
I swallow thickly, and shake my head, whispering “She’s not here.”
A beat passes.
“Don’t say that,” he whispers back, his voice trembling.
Despite how quietly he utters them, the words seem to echo across the empty garden.
I slowly drag my gaze from the stars to where Mason’s already peering back at me.
A solid beat passes, and then he rips his gaze away, agony and something undefinable rippling over his features.
I hang my head, staring unseeingly at the ground as it hits me suddenly—bowls me over so powerfully, how it doesn’t take me to my knees, I don’t know. What he has to be thinking… realizing…
What I’ve been too terrified to even consider…
She’s missing. That’s all this is.
She’s lost, and we’ll find her. If not us, the cops.
She’s not?—
“They’re dead.”
Everything in me stills. “What?”
My throat thickens, and I blink rapidly, trying to stave off the flood of panic and nausea that is slowly but surely building inside me.
“The stars. They’re dead.”
Frowning, I look up, taking in the pale, sharp edges of Mason’s profile, and once again I follow his gaze up to the distant lights winking back at us from universe.
“My dad,” Mason goes on stiffly. “He told me that once. I used to…I used to talk to them. The stars. Like they were my friends.”
Something stutters in my chest.
“I’d ask them for things. Make wishes. Tell them secrets. You know.”
My breath hitches. “Mason…”
