Shooting Stars

CHAPTER 17

Aria woke with a sharp breath lodged somewhere between her lungs and her throat.

For a second, she didn't know where she was.

The room was dark, the outlines of furniture blurred in the dim blue light coming through the curtains, but her heart was still pounding like she was trapped somewhere else entirely. She pushed herself upright too fast, one hand flying to her chest as she tried to steady her breathing.

Another dream.

Or maybe a nightmare.

Lately it was always one or the other.

Sometimes it was Alex — too close, too warm, too real — and she would wake with the ghost of him still clinging to her skin, his voice still somewhere in the room, his mouth still a memory she couldn't seem to shake.

Other nights it was Ellis.

Those were worse.

Because Ellis was never just Ellis in dreams. She was every version of herself at once — brilliant and cold, sharp and impossible, the mother who had stood over Aria and Meredith's childhoods like a warning. The voice that told Aria over and over that ordinary was failure. That soft was weakness. That love, if it existed at all, had to be earned through excellence.

Meredith finding those journals had made everything worse.

She had left a stack of them in Aria's room a few days ago, almost absentmindedly, like it had been practical. Like maybe Aria would want them. Like maybe there was comfort to be found in Ellis's words.

There wasn't.

Not really.

There were just old wounds split open cleanly all over again.

Aria had read them anyway.

Of course she had.

And now the memories wouldn't leave her alone.

The journals had dragged pieces of childhood back to the surface — memories she had spent years forcing down, years convincing herself didn't matter anymore because Ellis was gone and because Aria had survived her and because surviving was supposed to count as getting over something.

Apparently it didn't.

Aria swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, breathing slowly through the last of the panic.

Her throat was dry.

That was excuse enough.

She stood and headed downstairs.

⸻

The kitchen was lit only by the low light above the stove, turning everything soft and shadowed. Aria padded in barefoot, reaching for a glass before she fully registered that she wasn't alone.

Derek was sitting at the table.

He looked up as she entered, his hair sleep-mussed, his face rough with exhaustion.

Aria paused with the glass in her hand. "What are you doing awake? It's four in the morning."

Derek gave a tired huff that might once have been a laugh. "Meredith's on the phone to Cristina again."

That tracked.

Aria filled her glass and took a sip, letting the cold water settle her.

"What about you?" Derek asked. "You look a little pale."

Aria looked down at the water, watching it move slightly in the glass.

"Just thirsty," she said.

It came out too quiet.