When I Die [Wattys 2016]

Chapter 3: Star Dust

The next day I came home and Myra and Reid came over. I hadn't seen them since before I received my news. Although I'd cut everyone off outside my mom since my news, I felt certain they already knew. My mom had been informing everyone, and I do mean everyone. Mr. Dr. Faulkner had already emailed me telling me he planned to come visit during the weekend.

Reid entered my room first. I didn't feel sick, I wondered if I looked sick. They shuffled in, I could tell they were trying at first to act chill, but Reid just couldn't act normal.

"Leo, man, it's so good to see you." Reid walked over towards me, I spun around in my desk chair.

He hugged me. I hugged him back. We did the weird, slapping each other's back thing that we do when we hug... why? I don't know. Myra leaned against the door jam.

She said, "How about we go to the park?"

It was ten o'clock at night. My mom would normally not let me leave that late. She did not even hesitate to say yes as we walked past the kitchen where she sat with a cup of tea and bills sprawled out across the table. She looked exhausted and worried. She begged me to be careful, to come home if I felt weak. I shot her a thumbs up and off we went.

Thing was, I did feel weaker than usual. The walk felt longer than usual. The air felt heavier than usual. We made it to the park and I all but collapsed onto my back in the field. The grass was wet with dew. I was in between Myra and Reid. They talked for a while about going back to school, the weather, and the bands that were coming to town in the next few months. They talked about everything that I wish I was talking about, but I couldn't bring myself to even comment on any of it. Instead, I just looked up. I counted all the stars I could see. Reid nodded off under the stars. He always did. He was snoring soundly beside me. Myra sighed and cut me off somewhere around the two-hundred-and-forty-third star. "Leo, are you okay?" She took me by surprise. Myra was not the most comforting, usually. I kept looking up at the stars. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She was trying. I cut her off. "Did you know there's like, over 200 billion stars in just the Milky Way alone? There's so few of us. Isn't that wild?"

She sat up. I continued before she could start,

"Even just a fraction of the stars is infinitely more people than will ever exist at the same time. Isn't that wild?" She looked at me, I could feel her eyes watching me.

"We are technically star dust, you know. We started out as stars and one day we'll be lucky enough to be stars again, isn't that crazy?" I kept talking, I didn't dare stop. I was rambling on and on. I didn't look at her. She didn't say anything for a long minute.

"We're star dust. Star dust!" I could hear the frustration in my own voice, all tangled up with the lump in my throat, and wondered if she could as well. I know I sounded psychotic. She silently listened to me as I rambled on about stars and the galaxy. Could she believe how small we were? How insignificant this all was? Really, cancer doesn't matter. Even though it's the biggest deal in my life, it doesn't even hold a candle to the universe, I insisted. I started coughing, in the middle of my rant and with fists clenched, punched down on the grass beside me. I closed my eyes tight and let out a deep breath. Suddenly I felt movement beside me. I opened my eyes and looked. She was lying closer beside me. She looked up. "That is wild."

We laid there, under the stars for another couple hours in silence before I nodded off, and Myra got up. She woke both Reid and I up and together, we walked back to my house. From the top of the hill, I looked out on our neighborhood. Our domain. Myra and Reid lived on the street adjacent to mine. We'd known each other for just about forever. I was eight years old when my family moved into our house. Then, the house wasn't terribly expensive, which is how we could afford to live here. Soon after we moved in, the stock market crashed and my dad was laid off. He spent the next two years trying to find work while my mom supported the household with a secretary job she picked up. He finally got a job working as a manager at a factory after my mom found out she was pregnant with Hattie, and we were doing okay, finally. I think the years my dad spent being dejected and misplaced really affected him. He was upset that my mom had to take on a job. She swore it was okay, and that it was what she wanted to do.
"Women are powerful, you know." she had said. I will never forget it. My mom, powerful, radiant, feminist (whether she knew it or not), supporting her family, having kids. She did it all. She was proud. My dad should have been proud of her, but instead he took it as a challenge to his own manhood.

Reid and Myra dropped me off at my house, it was almost two in the morning. My mom was asleep in the recliner when I stumbled in, sleepily. She must have been waiting up for me. I touched her shoulder and she stirred.

"Hey, I'm back. You can go to bed, mom." I whispered. 

She smiled and stretched. "I think I will. Lock the front door please."

I did, and I walked up to my room and fell backwards into my bed. Clothes on and all, I drifted to sleep.