Why was she calling?
Did she know?
Where I was?
When Layna was finally dressed she came to stand beside me. Her hand on my back. Over my star.
Over the star just like the one on her hip.
The star that bound us together.
With our demons.
I shivered at her touch. Not burning. But freezing. From the inside out.
Tomorrow was the day.
But tonight was about other things.
“I think I need some air,” I said, pulling at the collar of my shirt. Feeling strangled.
Too tight.
“Okay.” She breathed. In and out.
We stepped out onto the balcony. The air was crisp and cool. Autumn was coming. Where would we be when the leaves died?
“Look up,” Layna instructed, sounding strangely hard.
I did as she told me to. All I saw were stars. Lots and lots of stars. I frowned, not sure why they would make her sound like that.
As though she were angry.
Disgusted.
In awe.
Contradiction.
“Imagine that all the stars are people. What stories would they tell?” she asked, smiling wide. Smiling high. To reach the moon.
“Imagine the stars are people?” I asked. Confused.
What was she talking about? I had the feeling I was missing something. Something important. Something for her, and her alone.
Then she was frowning. No longer smiling. Looking defeated. Upset.
Then…blank.
“Did you bring your pills, Elian?” she asked. The pills. She had asked me about them several times now.
What pills?
Those pills, Elian…
The voice drifted in from all sides. Into my ears. Willing me to remember.
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Yes you do, Elian. Think. Think about what you’re taking them for. Tell me. I want to know. I don’t like you keeping secrets from me,” Layna scolded and I almost snorted.
She didn’t like me keeping secrets?
Yet she kept hers close. I couldn’t see them. She’d never share.
Pills. Pills. What were they for?
“The Risperdal?” I asked. Clarifying.
Layna took my hand in hers. Fingers folding. Palm to palm.
Under the stars that she imagined as people telling their stories. Stories I didn’t understand.
“Yes, the Risperdal. The empty bottle in the sink. The pills down the drain. What are they for? Tell me.”
I thought hard. So many parts of my past were hidden by the lies I had told and the fantasy I had created. As I became Elian Beyer, those part, the real parts, became lost. It was hard to remember what was truth and what was illusion.
“I saw a doctor,” I began, struggling for the words. My head pounded, my hands tightening around hers.
“I couldn’t cope after Amelia—”
“After Amelia,” Layna repeated.
“After Amelia,” I nodded. My phone buzzed in my pocket again. I wanted to pull it out and look. But I didn’t.
Not here.
“I couldn’t—”
I stopped. I didn’t want to continue. Why was this so hard?
Lanya ran her hand up the back of my shirt. Over inked skin and enigmas.
“You broke,” Layna finished for me.
I frowned.
Is that what happened?
“I broke,” I agreed, feeling the rightness of it.
I broke.
I broke.
I was broken.
“Where are the pieces, Elian?” Layna asked, looking up at the sky. The clear night sky full of stars.
Stories. Her stories.
Not mine.
I suddenly felt all alone.
Like she had already left me.
Sick.
And starving.
Lost.
“I don’t want you to go tomorrow,” I said, sounding like a child. Like a petulant, spoiled brat not getting his way.
Layna ignored me. There was no point in answering.
We were here.
He was here.
The choice had been made.
No matter how wrong it felt.
“Is this why you came to Virginia? To be closer to him?” I asked her, wanting the answer. Perhaps I already knew. She seemed startled though. As if she hadn’t really thought about it until that very moment.
Layna Whitaker planned everything. She wasn’t a woman who was blindsided.
But she seemed blindsided now.