Between the Stars and Sky by David James Read Free Book Online Page A

me there and back; he’s done it before.”
    “Why? I don’t understand why he won’t let you have a job.”
    “It’s not the job part. It’s the freedom part. My entire life I’ve been beneath his finger. My mom doesn’t even live with us anymore, did you know that? She bought a place somewhere in California two years ago and I haven’t talked to her since. And I know, I know I should run away or do something or fight back but I can’t. Not when I’m almost ready to leave this place. Not when college is just around the corner. Then I’ll finally be free.”
    I ask, “Is that why you’re afraid of us? Because you’re so close to leaving this town, me? Because this might end?”
    She shakes her head, slow. “I’m not afraid. I just... I don’t want to lose you. Not again.”
    My heart stops-
    starts.
    And I can feel myself being pulled under by the unstoppable current of her words, of the fact that she remembers me. Us. All of us.
    “I’m not going anywhere you’re not,” I tell her, and I’m not sure if the words are entirely true but in this moment I want them to be. Because Sarah remembers, truly and vividly remembers the summers we’ve had, the memories we’ve shared.
    She asks, “Why did you leave before?”
    “I didn’t know,” I say. “I didn’t know anything. One day I was here, the next my Dad made us pack up our things and go home. We never came back.”
    “Not since you were thirteen. I remember.”
    I smile, sad. “I think... I think it was because of my Mom. Because of her...” I swallow and choke down the words I want to say but they’re so hard and raw in my throat I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say them.
    “Jackson?” Her hands are on mine, warm.
    And suddenly I know I can do this. I know I can be strong enough to tell Sarah this much. “I think it was because of my Mom’s cancer. I didn’t know about it until the end, but they did. They had to. And I think it was easier to get treatments from the city.”
    “But they didn’t tell you?”
    “No.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    I almost say things I don’t mean, things I’m so used to saying they’ve lost all meaning. Everything about cancer, about my feelings toward it, about death and my mother and my father are so obvious they almost mean nothing if you’re not living them.
    But I don’t.
    Instead, I say, “Me too. I wish I had known. I mean, it wouldn’t have changed anything. But I would have known. I would have known, Sarah. Why didn’t they tell me?”
    I don’t realize I’m crying until she brushes a droplet from my eye and says, “They wanted to keep you safe. They cared about you enough to think they were doing the best thing for you, Jackson. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t wrong, but it was out of love. And that’s more than most of us can say we have.”
    Our eyes close and our lips meet and the world flips itself over in a hurricane of hearts beating faster faster faster faster. And in an instant, as blinding and forever as my lips entwined with hers, I realize this: For months I have been alone without my mother. Long and lonely months I’ve surrounded myself with people and still lost myself alone.
    Since.
    But now.
    This .
    For the first time in months I am not alone.
    Slowly, our lips touch three times more. And between those tiny touches are moments that last forever; songs of eternity in spaces between. Then, all at once, we are lost to each other. Nothing but the waves crashing at our feet, the stars above.
    Us, between.
    I am alive. I am heartbeats. I am a hurricane.
    And I am found.
     
    *   *   *
     
    The truth is this: there is no truth, only lies living in the moments between. Everything is between something. Life and death. Love and lust. Hope and loss. And just for a second, one that flies by in an instant, I wonder where our story is going. Where it will end. But for now I am happy living in the between, the time just before dawn right after dusk, I have found with