Page 40 of When Stars Fall

Ellie moves beside me. Her hand starts on my lower back and travels to my shoulder. I close my eyes. Without her, I’d be lost. She’s earthquake-proof and nothing shakes her. I turn, scooping her to me, and I bury my face in her neck while she squeezes me tight.

“Isaac and Tanvi are coming in our limo to the graveside service, right?” she asks into my ear. “I can’t find Anna.”

I shrug. My brain is fuzzy. My memory’s checked out for the day.

“I think so. Tanvi said something about it.” She leaves me to go to Isaac’s mother. Ellie’s phone is in her hand, and she’s texting someone. When she glances up, her expression brims with concern.God, I love her face.I could sit and watch her age minute by minute and never get bored.

Kyle appears at my shoulder. “Sir, Ellie requested I get you to the car. She’s escorting Tanvi and Isaac.”

Of course she did. I yank at my shirt collar, which is always too tight. As we walk to the car, Kyle is silent. That’s not unusual. We’ve known each other for years, and the silence is often comfortable.

My mind drifts to Kabir. Massive heart attacks shouldn’t be a thing. Fifty-year-old men who act more like my father than my father shouldn’t die out of the blue. When I’ve thought about that over the last few days, I’ve reached for a glass of lean or one of my pills more than usual. My life could be half over right now and I’d never know.

Cameras follow us and click as we walk. I glance at Kyle and then I stop in my tracks. “Where’s Ellie?” My heart pumps in my chest. She’s been swarmed before. When I went into the crowd to get her, I threw punches at anyone who blocked my path. There was a court date for that one.

“Ellie organized for Tim and David from the security firm to come today, and she’s with them. She thought it might be a zoo.” Kyle glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “She was worried about you and Isaac, sir.” He motions with his hand for us to continue walking to the vehicle.

We get to the limo first, and I slide in. Kyle has the divide down between us. “Ellie’s always looking after me.”

“She looks after all of you,” Kyle says.

The back door opens and Isaac stumbles in, followed by Tanvi, and finally Ellie slides in beside me. She squeezes my leg, and I loop her arm through mine, lacing our fingers together.

“Anna is still out there,” Tanvi says, and she peers out the window. “We need to wait.”

“Isaac.” With my free hand, I shake his knee. “You in there, man?”

Tanvi glances at him. She’s been a rock, like Ellie. Isaac, Anna, and I are eroding from the inside out.

“I’m fine,” Isaac mumbles. His mother grabs his hand, and he squeezes hers without taking his focus from the window.

The rear door of the limo pops open, and Anna falls in, almost landing on Tanvi’s lap. Tanvi scooches closer to Isaac to make room for Anna, who tugs on the hem of her dress.

“You were going to leave without me?” Anna glares at Ellie and then me. “Abandoning your sister?”

If I wasn’t so fucking high, that comment would sting. When my parents lost my acting income, they threw her into modeling. We don’t talk about what happened to her from twelve to eighteen, but I can imagine, and it’s all toxic.

“No,” Ellie says. “That’s why we’re still here. You know Wyatt wouldn’t do that.”

We don’t mention our drugs or alcohol around Tanvi, but Anna’s still got powder on her nose, and I kick her foot. When she turns toward me, I pinch my nose. She runs the back of her hand across hers and then stares out the window.

The silence in the limo is oppressive as we follow the hearse to the grave site. Kabir’s brother is doing a speech, and Ellie agreed to read a poem. The rest of us couldn’t face the performance. Did Tanvi experience this aching hollowness in her chest when her own parents died? Whenever the pills wear off, my brain is sucked into a black hole. That’s Ellie’s term, not mine. She calls it the black hole of doom.

On those days, I’ve wandered the house raging about parents. One way or another, parents devastate their kids, either by being shitty like mine or dying like Kabir. The world is tilted, and I’m not sure it’ll ever level out again. This is a depth of heartbreak I never realized existed.

“Are you okay?” Ellie asks in a low voice.

I shake my head. Examining her hand, I lift it and press her palm to my lips. She leans her head against my side and sighs. “I can’t imagine a worse day,” I say.

The ceremony passes in a blur of other people’s tears and the bottom of a pill bottle. When my brain checks in, I’m standing in the middle of my living room alone. I’m not sure how we got back to my place.

“Ellie? Isaac?” I call out.

“Why are you standing there?” Ellie emerges from the hallway with her brow creased.

“No idea.” I shrug.

“Wyatt, man, why aren’t you changed?” Isaac enters the living room from the opposite side of the house.

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