The Brightest Star in a Constellati... - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

☆ Evan ☆
After my second meeting with Mr. Brennan, I am finally allowed back on the hockey team. I avoid Sam on the rink, and luckily the game passes without any issues.
I've been working all week, so when the Astronomy Club meeting rolls around, I show up early.
Mostly to take a nap, to be fair.
I raise my head when Lexa comes into the club room. They're wearing that pin with the flag again, clipped to a knitted sweater. "You look tired."
"Sorry." I cover my yawn, rubbing my eyes with the back of my knuckles. The sleeve of my coat—the one from the ski trip—brushes my cheek. "I've been busy. I probably could have let you take the Vice President spot."
Lexa looks at the schedule of club events that I've been tasked with. I added a game night, and Peter suggested we switch out a week in April in preparation for an eclipse. There's also a meteor shower in the same month, but I haven't gotten that far in looking into it.
"I think it fits you. At least, Nicole seems to think so," they say. "Which means that Peter does, too. Those two practically share one collective brain."
I smile, stretching a little in my seat. Outside Ms. Crozier's classroom, a sign for candy grams decorates the wall. And Willow ended up using a slightly tweaked version of my slogan, substituting, 'dang' for the first word.
She probably wouldn't be pleased if I pointed out that it still doesn't rhyme.
"I wanted to ask," I say to Lexa, "about that pin you're wearing—what flag is that? It's nonbinary, right?"
They peer down at it, pointing at their sweater. "This? Yeah, that's what the flag means. Why?"
"No reason. I just—I looked it up. I was curious. I'd never heard that word before."
Lexa nods, tugging out a chair and sliding into it. Tossing their legs onto the desk, they say, "No, I mean, why were you looking it up? You could have asked me. I would've told you."
"No, I—it seemed like everyone already knew what it meant. I didn't want to admit that I knew nothing."
"Okay, Socrates," Lexa answers with a joking smile. "Are you experimenting with labels?"
"Am I what?" I ask, pencilling a reminder to bring snacks to the club meeting in April. I set my hands down only to pick the pencil back up a second time, eight seconds later.
"Oh, it just means that you're trying to find what fits. I use a label for my feelings on gender, and I have one for my sexuality. It took a long time for me to find what worked for me romantically—I like people for themselves. I started by saying I was pansexual, and I was really insistent on it at first. But I wasn't relating to it in the same way that I was comfortable with nonbinary—I knew I wasn't straight, and there was safety in being able to describe exactly what I thought I was. But that label wasn't working for me anymore. Like I was trying too hard to define it—and focusing less on how I felt." They pause as if to determine whether I'm listening.
I scratch the back of my neck and nod. The terms that I learned from creating my own blog have been bouncing around in my head, and it feels wrong that I never thought to look into it before. That it had never crossed my mind beforehand.
"You don't have to pick one label and stick with it forever. That's what happens, sometimes. That you wait before coming out, because you want to be certain, that it feels like changing it after the fact would be too hard for people to understand—they wouldn't get it. But attraction isn't like that. Sometimes, it changes. That's what experimenting means. You try out a label, doing what feels best—and if at the end, you decide something fits, that's fine. If you decide nothing fits, there's nothing wrong with that," Lexa continues.
Before they can question me further, Jay enters the club room. He says, "I saw you at the hockey game, McKenna. You sucked."
Lexa sighs, both at him for the insult, then at me for thanking him. Once the club begins, we settle into the usual routine of discussing star charts, playing with the telescopes, and getting distracted by an app Ms. Crozier found that shows where the planets are in the sky.
Across the room, Peter points his phone out the window, reading out the names of the stars that should be visible in the darkness. Turning back, he catches my eye and mouths, "Nice jacket."
I roll my eyes and mouth back, "Idiot."
☆ ☽ ☆
Randall arrives at home an hour after I do. An old truck clunks down the street and parks in the number fourteen spot. The driver—someone who works on the same vessel as Randall does—is the one who takes him back and forth every two weeks.
He drags his feet inside, holding onto flattened cardboard boxes. The first words out of his mouth are, "Is your mother home?"
I shake my head, turning to face him. Since Elaine's birthday, I've only spotted Carolyn in passing glances. She slips through the apartment and trying to ask her where she's going accomplishes nothing.
"We need to talk," Randall says, heading to Elaine's room. He knocks before entering.
