The Brightest Star in a Constellation

29: The Guide to Staying Up All Night

☆ Evan ☆

Eleven at night is the worst of times. Eleven at night is my curfew. It's one hour before the day resets. One hour can stretch into a million years or last ten seconds. Forfeiting and falling asleep would allow me to breeze through time and I'd find myself on the other side of the morning, but I'd rather push my bedtime away like a form of revenge on myself.

I keep my eyes on the hotel carpet as I walk. In an automatic motion, my eyes try to find a piece of peeling paint, or a section of frayed carpet next to the baseboard—a flaw. But while my apartment building has the air thick with the permanent scent of cooking from across the hall, the hotel is spotless. I wouldn't know what to fit inside of its spacious rooms.

The reflection of the distant lights is visible on the screen of Peter's phone as he changes the song. His music reminds me of Elaine's. It's the same kind of light rock and a synth beat, but the lyrics are in French and virtually incomprehensible to me.

And the silence is so heavy that I could scream, and it wouldn't fill it. This isn't like waiting for Claire to call me. It isn't like being in the next town over for hockey. I keep lobbing my foot at nearby rocks, pretending it's a way to affect my surroundings, a rushing river that eventually erodes sedimentary rock and changes it. And suppressing the urge to talk like Claire would do to fill a lull. But my throat burns with a bubble trapped inside of it, and maybe it's not so bad that I'm not standing outside on my own. Maybe it's not as fucking stupid as it feels.

"We should talk," I say. I don't know why it comes out sounding like a suggestion.

Peter checks his phone again, like he's done eight times already. Three times he's pulled up his texts to check them. Twice he's scrolled between the weather and his home screen. Three times to skip a song. "Please don't say that, you'll make me worry that you're going to get me in trouble, or perhaps even worse—that you've done something heinous."

"No, it's not that." I want to say, It's not that bad, but it is. I doubt there's a word in the dictionary for it—for what Carolyn does to me. I feel like I owe him an explanation, and I started to touch on it, but I can't summon the words. There's nowhere to start. It's not a story that begins when I was born and ends right now. And now it overlaps with Elaine. I was four when Adrian packed up ship, and I didn't have the wherewithal to beg him to take me too. There was no place reserved for me in his luggage. As if Adrian McKenna could give me back the world that I lost. "The most heinous thing I've ever done is ditch school and maybe, if you count it, illegally burning some CDs with Frostwire."

The parking lot is sparse, holding a few trucks in the spots closest to the hotel door. The asphalt is cold under my hands as I drape my legs on the curb stop.

"What's it about, then... unless you want me to guess," he says.

God, I wish it could be that easy. "I'll tell you something, and then we can move on. Okay?" The cord of his headphones rustles between us. A softer song with a keyboard in the background, but it's the sole sound I can pick out. Peter nods. "Here's a painted picture for you: I'm eleven years old. It's January—Elaine's birthday, and we're meant to go bowling. My father is supposed to come. I feel normal for exactly five seconds before my mother starts yelling at my dad for abandoning her. Not me. Her. We don't even have food yet, and definitely no bowling shoes. Elaine's wearing a white dress that glows in the black light, but I can tell she's disappointed. We're not the only family there, so creating a scene gets us kicked out.