To the Stars

  “Fine,” Deacon said. “Do you want to know who showed up here tonight to see if you were going to take her out for Valentine’s Day? Who was it, Graham?”

  “Madison.”

  “Oh that’s right!” Deacon said loudly. “Madison. Your girlfriend. Well, I’m just going to assume it’s ex now. Anyway, she had a lot to say. A lot of interesting things to say. Like how you’re waiting for someone else, so you don’t want anything serious with anyone. Things that she thought were bullshit, still might, and things she doesn’t have all the facts about, thank God.”

  “Are you gonna say anything?” Graham asked, but I just shrugged. There wasn’t much to say. “Where were you tonight?”

  “You know where I was.”

  “She’s fucking fifteen, Knox!”

  I ground my teeth and turned to look at the door, not that I could have seen if anyone was listening anyway. When I turned back around, I was glaring at Graham. “Sixteen,” I corrected.

  “Like that makes it better?” they yelled at the same time.

  “And I didn’t touch her. You know I won’t touch her,” I continued. “I just had to see her.”

  Both of them sat there staring at me like they didn’t know what to do with me anymore. “Why?” Graham finally asked. “Why, Knox? This can only go bad for you. You have to be able to see that; you’re not blind, man.”

  “I love—”

  “Don’t!” He cut me off. “Just stop. The way you talk to her, how often you talk to her, the fact that you went to see her tonight . . . all of those things are marks against you. Knox, you can go to jail. We can’t let you do that over some girl.”

  Deacon didn’t add anything, but he was nodding.

  “Dude,” Graham went on, “you need to stop talking to her, and you need to move on to someone who is at least eighteen.”

  I huffed. “To who? Someone like Madison? Someone I can’t stand to be around, but informed me we were dating because she thinks we’re perfect together? I only let it go on because it shut you two up about Harlow!” I ran my hands over my face and groaned. “Look, I know you two hate the thought of Harlow, but I love her. That’s it; I love her.”

  “But you can’t,” Deacon reminded me.

  I kept talking like he hadn’t. “Throughout everything since middle school we have all been there for each other, and it is such bullshit that my best friends have turned on me now. Okay, yeah, I thought we were going to come to Seattle and party all the time and hook up with as many girls as possible. I know that was the plan. I know the plan wasn’t to get serious until after college, but screw the fucking plans! I met Harlow and I knew immediately that she was it. It wasn’t that I just wanted her; I needed her. I get that it isn’t the best situation—trust me, no one gets that more than I do. But I don’t need both of you making this that much harder for us! Harlow knows you both hate her. How do you think that makes her feel? How do you think that makes me feel? What would it be like for you, Graham, if Deacon and I hated the girl you were in love with?”

  Graham looked like he was about to yell, but took a calming breath and said, “You aren’t understanding that you can’t be in love with her. Jesus Christ, Knox, Harlow is a child!”

  My eyes narrowed. “That’s disgusting, don’t do that.”

  “She is! You think of Grey as a little kid, and they’re the same age.”

  “Grey isn’t as mature as Harlow. Harlow has spent her entire life with people our age; she doesn’t fit in with people her age. She doesn’t think or act like a sixteen-year-old. And no one has thought of Grey as a little kid since she got tits when she was twelve, Graham; get over it.”

  “That’s true,” Deacon murmured.

  Graham’s face pinched in disgust. “Okay, we’re not talking about my sister’s chest! Knox. You have to realize that this is probably just a game to Harlow. She likes that an older guy is interested in her, and she’s going along with it. But she’s not old enough to know what love is—shit, we’re not even old enough to really know what love is—and by the time she’s eighteen, she’s not going to care that you wasted all this time waiting for her. And that’s if she doesn’t get you thrown in jail before that.”

  “Ditto,” Deacon said. “We love you, man. Like you said, we’ve been there together through everything. And even though you think we’ve turned on you now, we’re trying to protect you. We don’t hate her, we hate that she has blinded you to all that can, and is going to, happen to you because of her.”

  I shook my head absentmindedly for a few seconds. “It’s not going to change anything. I’m still going to wait for her.”

  Present Day—Thatch

  “KNOX, WAIT!” GREY called out from behind me.

  I turned around and tried to seem unaffected from the short conversation in the kitchen as she stepped up to me. “Grey, you need to be on the couch resting or something.”

  “I’m not that pregnant.” She waved off the suggestion. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel pathetic.”

  “You didn’t,” I said automatically, and turned back toward my truck.

  “Why are you leaving?”

  I knew I couldn’t use the work excuse like I had with the nameless girl from earlier, and there weren’t many places I could use as an excuse in Thatch. “I just need to go.”

  “So I was right.”

  I rubbed at my jaw and sighed, but didn’t look at her yet. “About what?”

  “That girl from college. That’s what’s bothering you still.”

  A smirk crossed my face as I turned to look at Grey. “Well, technically she wasn’t in college.”

