“Stella, where did Seth go?” Piper repeated firmly. “Did he run away?”
Did he run away? Yes. Could I tell Piper that? No.
“He left to go live with his family.”
Well, that was true.
“I thought he lived with his grandpa?”
“Some of his other family,” I emphasized.
“And he’s not coming back?” she asked a bit desperately.
“Never,” I whispered.
And then I cried harder.
They continued to hold me until I grappled some control over my emotions. I finally pulled back and used my t-shirt to wipe off my face. I hadn’t bothered with makeup today, so I didn’t need to worry about that, but I felt how puffy and swollen my eyes were and how inflated my lips were.
“I’m a mess,” I whispered.
“You’re beautiful,” Tristan argued. He put a finger under my chin and tilted my head up so that I had to look at him. “It’s going to be alright.”
“No it’s not,” I shook my head, my blonde hair falling around my shoulders.
“It is,” he promised. I stared into his green eyes, the color of emeralds. They were steady, solid and familiar. I sucked in a breath and…. and started to believe him. “Are you up for a walk?”
I nodded and we took off.
We used to do this all the time as kids. Piper, Tristan and I had spent days exploring the acres of land my parents’ house sat on. We jumped hay bales during harvest, we got lost in the rows of corn during the summer, and during the spring we would splash in the huge puddles the tractor tires made until we were covered head to toe in mud.
We’d given up those games sometime around the start of puberty, but every once in a while we enjoyed walking the land together. There was something so organic and wholesome about conversation on a walk. We talked about everything, anything…. nothing. And it all felt right.
And sometimes, like today, it felt like therapy.
The sky was filled with dark storm clouds, heavy with rain yet unshed. The air was cool and smelled like the brewing storm that it was. There was a greenness to the horizon that could mean tornado warning, depending on the storm system. The weather fit my mood perfectly.
We walked for a while without talking, until long after the house was out of sight. Piper had a million questions, I could see them simmering behind her hazel eyes. Her bangs were even longer than usual and swept thick and heavy over her eyes, but beyond her veil of hair I could tell how much she wanted to drill me on this.
Eventually we found a crop of trees that were mostly cleared in the center. There were two young trees that had fallen over and not been removed yet. They tangled in each other with their dead branches and elongated upraised roots.
I sat down on the bent over trunk and ignored the dampness of the bark under my thin leggings. Piper crawled up next to me and linked her arm with mine before laying her head back on my shoulder. Tristan leaned a hip next to me and looked off into the distance as if the answers to my heartbreak were somewhere out there.
And I supposed, in a way, they were.
“Tell us what happened, Stel,” Piper commanded.
I took a few steadying breaths and then I admitted, “I don’t really know. I mean, I now my…. sickness scared him, a lot, but I just talked to him this morning and everything seemed fine. He had…. come over to check on me, and he was really sweet. But then when he left me, he like really left me. He just went to his family, completely turning his back on me and Jupiter and my family. He didn’t even say goodbye- not really, anyway.”
“He didn’t even tell his grandpa he was leaving?” Piper asked in disbelief.
“Nope, he just left. We found out later.”
“How did you find out? Did he call you? Leave a note or anything?”
“Mutual friends just happened to see him, with his family.” I shrugged. This was mostly the truth, although there was no way she could pick up the gravity of my words, or their ugly meaning.
“So they live close by?”
“Not at all. He flew there.”
“He bought a plane ticket and just took off?” Piper gasped.
I shrugged and then echoed, “He just took off.”
“What’s his grandpa going to do?” Her voice was sadder now, as if she was finally accepting that he was gone.
“Nothing,” I admitted. “What can he do? Seth’s with his family. He’s obviously where he wants to be. There’s not a whole lot his grandpa or any of us can do.”
“I’m so sorry, Stella,” she whispered. She pressed a kiss to my shoulder and then laid her head back down. “What a bastard to just leave you like that, though.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly a couple or anything.” The words burned in my throat and ripped and clawed at my heart. We weren’t- but we should have been. Could I have prevented this all if I’d just given into the inevitable? Was my stubborn independence what drove him away?
But we had been growing closer recently. Lately thoughts and feelings for Tristan had been fading into the background because of a dominating attraction to Seth. There were moments when I knew what was growing between us would last forever, would surpass everything else.
And then Seth left me.
What was I supposed to think now?
Was there any hope for a relationship with him of any kind?
No. The oppressing realization hit me hard and fast. There wasn’t any hope. He was gone.
His words this morning whispered through my mind again and I couldn’t help but feel confused. Don’t give up on me. We can do this for the rest of our lives. We will get to do this forever.
It didn’t make sense. Why tell me those things? Make those promises to me…. and then leave me?
“But he obviously had feelings for you,” Piper insisted. “Is he going to call?”
I let out a bitter laugh before I could stop myself. “God, I hope not.”
Her head shot up and she gave me a concerned glance. “You don’t mean that.”
“Trust me; it wouldn’t be good for either of us if he called me now.”
“Who was the family he went to live with?” Tristan asked as the pieces started to come together for him.
“His sister and uncle,” I said meaningfully.
Tristan let out a foul curse under his breath and Piper’s eyebrows snapped together. “What am I missing here?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Don’t do that.” Piper slid off the tree trunk and whirled around to face me. She was all righteous indignation and bubbling fury. “Don’t go into secret Tristan and Stella world. Stop hiding things from me! I want to know!”
My expression sobered and I swallowed back the entire truth. I had wanted to tell Piper for as long as I could remember. But I always held back. Tristan knew, because there wasn’t a choice in my life in which he did not know exactly who I was. But it was easier to lie to Piper, even if I hated it. It was easier to gloss over this part of my life because she filled in every other space. She was my carefree humanity, my reckless immaturity. She was simply my friend, not a mile stone in my life or a choice to be made.
But she did deserve the truth. Or at least part of it. “His family is bad news, Pi.”
“What do you mean? Like they’re… what, like criminals?”
“Yes, and worse.”
“What’s worse than a criminal?” Her eyebrows were hidden behind her thick bangs, but I knew they were raised. Her eyes were huge, and her face flushed with the frustration to understand.
“Them,” I answered cryptically. “They’re just…. they’re the worst kind of people. That’s why he’s always lived with Jupiter. His other family doesn’t have his best interest in mind. In fact, before they’ve always tried to hurt him.”