Like Orion & Spark

1: I Have a Reputation

On countless occasions, I have attempted to bore you with a brief story of my life. Now that it's almost time for you to grow your wings and move out into the world, I feel like you deserve to have all the pieces to this puzzle. Not all of us accrued fame in high school, kid. I suppose I had better start at the beginning, shall I?

It was the morning in September, about two weeks after the semester began, when my life fell off course. (I cannot remember the exact date, but I am sure you understand. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, so cut your father a bit of slack. It was a long time ago.)

My mother smiled as she dropped a box into my hands. "You'll fit right in," she assured me, for what seemed like the hundredth time. Trevor Grant had invited me to join his frat, and I was, to put it politely, fucked.

I hoisted the box closer to my chest wordlessly, hoping to come up with a worthy response. I should have told her not to worry, but what actually slipped out of my mouth was, "It wasn't my first choice."

"I know." She smiled, patting me on the shoulder. Her eyes were glassy, shining with tears. I can still recall how empty the kitchen was. The chipped paint above the counter peeled, and the stinging smell of cleaning solvent invaded my senses. At the time, it didn't seem real. "This is different for you, chéri. But you trust this guy, right?"

Trust was putting it lightly. I was literally putting my fate into the hands of an old high school friend, and he wasn't even really my friend. Actually, I'd spoken to him twice. The first time was in eleventh grade. He'd said, hey, Riley. The second time was two weeks prior.

I shrugged. "Totally."

I turned on my heel and slipped through the front door. The early morning sun peeked through the oak trees lining our front yard. Among them was a cherry tree planted by your aunt Halley and I when we first moved in. It'd grown to a sapling since then, its branches drooping and held up by a wooden stake. We used to measure our height by standing next to that tree. It had long since gotten taller than us.

As I left the house, I sighed. The air was crisp and cool. The leaves rustled across the asphalt, battling with the sound of Halley throwing rocks into cans. She was wearing overalls; her tangled black hair pulled away from her face by a bright blue ribbon. Sitting propped against one of our kitchen chairs, she lobbed her pebble, aiming it for the glass cup sitting on the tarmac a few feet away.

Clink. Her head angled towards me for a second before scoffing, as though picking back up where we left off, "Are you even sure this place exists?"

She tossed another pebble. It landed into the bottle with the soft tapping of glass. "Score!"

I placed the box mom had given me onto the pile of boxes in the trunk, loading it onto our truck. That car had been through hell, from when I got my driver's license to when I taught Halley how to parallel park.

"What are you doing?" I said, turning to face her. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my sweater, watching her with mock interest. "You know, you could help us."

"I am helping," she replied, her concentration unwavering. "Maman told me the driveway was un désastre, so I'm picking up the rocks."

I grinned. (In Maman's world, as I'm sure you know, there was a difference between casual mess—en désordre—and messy beyond saving,—un désastre—but it took a special sort of nerves for her to ramp it up to that level.) "Right. I don't think anyone moving in here will care about how the driveway looks."

"That's what you think." Another clink as her rock hit the side of the glass and tumbled into the pile scattered around her target. "The new owners could be rock enthusiasts."