I find a spot up on the hill where I can see and hear the festivities below. It’s better this way, I tell myself, it’s so much better from a distance.
The singing below grows louder and the laughter bounces off the hills. It’s not the first time I’m on the outside looking in, but it is the first time I realize what I’m missing.
This is too hard. So hard. I stand, hyper-aware suddenly that it’s a bad idea to be up here alone. I’m not strong enough. I’m at the edge of the path when I see two figures coming my way. One has broad shoulders and a light blue varsity jacket. The other a black knitted cap pulled tight over his ears. When they get to the top, we stare at one another until I finally say, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Jake replies.
Dexter’s hands are in his pockets, eyes focused anywhere but at me.
“I don’t think you should be up here, Sierra said—”
?
??Fuck Sierra,” Jake says, then frowns at his friend. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No. Sierra is way out of bounds on this one.”
“What?” I ask, trying to follow what they’re saying.
“None of this is right, Starlee,” Dexter says, finally looking at me. “This bullshit about you being a bad influence and the investigation. None of it makes sense.”
“But it does make sense,” I say too loudly. “It’s me. It’s like I’m toxic or something. Everything I touch gets ruined and when I leave, everything is better. Sierra is doing the right thing. She loves you so much, Dex.”
“How could you say such a thing?” he says, glancing at Jake. “You’ve saved us. You saved me. That’s not what toxic people do. Toxic people spend their time smoking weed and getting into fist fights. They fail out of school. They destroy property and fall down the rabbit holes of their addictions. You pulled us out of all those things.”
“You make us better.”
“Even if that was true,” I say, not liking how my heart has started pounding. My broken heart. I’m not sure it can take the pressure. “It’s not like we can do anything about it.”
“No,” he says, taking a step closer. “We can do something about it. Let me get something straight. No one is taking you away from me.” Again, he exchanges a look with Jake, whose jaw is sharp and defined in the moonlight. “Or Jake. We’ve lost enough and we won’t lose you, too.”
“But the twins.”
Jake walks behind me and slips his arms around my waist at the same moment Dexter places his hands on my hips. “We’ll get them back.”
Fresh tears fill my eyes and Dexter kisses them away. I feel the pounding of Jake’s chest against my back. The tightening of his arms around my waist. Where I’d been so alone only minutes before, now I’m held tight by two different boys.
“What about Sierra?” I ask, knowing she’d been serious about her rules.
“We’ll have to go back to sneaking around,” Dexter says. “For now, at least.”
“And whoever is reporting us at school?”
Jake snorts behind me. “I suspect we all know who’s behind that. We’ll deal with it.”
I crane my neck to see Jake’s eyes and then glance back at Dexter. “And the guys, we’ll get them back? Promise?”
“Promise,” they both say at once. Dexter kisses my lips and Jake seals it against the warmth of my neck.
The town grows quiet below until I realize that they’ve started singing Silent Night. The boys each take one hand and we stand over Lee Vines and watch the tree come to life, a million white stars twinkling in the branches. The star on top shines bright, a beacon in the center of our little village.
“I was so scared I’d lost you,” I confess once more festive music has turned back on and it’s now just another party. “Then I talked to my mom and she apologized for a lot of things between us. She’s better, but I think she’s better because I’m not there.”
“Everyone has to find their own way,” Dexter says. “You mom needed to focus on herself and not you. That doesn’t mean you’re the toxic one in that relationship.”
His words are rational and ring true and as we sit on the side of the cliff, with me tucked in the middle, I feel better…not whole, but better.
“There’s one place you belong, Starlee Jones,” Dexter says, hand wrapped in mine, “and it’s here with us. No one will take that away from us.”