The Brightest Star in a Constellati... - Chapter 31: Chapter 31

☆ Evan ☆
The words Peter left on my whiteboard are like an uninvited guest inside my mind. I don't have to ask what it means. The logic behind both sentences is absolute: Nothing is permanent. Everything is temporary.
I jog around the school under the bubblegum pink sky. Clouds roll like a mountain range behind apartment buildings built like ramps as I hurry into the safety of the double doors. Lunchtime is almost over; based on my internal clock, I have about twenty minutes.
My math class is after lunch, and in the meantime, I grab a sandwich and a paper cup filled with shitty, low-grade coffee. I dart upstairs, knocking back my drink.
On my way past the rows of classrooms, I spot Nicole. She's squinting at her computer screen, and she whirls around in the office chair to face me. Rolling across the floor, she balances against the doorframe and says, "You've come at the perfect time. I have a quest for you."
I follow her into the classroom. Plucking a red pen off the teacher's deck, she taps the computer. It's filled with lines of text against a black screen. Nicole holds up her finger so that I wait for her to switch tabs, showing me a separate page. It's like a flash game; a pixelated green background behind a character selection screen. The options are greyed out.
"This," Nicole says, wagging her finger at me, "is my secret project." She clicks on the first character in the list. The selection flickers away, switching to dialogue boxes that scroll across the screen. A rising sun like a phoenix cracks out of the frame, creeping to its zenith over the destroyed, burnt grass. "It's an apocalyptic world—but after the worst has passed. The only survivors live in a tiny town—that doesn't have a name right now—and they have to work together to keep it running. But what it does need is an artist. Somebody who can take these generic assets and turn them into a decent game."
I pop the rest of my food into my mouth. "So this is what you've been working on all this time?"
"Exactly." Nicole grins and lowers her triangle-lens glasses, coloured a bright shade of citrus. "We're going to do some designing together."
☆ ☽ ☆
I hate the colour red.
I would think that makes me less of an artist, because what the hell does it mean to hate a primary colour? It's as if—for the rest of my life—I tried to write without using a vowel. It wouldn't be possible, just like making pure red from scratch isn't possible. Magenta and yellow create a less vibrant colour that looks like red, maybe—but it's not the same.
Red. The colour that can be seen from the furthest distance. The colour of the horizon at dawn, as the sun blots out the clouds, a blockage in the core of the universe. It was that shade this morning, signalling a warning.
One colour in various shades is the ruined future in Nicole's game concept. It's also the colour of my mother's ruffled shirt as she paces around the kitchen table.
Elaine traces the chipped hardwood with her finger, her eyes downcast. Her fingernail catches on a snag and she hangs there, mid-motion, for two seconds before she moves in the opposite direction and the crack settles back into place, unnoticed.
"Before I give you these phones back, I have a few rules for you," Carolyn starts, holding both phones in her hands. The lock screens have gone dark, the battery spent. "No more staying out past curfew. Come back home on time, please. I'm getting tired of waiting for you to come back to me."
Patting Elaine on the shoulder, Carolyn relinquishes her phone. She motions for Elaine to get up from the table.
And then it's my turn. Carolyn takes the seat Elaine left in her wake. Her sleeves rustle as she places her elbows on the table. "Do you want to start by telling me why your contacts have fucking ridiculous names?"
"I was going to change them," I say. "I can tell you who they belong to—"
"Forget it," she interrupts without waiting for me to finish. "I don't care. Do you know what really pisses me off?" This is a rhetorical question. I know this. If I answer her, the vitriol caged within her escapes. But I have to bite my tongue. A barrage of lies poison my mouth, and I keep them to myself. She continues, "You didn't think to tell me you quit soccer. Randall knew about it—but I wasn't important."
I start to speak, but the words are stolen from my lungs. Carolyn jabs a finger at the living room, then to the ceiling. "I gave you everything you've ever needed. I signed you up for the sports clubs and practice sessions. It's because of me that you have a roof over your head. Don't disrespect me in my home. The only way you're getting this phone back is when you tell me what you were doing when you were supposed to be at soccer practice."
She lords the phone over me. I want to reach for it—I chew on the inside of my lip, waiting for Carolyn to put her hands on the table. "Working, mostly. Sometimes I was with Claire," I lie.
The fuse inside Carolyn blows open. She grasps the seatback of my chair and tilts me backward so my feet lift away from the ground. I slam my hands against the side to keep myself from slipping, but it barely works. "No bullshit, Evan." Nothing is permanent. "You're not going to sit in my house, eating my food, driving my car—and act like you don't care. Aren't you grateful for what I've done? I sacrificed for you and your sister."
She snatches the phone and aims it at the wall. Before she can throw it—I kickstart off the chair. "Jesus Christ, I pay for it!"
Fuck. Carolyn spins around to face me, eyebrows lifted and her stance frozen. I shouldn't have said that. She hasn't lobbed the phone at the wall—but that would've been preferable.
Her eyes blaze with fire. "What was that?" she asks. She knows what I said. She heard it. We both did.
I gulp down the air like the oxygen in my lungs will squeeze out, and I'll have nothing left to breathe. My cheeks flare at the way my voice wobbles when I speak like my body is shrinking. Like I'm an echo, a relentless sound that repeats until it consumes itself whole. "I... shit. I've been paying the bill for a long time, mom. It belongs to me."
Carolyn unsteadily peers at the phone in her hands. She steps towards me and my vision drowns in the red hue of her shirt. It's the colour of her hand as she lifts it and strikes me across the face.
Stars invade my vision. I sink to the floor; the tile is freezing under my fingertips. For nineteen seconds, I refuse to move. My body won't cooperate—and for three seconds afterward, I can hear the shuffling of Carolyn's heavy footsteps. My eyes sting with acidic tears.
