In Sight of Stars(37)

Jangle, jangle, jangle.

Every move, every sound is exaggerated.

My mother puts the bottle down, takes off her jacket, folding it perfectly over the arm of the couch.

Jangle. Jangle.

“Forgive me,” Dr. Alvarez says, “this office is always warm. It’s the forced heat. I keep requesting a humidifier to counter it. If we’d had a warmer week, they’d have turned off the heat altogether. Any day now. It’s much more manageable in the spring.”

My mother nods, fidgeting, and drinks some more water. Dr. Alvarez seems more uncomfortable than usual. She pulls her clipboard to her lap, waits patiently for my mother to say something.

My mother drinks again. A drop of water from the mouth of the bottle lands on her cream silk blouse and spreads outward in a darkening circle. I wonder vaguely if it will ruin it. A minor chute against her many, many ladders.

She recaps the bottle and twists it in her lap. Finally, she turns and looks at me. I don’t know if it’s for show or not, but her eyes are filled with tears.

“Klee, honey, it kills me to see you here.” I close my eyes, and she says, “Dr. Alvarez, please, I don’t know what I’ve done. I just want to help.”

But I don’t want her help. I want my father. I want Sarah. I let Sarah crawl toward me on her knees.

Wait! No. Not that day.

That day got messed up.

Not that one. Not now. Not with my mother here.

*

We’re doing it again, but this time I’m lasting.

Sarah feels amazing, and I’m lasting.

I think the condom I bought is actually helping. We move in rhythm, in sync, until she whispers my name, and squeezes my back before relaxing quietly beneath me.

Only then do I let myself go, too.

She brushes back my hair and kisses my forehead. I feel giddy. Happy. Happy because I made Sarah feel good.

I get up and go flush the condom, grabbing my jeans, to pull them on in case her mother gets home. We’re in the basement, and her mother’s filling in on someone else’s weekend shift.

“Nice abs,” she says, lowering herself onto the floor and crawling over. She sits on her knees, looks up at me with her gorgeous blue eyes that I can never get enough of, and runs her hands up the length of my torso. “You’re skinny, so I didn’t realize how much you must work out.” She moves her hands back down my stomach and over the front of my boxers.

If she wants to, I can go again.

“No so much,” I say. “I do crunches. But there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Sarah Wood.”

I glance down my thin frame and feel myself disappear. All I can see is my father. In his striped pajama pants. In his sunny studio. Painting.

I have the same build as he did. I’m staring down at myself but keep seeing my father.

“Okay. So tell me.”

“Tell you what?” I flinch, reeling, slammed by how badly I’m missing him.

“Never mind.” She laughs, goes down on all fours again, and crawls toward me. She’s still in just her panties.

She sings softly, words to a vaguely familiar old song I know she likes because she plays it on her phone.

“Every cloud must have a silver lining…”

She watches me intently, her long black eyelashes batting up at me, and I’m trying to focus, to concentrate.

“Wait until the sun shines through

Smile my honey dear

While I kiss away each tear…”

I’m trying to smile, and I’m sure that I’ve managed, that I’m smiling, but I can’t clear my father from my brain.

“Or else I shall be melancholy too.”

“Klee…?”

And I’m crying.

Jesus. For some dumb-ass reason, I’m crying.

I don’t mean to. I don’t want to be.

I hate myself for letting it happen.

Maybe it’s something in her voice, how lilting and beautiful it is, or maybe it’s the lyrics, or maybe it’s because despite trying not to, I already love her so much. And love is trouble. Love is broken and wrong. The people we love don’t stick around.

Whatever the reason, Sarah is naked, and singing, and I’m the motherfucking asshole who is crying.

I hate myself for it.

Sarah sits back and looks at me.

I swipe at my eyes and say, “Don’t stop, please. I’m just moved by how pretty your voice is.”

But she gets up, pulls on her clothes, and walks back to the couch where she left the remote, and turns on the TV, putting the volume up loud.

I should leave. I should just go home and never come back. But I don’t want to leave us like this.

I sit on the couch and pull myself together. Fuck me, but I pull myself together.

We watch Family Feud. That’s what’s on, so we watch it. We watch until the Cutler Family wins. When it’s over, I reach out and take Sarah’s hand, but she slips her fingers out of mine and says, “I’m sorry, Klee. I told you I like you, and I do. I like you a lot. But, I don’t know…” She shakes her head, eyes looking so, so sad.

“Are you breaking up with me?”

She turns and stares at me, says, “What? No. God, no.” But she shakes her head again and wraps her arms to her chest. “I just think you want more from me than I’m ever going to be able to give.”