Chapter 17

Chapter 17StellaGale looked miserable. Guess she’d heard, too. She stepped into the room with a dark cloud around her, setting her tea down before stripping off her coat and scarf, and she knelt to take her boots off, still not saying a word. I moved to put a hand on her shoulder, but I shrank back when she pulled away.“Sorry,” she said, finally, standing back up. “Just… having some feelings.”I looked down. “So… they told you.”“Could have mentioned that’s why you were leaving me alone with them…”I knew it wasn’t fair to feel this sick, sad feeling over a comment that small, but I shifted, awkwardly, my head heavy. “Sorry. Guess… the whole family sucks at communication.”“Minus Clarissa, unfortunately.” She sighed, dragging a hand over her face. “Sorry. I’m not angry with you, I promise. Just… with… the world. Your family.”“Mm.” I nodded, trying to look like I believed it. “Me too.”She walked past me, falling onto the bed. I sank next to her, not even knowing if I was allowed to touch her, put a hand on her shoulder, her hand, anything. At length, I forced out the only words I could find.“Do you, um… do you want to eat?”“I forgot I got food,” she laughed, her voice a little dry, raspy, sitting back up. “Yeah. I don’t have any appetite, but… I bet I’m hungry.”It felt a little like a punishment, though, sitting with her for food—we pulled over the console table from the foot of the bed and put cushions on the floor, eating side-by-side there at our little private table like we’d done a few times now, but it was an awkward, oppressive silence now. I hated that I couldn’t get words out—hated that I was the same as my family, useless to actually say the things in my head when it came to it.Finally, her meal halfway finished and mine done, she said, “I don’t know if I can have any more…”“That’s okay.” I said it automatically, words to fill the space. She looked away.“Probably shouldn’t have started it in the first place… I feel a little sick.”I put a hand on her back. “You shouldn’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”She sipped her tea, hunching over the table, settled into this painful silence for an eternity before she said, “Sorry if it wasn’t enough for you…”I looked down at my takeout container, picked clean. “It’s okay,” I said. “Um… it was really good. Thank you.”“Thank you,” she sighed, looking down at her food. “For joining me. I really enjoyed it.”My head was churning, and I tasted something bitter on my tongue that I doubted was from the mashed potatoes and gravy that had gotten a little cold in its container. “I mean, it’s better than getting nothing at all…”She smiled thinly at me. “I’m sorry, Stella. I don’t want to make things worse for you, knowing how… how… volatile things are.”I swallowed hard, folding my hands tightly in my lap. It was too selfish to tell her to stay out of it just to pick her back up when it was convenient—to leave her, end this thing, just because it was a problem now and have her put things on pause waiting for me when I could be ready for her. I wanted it so badly it hurt—more than I’d realized until I was here, face-to-face and raw up against it—but there was no use in wanting.If I tried to have her without committing to it, only wanted to have her when it was easy, I was just going to drop her the next time it was hard, too. And as much as I adored her—she deserved better than that. Some girl who had the space in her life to commit to her.“I just… don’t want my family falling apart over me,” I sighed, picking at the Styrofoam flaps on my takeout container. “Grandpa’s a stuck-up asshole who always has to get his way, Mom and Dad won’t just rip the Band-Aid off and do what they need to, and I’m just… I just…” I hunched further into my shoulders. “If I stop holding it together at the seams like I’ve always done—”“I know.” She looked away, watching as snowflakes darted across the window in the glow of the Christmas lights strung above it. “And I wouldn’t want to be the final feather that breaks it.”“This sucks,” I groaned, collapsing face-first on the table, pushing the takeout container aside and burying my face in my arms. “I just wish for once that I could be my own person, that I could do what I want…”She put a hand on my back, caressing gently. I felt a lump burning hot in my throat, like—like how could she just do that so casually, as if we weren’t falling apart right now? Just touching me softly like everything was okay…“I’m not strong like you are,” I said, my voice thin, reedy. “You just… end things with your parents, walk out, fly to Scotland to be who you are there… I wish I could be like that.”“I know it’s easier said than done…”Easier said than done. In the end, was that all we were? Just a difficult task that we’d been unprepared for?I took a long breath, pushing myself up to face her properly, hoping I wasn’t crying. “Hey… um… Gale.”She swallowed, meeting my gaze but breaking it after a second, looking at my shoulder instead. “Yeah?”“Can we… are you…”She paused. “You’re… going to have to finish the sentence, Stella.”