When Stars Burn

Chapter Seven: Stars and Scars

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"I've left Mama messages. She can't say I haven't been keeping in touch," I told my sister on the phone as I hopped off the bus and started walking up the block to the townhouse.

"Yes—those weekly two-minute messages that sound like a school report," Josie said with a sigh. "You tell her the same thing—that you're healthy, you're getting good grades and that there's nothing to worry about. It's not really keeping in touch when you haven't actually talked to her in two months."

"I don't really know that we have a lot to talk about," I pointed out. "Besides, it's not my fault that she never picks up when I call."

"You call her at nine in the morning when you know she doesn't get up until well past two in the afternoon," Josie retorted, her exasperation clear. "Look, I don't have the time or energy to play shrink to the two of you. Just call her, Star, and talk to her. She becomes a blubbering, sobbing mess now every time she mentions you. She keeps saying you're now too good for us."

I didn't say anything.

I'd rather not when there wasn't a kind thing I could really say. I didn't talk to my family often and when I did, I preferred it to be short and free of drama.

But drama was one of the few inconvenient but consistent things in the Matthews household. With a mother like mine, it was unavoidable.

"You don't have to say anything for me to know that you agree with her." Josie's voice was flat. Resigned. She understood and always had, and she didn't care one whit about it. "I don't plan on nicking the bubble you now live in, sis. I just want to remind you that outside of the bubble is still the real world and it doesn't go away just because you chose to."

"I'll call her when I have a chance," I said, deciding it was easier to just agree with Josie now than to spend another ten minutes arguing further with her. I wasn't that far from the townhouse now. I wanted to leave my family issues behind before I step through the door. "How's Simon?"

"Needing new clothes again," Josie said, sounding fond and amused. "He's growing up so fast I swear he'll be six feet by the time he's twelve."

I smiled, remembering my six-year-old nephew's chubby face and gap-toothed grin. He was one of those rare, pure things in the Matthews family. My smile faded at the reminder that his bright-eyed innocence wouldn't last long. It never did in our family. "I'll see if I can visit on his birthday. Maybe take him out to a movie and pizza."

I could hear Josie smile—her real one which might be tired and faint but with more feeling than those siren-like ones she handed out like cookies on a bake sale. "He'll like that. Let me know if you can and I'll tell him."

"I will," I said just as I approached the townhouse. "I gotta go, Josie."

I cut the call before Josie could make a last-ditch effort at convincing me to call our mother. She would never press on her own but Darla Matthews was an earnest and dramatic crier. She would've made it big on the stage she'd once thought herself destined for. Josie and I had years of mastering indifference to it but it didn't mean we liked putting up with it. Josie probably just couldn't stand listening to her anymore.

Slipping my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, I stopped short when I heard the murmur of conversation coming from the townhouse.

Looking up, I instantly spotted Julian's disheveled brown hair as he stood there by the front porch, talking with a guy nearly as tall as he was who sported an auburn head. There was white smoke coming from just beside Julian who was wearing a black and white checkered apron, and it took a second for me to realize he was barbecuing something on the outdoor grill.