Page 2 of Where the Stars Heal

Crawling out from my hiding spot, my knee scrapes against the rough floor, and I wince, biting back a cry.

“There you are!” She sighs, crouching down to meet me. “Come on, honey, let’s get you inside.”

“But… Where’s Hunter?” I ask, taking her hand.

We make our way inside, the broken plates are still scattered on the floor and Momma’s home now. I start to run over to her but Sarah squeezes my hand tight, holding me by her side.

“You asshole!” Momma screams. “You drove him away! My boy is gone because of you.” Her voice is full of anger and I can see her shaking from here. Ray’s eyes turn dark and scary, the kind of look that would make me run. I pull my hand out from Sarah’s and hide behind her, pressing myself against her back.

Sarah picks me up, her arms wrapping around me tightly as she runs me to my room. The sound of Momma and Ray screaming fades with each step and the closing of my door.

“It’s okay, honey,” she whispers to me, tucking me into bed.

“Halle,” Sarah kneels beside my bed, her eyes glassy as I clutch my blankets to my chest. “I need you to listen to me, okay? Hunter had to go somewhere, but he’s gonna come back for you soon. We just need you to be smart and stay safe, okay? Can you do that for us?”

My eyes sting and the water in them spills over. I nod quickly, too afraid to speak. With a sad smile, she leans forward and presses a kiss on my forehead.

“Don’t be a stranger, Halle,” she whispers, before slipping out the door.

I stare at the door with my stomach still growling loudly. This is the worst hide-and-seek game we’ve ever played.

1

I’M A BURDEN

HALLE

“You’re worthless.”

“No one cares about you.”

“You’re looking a little big there.”

The darkness of those words wraps around my mind, dragging me down. They play on a loop, making me feel insignificant. Like I don’t belong.

Because here’s the thing, mean words, they hurt. They don’t leave a physical mark, but they can take the longest to heal and sometimes, they won’t ever heal. They’ll always be there, threatening to consume you, to pull you back into the darkness.

“HALLE, are you going to get out of the car or what?”

Closing my eyes, I sigh. All I wanted was five more minutes to myself, to just breathe on my own before my older brother scrutinizes every move I make. The one who just yelled at me from his front door. The same one who abandoned me when I was a kid, leaving me to figure shit out for myself while he made a life of his own. He ran away and never looked back. My chest hurts thinking about those years without him. The loneliness was suffocating, notknowing how to do anything for myself, and being too afraid to ask for help, wondering what time mom would be home. But the constant fear lurking at the edges of my mind was the worst part. I never knew what mood I was going to get from him.

Unwanted feelings of abandonment and resentment suddenly threaten to overwhelm me. Shaking my head, I remind myself to only focus on right now before I spiral too far. And right now, he’s here, taking me in for the summer out of guilt. His little sister, who’s an emotional train wreck. Poor little me, who needs help getting my life back on track because I’m one big screw-up. Twenty-one, no job, no direction, angry at the world, and always trying to numb the pain.

I grab my bag and water bottle next to me, and glance at myself in the rearview mirror of my beat-up old Honda Civic. The dark circles under my eyes have deepened. My once-high cheekbones now look sunken, and my thick shoulder-length black hair desperately needs a wash. Honestly, I look like shit, but whatever. If life is hell, I might as well look the part.

That’s how it feels. Life. It feels like hell. I lost everything almost five years ago. I was sixteen, and in a single moment, everything was taken from me.

Mom wasn’t around much growing up; she worked a lot. Long hours that drove her to exhaustion. Even when she was sick she still kept on working, and when she got home to our shitty two-bedroom run-down house that had holes scattered around, leaking faucets, and mold on the bathroom ceiling, she kept on going. We didn’t have a lot and it showed but she worked hard to keep that roof over my head.

I learned at a young age to not be disappointed if she couldn’t be there for a school event or for boy troubles. Itook what I could get and understood that she wasn’t there, not because she didn’t want to be, but because someone had to work to keep the bills paid. It’s not like Ray did anything to support us. He just sat on his couch, drinking his beer, and expecting everything to be done for him. So lazy and useless and mean all at once. I would hide out at friends’ houses because I never wanted to be under that roof without Mom there, and that only intensified when Hunter left me. The fear was harder to overcome, and then it happened. In one night, my life went from hard straight to hell, and everything got more screwed up all because he left.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if Hunter took me with him. Would Mom still be here? Would she have gotten better? Would I have gone to college? Would I be this bitter and angry at life? So many what ifs.

My steps feel heavy. The weight on my shoulders drags me down, but I have to see this through. Hunter is stepping up now and I’m really trying my hardest to see that as a good thing, to not feel like the burden that I know I am. Walking up the three steps to his front door, which is red—why his front door is red, I have no idea—I’m taken aback by just how peaceful this street feels.

All the houses here look similar—modest, single-level homes with their own little front porch—but small things make them stand out on their own, like this red door. The house to the left has a flower bed either side of their front steps and across the road has yellow trimmings around their windows and door. Hunter’s house seems alive, though. I can hear the music through the window that sits above the swing chair on the porch, and there’s shoes piled up outside here, with towels thrown over the porch railing.

It smells like fresh grass and sunscreen. Like popsiclesand laughter on a hot day. God, I don’t know what I’m doing here.

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