He gathers the three of us in the kitchen. Elaine picks at her fingernails. "What's wrong?" she replies.
Settling his gaze on the black patch of paint behind us, Randall says, "Well, um..." He lets it hang in the air before he manages to say, "Your mother and I... I wanted to work it out... I was hoping it wouldn't—"
"Dad," Elaine interjects. "Seriously. What's going on?"
"We're separating." An anguished look overtakes him. It's like what Claire said to me—the sentiment that I still don't understand. Sometimes, love is heartbreak. "I have to get my stuff."
Randall searches for a garbage bag from the cupboard. He paces around the room, shoving a mismatch of items inside of it. Dragging her feet, Elaine follows him to the bedroom. Her eyes flicker across the closet, sweeping over the floorboards. Her shoulders shake. I reach out to squeeze her arm.
"No," she says, like she can speak it into existence, "that's not true. You're joking."
As he tosses his clothes into the bag, Randall tells her, "I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have let this go on any longer. But I was convincing myself... I was convincing myself that I could stay until you graduated. Then, I could leave—but your mother..."
"This is about the phones, isn't it?" I say.
Randall grabs a handful of folded shirts and shoves them into his bag. "What? This is not your fault, Evan. It's not anyone's fault but mine. Please, don't take the blame for this."
I point out, "But I told you to lie."
"I chose to lie. You did the right thing by paying for it. There—there was nothing wrong with that."
There's a stutter to his words, and he nearly drops the clothes hanger in his hands as he rushes to say it. He's lying—it's written in his eyes. He doesn't know how to lie like I do.
"Yeah," I say, breathing out, "yeah. Right. What are you going to do?"
"I can't stay here. Your mother will come home," he answers. When his bag is full, he searches for another one. A clump of clothes like a wadded paper ball is tossed onto the bed. "Can you get those boxes I brought?"
Elaine is too baffled to budge, so I grab them instead. When I return, she takes two of the boxes.
I ask again, "Where are you going?"
"I don't have anywhere to stay in Northwood. I'll probably drive to the boat and get off the mainland. We"—he gestures to Elaine and himself—"can stay with my parents in Newfoundland."
I gulp down a breath. My hands coil into fists. It hits me that I can't go with him.
I should have left with Adrian.
"What?" A strangled, broken laugh bubbles out of me. Randall lifts an eyebrow as he unfolds his box and stacks the rest of his clothes into it. He presses it down, firm, and shuts the cover.
"I can't argue with her," Randall replies. It's the same thing my father said, and it isn't true this time either. "How could I? We're not married. I wouldn't win that court case. We've agreed that Elaine will stay with me. It doesn't mean that you'll never get to... it doesn't mean we're leaving forever."
"Yes, it does," I argue. My voice takes on a steely edge to it, and Randall turns away to continue packing.
Elaine hasn't moved from her position next to me. She doesn't open the boxes. Silent hiccups make her body vibrate.
"You need to start packing. Right now," Randall tells her. He ushers her from the room with a flick of his hand. "Come on. It's a long drive."
Once she's left, Randall stops packing. A photograph hangs over the bed frame. It shows the four of us, at Christmas three years ago. Elaine is making bunny ears over my head. There's a piece of tape in the middle; Carolyn, who didn't like the way she looked, joined two separate pictures together to make it.
In doing so, she's divided it into two sides. There's me and Carolyn, standing on the left. And Elaine and her father to the right, who are smiling so wide it makes my throat close over.
"Evan, I wish it was different," he says. "But it's not. If I could take you with me, I wouldn't hesitate. I can't leave Elaine here."
I scrape my feet against the floor. "You—she—she's my sister. I love her like a sister. I think of you like a family."
His stance straightens. "I'm sorry," he repeats, without looking at me. "I didn't know you felt that strongly about it. Really, I..."
"What was I meant to feel? I'm the one who—" I'm the one who spends time with her. "How can you just pack up and leave? You could find a place. I don't know how, but—"
Shaking his head, Randall sweeps the boxes into his grip. He doesn't ask for me to carry it. He simply moves into the hall and drops them in front of the doorway.
"My mind is made up. Are you saying you would come, if you could?"
I respond, "I'm saying I'm not staying here."
The floor seems fuzzy, like the smudge of a storm cloud in an out-of-focus camera lens. I whirl around, nearly losing track of my surroundings. Elaine hides in her room. Her door is slightly ajar.
"Elaine?" I whisper.
