Made of Stars (11 page)

Rachael shakes her head. She stands. “Is there someone else? If there is—”

“There’s no one else. What other girls have you seen me talk to, Rach?”

She levels a narrow glare in my direction but says nothing.

I owe her an explanation, don’t I? Even if it’s hard, I have to figure out the best way to explain to my girlfriend what’s going on in my head. Had she done this four, five months ago, I could have—would have—gone through with it. So…what’s the problem now?

You know what the problem is. Chance, Chance, Chance.

“Okay. You know…you’re right.” I spread my hands, palms up, helpless. “I’m not ready for this. Things have been strained since you got here, and I feel like this is your way of trying to…”

“Trying to
what
?”

“Trying to…reconnect, I guess.” Sigh. This talking thing is not my strong point. Rachael is good at taking things the wrong way. That’s something that makes Ash and Chance special to me: I can tell them anything, and they can figure me out even if I articulate things about as well as a goldfish.

Rachael uncrosses her arms. Good sign? But then she puts her hands on her hips. Bad sign. “I told you, I was thinking about this before I even came out here. And the only reason things have been strained is because I’ve had to fight just to get a few hours alone with you. Everywhere we go, Chance and Ashlin are right there with us.”

“Because that’s so different from us going out with all your friends or family tagging along back home?” I reply hotly. “In the three months before I left, I can count on one hand the number of times you and I did something alone.”

“You told me you
liked
my friends and family!”

“What, and you don’t like Ash and Chance?”

She rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “You know I like Ashlin just fine…”

Ah ha. “But you don’t like Chance.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him, he’s just…” Her hands flutter about, a sign she’s getting flustered because now she’s having trouble finding the right words. “He’s so… He’s like a kid, Hunter. Like the kind of boy who wants to pretend to be sixteen forever. He’ll be happy living with his parents, working at Lotsa Books for minimum wage, and running around town getting into trouble.”

The more she talks, the less I want to look at her. I stare down at my hands in my lap, tension coiling under my skin and making my neck and shoulders ache. “Don’t talk about Chance like you know him.”

“He’s unpredictable and, frankly, sometimes he makes me nervous. He’s the kind of guy you hear about in the news shooting up his school. Am I wrong?”

My mouth slips into an unpleasant smile. She isn’t wrong, no. Chance is impulsive and childlike, and after realizing his home life was nothing like what he told us, it’s hard to know when what he’s saying to me is true or not. Yet none of that matters. Chance is Chance, and he’s important, and I won’t sit back while Rachael pretends like she knows the inner workings of his mind when even
I
don’t. “Yeah. You really, really are. Because you don’t have a clue what he’s going through at home right now, or how his father probably beats the hell out of him, or how Dad had to buy him a jacket for Christmas because his own parents didn’t bother. And you have no idea how guilty I’ve been feeling that, all these years, Chance has been going through this completely alone because I was too stupid to see the signs.

“So, sure, maybe he acts like a big kid and he could stand to grow up some, but he has a reason for it. Maybe
you
could stand to not act like such an uptight old lady once in a while.”

She presses her mouth together thinly. “I thought that’s what I was trying to do just now.”

“And I’m saying it’s not a good time for me, Rachael, okay?” There. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? That I don’t want to, and— “When you told me no, I backed off. I said it was cool and didn’t push it. Why is it all right for you to make
me
feel like crap for saying no? Because that’s a pretty shitty double standard. Girl should only have sex when she’s ready; guy should have sex when girl says so.”

Rachael opens her mouth, but I can see I’ve gotten her. “Hunter, I’m—”

“Don’t apologize.” I shrug, willing myself to look at her even though I don’t want to. “I’m sorry I’ve been…distant or whatever. We’ll spend tomorrow alone if you want. I’ll take you out to lunch and a movie.”

“Like a good old-fashioned date?” She lifts her gaze to me, lips tilted in a faint smile.

The pain in my back slowly seeps away as the tension does. What is going on with us? Back home, things weren’t this bad. When Rachael and I started out, we had fun. We laughed. We talked about nothing important. I miss that friendship. More than that, I miss when everything between us didn’t feel like such an effort, when every conversation wasn’t about our future while we were never living in the here and now.

