She Dims the Stars(54)

Elliot is completely still on top of me, and Cline walks toward us with tentative steps, his eyes wide and hands up in front of him. “Let’s all remember that the coma joke was said by Audrey. I was not the one who instigated it. I had no hand in it …”

With a nudge, I shove Elliot off of me, and I’m sitting up next to him on the couch, looking them both over. “Is this how it’s going to be? Eggshells? Because if it is, you need to stop that shit right now. I’m not a fragile f*cking flower. I ride an alicorn.” I nod my head for emphasis. “I slay fedora wearing dragons.”

“No, you don’t. He’s your friend,” Cline says, pointing a finger at me.

“I’m the hero in this game, boys. Don’t you forget it.” I stand and walk over to Cline, standing on my tiptoes to reach up and give him a hug. “I love you, you idiot,” I whisper when he hugs me back.

“I have a girlfriend,” he says back right before I poke him in the neck and make him fold in two, giggling like a doughboy.

Pushing him back, I extend my hand to Elliot, and he takes it, following behind me to his bedroom. “So does Elliot,” I say as I close the door.

We’re alone in his room, his piles of clothes still scattered about and wires still coming from every possible place imaginable. He sits on the bed and watches me while I settle into the desk chair and swivel side to side.

“Are you tired?” I ask.

He shakes his head no, and I turn some more, tilting my head to look up at the ceiling.

“Me either. What a conundrum.”

“I can think of a few things we could do,” he says, and I roll my head forward to look at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Does one of them include using your superpower?”

He makes a “come hither” motion with two fingers, and I nod.

“Yep. That’s the one.”

“Since we’re on the subject…” His gaze lowers to the bedspread and he licks his lips before he speaks again, quieter this time. “That night. Was that your first time?”

“Would you be super shocked if I said that it was? I told you before that I’m not comfortable with my body.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” The look on his face is almost adorable, but my cheeks are on fire and my hands are sweating so it’s a little hard to appreciate.

I shrug. “You’re awkward and I have panic attacks. Did you really think that would go over well?”

He nods a couple times and blinks rapidly. “Fair enough.”

“The truth is that you’re the first person I felt safe with. And if you’re wondering whether or not it had anything to with what happened afterward…”

“I saw the texts. I know it wasn’t that.”

“So sure of yourself,” I joke, swiveling in the chair once more.

“I mean if you’re not sure whether it was good or not, we could always try it again. You know. For science.” He’s grinning and that pull in my chest becomes so tight I can hardly breathe, but it’s in the very best way.

“I could never deny science.” I stand, cross to the bed, and crawl onto the mattress with him, lying on my side so that he mirrors my position. Our hands find each other and fingers link between us as we stare at one another in his one-lamp-lit bedroom. He’s looking at me with such adoration, but there’s another layer behind it—worry—that he’s trying to bury for this moment between us. “I’m okay. I can’t promise you that every single day is going to be perfect, but I what I can promise is that I’m trying my very hardest. It’ll be amazing and sometimes it’ll be terrible, but I’m in here fighting to stay afloat. For the first time in years, I have people I trust to talk to about it. Besides a doctor, I mean. You see me, and because of that, I don’t want to disappear anymore.”

He touches his nose to mine and brushes his lips softly over my chin. “And if you ever get to that place again?”

I lean back and hold up our hands between us, my palm open to his, fist unfurled. “I have a hand to reach for.”





I can’t find Audrey in this swarm of people, and it’s beginning to make me nervous.

“Elliot! Elliooootttttt!” Cline is waving frantically at me from one of the vendor booths, his beer sloshing over the side of the cup he’s holding in his hand. I follow where he’s pointing and can’t help but laugh at what he’s freaking out about. A group of girls are waiting for the next act to take the stage, and they’re all wearing a Dims t-shirt. They’ve cut them up so that they’re basically shredded tank tops, but if they want to trash a thirty dollar t-shirt, that’s not my business.

Seeing a group of girls wearing our shirts with rainbow poop cookies on them at a four-day music festival in Memphis is a little surreal, though. Even after all these months.

A pink head of hair stops in front of me, and Audrey’s eyes appear beneath the neatly trimmed bangs. She’s holding VIP passes in one hand and cold water bottles in the other. “Did you see them? The girls in the shirts?”

“Of course, I did. Cline was freaking out and not being the least bit cool about it,” I tell her as I take a VIP pass and a water from her.

September and Thursday arrive just seconds later, both wearing wigs as well, one bright blue and the other electric green. It was an act of solidarity when Audrey realized she wasn’t going to be able to go to the festival without being recognized as the face of the wildly popular game/app Dims the Stars.