Kiss the Stars (Devon Slaughter Book 1) (6 page)

She started to
sound it out. Recognition lit her face.

“You’re familiar
with the story?” I said.

She nodded.

When I asked who
else had heard of
Wuthering Heights
, only one other woman raised her
hand. “I saw it on TV,” she said.

I set the book
on my desk. “Everyone argues over what the story is really about,” I said,
standing in front of them. “The thing to remember is…it’s about whatever you
think
it’s about.”

They laughed.

“I want to tell
you what happened to me when I was twelve, which is the first time I read
Wuthering
Heights
. My mother was taken away. I lived for the day I would see her
again. But she got sick. No one told me. And then she died. I didn’t get to say
good-bye.”

I saw empathy in
their upturned faces.

“I know it
sounds unreal,” I said. “But it gets worse. I got sick too and I had to be in
the hospital for a long time. The story of Catherine and Heathcliff and their
star-crossed love saved me. I got transported to their world, away from the
misery of my own. And the characters in the book felt what I felt. It didn’t
matter that they lived over a hundred years ago, in northern England, or that
they loved with passion while I had never even been kissed. Their pain was so
raw and—”

There was a loud
knock on the door.

“Do you have to
get that?” one of my students said.

“We want to hear
the rest of your story,” another said.

“Maybe they’ll
go away,” the biker with a braided beard said.

But I heard the
sound of a key being inserted into the lock. “I just wanted you to know,” I
said, in a rush. “Books can save your
life
.”

The door burst
open and Georgie was there, standing in the doorway with one of the janitors. “Everything
okay in here?” he scanned the room suspiciously.

I feigned
surprise. “Did the door get stuck again?”

Georgie glared.
Her perfect hair was slightly mussed. Her lipstick had worn off. I imagined her
traipsing up and down the halls. I smiled at her. “You can leave the door open,”
I said to the janitor. “Where would you like to sit?” I asked Georgie. Before
she could answer, I said, “In the back would be best.”

She started to take
a seat in the row behind the students.

“
No
, the
very back,” I said. “That’s it. Keep going. All the way.”

She arranged
herself at a desk against the wall. A few of the students turned around to look
at her.

“There’s a
better view from back there,” I said in a loud voice. “Like a wide angle lens.
So you can watch every move I make.”

An awkward
silence fell.

“Class,” I said.
“I’d like you to meet Miss Hartly. She’s going to take over after today.”

“What?”

“Why?”

“Evidently there
was a Board approved curriculum I was supposed to use and
someone
reported me for not using it.”

“You were fired?”

“Something like
that.”

“No!”

Georgie shifted
in the cramped desk. I went around the room and had each student take turns
reading from their books.

For some reason,
Georgie took a bunch of notes, scribbling furiously. I never took notes. Not
only did I find it distracting, I didn’t have to take notes. I was probably
smarter than Georgie.

Guilt burrowed
in the back of my mind.

Outside the sky
had gone black. I thought I could fall into it and disappear. I had to sit down
to feel the hard chair. I counted. Eleven unoccupied desks. Three pairs of
glasses. One pen. Twenty human eyeballs.

When the class
was over, each student came up to me and shook my hand. They brought me back to
earth.

Georgie tried to
ignore me, pretending to be busy with her folder as she made her way to the
door.

“Well, did you
get what you came for?” I said.

She stopped and
turned around. We locked eyes.

“Henry told me
you were wondering,” I said, in such a way that implied Henry and I spoke
intimately all the time.

Her pupils
narrowed into hard pinpoints.

“You were
curious how old I was. You don’t have to gossip behind my back. I’ll just tell
you,” I gripped the edge of my desk, losing momentum.

Georgie’s angry
face appeared to hover in the air, severed from her body.

“I did skip
grades,” my voice went on, as if coming from someone else. “High I.Q. runs in
my family. Also, I’m especially gifted in the areas of language and philosophy,”
I refused to acknowledge the tremor behind my eyelids. “According to my letters
of recommendation, those areas of expertise make me particularly adept at
teaching. Go figure.”

When she walked
away, I sat under the hum of fluorescent lights. I couldn’t move.

I was thinking of
my mother and how she used to scream at her lover, Javier. “I’m so much
prettier,” she would cry. “How can you
look
at that dumb cow when you
have
me
? Don’t you see me?” And she would sink to her knees, crying.