Could this be my fault? Am I not trying hard enough? Has my attention really been so focused on Chance and Ashlin that I haven’t been giving us a fair shot? I can’t be happy with myself until I try. She’s only here for a bit longer, and during that time…I should—no, I
need
—to give her more of my attention.

I reach for her hands, brushing my thumbs across her knuckles. “Sure. It’s a date.”

Ashlin

Chance makes good use of his phone. He texts me bright and early every morning, which might annoy me because I like my sleep-in time, but he’s saved me from being late to work more than once.

I want to ask him about Hunter. After talking to Rachael and thinking about it incessantly, I can’t get it out of my head that there might be something between Chance and my brother. Hunter would undoubtedly get defensive and awkward. Not that Chance is a pro at being open and honest, but I feel like…maybe talking to him about it would make him feel better. Maybe it would make
me
feel better, too.

Maybe I really am imagining all of this. And then I think it’s just my way of trying to avoid being heartbroken that the boy I want to be with might never have wanted me to begin with.

Instead of asking about Hunter, I try to bring up the subject of Christmas night and his parents’ yelling that Rach and Hunt witnessed, but he brushes me off easily and avoids me the rest of our shift. How do you talk to someone who always runs away?

Otherwise, we manage to truck through the week with minimal drama. I try to keep Chance occupied so Rachael gets her time with Hunter. Which would work great, except Hunter himself seems put off by the idea of Chance and me always hanging out on our own. He doesn’t complain, and he takes Rachael out several times just the two of them, but I can see the protest in his eyes, which means Rachael can surely see it, too. There’s a sort of underlying tension in Hunter’s demeanor toward Rachael now that wasn’t there before. It isn’t the same as his nervousness when she first arrived. Now, I think he’s genuinely unhappy and something must have happened. When I try to ask him about it, he only shrugs me off.

There is so much being unsaid among everyone, and it’s driving me crazy.

Come New Year’s Eve, I’m almost unsure about this whole rafting trip. We’re going to be stuck on a flimsy piece of inflatable plastic, needing to work together to get to Hollow Island, and then we’ll be secluded and with no distractions but one another for who knows how long.

Almost
unsure. But not enough to call the whole thing off.

The cold is biting. We bundle up and promise Dad we’ll be safe—just going to a party with some friends in town. A lie I’m not sure he totally buys, but we’re eighteen. He can’t do much other than give us worried looks as we leave. He has Isobel for company tonight, and she loops her arm with his and gives us a wave as our car pulls out of the driveway. He’ll be just fine.

Hunt drives us to the beach. It’s a farther row from here than it would be from our cliff-side location, but the water is calmer, and getting the raft (not to mention Rachael) up and down the cliffs would be impossible. The wind yanks at my coat. Snowflakes skip and dance across the rocky beach while we struggle to get the raft out of its box and blown up. It doesn’t look nearly as secure as I thought it did in the store, but you get what you pay for.

Chance pulls from the car a cooler where we packed drinks and snacks, and where my camera is tucked alongside a couple of flashlights into a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet. Rachael huddles in her baby-blue coat and mittens, worrying at her bottom lip.

“Are you sure that thing’s safe?”

“We’ll find out,” Chance says, and with a grunt he begins hauling it to the water with Hunter’s help.

“Is it
big
enough?”

“Box says it holds up to four people. We’ll make it work. If you don’t wanna go…”

Rachael shoots Chance a hard look, brushes the hair from her face, and stalks after them. It would seem her last few days of having Hunter to herself have boosted her confidence, because she hasn’t been tolerating his sass today, and she hasn’t been shy about keeping at Hunter’s side every moment she gets.

Getting the raft afloat and all of us into it requires rolling up pants, yanking off shoes, and wading into the freezing cold water. After a few minutes of flailing and splashing and shrieking, we manage to pile into the raft. The waves threaten to shove us back onto the rocks, but with some careful maneuvering and lots of shouting, Hunter and Chance get us going in the right direction.

