Everything is packed and we are ready to move. I said goodbye to my parents, they are proud of me.
Charlie’s mom is hopping around making arrangements for us in New York.
She’s saying we have a big apartment waiting there. I don’t want big; I just want a place where me and Charlie are happy.
All my things are packed neatly in brown boxes and they are being loaded onto the truck.
My room is wiped clean.
Yesterday, I went to the Stewarts’ home and said goodbye to them, Diamond is going to USC, Ruby is going to Yale to study marine biology and Emmy is going to University of Berkeley.
I am going to miss them too, I saw them most of my life as enemies but they are good.
Jack has gotten into UCLA so, Emmy and him are going to stay together too.
I walk downstairs and see Mrs. Gray preparing dinner; I take out the dishes and place them on the table
“I can’t believe you both graduated and are now going away for college. All seventeen years, Charlie grew up here” she says.
Mrs. Gray came back to Deorgon as soon as she heard the news, but his father couldn’t come. She kept thanking me for saving his life.
“I know” I say. Suddenly I am feeling blue.
After dinner with Charlie, I go brush my teeth and lie on my bed.
Tomorrow I’ll be to New York and the new chapter of my life will start.
Someone knocks on my door, so I get up and open it. Charlie is in his sweat pants and black t-shirt and his hair is messy. It makes me take a deep breath in. He looks so gorgeous.
“I couldn’t sleep” he says.
“Me either”
“I wanna do something before we leave” he says and lets his hand out. I take it and we head upstairs to a huge empty room.
“What’s so special here?” I ask.
“Wait” he says and takes a ladder, he climbs it and opens the roof and the light of sparkling stars pour into the room.
I gasp, he goes up and gestures me to follow and I do it.
When we reach it, the dark blue sky is now filled with stars, he sits down onto a pit next to him and I sit next to him.
He takes my hand intertwining his finger into mine. I see the stars.
“I never really took anyone here” he says.
“Not even...” I don’t finish it; I don’t want to hurt him.
“Yes, not even her. But I wish I had” he says, “I wish many things”
“I am sure she loved you” I blurt out.
“I don’t want to think about it anymore Ken. You are here, you saved my life, and I got to know what she thought. This is a new chapter for me” he says just like I thought few moments ago.
“You remember the picture he sent?” he asks, the first ever threat, the photo that started it all. I nod.
“It was her brother” he says, “Lane Cerise”
“How do you know?” I ask him.
“I found in the album her mom gave us”
I nod again; I just don’t know what to tell.
Charlie pulls me closer by my waist and I snuggle closer to him. “You’d tell me if you are going through things right?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t have to, I going to live with you”
He smiles and kisses my head.
We both stare at the beautiful stars.
If Kezya was alive, things would’ve been different, I would have never confessed my love for him or be star gazing like this. If she was, we all would’ve gone to NYU and we could’ve hung out and the same repetition of High School but better and live so posh like we imagined.
I still can’t place if her death is real or am I just imagining.
She never told us what she was going through and it became someone’s weapon.
I told him what I was feeling and now I am the one who’s keeping him sane.
Words can kill or keep you alive.
Things would’ve been entirely different, if she was alive. Her mom would’ve been happy; she lost all of them who she loved deeply.
All it takes is to say.
Tomorrow is a new day; we’ll be leaving and start new.
New chapter.
I am not happy nor is Charlie, it will take months or maybe years to forget this entire thing, but right now, in this moment, feeling warm and cozy in his arms and star gaze is what it all takes to make me happy.