I blow out a breath, shaking my head.
As I put the memo back in the file, an exit interview from the counselor catches my attention. A little girl’s handwriting fills the page in big, blocky print. Stars dot the I’s.
Squinting, I draw it closer, crouching to kneel rigidly over the open file. I recognize this handwriting. Blair’s name is at the bottom with the same star punctuating the letter in her name.
You look sad. Don’t be sad. Here, wish on my star.
The soft, high-pitched voice echoes in my head along with a flash of long dark hair and brown eyes. My throat is thick when I swallow. The memory of my third grade art class assaults me in snippets, skipping like a broken movie reel.
There was a girl my age, both of us older than the other kids but too young to join the grade ahead of us. She came up to me during arts and crafts to show me her drawing of stars. They filled the page, lopsided and quirky, just like her smile.
I had been shirking the teacher’s directions to draw because I was sulking. Everything sucked and I wasn’t getting my way. Mom and Dad kept leaving me alone. I didn’t like the lady staying at my house. She didn’t know the book I liked to read with Mom.
The little girl didn’t mind or notice the way everyone kept their distance from me, taking the chair next to me without asking. I glared at her, but she ignored that, too.
You can have my stars, they’ll make you happy again. Make a wish! The wishes you make on shooting stars always come true.
I couldn’t yell at her to leave me alone. Instead, I remained quiet and surly, pinching the edges of her drawing while she started on a new page. At the bottom of the page she wrote her name, Blair with a small star over one letter. A look of concentration settled on her face, tongue poking out between her teeth as she drew. Two pages filled with crooked stars and her random bouts of humming later, the anger making me shout at everyone bled away, leaving me calmer.
Suspicious, I asked her, “How do you know the wishes work? Have you tried it?”
Blair had blown out a gusty breath that moved her hair. “No,” she said with a pout, pausing from drawing. “Mom says they come out after my bedtime, but she swears it’s like magic! Magic is awesome!”
Her eyes had grown so big and were full of such sincerity, I had to believe she was right.
I clung to her words like a lifeline after all the anger, pain, and frustration I felt from my parents noticing me less and less as they stayed away from home for longer stretches. I don’t know what I did to make them not want to be around me, but the hurt was suffocating. Blair’s promise about wishing on shooting stars helped. I looked for one every night before bed, staying up until my eyes were dry and itchy. When I saw one, I was going to tell her about it, eager to boast that I had wished on a real one before she did.
Blair sat beside me in every art class, talkative enough for the both of us. Her enthusiasm was contagious. She made me laugh, struck with a spark of life again after I’d felt numb to the world.
Then she was gone.
Like my parents.
No one wanted to stay with me.
Her chair remained empty and the tingling numbness crept back in without her smiles to fight it back. The teacher told me she had to go away when I asked where my friend went.
It wasn’t until after Blair was gone that I finally saw my first real shooting star.
For my first wish, I wished for her to come back. I was mad that she could leave me behind so easily.
Well, I wished for Blair once, and she did return to me. Only it was far too late. I was already broken beyond the repair of her magic shooting stars by the time I found her again.
The quirky friend from my childhood is my little thief. I can’t believe it.
My breath comes in harsh pants and I cover my eyes, dragging air into my lungs. The world feels like it’s tipped sideways and tumbled me around. I haven’t thought about the girl from my art class in years. I kept her buried deep under layers of everything else, locked in her own box with the rest of my emotions and memories.
Does she even remember me? I can’t blame her if she doesn’t. The irrational anger I’ve always felt when I looked at her makes more sense now. I might have shoved the memory of our brief, strange bond down, but the grief of losing that connection so easily seeped out between the cracks.
This discovery doesn’t change my plans. Blair still needs to pay.
The crooked smile that used to light up her face pops up in my head. With it comes other memories from that time in my life, ones that leave me raw and humming like a live wire. I clench my teeth together hard enough to feel the pulse in my ears. My hand covers my mouth as I wrestle the memories back into place, where I can forget about them.
This is all her fault. I’ll make her squirm for breaking past the sturdy barriers I erected. My next move begins to form in my head.
You won’t escape me so easily this time.
The slam of a door and muffled voices makes me jump.
“Fuck,” I whisper gruffly.
My time is up and I haven’t made my getaway.
Shooting into action, I scramble from my crouch, gathering the manila folder of Blair’s educational life. Footsteps pass the door of the student records room. I freeze, holding my breath.
“Devlin’s not back yet?” Debbie asks someone. “Let me know when he’s here. I need him to make copies of this right away.”
Damn it, Debbie, calm your tits. Being quiet, I carefully open the drawer of the wooden cabinet and slip Blair’s file back in place. I need help to escape the records room unnoticed. The office sounds full again.
I send a text to Bishop.
Devlin: How close are you to the office?
Bishop: [GIF of a man sprinting away in the distance.]
The corner of my mouth lifts. He hates coming down to the office when his dad is around.
Devlin: Come flirt with Debbie. Need her distracted so I don’t have your dad riding my ass for being in the student records room.
Bishop: Oh shit!! You devil. [smirking devil emoji]
Bishop: On my way.
Bishop: [GIF of Superman flying through the air]
I lean heavily against the doorframe as I wait for Bishop’s help. I can’t get Blair’s voice out of my head.
The wishes you make on shooting stars always come true.
A humorless smile twists my mouth. Out of all the countless wishes I’ve made on stars, this one comes true. I skim a hand over the side of my ribs, where the magic Blair once told me about is inked into my skin.
Guess I got what I fucking wished for.
Seventeen
Blair
Hell is humiliating.
It’s filled with Devlin Murphy’s impish smirk, his friends’ comments about my desperation stinking up the school, nasty taunts from the student body in the form of dog barks, and whatever that weird feeling was last week when he made me wear a collar.
I thought he might kiss me, so I panicked. The ridiculous flutter in my stomach had been confusing and I hated myself a little for it. I hated him more for causing it.
That embarrassing collar went straight into the dumpster behind the trailer park when school was over.
It’s all hell, but at least the cash I need is coming in with each completed trial of willpower versus my battered pride.