Written in the Stars(84)
Elle’s chin wobbled gently before she clenched her jaw and lifted her head, staring up at Darcy, the blue of her eyes as dark and glassy as the lake at night. “That’s it? I said I overheard and you don’t have anything . . . anything to say?”
Darcy bit the inside of her lip. “What do you want me to say?”
Elle stared for a heartbeat, then two, three, and Darcy’s heart quickened. The air around them crackled, cold and electric and quiet. Elle’s chin jerked in a barely there shake. “Something. I want you to say something.” Her tongue swept out, wetting her bottom lip. “Is this— What is this to you?” she whispered.
Darcy’s heart clenched, the back of her throat narrowing.
She’d told Mom that she was having fun with Elle, and that was true, but it was more than that. It was fun and frightening and more than anything Darcy had felt in a long, long time.
“It’s . . . it’s complicated,” she admitted, feeling like that was the right word, the only one that could do her quagmire of feelings any justice.
Elle’s jaw dropped, a little gasp tearing from between her lips before she laughed, low and dry, humorless. “That’s— Could you uncomplicate it for me?”
If only it were that easy. “It’s not that simple, Elle.”
Elle stared, eyes narrowing before she pressed her lips together and gave a tiny shrug. “Isn’t it? Or shouldn’t it be? It is for me.”
The back of Darcy’s throat burned. “You wouldn’t understand—”
“Why not?” Elle glared. “I might be flighty, but I’m not stupid, Darcy.”
Darcy hugged herself tighter until her ribs ached. “I never said you were. I never called you flighty.”
“Your mom did.” Elle’s jaw clenched tighter as she stared down and to the side where a crack in the pavement spread like branching veins all the way to the curb.
Darcy’s chest went cold. “I am not my mother.”
Elle was quiet and as much as Darcy didn’t want to have this conversation there was something unsettling in this silence, alarming in the stillness of Elle’s body, her posture. She was a force, always in movement. Twitching, shifting, vibrant. This wasn’t like her, wasn’t normal. It wasn’t like how some of their silences were comfortable. Those contained breath in every space between their words. This was deprivation, asphyxiation in the grim absence of Elle’s voice, her laugh, the sound she made when she sighed softly and she was simply there. Touchable.
The distance between them now felt vast and Darcy didn’t have the slightest clue how to traverse it. If she could.
With another barely perceptible jerk of her chin, Elle frowned. “I’m not asking for . . . for a proposal, Darcy.”
Bile crept up her esophagus, her heart tripping, flailing, faltering.
“I’m not asking you to promise me forever.” Elle sniffed hard. “It’s only been a few weeks, but you’re all I can think about and I just want to know what this is. We were fake and now we’re not, but what are we? What am I? Am I your girlfriend? Is this— How do you feel?”
Like she was going to throw up.
Outside of the immediate moment, Darcy had never felt like this, not this soon, not this fast, not this deep, not this much, none of it. Not for anyone, not even Natasha. And like Mom had said, Darcy had been ready to spend the rest of her life with Natasha, had loved her, and as a result, finding her in bed with a mutual friend had broken Darcy. Had shattered her heart into a million pieces and it had taken nearly two years and a cross-country move to glue herself back together and even then, until recently, she sometimes wondered if she’d put herself back together wrong.
If she was more like Mom than she wanted to believe.
What she felt for Elle was immense and it made what she’d felt for Natasha seem trivial. She’d loved Natasha but she’d never forgotten how to breathe when Natasha stared at her and remembered how when Natasha smiled. Darcy had never lost her mind over Natasha’s laugh. She’d never stared at her phone waiting for Natasha to text. She’d never counted the minutes until she’d see Natasha again. She’d never felt so helpless and powerful at the same time when they kissed, like she was holding the entire magnificent, fragile universe inside her hands when they touched. Her feelings for Natasha had been . . . steady. Steady and secure with both feet firmly planted on the ground at all times. A comfortable sort of love. Sensible.
Natasha had been safe and she’d still cut Darcy to the quick.
If she felt this much for Elle, as much as she did, a scary amount, it only stood to reason that with more time, her feelings would continue to grow. Like one of those stars Elle had told her about, the ones that grew bigger and bigger and burned brighter and hotter, until one day, inevitably, they exploded, drowning out the light of all the stars around them. Like a supernova, the resulting heartbreak would drown out the memory of all those other brokenhearted moments, make them pale by comparison.
It was inevitable—sparks either fizzled or they caught fire and burned you. It had happened to Mom after twenty-five years and it had happened to Darcy, too.
No place on Earth would be far enough to run to escape that sort of pain, to start over. Not as long as there were stars in the sky and a moon over her head. She and Elle would look up at that same sky every night and no amount of distance would ever be enough to make her forget what the moon looked like reflecting off Elle’s features. How it made Darcy feel like anything was possible.