  Grey rolled her eyes. “When you were in college, you knew what I meant. It’s been . . . it’s been years, Knox. You haven’t talked about her since, and there’s been . . .” She trailed off, and thought for a second. “Countless girls. And you always seem happy. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “I am happy, Grey,” I told her honestly. “I have you and my best friends, I have my dream job, and I have more girls than I know what to do with. I am happy. This was the life I was always supposed to have. This was the plan with Deacon and Graham. Well, maybe not to go on this long, but this was it. It just took a long time to learn how to be happy without her, and sometimes it’s still hard to remember how when something reminds me of her.”

  Grey nodded and pursed her lips. “The girl today, did she remind you of her?”

  “No,” I said with a laugh. “No, God, that girl was a nightmare. But she said something that I’d promised Harlow for a long time. And hearing someone say that to me . . . it just caught me off guard.”

  Grey wrapped her arms around me as much as her six-month-swollen stomach would allow. “I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you, Knox, but you’ll find someone. Someday.”

  I gave Grey a tight-lipped smile when I pulled away, but didn’t respond. I never did when a family member or friend said something similar, because all I could think about was a girl who stole my heart outside of a concert one summer night, only to shatter it years later.

  Chapter 4

  Harlow

  Spring 2009—Seattle

  “YOU CAN’T KEEP doing this, Knox. If you’re going to be in a relationship, then you actually need to be in the relationship. You can’t let me get in the way of it,” I scolded, but even as I said the words, I couldn’t stop the smile from pulling at my lips.

  Knox and I had agreed from the beginning that we wanted each other to still have our own separate lives. I think it had been my way of staying firm in my pseudo-argument that he was wasting his time waiting for me, and his way of making sure I didn’t miss out on anything. We’d known it would be too hard to stay away from each other, and had decided that if school schedules allowed it, he would come see me once a month.

  He doubled that, and I wasn’t complaining.

  If I had had my way he’d be with me every day, but I knew I couldn’t do that to him. I wanted him to have a life.
As much as I wanted him with me, I was afraid that he would either resent me, or regret waiting for me if he missed out on college and all that it offered. So twice a month was our maximum. We hadn’t said why, but I was sure his reasons were the same as mine.

  That, however, didn’t stop us from talking every other day. We always talked for hours, and it never felt long enough. Every time, I could still feel the connection I’d felt the first night I’d met him, and every time, I had to remember why we couldn’t be together. It wasn’t long before the word jailbait slipped back into my mind, and I would remember why we were staying apart even though neither of us wanted to, even though there was a tension that was tangible through the phone.

  Unfortunately, the phone calls were something his girlfriend had just caught on to . . . just like Valentine’s Day.

  Who am I kidding? There was nothing unfortunate about it. I didn’t care that she’d found out. It’s something we’d done before her, and I was glad it hadn’t changed during her. I also wasn’t sad she was gone—I was actually surprised she’d waited another two months to dump Knox after he had ditched her for me on Valentine’s Day.

  As much as we had told each other that other relationships was part of us having our own lives, it still crushed me when I found out about her. Then again, I had dated a senior earlier in the school year. Tried to date him might be a better way of describing it. It took a couple of weeks to realize what I was doing, but whenever I saw him I compared him to Knox in every way. I finally decided a month in that it was pointless to pretend this guy could ever mean anything to me. I doubted anyone ever would, because meeting Knox Alexander had ruined me for any other boy.

  Knox hadn’t even tried to hide his happiness that night, and I knew I was failing at hiding mine now. Knox’s girlfriend—I’d never wanted to know her name—had just broken up with him because of me.

  “Relationship,” Knox huffed. “Low, I’ve told you, you could hardly call it that. Besides, I told her about you before whatever she and I were, ever started,” he said. “It’s not my fault she thought I was joking.”

  “Well, it’s kind of weird, don’t you think? Telling her, ‘hey, sure I’ll be your date for this group thing, but there’s this girl I’m waiting for, and she’s my priority,’ seems like a way to say you don’t want to get too attached at the beginning.”

  “But I told her,” he reasoned.

  “You’re horrible.”

  “Not horrible. I’m just in love with you, and I have a year and a half left until I can have you.”

  I gripped at my warming chest and tried to ignore it as I sighed. “I’m going to stop answering your calls whenever you get a new girlfriend.”

  “There won’t be a new one, and I know you wouldn’t.”

  My eyebrows rose even though he couldn’t see me. “And how do you know that?”

  “Because you love me, too. Through all this bullshit, you love me, and you need these calls as bad as I do.”

  “I do love you, Knox,” I whispered into the phone. It wasn’t the first time I’d told him, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. “I love you to the moon and back.” My eyes fell to my dresser, where my monthly bouquet of red poppies sat. These had come just a few days ago. The card, as always, had read: I’m still waiting for you.

  “To the moon?” A deep, husky laugh filled the other end of the phone. “The moon isn’t that far, Harlow.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No. Not far enough.” There were a few beats of silence before he confessed, “I want to love you to the stars.”

  My mouth parted and a soft huff slipped past my lips. I closed my eyes and let his words replay in my mind and move through my body as I agreed, “Then to the stars.”

  Neither of us said anything for minutes as we let that hang between us, and the familiar connection tugged at my chest even though he was miles away. I loved him. I loved him, and none of this was fair. But I still stuck to my word; we couldn’t do this to each other. He needed to live, as did I.