"Don't say a word. It's better if you shut the fuck up and listen to me for once. I am not a fool. Don't pretend otherwise, do you understand me?"
I nod. My head pulses with a headache. Wiping my hand across my nose reveals a droplet of crimson blood on the palm of my hand. "I know."
The phone drops onto the floor, sliding over to my leg. "Now get out of my sight," Carolyn says, and it takes her five seconds to reach her bedroom and slam the door behind her.
The blood smears against my hand as I rise from the ground. I don't bother staying to wash my hands—to wash the feeling away. I grab my keys, my phone, and in the blink of an eye, I'm headed away from the apartment building.
I need to leave. I have to get out of this town. But I stumble across the street, following the pathway down a familiar route.
I walk across a path running next to the bay on my way to the Croix Hotel. For a second, I consider backing away. I could.
Then the door swings open, and I feel like a criminal on the run, caught in the limelight of a police helicopter.
Peter's mother stands there, wearing a light blue shirt underneath a half-buttoned lab coat—and upon spotting me, she ushers me away from the hotel and down the road.
"Are you okay?" Her voice is soft as she takes me to a house a short distance away. Wind chimes chirp in the doorway, hung in front of the door with stained-glass windows. She doesn't give me the time to kick off my shoes in the entryway before she hands me a tissue.
I hold it to my nose to quell the bleeding. Peter's mom—Dr. Delacroix—moves to the kitchen to retrieve a washcloth. "What happened?"
"I fell," I explain, although the excuse sounds hollow.
She advances towards me. I flinch, catching the look on her face. Once finished cleaning the wound, Dr. Delacroix puts it back in its drawer and murmurs something under her breath. Louder, she tells me, "It's okay to tell me what—"
A noise from the stairs startles us both. It's an annoyed-looking Peter, rubbing his eyes with one hand and using the other to make his way down the stairs. He speaks in French to his mother; too quickly for me to understand.
Dr. Delacroix hurries from the room. I must look like I'm just standing there, (which is exactly what I'm doing) since Peter faces me and explains, "She's going to get you a spare mattress." His speech is gruff with sleep when he steps closer, squinting at me. "Come here. You're bleeding."
"It's a tiny scratch," I say feebly.
"Do you want me to help?" he asks, and once I nod, he reaches to tilt my head. He directs me to keep my nose pinched to stop it from bleeding, and even though I can tell he wants to ask, he doesn't. My cheek stings when I brush my hand across it.
Dr. Delacroix returns from the stairwell, slipping on her shoes as she talks. "I really have to go, but there are fresh linens in the closet for you, Evan. You need the rest, and you can stay if you wish. If you need anything, call me and I'll be there."
I thank her quietly as she departs.
I pull back from Peter, needing the space between myself and the kitchen island. A boiling wisp of anger digs itself inside the crevice of my chest, and I let out a frustrated groan. I can't handle any of it today.
I have to breathe. Everything is temporary. Fuck.
Peter leads me upstairs. The hallway diverts to the guest room, where his mother set up the mattress for me. On the other side is Peter's room, its door hanging open so I can see the posters on his wall, displaying the faces of famous scientists. The bed, its striped covers ruffled, sits at the corner, wedged between the window and his desk filled with schoolwork. I pass a three-tiered shelf filled with photographs and a dusty globe. A magnetic hourglass with a wooden base stays next to it. The black sand forms a mound of pointed stalagmites at the centre.
Tossing me the spare sheets from the closet, Peter turns back to me. He looks different without his glasses. His eyes seem rounder, his cheekbones angular without the rounded frames to offset it.
"I'm guessing you don't want to talk about it," he says.
My stomach churns. "I'm not really... I'm probably still somewhere between anger and bargaining, to be honest."
He inspects the floor underneath his feet. Everything is temporary. But this moment doesn't feel like it. It seems eternal—like that deep, warning shade of red that accompanies my anger—will never fade. And maybe it's not that easy. Maybe it's the opposite.
Everything is permanent. Nothing is temporary.
And he shuts the door to his room. My head swims as I seat myself in the guest room, engulfed by the thin sheets.
I drift into sleep. When I wake up, the sun beats down on the hardwood floors. I crawl out of bed and pad over to the upstairs bathroom. Once I flick on the light, my reflection in the mirror stares back at me.
I look like a train wreck. Like I'm stumbling in the dark trying to find a lifeline. My nose is crusted over with dried blood. There's a distinctly red mark on the side of my face where the impact happened. Trying to clean it proves utterly useless. I scrub my cheek for a temporary thirty-one seconds before I toss the hand towel aside.
Using the spare charging cord in the bathroom, I wait for my phone to turn on. It revives from the depths a moment later. The time blinks six-thirty in the morning, half an hour before school starts.
And the rapid-fire of messages flood my screen. I barely had the time to decode Nicole's silly contact names before, but for now, I scroll past that.
Claire's name peeks out from the bottom of my history. It shows four separate texts from her.
Claire:
I wish you'd told me before.
I think there was a lot you weren't telling me. I don't hold that against you.
Maybe it was meant to be that way. Not that I believe in fate. Fate just gives me something to blame when shit goes wrong.
Look, Evan, I'm here if you ever want to talk. Love isn't only a romantic feeling.
I sigh, forcing a hand through my tangled hair. Swiping my finger to the side, I look at the time stamps for her texts. They're peppered throughout the day that we broke up, and the last one is recent—yesterday, three minutes before midnight. I could count the hours and minutes backward, but it dawns on me that I don't know the exact time that we broke up.
That the only moment where I've ever been unaware of the countdown is the same moment I stopped feeling chained.