He pulls back sharply.
Embarrassment warms my cheeks as I wring my hands back together and blink away.
“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean—”
“Keep going.” I scratch away the tingles on my fingertips. “It’s okay.”
He heaves in a deep breath. “I hate him. I hate him so much, and I wish I could hate my mother too, but I don’t. I know she loved me once, and maybe she still does, in some twisted way. But he never did.”
I don’t know how to respond. Anything I say will come out shallow and contrived because I’m a mere outlier to his pain. “Is that why you can’t sleep?” I wonder, sparing him a cautious glance.
He looks back at me, and the contact holds longer than either of us anticipate. A shiver travels down my spine, winding around me until it zaps my heart.
Lex breaks away first. “I have nightmares,” he says, his voice plagued. “But then I wake up…and the nightmares don’t go away.”
Emotion crawls up my windpipe, a bitter lump of feeling that threatens to spill over. I want to reach for him again, but I keep my hands in my lap.
Maybe he just needs to know that he’s not alone.
Even though part of me yearns to shut down, to push him away and hide my broken bits from him, I’ve seen his breakage. So it’s only fair to share mine. “My baby brother died.”
A gust of wind picks up like a howl of mourning.
“Shit,” he murmurs, his bicep tensing as he inches a fraction closer. “I’m sorry, Nicks.”
“His name was Morrison. He was only ten months old. The doctors said he died of SIDS. No reason, no cause. It just…happened. His heart stopped beating in the middle of the night, and he never woke up.”
Tears blot my vision as I look up at my favorite star. My Morrison star. I feel Lex’s eyes on me, but it takes too much effort to face him.
“I was the one who found him,” I confess, trying so hard to keep my tone steady and even. “I was five years old. It was supposed to be an ordinary day, but it was the worst day of my life. I kept trying to wake him up with songs and poking fingers, but he was still. A bluish color. I called for my mom, and she came running into the room. Then she screamed. She screamed so loud, I still hear it in the back of my mind. I knew something terrible had happened and that nothing would ever be the same.” Salty droplets track down my cheeks, pooling at my jawline. “For a long time, I thought it was my fault. When he was born, Mom allowed me to pick out a toy for him. I chose a teddy bear. So every night, I’d place the teddy bear in his crib, hoping it would bring him good dreams.”
“Stevie…” Lex whispers my name.
“I thought he suffocated on the teddy bear. I thought maybe he rolled over onto it and couldn’t breathe. But everyone said it was an accident, and these things just happen sometimes.” I swipe my tears away with the back of my hand and inhale a deep breath. “Anyway, I know what it’s like to lose love. Sometimes by death, sometimes by choice. Either way, the hardest part is that the love still lingers, even after that person is gone. You can’t escape it. You have nowhere to put it. So you just let it fill you up with all these hopeless feelings and memories, and it weighs you down. And it hurts.”
I look back up at the stars—at my star—praying for the pain to ebb. Begging for a reprieve.
That’s when it happens.
When I feel it.
Slowly, Lex reaches for my hand in the space between us, his touch soft and warm. Hesitation bleeds with compassion as he offers me an outlet for my pain. What seems foreign and unfamiliar to him is an antidote for me. A cure.
I’m not sure what it means, but I think it’s comfort, I think it’s friendship, and I think it means everything.
Our fingers link together.
With a heavy sigh, he leans back against the base of the window with my hand anchored inside his, and the rest of our words fall away.
Lex told me he can’t sleep, which means we have something in common after all—a shared thread.
But deep down, I know we’re not the same.
I’m afraid I won’t wake up.
Lex is afraid he will.
Chapter 10