  “Harlow, sweetie, tell Knox good night,” my mom said from the other side of my door.

  “Okay,” I called out. “You hear that?” I asked into the phone.

  “Yeah. Sleep well.”

  “You, too.”

  He paused, and I knew it was coming—it always came. “I’m still waiting for you, Low.” The words were just as sincere as the first time he’d said them.

  I smiled sadly. “And you’re still wasting your time.”

  “Never.”

  I ended the call and dropped my phone to the bed. Even though I never had asked him to keep waiting, and never would, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that he’d already waited nearly a year. Another year and a half would come and go before we knew it . . . and, God, I wanted him to be there waiting when this was all over.

  My phone chimed twice and I glanced at the screen to see messages from him. When I pulled them up, a laugh bubbled up from my chest as I tapped out my response.

  Knox Alexander: Moon = 238,900 miles away. Closest star (Sun) = 92,960,000 miles away.

  Knox Alexander: I love you to the stars.

  Harlow: To the stars.
  Present Day—Richland

  COLLIN’S HAND RUNNING over my stomach woke me a week after he’d given my keys and purse back, and my body instantly tightened as I prepared for one of two outcomes: him wanting to have sex, or him being pissed-off because I wasn’t already awake and making his breakfast when his alarm went off.

  “Good morning,” he murmured against my shoulder.

  “Morning,” I said cautiously.

  “Do you know what day it is?”

  I thought for all of five seconds before it hit me, and dread filled me. It was Saturday. No wonder there had been no alarm; no wonder he wasn’t mad that I wasn’t awake. Weekends were the only days I didn’t have to be up before him with breakfast already made. But I dreaded every other Saturday, only to restart the cycle all over again for two more weeks once the day had passed.

  “It’s test day, baby.”

  “It is,” I squeaked out, trying to have something that resembled excitement in my voice rather than fear.

  “You excited?”

  I nodded my head and turned to look up at him. There was an expectant look in his eyes, and a thrill on his face that I knew wouldn’t be there much longer. The anxious thrill never turned to joy, and despite my hate for these days, I prayed it never would.

  “Well, let’s go.” He moved quickly off the bed and grabbed my hands, pulling me behind him.

  A nervous energy flowed off him and through me, only causing my dread to deepen.

  “You’re shaking, baby,” he said when we got into the bathroom. Collin turned to face me and pulled me into his arms. “What’s going on?”

  “I just want this,” I choked out, trying to appease him in a vain attempt to have him go easy on me later. But it was a lie. I didn’t want this. Not with him. And I knew that no matter what I said to him now, it wouldn’t change his reaction—it was the same every other week.

  “I do, too,” he said softly. Kissing me gently, he released me and bent to pull a pregnancy test out of one of the drawers below our bathroom sinks.

  After handing me the foil-wrapped stick, he faced me with his arms crossed over his chest and waited. He wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t take his eyes off me; he never did. I tore open the packet and walked to the toilet to pee on the stick. When I was done, he took it from me and set it on the countertop, and just stared.

  I walked slowly over to him, my insides twisting and shaking as I briefly glanced at his hopeful expression. He pulled me into his arms so my back was against his chest, and his hands went to my stomach as we waited for three agonizing minutes.

  “This is it, I know it is.”

  “I hope so, too,” I responded, staring just past the stick to the counter.

  The test would be negative, as every test had been, and hopefully would continue to be.
Not long after we’d gotten married and I’d come to understand who Collin really was, I’d gotten a birth control implant in my arm. I knew Collin wanted to have kids early on, and he never wore condoms or let me buy birth control, but I couldn’t bring a child into this life. So I’d gone with the only option I could think of that he wouldn’t find out about.

  I still had about six months left before I needed to get a new one, and I knew when that time came, I would do just that. I would take what was about to come for the rest of my life if it meant keeping an innocent child from my monster. I just had to keep praying that it continued to work.

  I knew when the results showed by the pause in Collin’s breathing, and the way his fingers went from making lazy circles against my stomach, to digging in. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and sent up a prayer that this would be over soon.

  “What . . . the fuck . . . are you taking?”

  “Nothing,” I whispered.

  “Do not lie to me, Harlow,” he growled. Each word was emphasized as if it were its own sentence. “What are you taking?”

  “Nothing. I promise I’m not taking anything.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” he roared.

  Before I could comprehend that his body was no longer behind mine, he grabbed my upper arms and threw me down onto the floor. A sharp cry left my chest when my head bounced off the tile, and my hands immediately went to cover my face—even though I knew he wouldn’t do anything to mess with something that could be easily seen.

  “Don’t show your pain, Harlow!”

  “Please! I’m not taking—” My words cut off on a wheeze as his foot slammed into my stomach three times in a row.

  My hands left my face and went to cradle my stomach as I began curling into the fetal position. His foot stomped down onto my side, making me arch back as a scream tore through me. As soon as my stomach was exposed, the top of his foot connected with it over and over again.

  I tried to beg him to stop, but all that left my lips were grunts and cries. My bloodied hands reached for him in a silent plea, and he smacked them away.