Heart Of A Star

Chapter Four - Natalie

We made it to the Virginia-Tennessee border around five pm, which was a little later than I had anticipated. After we stopped for dinner, I decided it would be okay to let Josh drive for a while, and I took over Ray-Ray's spot in the very back of the car, leaning my head against the side window. I very much enjoyed watching the scenery instead of the road.

It was a beautiful summer evening, and I almost wished that we weren't spending it cooped up in a car. The air outside was growing warmer and warmer the further south we headed, and even though the sun was falling in the western sky, the temperature in Tennessee was about where it was when we had left PA.

"So Natty," Rachel gave up on flipping through the stations, finding only a vast array of country music to choose from, "What're you wishing for when you blow out the candles this year?"

I smiled as I leaned my head on the back of the seat in front of me, knowing this question would come sooner or later. She asked me every year, and every year I told her the same thing. I wished that I could be with my family for my birthday. But as a kid, our private school started two weeks earlier than the public schools, which meant that my birthday greetings were all over the phone, and birthday gifts arrived in the mail. All of my other friends enjoyed birthday celebrations with their families, who were all close enough for a short trip home if their birthday fell during the school year. I was invited each year to both Rachel's and Ray-Ray's, and had always longed for them to be able to come to a birthday celebration with my family. But this year would be different.

I was sure I had surprised them all when I answered, "That you guys enjoy meeting my family when we get to Texas."

I think Rachel even gasped. "Your family? For real? I was beginning to think that you'd made them all up..."

I couldn't help my smile. Seeing them for the first time in almost three years was enough to make it feel like Christmas was coming. It left a nervous energy in the pit of my stomach, just the thought of it, but it was also something that I had been looking forward to for many years now. "Well, not my whole family, but my brothers," I left out the part that they were really the only ones I considered family anymore anyway. "They'll be in Dallas for a few days while we're there, so I thought it might be fun to meet up."

I hadn't quite told my brothers about the trip yet either. I was hoping that my oldest brother would be receptive of the surprise visit, as we hadn't exactly spoken to each other in several years. He'd sent texts at Christmas and on my previous birthdays, and I'd done the same, but after our last epic argument, neither of us had ventured as far to pick up the phone and actually speak to each other. But I missed him. There was a piece of my life - a large one - that was missing without him in it.

By the time we pulled into the hotel, I was tired but wound up all at the same time. After we checked in, the guys went to go find some alcohol to bring back to the rooms.

I stood outside in the hot Tennessee summer air, leaning over the railing outside of our second floor hotel room. The highway was just over a row of tall trees, and I stood there for a few minutes listening to the sound of the cars flying by.

We had made memories today, and as I thought about them, I smiled. I hadn't laughed as hard or as much as I did today in a long time. I thought about our little trivia game, and the arrangement that Ray-Ray and I had gotten ourselves and Rachel into. Unbelievable. Nothing would come of it, of course, and it would probably be the first time in the history of Ray-Ray's game that the final stakes would never really be settled. Of course, we'd keep that between us. We couldn't have the others thinking that they could bail out on the final stakes. It would ruin everything that the game stood for.