“Yes, I think you’re right.”
I smile. She really does value my opinion on this stuff, just like she told Michelle.
“Also, how many coats do you think we’ll need to cover up the black?”
“I would say—wait, the black? What room are you painting?” My heart skips erratically. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
“Your old room.”
“MY ROOM? You’re painting over my room for some stupid baby?”
“Isadora! I didn’t think you’d mind. I have always used this room for babies.”
“I spent months decorating! It’s MINE. Of course I mind! Do you even care that I’m gone? Obviously you don’t think of me at all! I knew Osiris didn’t, but at least you pretended to care.” I stand, livid, almost screaming into the phone. I know I’m not going back home, but she doesn’t know that. How dare she destroy my work, give my place in the family and my room to my replacement.
“That’s enough!” The whipcrack of her voice makes my temple throb even over the phone. “If I’d known you would be so selfish and immature about this, I wouldn’t have brought it up. I’m very disappointed in you. You know your room is temporary. It isn’t the room that will matter in the future, and I don’t see you putting time and care into that one.”
“My—Amun-Re, Mother. You really think it’s okay to destroy the one thing that was mine because I still have my tomb? You really can’t wait for me to die, can you? It’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing that the goddess of motherhood can suck so bad at being a mother! Well, guess what? You can give both rooms to your new victim, because I am never coming home. Ever. EVER!” I scream the last word and throw my phone down, wish
ing she were here so I could hit her, physically hurt her to make her feel what I’m feeling, to finally show her what she does to me on the inside.
And then somehow my rage is leaking out my eyes and I sit back hard onto the roots, my tailbone stinging, and dig my knees into my eyeballs as I wrap my arms around my legs.
I hate my parents. I hate them. And I hate that I hate them, because it means I care. I wish I could feel the same way they obviously feel about me—I wish they were the nothing to me that I am to them.
Ry’s arm around my shoulder is surprising; I’m still not used to being touched, and it’s comforting. “Is your brother here?” he asks. “I thought I saw him.”
I shrug, not lifting up my head. “Maybe. He’s been paranoid lately. I can’t remember if I told him I’d be here tonight or not. I’ll text him and tell him I’m coming home now.”
“I have a better idea. Text him and tell him you’ll be home late. I know where we need to go.”
The Milky Way is above me, each star a perfect point against the black night sky. I had gotten so used to San Diego’s light pollution that I’d forgotten just what, exactly, the stars were supposed to look like.
But even as I drink them in, let them fill me while the desert night air tickles my skin, I can’t help but notice something is off. They don’t anchor me like they used to. They’re still mine, my soul still sings to see them, but . . . I don’t know. That invisible something, that heartstring that used to stretch between me and my guiding stars is different. It’s shifted, and I don’t know where or why. Maybe it’s because Orion—the stars Orion—isn’t out?
I wiggle my legs, trying to ease my spine off a raised groove in the metal of Ry’s truck bed.
“I should have brought pads or something,” he says from where he’s lying flat on his back next to me.
“No, this is perfect.”
We drove straight east, where the sprawling tangle of the city suddenly ended in nothing. Through and over a mountain with wind turbines so big it looked as though the gods from one of Ry’s myths set them there. Then back down the mountain and past kilometers and kilometers of horizon-meltingly flat farmland to the waves and crests of sand dunes in the middle of nowhere.
Though the air still tastes different, the sand and the stars surround me like a blanket of home, a snatch of comfort and familiarity in the middle of a strange new land. And Ry found it for me when I needed it the very most.
I turn my head and look at his dark profile as he studies the sky—his long, straight nose, angled jaw, full lips. He could be a Greek statue come to life. I smile at the thought, and a small line in my chest, the line that anchors me and connects me to my Orion, suddenly gives me a tug.
Toward this Orion.
I close my eyes and hold perfectly still. The impulse to scoot over and close the gap between our bodies, to rest my head in that spot between his shoulder and chest where I know—I know—it will fit perfectly, to twine my fingers through his—
I don’t want that. I won’t. I can accept that he is important to me. He’s a friend. I’d had no idea how much I needed friends until Tyler and Ry. And I’m vulnerable right now, still trying to find me in this new place, still trying to fill the holes inside. I can’t seem to keep my heart from leaking out of the cracks, like sand clutched in a fist.
But I won’t fill those holes with him. I can’t. To do that would invite other holes to be punched in right next to the ones my parents made.
I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its solitude. I will be the desert.
I open my eyes to see Ry staring at me, and my desert soul erupts with turquoise water, floods and cascades and waterfalls rushing in around my stone, swirling and eddying around my rocky parts, pushing and reshaping and filling every hidden dark spot.