5/12/12

Starfall
By Caitlin Goldstein


“Jamie! Wait!”

I ignored the call to wait and I ran a few more steps around the corner and then stopped, sliding and sending a wave of sand away from me. Leaning my hands on my knees to rest, I remembered Skylar, my best friend in the world, wasn’t that far behind me and I straightened up, feigning total immunity from the consequences of running. Seconds later, Sky rounded the corner, slipping a little in the sand before skidding to his knees in front of me, panting.

“Geeze, Sky, you’re so slow.” His head was down, facing the sand, so I allowed myself a little affectionate smile that he wouldn’t see.

Skylar waved a hand irritably at me, breathing heavily, his messy reddish hair sticking to his cheeks and the back of his neck with salty sweat. He raised bright blue eyes, matching the ocean, squinting a little up at me.

“I’m…not…” he said between breaths, “slow…you’re just...too fast.” He frowned, stubborn as always.

I grinned down at him, my head cocked to the side, like I knew everything. Of course, all ten-year-olds think that they know everything. I wish I could be ten again sometimes. Everyone says it, but it’s true: things were so much easier back then. Even if back then was only five years ago.

Before she came to the island, everything was fine. Skylar and I had our other friends, and we went to school, and our parents let us take my dad’s little wooden rowboat to the smaller island (it’s barely a half-mile wide all the way around) during the summer. Skylar and I were pretty much inseparable then, and I knew I would always love him like my own brother. More than a brother, because brothers were family and you’re kinda forced to love family, but Skylar was like a family I chose. He chose me, really, he was always the one making new friends and taking the initiative. He was my polar opposite, which I’ve found is sometimes the case with best friends. Skylar Swanson was a bright kid, with ridiculous red-brown hair that spiked up in all directions, until it got too long and his mom made him cut it. He has the most intense blue eyes I’ve ever seen, and I find as I get older, the ocean reminds me of him because of his eyes. He’s one of those people that constantly smiles, even when he’s sad, because he doesn’t want to burden other people with his problems. He tans very easily, and is constantly in my shadow. What can I say? I’m better than him at most things.

Where Sky is dark, I’m light. I’m glow-in-the-dark light. I’m an albino. Not full albinism, but enough to give me a somewhat vampiric look. My skin is very pale, and my hair grows in with no color at all. Thankfully, my eyes aren’t as affected and in most lights are just pale blue. Even at ten years old, I was more aware of my appearance than Skylar; I actually brushed my hair whereas Sky hardly ever remembered to. I think the awkward knowledge of being different and a little stare-worthy at first glance made me way more self conscious of my looks. What’s funny is, our personalities are opposite of our looks. Skylar is happy-go-lucky and naïve to a fault, and I guess people say I’m darker, more introverted, more of a pessimist. Skylar had faith and optimism enough for both of us, though. I wasn’t worried. I never worried about myself. I think I still don’t.

“C’mon, Jamie! Let’s go! The sun is setting!” Skylar scrambled up, kicking sand into my mouth in the process, and sprinted away, smiling back at me.

I followed, laughing.

This was how most of our summer afternoons were spent: chasing each other across the beach, retrieving coconuts from the tops of the palms seeing who could climb the highest, building rafts, fishing, exploring. Time was never wasted during the summer, and the days were never long enough to do everything you wanted. I think something special is lost when you grow up and you don’t take your summers as seriously as you used to. And you never do get that back. That summer, that summer when Skylar turned ten and I turned eleven, that was the summer when she moved in.

Victoria’s father moved to the main island on business and Skylar, being the amazing host and friend he’s always been, had her playing with the other kids in almost one afternoon. I was happy to have her here, have her join our little duo and become a trio. We were happy, the three of us, and she came out of her shy little shell and became my second best friend. She had wide green eyes and auburn hair, and one dimple in her left cheek. Of course all the little boys wanted to be her friend, but she only giggled and told them she was friends with everyone. It only got worse when she turned thirteen. Little tease she was, even back then. Hah, just an innocent little tease. I don’t think she ever did it on purpose, not really.