“I’m trying,” I said, my voice thick. I took a long breath, steadying myself. “Are you upset with me?”She gave me the softest, sweetest little heartbreaking smile, taking my hand and squeezing it. “I’m really goddamn sad and upset how things are, but… I couldn’t be angry at you, not in a million lifetimes.”I couldn’t help myself—despite the situation, I fell against her side, turning and pressing my face into her shoulder. “Can we be… you know… I’ve at least missed our friendship a lot… we didn’t—” I stopped, catching myself, stamping out the tear-streaked waver in my voice. “We didn’t ruin that, did we?”She sighed, hanging her head. “I’m… I’m gonna be honest, Stella, it’s going to be hard for a bit. But… you’ve already had me sticking around for most of your life. I doubt we’re shaking each other. I’ll… need a minute.” She took a long breath, putting on a smile for me. “But sooner or later, I want the same thing.”I swallowed, hard. It would have to be enough. At least we’d still done something beautiful here—still made incredible memories together and, just as importantly, gotten our friendship back.I’d probably also need a minute, though, because right now, it felt like that could never be enough.“So…” I pulled in a shaky breath, willing myself to hold it together. “So what now? You’re… going, aren’t you?”“Yeah.” She looked away. “I don’t think I can handle this kind of thing for Christmas.”I sighed. I’d… kind of been hoping I might get a chance to see her apartment, the little one off-campus that she’d decorated with her love for fairy lights. Now I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance. “You’re not… going… tonight, are you?” I said, my voice cracking, and she shook her head.“No. Definitely not. I was… er…” She hunched her shoulders, pulling her knees up into her chest. “I was hoping we could spend tonight together… just… you know, one more night. If that’s not too much to—”“That’s what I want. What I was… hoping for, maybe.” I hung my head. “I’m really the worst.”“Please. Don’t blame yourself. It’s your family that’s at fault.”It was, but whose fault was it that I was letting them get in the way? That I was letting them scare me away from Gale?I hated myself, but there was nothing I could do.But at least we had tonight. Softly, I sank into her, falling against her like she was the only safe thing in this world, and I captured her lips in mine, shoving down all the aching feelings in my chest, desperate to just enjoy this one night, if it was all we had.*Gale made a big show of it the next morning. She was a talented actress—said how something had happened with her family and she needed to be with them for Christmas. The whole family, squeezed into the lodge entrance in the morning, was all too sympathetic, and a dozen people who probably just yesterday were bitching about her lined up to give her big hugs and tell her to have the most wonderful merry Christmas, and we turned the planned breakfast into a big event to see her off.Everyone was so ready to squeeze in the last time with her that they could, and I guess it worked perfectly—seemed like the little rumor about me and her had been forgotten altogether in the rush of it all. Clarissa looked devastated about it all, but she wasn’t the only one.The day went by in a rush, and it was all too soon that we were seeing her off, standing there watching her old SUV pulling out along the narrow road and out of Bellsford. I didn’t even get a second alone with her all day… it was probably for the best, though. I would have cried all over her and just made things worse for her.But there was a quote somewhere about being happy that something had happened, instead of being sad that it was over. And I tried to remember it, even though trying to get it into my head felt like packing dry snow—dissolving every time I tried.But I did my best. I put on a happy face. I went to the shop with Grandpa and Grandma, even though they were the last people I wanted to see right now. Went with them along with some more of the Jacksons for a little workshop visit showing us how to make our own crafted ornaments, and all I could think about was if I got to do it alongside Gale—making a pair of ornaments together, one to keep at her place and one to keep at mine, and we’d never be too far apart.Dinner was fine. I wasn’t sure I tasted anything. The mood had lightened, even right around Mom and Dad—seemed like Gale’s big departure had taken the fire out of the scandal, and Mom had been avoiding Charlie like he was a biohazard ever since, so they must have ended up buying whatever cover story Mom and Dad had used.I lied to myself and told myself everything was okay, just because I needed to get through it, and I guess it worked, because I made it through enough smiling and fake-laughing interactions to get back to my room at the lodge, and then it really hit me when I fell into the bed and lay there in the quiet of an empty room.She’d really packed up her things fast. Here one day and gone the next. Maybe I shouldn’t have fallen for a girl who’d just broken another girl’s heart by disappearing.But who was I kidding? Her ex-girlfriend had been the one to break her heart, and Gale disappeared because of it. And then I’d done the same thing, and she disappeared because of it. Just like with her parents—broke her heart, and then she disappeared.Guess she really did belong to the wind.