She's holding the snow globe. It wobbles, and the snow spins and spins like a furious hurricane. "Go away. I don't want to talk."
"It's okay," I hear myself say. It slips out before I can stop it. I correct myself and continue, "I am going to make it okay. I promised you that."
Elaine holds her head in her hands to keep from crying. I enter her room and hold out my hand. She takes it, latching onto my pinky finger like it's about to snap off.
"You say that, but you don't know. You can't promise."
I perch at the edge of her pink bedsheets. "Yes, I can. I promised. I have an idea."
"It's probably a stupid idea," she answers, tears cooling down her face. She cries like she's trying to hide it—trying to prevent me from noticing.
But I notice. "It's an incredibly stupid idea."
Burying her face into the bed, she slides the boxes away from her. Randall watches us from the hall as he finishes getting ready.
To break the silence, and to prevent him from telling Elaine it's time to leave, I say, "You leave for work in two weeks, right?"
He nods. I continue, breathing in, and my voice betrays me when it breaks, "Do you think you could come when... when you can get the time. We'd get to see each other."
"I see." He thinks about it. I want so desperately for him to say he can stay. That none of this is real. That it was all a cruel joke, and even though Carolyn deserves it—even though they hate each other, he can stay until June. He can stay for the five months I have left. Just one hundred and sixty-seven days. "That's not a terrible plan. I could make it work. I know your mother doesn't want me to come back—that it might hurt her to see us... but if that would make you feel better, if it would make us feel like we're still your family..."
I breathe out. "Yeah. Not terrible. Right."
He lets me help pack the car. I swipe the boxes from Elaine's grasp before she can take them. She's crying loudly, now—and I have to force myself to keep moving. I can't stop time. I've never wanted to stop the passage of time.
But if I could extend the hours on the clock—make my time in this town longer—for Elaine's sake, I would do that. Of fucking course, I would do it.
"What happens to you?" Elaine asks as we reach the parking lot. She wipes her face with her sleeve. Cars like wisps drive past us. Heading away. She grabs me in her arms that don't quite reach all the way around my body.
She looks so small now. Smaller than she should be. And the world is so vast. She's going to disappear into the ocean, the same ocean that consumes my father. The same ocean that will consume me in five months and fifteen days.
"I have a plan," I assure her, taking both of her hands. She squeezes my palm. It's like a secret code. Somehow, I understand what it means, although she won't say it aloud. I'm going to miss you. She won't speak it into existence, because admitting that she's leaving makes it real.
I was supposed to be the person who left first. I should be leaving before her—not the other way around.
"Text me," I say, "whenever you want. It doesn't matter when. I'll be there. I'll answer it. Promise."
She swallows and rips her hand away from mine. Randall opens the passenger door. Her playlist syncs to the stereo and Castle of Glass floats through the air.
"Promise," she repeats.
Randall shuts the door, and neither of us knows what to say anymore, not when it doesn't matter. "You're a good kid," he tells me, "you deserve much better than this."
I don't answer. He asks me if I want a hug. I tell him fine. I don't know if he's ever hugged me before today.
Elaine presses her hand to the glass of the passenger side window. The car reverses, and I watch it as it crawls across the parking lot. I stand there and watch her face as it peels away. I stand there, stagnant, long after the car is gone.
I don't turn around and walk back inside. Instead, I head towards the waterline. I cut across the road, underneath the swaying trees. The scenery blends into a watercolour painting against my teary ears. But I refuse to cry—I refuse to let it out.
My body is on autopilot as I navigate the streets. I come to a halt at the doorway of the Croix Hotel.
My hands are clammy. Bile rises from my chest. Through the window, I spot Peter sitting behind the lobby desk.
I push the door open, crashing into the desk. My hands are my anchors, keeping me tethered, and keeping my knees from buckling out from underneath me.
I say, and it sounds hoarse, "I didn't bring you a coffee."
"Éric," Peter says, and it falls from his tongue like silk, "what happened?"
"I need a room," I rasp.
His eyes go wide. My chest hurts with every breath that I manage to pull into me. Slowly, without saying a word, Peter slides a key card onto the desk. He takes my hand and closes it over the card.
"Here," he says, and the worry in his gaze shoots an arrow through my heart.
My words blubber. I rush to explain, "I don't have the money for this."
His hand closes over mine, and his thumb brushes across my knuckle. "Don't worry about that. It's complimentary."