I remember the three of us growing up together and dealing with school together. It was always everything together. Always the three of us. Until recently, anyway. I’ve noticed that Victoria is paying much more attention to Sky than she used to. Maybe it’s just different attention, I’m not sure. She’s even been more guarded around me lately, like I’m going to do something she won’t like.

Today is a day to try and ignore all that, though. Today is a special day. Today is a magical day, even. Today is the day of the Gireffeins Meteor Shower. Sky and I have been looking forward to this since we were old enough to understand our parents telling us how special a day this was going to be. And I’ll be damned if I let Victoria take that from me.

I’m already on the smaller island when Sky and Victoria get here. They’re with a group of friends from school and everyone is talking excitedly. I greet my friends and the three of us race to the other side of the tiny island where a little grove of palm trees surround the dock where my dad’s boat is moored. Other kids are there already, sitting with their legs dangling off the side of the dock, kicking water at each other and laughing. Skylar nudges me and points to a vacant spot, promptly plopping down, munching an apple with Victoria beside him. Her hair is longer now, and Skylar is still blissfully ignorant of her attractiveness. She sits between us, where she seems to fit just fine. The sun is about to set, and it’s something of a ritual for all the kids to gather and watch it together.

Someone taps my shoulder. “Hey, Jamie! Tonight is going to be awesome! My mom’s coming out here with marshmallows and chocolate for s’mores after dark!”

“Yeah, I know,” I nod, “I’ve been looking forward to finally seeing this.” I lean back a little, scratching at my arm where a sunburn is newly peeling. This day has already worn me out.

“Oh, isn’t it beautiful, Skylar?” Victoria is squinting and smiling and being all cuddly again. She’s nudging her way into Sky’s personal space, slowly but surely. My ears get hot and I grumble under my breath at her. She thinks she’s so freaking cute.

See, she never was content with just being a part of our group. Oh no, she has to play favorites and it’s starting to scare me. I had everything I wanted here on these islands in the middle of nowhere, and this little princess just waltzes in from Far Far Away and takes everything over. Tearing up everything I hold dear like all hell. The worst part is, I don’t think she really means it, not really.

“Yeah. Look, Jamie! It’s starting!” Skylar points up into the twilight, and my almost colorless eyes follow his finger to the faint lights falling into the sea.

“You know,” the girl behind us, Amanda, peers over Victoria’s shoulder and whispers loudly into her ear, gushing, “this island has a legend about the falling stars. This won’t happen for another fifty years!”

“Really? I haven’t heard the whole story yet.” Victoria’s green eyes light up in the half darkness, Skylar cocks his head to the side to listen as well, even though we’ve all heard the story.

“Yeah!” Amanda nods enthusiastically, “well, it’s like this: you can make wishes on falling stars, right, but this is the night that wishes can actually come true! They say that if two people kiss tonight, during the meteor shower, then they will be together forever. It doesn’t matter how far apart they get, they will always come back together.”

Blech. Tourist trap. That’s all the legend was. Really. I mean, she’s right about the meteor shower and the once every fifty years thing, but the rest was totally a made up story to make the whole thing seem way cooler than it actually is. I think it’s cool enough already. Rocks, from space, falling into the ocean all around us. You can’t get much cooler than that.

I roll my eyes at the story and I hear Skylar snort. I glance at him, and he catches my eyes, both of us trying to humor the girls. We’re fifteen and I guess everyone is really only beginning to understand the whole dating and pairing off thing. Honestly, I think the romantic story is a bunch of crap people made up to get girls to kiss them. There is absolutely no way I am going to admit I believe, or care, about anything regarding the island’s famous myth. Even if I do. Because I’m not saying I do.

Amanda continues, “Isn’t it, like, the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?”

Victoria giggles, batting her eyes at Skylar. He is far too busy trying to stick his apple core in my ear. Because he’s gross like that.

“You know, they say apples make you smarter, Jamie, maybe you should try it out,” Skylar says, smirking.

