Written in the Stars(88)

Pisces—“Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler

Elle snagged the pint of Half Baked off the coffee table and shoved another bite in her mouth, studiously ignoring Margot’s exasperated stare.

“‘I Am a Rock’?” Margot demanded. “Elizabeth Marie.”

“What?” Elle sighed around her spoon. “It’s fitting. It’s— Darcy’s a Capricorn.”

And clearly, she was a rock, an island who had no need for feelings. At least not any feelings that had anything to do with Elle.

Elle stabbed at her ice cream. Maybe it wasn’t Darcy. Maybe it was her. Elle was the common denominator in her love life or lack thereof, after all.

“Here.” Margot grabbed a pen and crossed out the song, scribbling something neatly in its place.

Elle licked her spoon, then shoved it back in the pint before setting it on the coffee table. She wasn’t hungry. “What did you put?”

With a nonchalance Elle couldn’t muster if she tried, Margot tossed the pen and paper on the table. “‘Too Good at Goodbyes’ by Sam Smith.”

The back of Elle’s eyelids burned, her vision blurring with tears. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t. She was going to keep staring at the coffee table until she became dehydrated and her body reabsorbed her tears. They wouldn’t fall. They wouldn’t. She wasn’t—

A hot tear slid down her face, trailing sideways on the curve of her cheek and catching on the side of her nostril, salt burning her chapped skin. Damn it.

“Elle.” Margot grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her across the couch until Elle was halfway lying in Margot’s lap. She petted the back of Elle’s head and that did it.

Composure completely kaput, Elle buried her nose in Margot’s stomach and clenched her eyes shut. Fat, slippery tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, making her face wet and sticky, her nose beginning to run. She gasped in a broken breath and clenched her fingers in Margot’s sweater. “What’s wrong with me?”

Gently, Margot brushed back the baby-fine hair from around Elle’s temples. “Nothing. Nothing at all, Elle.”

“Obviously, something.” There had to be. There must’ve been something about her that made it so easy for Darcy to walk away. Metaphorically. Elle had done the actual walking but Darcy hadn’t stopped her, hadn’t even tried.

Elle had bared her heart for Darcy, her soul. From day one, she’d been clear with Darcy on what she wanted, what she craved. Darcy had given her hope that she could have that, that they could have that together. False hope or no hope, Elle wasn’t sure which was worse. From where she was sitting, both made her ache, made her feel like there was something critical missing inside her. That spark, the little voice that kept her going when everything else was grim and dark and bearing down on her. Hope didn’t spring eternal in Elle after all.

She couldn’t even sleep in her own room, couldn’t stand the sight of the stars on her ceiling because now all they reminded her of was the night that Darcy had stayed, their night beneath the stars.

Darcy Lowell had ruined the fucking stars for Elle. Of all the things. Elle had given Darcy everything and now she had nothing.

“Darcy has fucking problems, okay? And those are on her, not on you. You did nothing wrong. Do you hear me?”

Elle lifted her head and stared up at Margot through clumpy lashes. She bit the inside of her cheek and had to drop her voice to a whisper to get her question out without choking. “But why doesn’t she want me?”

That was the question that had kept her up last night, awake and staring at the ceiling of the living room until her puffy eyelids grew too heavy and she eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep plagued by dreams of happier times. Like last week when Darcy had made her pancakes for the second time and had kissed the inside of Elle’s wrist when she’d stopped Elle from stealing one off the plate. Or when they’d been up on the astronomy tower at UW and Darcy had looked at her, ambient light from the stars and the moon turning her hair into spun sunlight, all reds and golds, fire in the night, and Elle had felt seen. Like Darcy had taken a peek at Elle’s soul, had heard the tempo of her heart, and decided she liked it. Liked it enough to stay.

But only for a little while, apparently. Temporarily. Not long enough.

“Elle—”

“Am I not enough?”

Margot shook her head, eyes fierce, the clench of her jaw vehement. “No. You are absolutely enough.”

Of the wrong things. Her chin wobbled, a fresh batch of tears sluicing down her cheeks. She didn’t have the energy to try to stop them. “Then am I too much, Margot? Be honest.”

Her family certainly thought so. Darcy, too.

“You’re just right, Elle.” Margot pushed back Elle’s bangs and rubbed her thumb over Elle’s temple, wiping away tears. “No one is worth feeling like you’re not good enough, that you’re not amazing exactly as you are. If Darcy can’t see that, that means she isn’t right for you, okay? It means she’s not your perfect person.”

Elle bit down on the side of her tongue until she could speak without fear of sobbing out her words. “I don’t think I have one of those. A perfect person.”

This was the antithesis of who she was—full of fear, doubt, hopeless. But she didn’t feel like herself, not at all. Maybe a sanitized version, scrubbed down to all bones, no heart. Elle minus.