From the Stars, to the Stars

From the Stars to the Stars: Chapter Five

"So, this is where Jocelyn Oliviero keeps her kinder self, is it?" Sebastien muses, suddenly taking up about six vertical feet of space next to me atop the crest of Cannon Hill.

I don't look up. I don't need to. I asked him to meet me here, and besides, the heat of guilt lingers in my skin, in my cheeks, where he might see it. I have my pride.

I pat the unoccupied bench space to my left, the pocked cold of if sharper than it feels through my jeans. "I don't know about my kinder self, but the rest of me hides here when I need to clear my head."

He hesitates. I expect him to demand an apology. He doesn't. "From what do you hide, Jocelyn?"

"Usually? Time, though today I might be hiding from something else."

"Time?"

"Yup. Sit down. You're making me nervous, hovering over me like that."

He settles himself beside me, on the bench. The cold, dry grass crunches under the twist of his shoe.

"Cannon Hill's got the best view in Staunton. Mountains and leaves aflame three-sixty all around, and then you look up and there's so much sky you can't see it all at once, even if you tilt your head back as far as you can. Here, go like this," I say, squinching down the bench till my heels digging into the soft ground are the only things keeping my bottom from falling off the edge. Sebastien copies me, his feet several inches further forward than mine. "Now, put your head like this--" Our heads balance on the back of the bench. It isn't exactly comfy, but the view is totally worth it.

"After Gracie was born, the stress made me kind of claustrophobic. All that fear clogging the air into something solid, you know? Mom and Dad tried to act like Gracie's heart problem wasn't that bad, but getting shadows under their eyes, living off of bad coffee, knowing stuff about the NICU nurses' personal lives; that's not normal.

"When it got to be too much, Aunt Rin would rescue me, take me with her to the library. Sometimes she let me shelve books. I was shelving one day and found a book about constellations; their science, the myths people made up about the stars. I was hooked. What it said about the sky made all that space feel so much huger. So now, when something freaks me out, I come visit all this vastness. I mean, the stars are so far away it takes lifetimes just to see them, to see their light, but they've been around forever, or at least forever enough for people to create stories that don't die. That's enough room to steal away just about anything scary."

I take a big, cleansing breath, letting go of my preconceptions and disappointments. "You said you wanted to see something that mattered to me. This place matters, and because you're right about me owing you an apology I figured the least I could do is share my personal sanctuary with you.

"I also promise to be a lot slower on the draw about making judgments about you. Truce?"

He turns his face toward mine and lifts a corner of his mouth in a little grin. "Only if you answer a personal question for me," he says.

I let my head droop sideways to look over at him. "Um, hi. I just spewed five minutes of 'personal' at you."

"Ah, yes," Sebastien agrees, laughter just this side of his smile. "Just one more, then."

"I guess I owe you. Sure . . . as long as it isn't something phenomenally stupid, like, 'Hey baby, what's your sign?'" I drop my voice, adding a backwoods drawl on the last line.

He earns points for shuddering in distaste. "Heaven forbid! I'm curious about your relationship with . . . what is it you and Jules call him? The Adorable?"

"Dude! That is classified intel! If you even hint to Drew about it, I will sic Jules on you, and she's a black belt in three,"—I stab three fingers at the air, "—martial arts."