“Screw you, Sky!” I struggle against him, succeeding only in knocking the apple core into the water, but not before he smears it across my face.

Skylar only laughs, looking up at the sky again. “Look, it’s really starting now!”

We all look up at the sky, the beach not completely dark because of the lanterns kids are lighting around the edges of the dock. Victoria leans her head on Skylar’s shoulder, sighing loudly. His eyebrows furrow and he flails a little, not really knowing what to do about it. I can’t tell if his cheeks are getting red or if the torchlight is making it look that way, but I truly hope it’s the latter.

“Wow, we never have such magical stories like that where I used to live.” Victoria sighs again, all the other girls naturally segregating themselves to gossip to each other. The sky lights up with the meteors, falling into the water like tiny shards of glass, glittering over the water through the stars.

Skylar nods, ‘hmmm’-ing noncommittally. Her weight against him makes them both lean away from me. I frown, looking away from the falling stars across the inlet to the main island, where I could see lanterns and flashlights flicking across the dark water, drawing slowly closer. Our parents are on their way to watch the event with us. Another tradition I’m sure we’ll understand when we’re older. I decide to get off the dock, quietly leaving Victoria and Skylar to themselves with the other burgeoning couples with the oh-so-romantic setting. It’s making my stomach hurt.

“Jamie?” Skylar stopped me, for a moment reminding me of the ten year old boy looking up to me like I was the only person that mattered to him, but Victoria’s gaze joins his and the memory is lost. “Where’re you going?”

I shrug, looking away, “Dunno, maybe help build the bonfire. The stars will fall all night.” I don’t wait for him to answer.

I try to avoid him for awhile, just because I don’t really trust myself not to say something rude if Victoria was actually going to make her move, finally. She’s a good girl, I guess, so I don’t really mind her taking Skylar away from me…or at least, that’s what I keep trying to tell myself. She really seems to like him, and I don’t blame her. Everyone likes him. He’s just, likeable. It’s completely impossible to not have a crush on the kid, really. Absolutely impossible.

But really, it’s not fair. No one knows Skylar like I do. Victoria wasn’t here when he was sick with the Red Cough, or when he broke his arm falling off a palm tree. She doesn’t deserve to be near him like that, when she doesn’t know him like I do! It’s not fair.

“Hey, Jamie?” There’s someone behind me, and I turn to see the blushing face of Alex, another school friend. There are fireflies beginning to pepper the beach.

“Hey,” I scratch the back of my head, nonchalantly trying to look for Skylar and Victoria, but I can’t see them on the dock anymore. It feels like my heart is falling into my knees and onto the sand, and I realize I’ve probably lost my best friend forever. Naïve as he is, he can’t be oblivious to Victoria’s advances for long. Especially not tonight, not here, not on this island. I blink at Alex, trying to smile without looking as depressed as I suddenly feel. It’s pretty, really, the fireflylight around Alex’s face. I find myself blushing back.

“Hey. I, umm, I wanted to ask if you’d dance with me. I mean, there’s lots of people dancing, and I…uhh, well,” there’s more mutual blushing and I raise an eyebrow.

“You want to dance with me?” I almost burst out laughing. No way.

“Well, yeah, I mean, that is why I just asked…” sandaled toes scuff into the sand, trying to distract from actually looking into each other’s faces too much.

I sigh. What can I do? Maybe I can like Alex, and then Skylar and I can be like, dating buddies or whatever. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense without him in my life somehow. So I smile, and then I nod.

“Yeah, okay,” I say, trying to make myself heard over the butterflies dropping bombs in my stomach.

Alex smiles at me with very beautiful, very straight teeth. We begin to awkwardly sway together by the fire. I don’t know where to put my hands, even though I try to come off like I know everything. My fake confidence is shaky at best and I completely lose it when I feel fingers on the side of my face, pulling me closer to foreign lips and no, no, no, I don’t think I want this. Not right now.

I push Alex away from me a little, scared and really confused. I’m not supposed to allow that, am I?

“Sorry…” The air all around us is filled with the feeling of terrible awkward horribleness. Alex is backing away from me, embarrassed and flustered and I think a little upset and I try to cover for myself.

