Page 26 of Wallflower
Violet jumps, turning and spilling her drink over the side of the cup, and I choke back a groan when she lifts her wrist to her mouth and licks away a rivulet of liquid with her delicate pink tongue.
“I’m sorry,” she says, turning her hand and collecting up another droplet of moisture with her lips. She squints to better make me out in the shadows, then glances down at her bare legs. “I didn’t know you were here. I’ll just—”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Violet drops her hand and furrows her brow as she tilts her head to one side. “Me neither.” She glances into her cup, then toward the kitchen before she raises her drink between us. “I made warm milk. Did you want some?”
I lift my mug in response. “I beat you to it. Hot cocoa with marshmallows.”
“Cinnamon and maple syrup here.”
“I’ll have to try that sometime.” I nod at the chair closest to her, the farthest from me at the other end of the table. “Have a seat.”
She chews on her bottom lip before pulling out the chair and lowering herself into it. I take a swallow from my cup and she does the same, dark eyes watching me warily over the rim of her cup. I guess I deserve it, but it doesn’t feel great, so I sit there in moody silence, growing more frustrated with my own assholery.
“I’ve seen pictures of skies like this one and wondered if they were real,” she murmurs quietly. “You don’t see stars like this in the city.”
“Nothing like a Sonoma sky,” I agree.
“Do you know much about them?”
“The stars?” When Violet nods her head, I reply, “Yeah. I know about the stars.”
“Could you…” She pauses and adjusts her glasses. “Could you tell me about them?”
My skin tingles a little at her timid request, but before I think better of it, I swipe at my phone lying on the table to switch off the pool lights. We plunge into near-darkness, and I move off the porch to stand on the lawn below. Violet shadows me, stopping a long pace away and craning her neck at the magic arching over us into infinity.
I point to my favorite constellation. “Cygnus,” I tell her. “Or the Swan. You see those five stars there?” I sweep my finger across the sky to draw her attention to a row of three bright spots followed by one above and another further below. Violet nods with a serious frown of concentration. “That’s the Northern Cross. It marks the Swan’s chest.”
Violet tugs at her lip, upward eyes shining until understanding dawns with a lift of her brows and she finally connects the dots. “I see it!”
I fight a smile and move a step closer to her, pointing to a nearby section of sky. “See those four extra-bright stars over there?”
She hums, alight with curiosity and focusing hard on where I direct her. Her lashes are dark and long, the tip of her nose a fine point, her lips plump and parted, and I swallow with difficulty.
“That’s the Keystone,” I explain. “Hercules’ torso. See those stars around it? Those are his arms and legs, and that constellation beside it is Draco—the dragon Hercules defeated.”
Violet catches her lip between her teeth, and I stare as it pops free. “IthinkI see it.”
I move behind her, leaning down to measure her line of sight, ignoring the way her floral fragrance fills my nostrils, and point at the stars over her shoulder. “There. Draco.”
“Oh.” Violet grows very still before she inhales deeply and releases a shallow breath. Her arm rises slowly as she points tothe brightest star in the sky. “Do you know anything about that one?”
“That’s Arcturus,” I tell her, straightening a little but not moving away. “Part of the Herdsman.”
“Arcturus,” she repeats. “And the Herdsman? I thought it might be something more romantic than that.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
Violet hugs her chest and shrugs. “I don’t know. I suppose I’ve always believed the brightest star in the sky was made for wishing.” She shakes her head and takes a few short, quick steps toward the house and away from me. “It’s silly. I don’t know why I even said that.”
“It’s not silly at all.”
I resist the urge to close the distance between us and glance back at the star in question. “There’s a constellation right there called the Great Bear, and Arcturus is its guide. Lighting the way. Keeping it safe. If you were going to trust your dreams to any star, it makes sense to wish on that one.”
I realize I’ve been staring up at the sky for a while by the time the silence between us grows loud, and I turn back to Violet. There’s a look of soft contemplation on her face, but her subject is me and not the stars.
“How do you know so much?” she asks.
