The Falling (Brightest Stars, #1)(92)

“They will.” I looked up at her. “If they don’t, it’s their loss anyway.”

“You need to eat,” Elodie exclaimed, jumping up from the couch. She disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a bowl of Cheerios with sugar sprinkled on top. Elodie knew it was my favorite breakfast, something my mom had made any time of day or night when she knew I needed a pick-me-up. It was still my comfort-food ritual.

I looked at the time on my phone: it was already 9:45, and I was due at work at eleven. How was I going to work a shift today? I was in no mood to be with anyone.

“I am going to call Mali,” I said between bites of cereal. “I know I’ve taken time off this week, but I just can’t go there today. I know Mali’s going to freak, but I just can’t do it.”

“Don’t call her! She’ll kill you. And she’s already mad at me for not working my full week,” Elodie exclaimed, eyes wide. “I’m off today, I can cover for you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I decided already. You helped me so much when I was sick from the baby.” She smiled. “I’m going to shower now and get ready.”


After Elodie left, I had the house to myself and could either crawl back into bed and be miserable or try to keep myself distracted while still being miserable. Giving other people the power to make me feel this way was exactly what I had been avoiding my entire life. Kael made me break my own rules.

I should have known that, sooner or later, he would reveal himself to be exactly what he was, what we all are, the most selfish of creatures. I’d never met a person who wasn’t selfish. I shouldn’t have ignored that little voice inside that told me we were headed for nowhere fast and we were going to run out of gas anyway. The problem was he made me feel comforted and understood, less alone in the world—the highs of being with him were so consuming that the voice of reason in my head was drowned out. It was fucked up the way he cracked me open, turned me into a freaking maple tree, my deepest private thoughts pouring out of me and into him. He soaked them up, but kept the tap closed when it came to himself. And he turned out to be just another liar in my life.

Even so, it was a hard pill to swallow. My body clung to the memory of his touch, the hot flash of his warm lips brushing my skin, his mouth trailing down the nape of my neck. I lifted my hand to touch there. Even my own touch reminded me of him. When he touched me, I didn’t know where I ended and he began.


Time was going impossibly slowly; it was barely eleven in the morning on Day 1 post-Kael. I couldn’t get him out of my mind: he made his home there with a constant presence—and worse than that, there were traces of him were everywhere in my house. As I dug through my drawers for something light and easy to wear, I saw the satin pajamas. And his gray PT shirt was folded neatly next to them. Even my fingers ached for him. Fuck him, honestly.

Maybe if I cleaned myself up, had a shower, and brushed my teeth, I might feel a little less zombie-like. At minimum, the tasks would distract me. I walked to the kitchen to throw my dirty laundry into the washer, then went into the bathroom, where I grabbed Kael’s stupid gross toothpaste and tossed it into the trash can. When I missed, it hit an already loose wall tile that cracked into pieces, hitting the floor. Fuck this house, and how it knows just how badly I need him to fix my life.

And then I thought about my own advice to my childhood friend, Sammy, after she and Austin broke up for the fourth time. I reminded her that he was only a teeny tiny little part of her life, that in five years he wouldn’t matter. No one in our school in Texas would matter to us. Not even the cool kids would matter when we were grown-ups. She said she’d never fully be able to forget him because he was my twin and our laugh was the same. We got distant after she and Austin split, and her marriage soon thereafter made it harder to keep in touch. Eventually she faded from my life like everyone else had.

I turned on the music and looked into the mirror. My dark hair washed out my tired face more than usual, and I thought about coloring it. I crouched down and opened the cabinet. Sure enough, I had a box of dye. A lighter brown than my hair was now, but not too drastic of a change.

Screw it, I decided.

I had the house to myself for the rest of the afternoon and I’d been thinking of changing my hair for a while anyway; it would be a few months until I could afford to go to the salon to get it done. I ripped the box open and followed the instructions, even though I knew how to do it by now. I mixed the dye, shook the bottle, and applied it carefully to my hair over the sink. I had lost count of how many times I’d changed my hair color in my life. My mom let me use temporary dye, a dark blue, when I was twelve. I would never forget the look on my father’s face when he came downstairs to see my mom and I both with deep blue streaks in our hair.

I set a timer for twenty minutes on my phone and rummaged through my cabinet to see what other luxuries I had. I found a face mask to use after the shower and grabbed my nail file and tweezers. I leaned my face to the mirror and brushed my eyebrows with a little brush meant for tooth flossing. My thick brows could definitely use a little shaping; I held the tweezers up and brought my face closer to the mirror. In my reflection, my hand was shaking, so I traded hands. The right hand was even worse, and because I had already committed to hair dye with no guarantee of the outcome, I didn’t want to risk messing my eyebrows up, too. I wasn’t that far gone.