Star Light
Chapter 1
Do you remember how, in preschool, they always taught you these dumb rhymes, like the one you used to wish on a star? Well, it may come as a shock, but for some people, those little rhymes stick.
I walked down the hall, clutching my sneakers and shorts. I was on my way to the gym for PE, my least favorite class. The din of noise around me crowded my mind, the echoes and screams bursting in and stomping on my thoughts. I was lost, trying to get my train of thought back on track when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
"Lost in a dream world again?" smiled my best friend, Ben. He laughed.
"I am surprised you can even think with all of this noise."
"Funny, I was just thinking of that…" I said, joining his smile.
"Great minds do think alike!" He grabbed for my novel. "A new one already? I barely recognized the one yesterday, and you wouldn't even let me read the back to tell if it was a new one!"
"Yeah, well, I couldn't sleep again last night. You know how I get."
"Yeah yeah. I am just saying that it is a little unnatural for a person to read a 400 page book in one night."
"Well, I guess I am unnatural then, huh."
By this time, we'd come upon the gym.
"Well, I will see you after class. Try not to die in there!" he smirked, heading toward the band room across the way. He was a member of the high school drumline, and therefore always had some practice to go to. He knew as well as I did that PE was absolute torture, and nothing- and I mean nothing- got you out of it. Even if you brought in a doctors note, you still had to sit with the rest of class and pretend you were going to automatically spring up and do something. The gym was sometimes called the dungeon, of course with the utmost affection.
"Hey Kendall, where were you?"
I quickly glanced around to see who had called my name. My friend Julia stood in the corner of the locker room, wrestling with the lock hanging from her locker. She had gotten the trick lock, the one that one unlucky kid got every quarter in PE. It didn't open. So far I was the only person known to routinely get it open.
"I had to get my stuff from my locker." I said, "And then Ben walked me down here."
"Oooooh, Ben!" she squealed. She was set on the fact that Ben liked me, which was just short of idiotic. Ben had been my best friend for as long as I could remember.
"Whatever. You are so weird." I said, "Here, let me get that." I carefully twisted her lock to the right numbers.
"23….. 44…… 6….. There." I sighed as the lock clicked open.
"Thanks."
45 minutes later, we walked out of the gym, sweaty and tired. We were really glad that it was our last class. We walked across the field, toward the stadium and the black lot. Julia was talking about how she was upset she had gymnastics after PE, and how she was probably going to have to go on a 5 mile run. I wasn't listening.
Julia left to go to her car in the front of the building, waving goodbye. I gave her a small wave, confused as to what was going on by my car.
"Uh, what happened, did you miss your bus?" I asked Ben, who was leaning up against my car, waiting for me.
"How did you know? He asked, smiling.
"You never- ever- ask to get a ride home."
"Who's to say that's what I am asking?" I gave him an incredulous look.
"Then what are you asking, huh? Mr. I-Really-Need-A-Ride-Home-But-Won't-Admit-It?" I smirked at him.
"I dunno, actually." He laughed, "So, can I get that ride or no?"
"What do you think?" I asked, laughing, "Get in, idiot."
"Thanks for the ride, Kendall!" he called as he walked down his front path. He hesitated, and almost turned back to ask me something, but turned back again, shaking his head. I don't think he knew I noticed, but for the next few days, he was acting really strangely.
•
I called my friend Alex a week later, hoping to get some insight as to what might be up.
"He just never acts like this, you know? It's like, creepy…" I shuddered at the thought, "He's kinda freaking me out."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. He's just usually so… I dunno, happy. All of a sudden he's turned into like, someone totally different." She said. Alex was my other best friend, and she knew Ben as well as I did. Both she and I were in the high school Color Guard, and therefore we spent practically every waking hour with a flag, rifle, or sabre in our hands. We spent so much time practicing, Ben joked with us sometimes that the equipment was surgically attached to us, but he practiced just as hard for the drumline. Occasionally, he'd pick up a flag, and it was always good to have a camera ready at that point. Or a helmet. But still, he was one of my best friends, and I was curious as to what was up.
