“There will be about ten people lined up to kill me if anyone knows I let you come here,” I told her, my hand pressed against her back. “And I’m not sure who would make it more painful — your dad or Jenny.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I just get winded sort of easily.” She reached for my hand and squeezed it. “It makes me happy just knowing we get to go up here.”
“If it’s cold and windy up there, we’re not staying,” I said. “Deal?”
“Deal.” She pulled on the lever to the door to the roof.
Amy, the TA, stood over a shop light, handing out assignments to the other students. When she saw us, she waved. “You’re back!”
The roof was littered with students staring at the sky. The city twinkled beyond the ledge until the light ended in the Pacific, roiling like a black menace in the pale glow of the moon. I thought of how easily it could have swallowed Corabelle up and shuddered.
“What have you got for us?” Corabelle asked, taking a sheet from Amy.
“Pretty easy. Find the Cepheus constellation, locate the Delta star, and estimate its brightness based on the known magnitude of Zeta and Epsilon.”
Corabelle turned to me. “I hope you’ve been paying attention.”
Amy laughed. “I wouldn’t bet on that. But it’s all on the sheet. Let me know if you need help.”
“Kiddie astronomy,” I said. “Magnitude is just how bright the star is.” I took the page from her. “Easy stuff.”
“Good. I need easy.” Corabelle took my hand and we wound our way through the sprawled legs and discarded backpacks of other students to find our spot on the back side.
“You cold?” I asked her.
“Not yet,” she said, sitting down on the concrete.
“I should have brought a blanket.” I knelt beside her. “Should I spread my coat down?”
“I’ve got you.” She peered at the page. “Let’s get this done.”
I pulled out a little flashlight to shine on the assignment. It seemed pretty easy. Locate the star. Find companion stars. Compare brightness and estimate the magnitude.
Corabelle looked up. “You see Cepheus?”
I stared at the stars. “Says here it’s only the size of a fist. Five stars in the shape of a house.”
“There’s the North Star,” Corabelle said. “Is it close to that?”
“Between it and Cassiopeia.”
She held up her arms. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Do you see?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, the coal-black hair streaming down her back, her pale face turned up to the sky. Just seeing her someplace other than a hospital bed was a miracle.
Corabelle turned to me. “Hey, you’re not even looking.”
“I already see what I want to see.”
She dropped her arms. “It’s different tonight, isn’t it?”
I glanced up at the sky, finally. “Colder, certainly.”
She punched my arm. “You know what I mean. We’re actually together.”
I lay back on the roof, dragging a backpack under my head. “Well, the first time we were in shock at seeing each other, and the second time we were fighting. So yeah, this is new.”
She eased down and curled up next to me, her head on my shoulder. I pulled her in tight, the way I’d wanted to that first night. I wasn’t going to take for granted that I could do it now.
“We’re a team this time. Life is just as hard as it was at the other two star parties, but this time we’re in it together.”
I squeezed her shoulders. “We are.”
Her breath puffed against my cheek. “It’s the last night before everything could change.”
“Nothing’s going to change.”
“If that boy belongs to you.”
“He doesn’t.”
She hesitated, then said, “I saw how much you cared about him.”
“I worry about what will happen to them. Her family was not kind about her situation. Tijuana isn’t an easy place to survive.”
She fell silent again, and the weight of her unasked questions pressed down on us like the stars.
“I think I see Delta,” I said.
Corabelle turned her head to look up. “I don’t remember which stars to compare it to.”
“Zeta, Epsilon, and Delta form a triangle off Cepheus,” I said. “Zeta is the corner of the house.”
“Hey! You have been paying attention!”
“Delta is the one farthest away.”
“It’s in between the other two in brightness.”
“3.9 then.”
“You know this?” Corabelle turned her face back to me.
“Hey, I wasn’t that bad a student in high school.” I smiled at her.
She nestled into my neck, her nose cold. “Classic underachiever.”
I borrowed a line from Jenny. “I have to keep everyone’s expectations low.”
“Mine are sky high.”
I took one of her hands in mine. “You’re the only one I aim to please.”
Her body tensed, but before I could ask her what was wrong, she asked, “How many times did you see her?”
“Rosa?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not really sure.”
“A lot then.”
“For a while.”
“When was the last time you were…with her?”
“I’m guessing you don’t mean talking.”
She didn’t answer.
I sighed. “Are you sure you want to go into this?”
“I want to know what I’m up against.”
I drew her in even closer, each curve of her body pressed against mine. “I don’t keep track of these things. All I know is that once I saw you again, nothing else mattered. I don’t want to see her again. I don’t plan to see her again. I’m anxious for all this to be behind us so I don’t have to even think about it.”
“She loves you, Gavin.”
“She thinks she does. I’m just a meal ticket.”
“That boy doesn’t see you that way.”
I lifted her chin so she could look at me. “I totally understand why you would be worried. But nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to come between us again.”
She watched me with quiet eyes, fearful and deep. I felt overcome with the need to keep her as close to me as possible, to never let anything hurt her again. I bent in close to kiss her. I always communicated to her best this way, able to pour into her all the things I felt without having to fumble with words.
Her arms came around my head, and she responded in earnest. I realized I had not gotten a chance to kiss her those other nights on the roof, when I wanted to, and now the chance had come, and I let it unfurl, holding her as tight as I dared, delving into her soft, warm mouth like a dying man.
She gasped, and I pulled away, afraid I had pushed her too hard, that breathing was still too much, but she whispered, “Please take me to your place.” And so I stood up, helping her rise to standing, and we raced away from the stars and the students and the TA and the cold uncaring sea.
31: Corabelle
Gavin was so careful with me, so good.
I’d never been more happy to see his weight benches, his listing bookcases, and the scattered possessions that were all uniquely his.
He made a show of carrying me through the living room, as though I were frail, but I let him. The sensation of floating through his apartment, carried in the cradle of his arms, helped the world fall away. I could forget Rosa and her little boy, the lab room, the test results we expected tomorrow. My parents disappeared, and the hospital, the suction tubes, and the unending stream of nurses.
He laid me carefully across the bed, removing my shoes and wrapping me in a blanket. He reached inside the bundle of cloth for the snap to my jeans, easing them down without letting the chill touch my skin.
“You’re going to keep those socks on,” he whispered. “Not going to let you get cold.”