I felt as
humiliated as if I’d thrown myself at Georgie’s feet and wept.

ON THE outskirts
of town where the streetlights flickered and the desert stretched as far as the
mortal eye could see, something white flitted across my path. The creature
stopped to peer at me. Ruby’s cat, Alceste. His mangy tail twitched before he
darted back into the sagebrush.

I followed his
scent to a cluster of trailer houses at the end of a gravel road. Five trailers
sat on the scabby ground at odd angles to each other. A clothes line had been
strung between them and a pair of faded jeans dangled. Beer cans lay scattered
around a couple of choppers. The last trailer had a stoop.

The cat sat on
the stoop, viewing me with disdain. My hand shot out and I had him by the
scruff, holding him up so we could look eye to disparate eye. He growled. The
door of the trailer banged open.

A girl gaped at
me.

Alceste kicked
the air with his hind legs. Damn, caught in the act. “Hi,” I said, without
loosening my grip.

“That's
my
cat.”

“Are you sure?”
Alceste struggled in vain.

“Let him
go!
”
she cried.

Thinking of the
choppers, I dropped the cat. He turned, arched his back and hissed, before
streaking into the trailer.

“What were you
doing?” she crossed her arms. Her dusky eyes assessed me with barely concealed
interest.

Heat flared in
the pit of my belly. It had been a while since I’d fed. I guessed she was
seventeen, twenty at most. She had long black hair and long legs. As I swept my
gaze down the length of her, I thought again of the unknown girl from my past.
Her thwarted memory brushed against my mind.

I put up my
hands. “Sorry. Mistaken identity. No hard feelings?” I felt her watching me the
whole way back to the road.

The idea of Ruby
and her angst-filled eyes pulled at me. She was at the bar, sitting alone, like
I knew she would be.

The place was
packed. A singer strutted around on stage without a shirt. As I made my way
through the throng, a woman fell into my arms. I turned her around so she faced
me. Her clothes were slippery under my hands. Playful eyes met mine.

She lifted her
arms to circle my neck. She was all wrong in her red polka dot dress and
designer perfume. Not my type. The thought made me smile.
I have a type
.
A newly acquired taste or a remnant of my humanity?

I held her, just
for a second. Old habits die hard. We swayed to the music. And then I saw them.
Her friends. Of course she had friends. They were all so freshly scrubbed and
expectant.

I tried to
untangle myself without causing a scene.

It was usually
easy to sneak out with a barfly under my arm. Sure, occasionally there was a
friend nearby. I was into threesomes. But this woman and her group were uptown
and slumming it, looking for adventure. It made me uneasy.

I peeled her off
me. She was drunk. “Sorry. I’m meeting someone,” I said.

Her face
contorted.

I pushed on,
toward Ruby. Hands grabbed at me, drinks sloshed. When I reached the bar, I
felt Ruby’s jealousy, an electric jolt. “Hi,” I took the empty stool next to
her. She refused to look at me. I waved a hand in front her face.

“Are you here
with
her
?” she said. “Georgie?”

“You know her?”

She scowled. “Why
don’t you answer the question? Did you come here with her?”

“No,” I said. “Who
is she?”

“Miss
Fartly
,”
she said.

“With an F?”

“Did you see the
others? Her
clique
? They’re the four horsemen of the apocalypse?”

“Listen to you,”
I said.

“You were dirty
dancing with her. Don’t let me stop you. She must be a fantastic kisser.”

“Fartly?” I
said. “A good kisser?” I circled her wrist with my fingers and pushed up the
sleeve of her shirt. “I came here to see you.”

“You did?” her
pulse beat frantically on the soft underside of her wrist.

I pretended to
read her watch. “I have to go,” I used her line, wanting to feel the rush of
her disappointment.

“Wh—where…are
you going?”

The band started
playing
Sweet Child O’Mine
by
Guns N’Roses
.
I looked into
Ruby’s eyes and saw her pain. In that moment, I felt it as my own. The
shirtless singer crooned about a smile that reminded him of ‘childhood
memories.’ Her irises, like in the lyrics, were the color of a bright blue sky.

