“Maybe you can come visit,” Gemma said. It was an offer she’d been making for years, but Nathalie hadn’t been home in a very long time.
“I don’t want to visit.” She pouted, sticking out her bottom lip and pulling at the hem of her T-shirt. “I bet you guys have fun all the time. Nobody ever tells you what to do.”
“Harper tells me what to do all the time.” Gemma laughed. “And of course there’s Dad.”
“Oh. Right,” Nathalie said. “I forgot about him.” Her forehead pinched in concentration. “What’s his name again?”
“Brian.” Harper smiled to hide the hurt and swallowed hard. “Dad’s name is Brian.”
“I thought it was Justin.” She waved her hand, brushing off the subject. “Did you guys want to go to the concert with me if I can get tickets?”
“I don’t think so,” Harper said. “We’ve got a lot going on.”
The conversation went on that way for a while. Nathalie asked about the girls’ lives, and they told her things they’d told her a hundred times before. When they left, Harper felt the same way she always did—drained but relieved.
She loved her mother, just as Gemma loved her mother, and they were both glad they saw her. But Harper couldn’t help wondering what any of them got out of this.
FIVE
Stargazing
The garbage can smelled like a dead animal. Gemma wrinkled her nose and tried to avoid gagging as she tossed the bag in the can behind her house. She had no idea what her father or Harper had thrown away, but it was pretty rank.
Waving her hand in front of her face, she stepped away. Gemma breathed in the fresh night air as deeply as she could.
She glanced over at the neighbors’ house. Lately she found herself glancing over at it more and more, as if subconsciously looking for Alex. This time she was in luck. In the glow from her backyard light, she saw Alex sprawled out on his lawn, staring up at the sky.
“What are you doing?” Gemma asked, walking into Alex’s backyard without waiting to be invited.
“Looking at constellations,” Alex said, but she’d already known the answer before she’d asked. For as long as she’d known him, he’d spent more time with his head in the stars than here on the ground.
He lay on his back, his fingers latched behind his head, an old blanket beneath him. The Batman T-shirt was actually a bit small for him, a leftover from before his recent growth spurt. The muscles in his arms and his broad shoulders pulled at the fabric. The T-shirt had pulled up a bit, so she could see a hint of his belly above his jeans, and Gemma quickly looked away and pretended she hadn’t noticed.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Uh, no. Of course not.” Alex quickly scooted over, making room for her on the blanket.
“Thanks.”
The blanket wasn’t very big, so when Gemma sat down, she was right next to him. As she lay back, her head bumped his elbow. To avoid that, Alex moved his arm so it was in between them. Now his arm was pressed against hers, and she tried not to think about how warm his skin felt.
“So … what exactly are you looking at?” Gemma asked.
“I’ve shown you the constellations before,” Alex said, and he had, many times. But most of those times had been when she was younger and she hadn’t hung on his words like she did now.
“I was just wondering if there was anything in particular you were watching.”
“No. Not really. I just love the stars.”
“Is that what you’re going to college for?”
“Stars?” Alex asked. “Kind of, I guess. I mean, it’s not like I’ll be an astronaut or anything.”
“Why not?” She tilted her head so she could look over at him.
“I don’t know.” He shifted on the blanket, and his hand brushed against Gemma’s. “Going into outer space is an awesome dream, yeah, but I’d rather stay on the ground and make a difference. I want to study and track the weather and the atmosphere. It could save lives if people knew about storms sooner.”
“You’d rather be down here watching the sky instead of up in it because you can help people?” Gemma asked.
She stared at him, surprised by how much he’d grown up. Not just in the strong line of his jaw, or the trail of dark hair she’d seen on his belly. But something had changed inside him. At some point he’d stopped being the boy who obsessed over video games and had become somebody concerned with the world around him.
“Yeah.” He shrugged and turned to face her. They lay on the blanket staring at each other for a minute, and then Alex smirked. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Gemma said, but she quickly looked away, afraid that he might see something in her expression.
“You think it’s weird, right?” Alex asked, still watching her. “You think I’m a geek for wanting to watch weather patterns.”