She Dims the Stars

  Copyright 2016 Amber L. Johnson

  Edited by April Brumley and Catherine Jones

  Cover design by RE Creatives

  Book design by Lindsey Gray

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author.

  Title

  Copyright

  Summary

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Original Song Info

  Soundtrack Links

  Song List

  Project Semicolon

  About the Author

  Who is Audrey Byrd?

  Ask her ex-best friend, Cline Somers, and he’ll tell you that she’s the girl who inexplicably stopped talking to him when they were fifteen years old, leaving him with nothing but questions and bitterness for the better part of the next six years.

  Ask his roommate, Elliot Clark, and he would say that Audrey is the enigmatic girl who randomly showed up outside a window one day and turned his whole world upside down in a matter of moments.

  Ask Audrey herself and she’ll tell you that she has no idea who she is, because her entire life is a lie. However, the older she gets the more she needs answers about who she really is.

  What she discovers is a tangled web of secrets better left in the dark.

  Some truths do more harm than good.

  To the ones who see the light in the darkness.

  No matter how small the beam may be.

  I'm restless. Things are calling me away.

  My hair is being pulled by the stars again.

  - Anais Nin

  I hate that skirt.

  I’ve hated that skirt since the first day we met. She was wearing it and I swear that’s what I was staring at and not her face. But she caught me looking, and instead of telling her how ugly it was, I ended up getting her a drink and then partially carrying her back to my dorm where she proceeded to pass out. I, being the gentleman that I am, took off the ugly plaid thing and put her to bed. I left her a note, reassuring her that I hadn’t touched her, and she was more than welcome to the Gatorade my roommate and I had in the fridge.

  Then I fell asleep in my ratty desk chair, and I guess, maybe, I figured I’d wake up to her screaming about being in a strange bed only halfdressed. But instead, I was startled awake by her poking me in the forehead. She’d stolen a pair of my pants and was holding that pleated atrocity in her hand while she handed over her number and asked me to call her sometime.

  And now that she’s broken up with me, she’s dancing in the middle of a circle of guys. In that ugly-ass skirt.

  It’s an affront to the year we were together.

  It’s the final middle finger; the last fuck you to our dead relationship.

  I wish I had burned it.

  “Excuse me.”

  I’m too caught up in my hatred of yellow and orange plaid that I don’t hear the voice in time to sidestep whoever it is that’s trying to squeeze between me and the sticky tiki bar I’m leaning against. When I turn too quickly, all I see is a flash of pink hair and two arms flying toward my face. I’m quick, though, and before this pushy person can make it all the way to the floor, I’ve got her by the waist and am hauling her up, smashed against my chest, face to face with her face full of hair.

  The strands begin to fall away and dark eyes emerge, squinted and leering as she wheezes out a barely audible, “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” I start to let the stranger go, but she presses in closer, her mouth angled toward my left ear.

  “I can’t feel my lips. Can you?”

  I pull back a bit, my attention on her mouth as she presses her lips together and then apart a couple of times, like she’s testing her theory.

  “I’m not wasted, so I can feel my lips just fine.”

  She grins, and suddenly her hands are on either side of my face, and her eyes are in direct alignment with my own. “I didn’t ask that. I asked if you could feel my lips.” Before I can even come back with an answer, she’s kissing me as hard as she can, gripping the back of my neck. Her tongue tastes like fruit, and she scrapes her teeth along my bottom lip when she lets go. Pushing up on her toes, she speaks into my ear again. “Let’s run away.”

  I’m so caught off guard that the words are stuck in my throat, and I gently push her back to appraise just how drunk this girl is. But the way her eyebrow is raised and her lips are pursed leads me to believe she’s not half as bad off as she was pretending to be. Her nose wrinkles a little as she tilts her head and sighs.

  “You just cost me five bucks.”

  “What?”

  “Five bucks if you kiss me. Ten, if you say you’ll leave with me. Now how am I going to buy the next round?” She shrugs and pats my cheek before dipping below my elbow and disappearing into the crowd.

  I stare for way too long, trying to pinpoint where she’s going to emerge in the sea of bodies. But she never does. And for one fleeting moment, I forget that I’ve just been dumped.

  This blows.

  My plans for the summer had not included sitting in my roommate’s car for a four-hour drive so we could stay at his mom’s house for a couple days. He planned to do his laundry and grab some old furniture she’s offered to give us for our apartment. Our couch has a distinct odor, and she won’t visit because of it. I don’t mind the smell at all. Probably for that very reason.

  This is a much shittier plan than going to Ireland with my girlfriend for four weeks.

  Ex-girlfriend, I mean.

  “Don’t help or anything. You should just keep sitting there crying and staring out the window like a little bitch. It’s really helpful.” Cline grunts while he pulls his full clothes hamper across the carpet and gives up on it halfway to the door.

