They Could Care Less

33: Don't Leave Me

"Thea, are you coming?" Heather turned around and asked.

"What? Oh, yeah," Thea answered and hurried after the group. "By the way, have you seen Hussein?" Thea asked and linked her arm to Heather's.

"No, but I'm sure he'll come soon. He always arrives, just not on time," Heather mocked him and Thea shook her head with a smile.

"Really?" Hussein suddenly put his head between the two girls'.

"Fudging shiznit applehole!" Heather cursed out quietly though it was clear she wanted to yell out much worse things until her voice cracked.

"Don't do that, Hussein, I'm scared she's gonna use her new martial art skills on you. I mean, the girl gave up cursing for it so she must put a whole lot of effort into it," Thea said and Heather calmed herself with closed eyes and deep breaths.

"I'll stop if you stop calling me that," he stubbornly argued.

"You've known me for over a year now, Hussein, you know I'm not gonna stop," Thea calmly replied with a smile.

"Then I'll keep scaring you," he said, but Thea wasn't going to give in that easily.

"I guess soon I'll see you with a cast then, if not in a casket," Thea said and shrugged.

"Speaking of hospitals, how is your mom? You and Damon rushed out so urgently last night-" Thea felt the dark familiar cloud return and hang above her.

"She's still living," Thea answered looked down with faked fascination on her shoes. "How did you know about my?" Thea asked when she couldn't recall ever telling him.

"Ethan sort of told us," he mumbled quickly and looked around for eavesdropper. That son of a-  "Don't blame him though, we also sort of forced it out of him," he added and looked down embarrassed.

Thea stopped and turned around to face Hussein. She placed her hands together and took a deep breath before she looked up with a smile. "I appreciate your concerns, I really do. But next time I'd appreciate if you just came directly to me with questions."

"I'll write that down so I remember, don't worry," Hussein answered and smiled which made Thea slightly calmer.

"Thanks," she said and walked away to study a painting and to get some silence, but in New York nothing is ever silent. Thea turned her head back slightly and saw Heather and Hussein having a heated arguement, and every now and then they'd point in Thea's direction. Thea looked back at the painting and tried to understand it, but it just didn't make sense. It was a black canvas with small white dots painted so closely next to each other that you barely saw the black underneath.

"I know, I don't understand what this has to do with math either," Jackson joined her with his arms crossed.

"I don't even understand what this is supposed to be," Thea said and tried not to look at him too much, the awkward tension was of course also there.

"The painter, who is still unknown to this day, tried to draw all the stars in the sky above his house. But because there was too many, he never managed to paint them all in one night because he got too tired. So he continued to draw them a few days later, and so on and so on until he had painted them all on ther. And because the Earth is moving, it seemed like the stars moved too," Jackson explained with a smile and tipped his head slightly to the side and narrowed his eyes. But Thea's thoughts were going to all other dark places, Ethan's sweet words about the stars and her. The two of them lying under the stars talking and the night he kissed her for the first time, with the stars shinging brightly above them. Sometimes we are like stars. We fall to make someone else's wish come true. Maybe I granted his wish, maybe I granted Novelle's. But in the end, why would it matter? I'm still the fallen one.