In Sight of Stars(43)

I drink, feeling the liquid burn a bitter, hot trail down my throat, but I force another sip anyway, then a third, before putting the bottle back on my nightstand. A warm surge rushes me like melted caramel.

“There. You happy? Now you owe me,” I say, closing my door just in case. I fall back onto my bed, pulling Sarah down with me. “God, you feel good. I want you so bad, all the time.”

“I know you do, Alden. I know it.” She kisses my forehead and whispers, “It’s okay. I want you, too.”

I roll her off me and onto her back, simultaneously reaching toward my nightstand drawer, trying to remember if I have any protection in there. But I can’t reach, and when I get up to search, she gets up, too, taking the Grey Goose bottle with her.

She roams, sipping and touching and looking at everything, when all I want is for her to come back, to let me touch her again. Instead, I watch from this distance, dumbfounded by how beautiful she is. Her body. Her hair. Her way of being. How wound up tight I am compared to how fucking free she is.

At my closet, she turns and gives me a mischievous smile, and pulls the door open.

It’s disappointing, I’m sure. No skeletons to be found. Only a few button-downs and a lone pair of khakis echoing on hangers. Everything else I own is either folded in my dresser drawers or still tucked away in boxes in the guest room or garage. There’s no old sports equipment, no boxes of books or toys giving clues into little me. No stashes of Bob the Builder Legos, or even a mess of dirty laundry. This isn’t my home and never will be, so why would I have bothered to unpack?

“Impressive,” she says, her voice turning somber. “I’ve never seen such a neat and empty closet. Hey, tell the truth, Klee, how come you never invite me over? Are you ashamed of me?”

“What? No!” I get up, but she holds a hand out, takes another sip of vodka and brings the bottle over.

“I believe you. It’s no big deal. Drink. And eat your waffle. Today I get to the bottom of who Klee Alden, International Man of Mystery, really is. I could have done this without even waking you. I thought about it, too.”

She walks to my desk, and opens and closes its drawers. She won’t find much in there either.

Except she does. Because I’ve forgotten the album. If I had remembered, I may have tried to stop her. I don’t want to look at that now. Maybe not ever.

“Eureka,” she says, pulling it from the back of the bottom drawer.

My heart aches. It’s not mine, but my father’s. From a long, long time ago. When we were packing up the apartment, I’d found it and shoved it in my backpack for safekeeping.

She walks to the bed, sits, and opens to the first page. “So, tell me, Alden,” she says.

Tell you what? Nearly all the air leaves my lungs.

My father’s young face looks up at me. Handsome. Hopeful. His hair shorter and darker than I remembered. No gray. Almost a crew cut. His eyes crinkle with his smile. He sits on a park bench with his arm around my mother. She looks young, too, and happy, which makes me feel sorry for her. For everything. When did she grow so cold and bitter?

“You’re wasting your time if you want dirt on me,” I say to Sarah, who keeps flipping. “This was my father’s. From before they were married, and I was born.”

“Not exactly,” she says when she gets near the end. She stops and holds out a photo of my father holding a baby. Me. Wrapped in a white blanket with blue stars. Asleep on his shoulder.

Sarah looks at me.

“Me, obviously,” I say.

She touches her finger to my newborn face and says, “You were pretty then, too,” but I’m not listening. I’m lost in my father’s eyes, trying to see if they look happy or sad. To see if he was glad that he brought me into the world. He looks like he is, but who can tell?

I study his face some more. When did he get so unhappy? Unhappy enough that none of this mattered anymore?

“So, you never told me,” Sarah says, closing the album. She walks to my desk and puts it back where it came from. When she turns, she says, “How did he die, again? Cancer, right?”

“Yes,” I say. “Cancer.” I should tell her the truth. Blurt it out. Get it over with. But I don’t. I can’t. I don’t know why. I’ve never even spoken the word “suicide” aloud. I’m not even sure I know how to. Anyway, it doesn’t seem true. As if, in my head, I’ve substituted a whole other story. Cancer. Or a car crash. Something more glamorous, or at least nobler. Something that doesn’t mean I didn’t matter.

Because, if I tell her that—the truth—then she’ll know, too. I. Don’t. Matter. Enough. Not to her, or my mother, or to anyone. How can I, if I didn’t matter enough to him?

“It was awful,” I add, “but he went fast.”

She stares at me, then sits on the bed and says, “How come you keep lying to me, Alden? Why don’t you trust me?”

I pick up the bottle of vodka and drink some more, but the room is already spinning. I search for my waffle, but I put it down somewhere. Or maybe I ate it already.

“I don’t know,” I say. “The fast part is true.” She touches my hair, looks in my eyes, and waits for more. I need to tell her. I owe her that. “He killed himself with…” My voice hitches. “He killed himself.”

I watch her face, waiting for the words to undo me, waiting for them to send her running from my room. But they don’t do either. We just sit there, the words still ringing in my ears.