  “I’m not hauling your dirty boxers up two flights of stairs. We might be friends, but I don’t even like you that much.” It’s a lie, but it gets him to stop glaring at me. He’s right, though. I’ve been staring out the window at the house across the street for about twenty minutes while he got the rest of his stuff out of the car. I’m not devastated or anything. Pissed about plans falling through? Yes.

  He stands in the middle of the room and scratches his neck, probably because he’s trying to grow a beard, but it’s patchy, like, even his body thinks it’s a bad idea. I have no clue how he lived in this tiny bedroom for so long before college. He isn’t a small guy, and his head almost touches the globe on the out-of-date ceiling fan. It’s as if his body takes up two-thirds of the available space.

  “Mom’s not getting back until later tonight from her shift. What do you want to do?”

&
nbsp; I’m staring back out the window, watching as a black Honda pulls into the driveway across the street. Cline crosses the room in two seconds flat and yanks the dusty blinds down.

  “Seriously, Elliot. Can you get it together long enough to survive this weekend? She was awful. I always hated her. She laughed like a donkey, and her Keds smelled up your room all the time. Also? I saw her bra on the floor once, and she wasn’t even trying, if you know what I’m saying.”

  It was true. I hated her plain beige bra. And her laugh. I liked other things, though.

  “It’s not even about her. It’s about Ireland.”

  He raises a hand toward the window and shoots me a look. “You see that? That’s called sunshine. It’s mandatory for good health or something. Being in a place where it rains all the time with a girl who smells like Fritos is not my idea of a fantastic summer. Suck it up.” He leans against the wall and mutters under his breath before speaking louder. “I’m getting beer. You’re going to stop bringing me down even if I have to get you black-out drunk to do it.”

  “It doesn’t rain all the time there.” I mumble in response. I flop back onto his bed and pull a pillow over my face until the smell hits me, and I throw it across the room while trying not to gag. Beer would be good. Beer and video games and maybe a little hacking into Chelsea’s Facebook page to tag her in some really unflattering pictures from her sorority parties she was always so quick to delete herself from. She really is only photogenic from the left, anyway.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the sound of something at the window makes me shoot straight up in a panic. I listen, the quiet of the house causing my heartbeat to sound a thousand times louder in my ears. Thinking it is a fluke, I go to lie back down when I hear the noise again. There is a ping against the pane, and I slip off the mattress and slide over to the curtains on my knees, pulling two of the blinds open with my fingers. I can’t see anyone from my position, but when the next rock connects with the glass, it hits right in front of my face. I jump a little, and my fingers get stuck in the slats, causing them to pull away from the wall and come crashing down on my knees while I try to scramble away.

  Silence fills my ears, and I stand, embarrassed and disoriented until another rock makes contact. There is no way the person below didn’t hear or see that. The window pane is stuck, and I have to push as hard as I can before it gives way and I am looking down at the lawn where a girl is staring back at me, her right hand filled with pebbles.

  “You’re not Cline.” Her head tilts to the side, and she squints up at me. “Did he move?”

  “No.”

  “Huh. Are you … a friend?”

  The way she says it makes me tip my head to mirror hers. “Yeah. Wait, what kind of friend? I’m his roommate.”

  Her eyebrows lift. “So you live together.”

  “I’m sorry. Was there a reason you were throwing rocks at the window?”

  She nods, the mass of hair sitting on top of her head bouncing in the process. “I was going to ask if Cline wanted to come out to a party at the lake house tonight. But if you have other plans ...” She starts to back away and drops the rocks to the ground at her feet.

  “I don’t have any plans.” I lean farther out the window and brace my arms on the sill. “My ex-girlfriend is going to Ireland without me over break, so I am completely plan-less.” I really suck at coming across as cool or collected.

  She stands in place for a second and then shrugs. “Then ask Cline if he wants to come. We’ll be there at seven.”

  “Okay. But who are you?”

  The way she smiles makes her look like she has a secret. “I’m Audrey.”

  She is halfway to the driveway across the street when I yell after her. “I’m Elliot, by the way!”

  The only response she gives is a hand raised in my direction.

  “No.” Cline places the bag on the counter and shakes his head. “No. Just no.”

  “What else do we have to do?”

  “There’s plenty of stuff to do. We can play video games. Or … eat. Or play video games and eat. We can do anything other than go hang out at the lake with Audrey Byrd.”

  “What if you meet a chick?”

  “No.” He pulls the beer from the bag and sticks two in the freezer.

  “What if I meet one?”

  He pauses, fingers wrapped around the door handle. “Maybe. It could certainly help your perpetual state of puss-itis.”

  I ignore his attempt at getting under my skin and counter with, “What if you get laid?”

  He hangs his head and presses his face to the door while it closes. “Fine.”