The farther from shore we get, the easier it is to row. But it’s cold. Unbearably cold. The wind stings my face and my hands, even through my gloves. I keep my arms wrapped around the cooler, not wanting a wave to roll beneath us and knock it right out of the raft.

I have no idea how long it takes, only that by the time we bump against the craggy shore of Hollow Island, our teeth are chattering and the boys are out of breath. We drag the raft up shore, tucking it and the oars behind part of a crumbling brick wall where the water doesn’t have a chance of sweeping up and stealing it away. Then we stand there and stare at the dark island before us, breathing hard. Shivering but triumphant.

“Look the same as when you swam here last?” Hunter asks Chance, elbowing him with a grin.

“What?” Chance blinks, rolls his eyes, gives him a shove, and ventures forward. “Shut up and come on. Get the flashlights!”

I haul the cooler while the others get the flashlights, the only three we could find because no one thought about actually needing them until an hour before we left home. Kudos to us.

The island smells of salt and dirt. All around us are buildings barely standing, torn down in a relatively short time thanks to the onslaught of harsh wind and the waves eating at the shores. They’re all condemned, meaning the island itself is legally off-limits. The threat of fines, I’m sure, is only a small deterrent for anyone who really wants to come out here, but I didn’t see any other boats on the shore. It’s safe to assume we’re alone.

Chance veers into one old building that is missing a wall but is otherwise in relatively decent shape, and I set the cooler down before following. A set of wooden steps once led up to the porch but is gone now. Hunter grabs my upper arms and lifts me over the steps to the porch, which creaks in protest beneath my weight, before turning to do the same to Rachael.

She tucks her hands under her arms, shaking her head. “I’ll wait here.”

Hunter frowns. I see his mouth working like he might argue, but he only says, “Okay,” hops onto the porch, and moves past the door hanging on one lonely hinge.

“Maybe we should’ve saved this for next weekend,” I whisper to Hunter. Chance is picking his way across the floor, checking for holes, easing his weight when he steps so the rotting wood doesn’t give way under him. Hunter’s eyes follow his every movement, almost worriedly.

“No. I offered last night to stay home with her if she didn’t want to go. She insisted we should do it. If she wants to mope all night, then whatever. I’m not going to let it ruin our time.”

Fair enough. Hunter and I both gave her an out, and she chose not to take either. I shake my head and roll my shoulders back, just as Chance is calling us over to look at the remnants of some old machinery across the room.

We explore the place top to bottom. Well, maybe not
top
, because the stairs to the second floor are ruined, and Hunter refuses to give Chance a boost. Nothing here feels sturdy. Nothing feels safe. That’s part of what makes it exciting.

And, man, is it awesome. I fish out my camera and take pictures of everything. Chance poses in the corner, back to the lens, head down, like something out of a horror movie. I get shots of caved-in ceilings, missing walls, the places where nature has encroached in on the man-made structures to take them back where they belong. Grass and weeds poke through the floorboards. Cobwebs floating from the eaves catch my hair and shoulders, tugging at me like ghostly fingers.

We move from one building to the next, getting bolder with the weak architecture and braving the stairs in some to look out through second-story windows, shuffling through broken glass and the occasional reminder that, yes, people used to live and work here. A scrap of material that might’ve been a sock. Some papers pinned beneath a rock that have long since yellowed and lost their ink.

Through it all, Rachael stays out in the open, sitting atop the cooler and watching us. When we move farther into the island, she picks up the cooler and drags it along, sets it back down, and sits again. I don’t know whether or not to feel bad for her. Maybe annoyed she’s being such a drag. Maybe bad that it must be so boring to be her.

After losing my camera to Chance and letting him snap a shot of Hunt and me outside a lopsided structure, Chance announces we’ve got thirty minutes until midnight. Toward the center of the island, we locate the most intact building. A tall, red brick structure, just like Chance told us there would be. He only could have known about it if he had, in fact, been here before. I stop just outside, turning to glance at Hunter, who looks from the building to me with an expression as surprised as I feel.