She slid off the
barstool and between my legs. I breathed in the smell of her hair.
“Kiss
me,” she whispered in my ear. “Please,” her breath was feathery on my face. She
closed her eyes, our lips touched.

I parted her
lips with my tongue and tasted whisky. She opened to me, so sugary and salty,
like tears and candy.

The clang of
guitars, the sound of laughter and voices and clinking glass, all quieted. The
only sound was the beat of her heart.

MY HANDS clutched
the back of his neck. My knees buckled. His kiss spun me around and lifted me.
I was kissed and sucked until I was spinning and spinning into the dark.

Strong arms
caught me. I could barely open my eyes. He had pressed me against the wall in the
corner. Carried me?

His face was
somewhere above me. He tilted my chin. “You okay?” Behind him the beer sign
throbbed. Smoke and cold air drifted in through an open door.

I stared at him.
I could die right now, I thought, and I wouldn’t care.

“Come on,” he
pulled me through the crowd. Peanut shells crunched under my feet. I clutched
his hand.

I was high, like
Alice in Wonderland
. Bodies rubbed against me, sending out sparks. The
band started a new song. Devon held me close. I was at the prom, at last. I
pressed my cheek against his chest.

A swirl of red
caught my eye. I turned my head. Devon’s arms tightened around me. I clung to
him.

Once more, the
red dress came into my line of vision. I recognized the polka dots on the short
flirty skirt. She was so close, I could touch her. I stared at her slender
ankle, her strappy black shoe. Who was she dancing with? My gaze came up.

Henry Thorne
winked at me.

I tensed. Devon
loosened his hold. I thought of how he’d tilted my chin and asked if I was
okay. He’d been so concerned, so nice, like when he changed my tire. My chest
constricted. I needed air. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. The loud
music swallowed my voice.

I saw the
question again in his eyes. You okay?

I have never
been okay
.

* * *

The bathroom was
dingy. Women were crowded inside, waiting for a stall. There were only two. I
pushed my way back out and stood by myself in the skinny hall. Overhead, a bare
bulb cast a yellow light.

Georgie and
Henry and their clique made me feel like an outcast.

“Ruby?” Wong’s
black hair hung loose. Her dress was skimpy and silver. Sparkly make-up
glittered on her eyes. I didn’t trust her. She was friends with Georgie. And I
thought Devon would go for someone like her, sooner or later. “Oh my God,” she
grabbed my arm. “Who
is
he?”

“What?”

“He’s
so
hot. I mean dangerous, right?”

“You saw him?
You saw me with him?”

Her expression
shifted. “He’s not bothering you, is he?”

Bothering me?

“I’d be happy to
take him off your hands,” she laughed in an airy way.

So that was it.
She was more worthy. Her voice followed me down the hall.
I’d be happy to
take him off your hands.
God, they were all so superior. Henry was probably
out there right now, telling Devon what a terrible kisser I was.

Music pulsed and
pounded. Someone grabbed my arm. I whirled around; hoping to find Devon but it
was Henry. “Hey,” he said. I pushed his hand away. I wanted to get back to
Devon before he disappeared.

Henry flashed
his movie star smile and leaned down to speak into my ear because the band was
so loud. “I never expected to see you here,” his breath tickled.

He didn’t expect
to see me? It was
my
favorite bar.
I
was the one who didn’t
expect to see him in his corduroys and pin-striped shirt. And yet, as I thought
these things, there was still something attractive about him, despite
everything. He reminded me of pine forests and clean flowing rivers, firelight
and roasted marshmallows. He was the exact opposite of me.

Suddenly, his
gaze lifted, to look past me. His eyes widened.

I felt Devon’s
presence before his arm came around my shoulders. He tucked me against his
side, where I felt safe, like I’d taken half a Valium.

“We haven’t met,”
Henry stuck out his hand, which Devon ignored.

When I glanced
up at him, I saw the firm set of his jaw, the haughty shape of his lips. I felt
proud, as if he belonged to me. He was rude and ruthless, like Heathcliff. When
Henry dropped his hand, Devon decided to offer his. A crooked smile crossed his
face. Henry pumped his hand too heartily.

Devon led me
away, and I realized he hadn’t told Henry his name. I’d been waiting to hear
his last name myself. You don’t
know
him, a voice inside me warned. I
didn’t care.

I was the dark
sky lit by stars.