  The bottles go back into the bag, and the two of us get into the car. One short stop at a store to buy some more beer, and we are on the road for the hour-long ride to the lake.

  “How do you know her?” I turn to face his profile in the dark cab of the truck. The obvious answer is that they were neighbors, but he’s acting like there is more to the story.

  I swear I see his jaw tighten before he answers. “That’s the thing. I don’t know her anymore.”

  “Okay, but you did, right? Did you used to be friends?”

  His eyes narrow, and he shifts in the seat, never looking away from the road. “Audrey Byrd and I were best friends from the time we were four years old until we were fifteen. And then one day she morphed into a psycho bitch who thought she was better than everyone and starting treating people like shit.” He nods once. “That includes me. So, were we friends? Yes. Are we friends now? No. And I have no idea why she even came over to ask us to come to this thing anyway.”

  The whole Audrey thing seems like a pretty sore subject, so I drop it. He is quiet the rest way there, and I don’t bother him. When the lake comes into view, I reach over and turn the radio down. “There are a ton of people here.” I’m in awe. I was expecting something small. Maybe ten people at the most.

  “Yep. Apparently she has a bunch of friends now.” Sarcasm is dripping from his tone.

  At least forty are outside of the house, drinking, talking by the bonfire or out on the dock, their bodies rising and falling with the sway of the water. I see Audrey standing with a handful of people, her head tilted back in laughter while she cradles a wine bottle to her chest. There is a moment where her eyes are closed, and I pause to study the way her face softens before her lids open again and her attention lands on us.

  Cline makes a sound that is a mix between a sigh and groan, pivoting toward the house with the beer under his arm. I wait, watching Audrey cross the back lawn to make her way toward the house, where she comes to rest, a foot away from me. The wine bottle is a third of the way gone, and her cheeks are bright pink, leading me to believe she’s had all of it by herself.

  “You made it.”

  I shrug, tipping my chin at the house. “It was a hard sell, but I talked him into it.”

  Her eyes trail to where the door is open and she sighs, curling the bottle into her chest.

  In a move to avoid the house—or Cline, I’m not sure—we start walking in the direction of the fire, and my palms begin to sweat where they’ve been shoved into the front of my hoodie. She hands me a beer from the cooler, and the cold can takes away all the heat. “Does he hate you or something?” I take a small sip and wait for her to answer.

  She grins and then arranges her features into a serious frown. “He’s probably still mad about that time I took his virginity when we were twelve.”

  The drink catches in my throat, and I turn my head to spit it out on the ground instead of at her face. I can’t stop coughing, and she just stands there, smiling at me, while I struggle to breathe.

  “I’m just kidding. He’s probably still a virgin.”

  I shake my hand to get the beer off of it and clear my throat. “I can attest to the fact that he most definitely is not a virgin.”

  Her jaw goes slack, and her dark eyes go wide. “You’ve seen it.”

  “The sock fell off the door. It’s really not my fa
ult.”

  Audrey keeps eye contact as she tips the bottle back to take another swig.

  “He’s surprisingly limber for a guy his size.”

  That time, she chokes on her drink. “Oh, no. This story is horrifying. Given the type of girls at Brixton, I can only imagine who he brought back with him.”

  “You know about Brixton?”

  Her eyebrows draw together and she laughs. “Yeah. I go there, too.”

  “I’ve never seen you.” The beer is going down easier than before and, without having to ask, she hands me another one.

  Her fingers feel warm against mine when they brush. She stares right into my eyes when she responds. “It’s a big campus.”

  Even though there are a ton of people around us, it feels like we’re the only two at the party. That close, next to the bonfire, I can see every one of her features. She has long black lashes and these freckles across her nose that make her look really young. Her face is round, and she is shorter than I thought she’d be up close. But her hair catches my attention the most. The ends are light blonde, and the top is dark brown. I can’t figure out if she’s too lazy to take care of it or if she’s paid someone to make it look that way.

  “You should go mingle.” She begins walking backward in the direction of the dock and raises her depleted wine bottle like she is toasting me. “You’re a free agent, Elliot! Lots of ladies here to rebound with.”

  She’s right. I’m a single man, and there’s a ton of alcohol within reach. There are plenty of girls here. And once I have beer, my confidence grows and, suddenly, every girl around me looks a hundred times hotter than she did when I first stepped out of the car

  The rest of the night kind of goes by in a blur, but one thing I’m sure of is that I’m spitting mad game at a redhead on the couch who is three coconut vodka cola’s deep. Her eyelids are heavy, and she pouts almost constantly, opening one eye while we talk, like she’s trying to make sure I’m only one person because she thinks I may be a twin.

  She seems interested, but then she gets up to go to the bathroom, and I don’t see her again for the rest of the night.