"It just seems to weird- I mean, what did he want to say to me?" I asked her, coming out of my thoughts, "it just seems weird, like, he says everything else to me, but can't say this one thing, I mean, God, I have known him practically since I was born."
"I know…. Maybe he was going to tell you that he…. I dunno, liked you?" She was as set on Julia's theory as Julia was.
"Yeah, ok. Whatever you two say. Look, I got some homework to do. TTYL." I quickly ended, not wanting to get into the subject.
"Uh huh, whatever. See yas!"
"See ya." I said, hanging up my phone with a sigh of relief. This was getting way too complicated.
•
A couple of days later, Ben was still acting a little weird. I finally decided to just go up and ask him what was up.
"Hey, Ben, gotta sec?" I asked him, coming up to his locker on Friday.
"Yeah, what's up?" he said, shutting his locker door.
"Funny, that's what I was going to ask you." I said, glancing at him to see his reaction.
"What do you mean?" he said, stopping in the middle of the end-of-week scramble that took over the hallway each Friday afternoon.
"You've just been so… I dunno, out of it lately. Ever since I gave you that ride home, you've just been…. I don't know…. Different."
He gave me a strange look- like it was almost fear. Why would he be afraid?
"Speaking of which, can I have another ride? I have to… to tell you something." He said so quietly, that I could almost not hear him.
"Sure. No… no problem." I smiled.
We walked across the parking lot toward my car. I had been late getting a parking pass, so it was in the middle of the lot. We walked in silence the whole way. In fact, we rode in silence the entire ride, until I pulled in front of his house.
"So… what is it that you had to tell me?" I whispered, the silence shattered like a hammer through glass.
Ben inhaled a long, shaky breath.
"It… I …. I don't know if I can explain…." He said, his voice just as shaky as his breath.
"You can tell me anyth –" I couldn't complete my thought, because I was interrupted.
Ben was kissing me, hard, on the lips.
He broke off quickly, and when he did, I stared at him in absolute shock.
"What… what was…?" I murmured, bringing my hand up to my mouth.
"I have to go…" he said quickly, and then ran out the door.
For some reason, after he left, I started sobbing. I stayed parked outside his house crying for a half hour after he left. I couldn't stop, even when it seemed like I had no more tears left.
I didn't know what was wrong with me.
•
I didn't call Alex or Julia that night, like I usually did. For some reason, I couldn't stand telling them that they had been right. I was strange at first, not talking to them or laughing with them like I did every night. The next day, you could tell they knew something was up.
"Hey, why didn't you call last night?" was Alex's greeting when she met me at my house Saturday morning. I had forgotten I'd made plans to go shopping with her and Julia.
"I dunno- I got preoccupied, I guess." I said simply, hoping the subject would go away.
It didn't.
Not only did Alex pester me with it all the way to the mall, but Julia asked the exact same questions when we met her at the food court.
I got fed up with it really quickly.
"I kissed Ben, alright? Are you happy? You're both right; let's go get you a freaking medal!" I shouted, storming away from them after a half hour of them tormenting me. They glanced at each other and followed me quietly. I walked through a large crowd of people to a bench, where I promptly sat down and started to cry again.
"Hey… it's ok… this is a good thing, remember?" Julia said, sitting down next to me and patting me on the back, "You already know so much about him, and you guys are really great together."
I looked up at her slowly.
"You don't understand, do you? This isn't a good thing- it's… it's horrible!" I said, barely audible in the raucous halls of the mall, "This could ruin everything! Everything…" I said the last word so quietly, I could barely hear myself.
"How… how is it bad? I'm sorry, but you two are like made for each other." Alex said a little two bluntly.
"It's… he is like my brother… I've known him practically my entire life… it's like he knows everything about me that there is to know, but there had been this big huge block there this entire time. This big huge thing that I never knew about."
"Honey, we tried and tried to tell you," Julia said, "But you never listened. He writes your name all over his Drumline notebook- I'm surprised you didn't see it all those times he walked you to PE. And it isn't like he is hiding it; he flirts with you all the time and always talks about you."
"He… does?" I whispered after a period of silence.
"More then you know." Alex said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.
"And you know what?" Julia said slowly, "I think you like him too- you are just afraid to admit it."