“No, I mean, it’s okay, I think, I mean, I don’t know. I just didn’t expect that and …I’m sorry.” I’m rambling. And Alex is already far enough away that I doubt I was heard. Awesome. Now what?

“Jamie?” Skylar’s voice is next to me, and turn to face him. I’ve never been so relieved to see him in my life.

“Sky!” I resist the urge to tackle him for saving me from the increasing awkwardness that I no longer want to be a part of. “Wait, where’s Victoria?” I look around. “I thought for sure you’d be with her.”

“She’s with Amanda somewhere, I think,” he waves the question off, “are you going to start dating Alex now?”

The subject in question has already melted back into the mass of people on the beach, probably hoping I would forget any of it ever happened. I almost say ‘Oh, HELL no,’ but I remember Victoria and her treason so I shrug. “I dunno. Maybe. I really don’t know, I never really thought about it before.” I shrug again.

The look on Skylar’s face will haunt me forever.

I shrink back a little from him. “…What?”

My best friend’s bottom lip is sticking out in a thoroughly uncharacteristic frown, with his thin eyebrows stitched together and he looks angry. No, not angry, concerned…determined. He grabs the front of my shirt and pouts up at me. Suddenly, without warning, he leans up and kisses my lips softly. It only lasts a second and then I blink and he’s back at a more appropriate distance.

“Sky…? What—”

Skylar nods, smiling. “Just in case you kiss anybody else tonight.”

I just stare at him. I can’t believe my best friend just freaking kissed me. How am I supposed to come to terms with that right now? My mouth opens and closes like a drowning fish and I don’t know exactly how I’m supposed to feel about this, because I’m happy and freaked out and I have so many questions…but he’s still looking at me like he used to when we were younger and I can’t help but smile back.

“I just want to make sure I’ll be with you forever, okay?” Skylar crosses his arms, like this is the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re my favorite person.”

I love this kid.

“You’re my favorite too, Sky.” I allow a huge genuine smile to creep onto my face and Skylar’s face breaks into a similar one.

He nods. “Cool.”

We both look back up at the sky, still filled with falling space rocks like so much glitter, and I put my arm around my best friend.

“Sky?”

“Yeah?”

“You have no idea how weird that just was, do you?”

“What, the meteors?” He looks up at me quizzically.

I let out a huge barking laugh, so unexpected that Skylar almost falls over.

“Ha! No, not the meteors, although that is pretty weird too…”

He just stares at me. He may not ever understand.

“Nothing’s weird, Jamie. It’s okay, you know,” he pokes me in the ribs, “just don’t, like, tell anybody about the, uh, kiss, okay? Not today.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Wasn’t gonna.” Nope. Won’t say a word. Even though part of me wants to shout and jump around and rub it in Victoria’s pretty face and never stop smiling.

I relax into Sky’s constant weight at my side and I realize he’s warm and comforting in a way I wasn’t really aware of until now. I glance away from the meteors for a moment and suddenly I realize something else. There are more adults here than kids now, and most of them are over sixty, maybe seventy years old. There are elderly couples, happily sitting together, in complete and total delight in each other’s company and all at once, I know. I know these older people were here fifty years ago when the last meteors fell. The legend is written all over their faces and every bit of it is true for them. This island has magic in its sky and in its sand, which I’m now sure has bits of meteors in the billions of grains that wash out from the ocean everyday. This night is more special than I could ever have imagined.

Sky nods, looking content with my answer. Victoria is wandering over now, smiling and waving at us, and we stand there next to the fire, just the three of us, until Sky’s legs get tired and we sit.

“Whoa, Jamie,” Victoria points a painted fingernail in my face, “why are you so red?”

“He’s an albino,” Skylar shrugs, “they do that sometimes.” His hand rests touching mine in the sand.

I nod, still smiling, and look back to the sky.


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Caitlin studied creative writing at the University of Colorado at Boulder, because she wanted to share her mind and soul on paper and encourage others to do the same.