My Little Star

Stella
After the initial shock of realizing that our parents were nearly drooling over each other in the other room, we both composed ourselves and I blinked a few times, closing my gaping mouth.

Jake’s dad? She knew Jake’s dad? She liked Jake’s dad? Okay, this was weird.

Jake seemed to have been thinking the same thing, as he was staring at me with pursed lips and scrunched eyebrows, like he didn’t know what to make of the situation.

I didn’t blame him.

Finally his face relaxed and he just shrugged, sending me an indifferent smile.

I grinned back at him, glad that this wouldn’t make things awkward. He raised an eyebrow, looking around the room before his head turned to the kitchen door. He turned his head back to me, an incredulous look on his face as I stifled a giggle.

I didn’t blame him for acting childish, because honestly this was just weird.

“Wanna go for a walk?” he asked me suddenly, like he just couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“Sure,” I agreed, an amused look on my face as he turned on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen after sticking his index finger up, silently indicating for me to wait for him.

I heard muffled talking in the other room but I ignored it, wandering to the mantle on the other side of the living room. On top of it were several frames, all sitting in a line. There were a bunch of pictures of a tiny adorable looking Jake, some by himself and some with two girls that looked exactly like him, only older. His sisters, I assumed. Next to a picture of Jake sticking his tongue out at the camera was one of him and a woman. She was sitting in the grass looking down at a toddler version of Jake as he sat in her lap, smiling up at her. I smiled softly at that one as my eyes scanned over the rest of them. Most of them were of Jake as a child, but there were some recent ones too; him, Emily and the guys all bunched together and making silly faces, him and his dad and finally him and a pale brown haired girl. There weren’t any pictures of him and the woman I assumed was his mother. She seemed to only be in the pictures of Jake when he was small.

Before I could put the pieces together, I heard Jacob enter the room and turned around, smiling and the raising an eyebrow at the expression on his face.

It was somewhere between horror and confusion.

“What’s wrong? My mom didn’t set the kitchen on fire did she? Because she does that sometimes.” I asked frantically. I wasn’t even joking. The woman couldn’t make ice cubes. How I had survived for sixteen years without starving to death was beyond me.

“They’re . . . flirting.” He ignored me completely, visibly grimacing as if our parents’ flirting was far worse than my mother setting the kitchen on fire.

I gave him an exasperated look before rolling my eyes and leading the way out the front door. If she was going to blow up the oven, I did not want to be there to witness it. Before I stepped off the porch, Jake perked up, catching my attention.

“Hold on,” He said quickly, disappearing back into the house. I was about to argue for him to stay, but he was already gone. He was back quicker this time, with two bags of Skittles in his hand.

He handed me one with a grin, and I took it, beaming at him. “Baby Jesus I think I love you.” I whispered, staring wide eyed in amazement at the candy in my hand. I loved Skittles. No really, it was unhealthy how much I loved them.

Jake let out an amused laugh as he shut the front door, leading the way off the porch and glancing over his shoulder to grin at me, amused. “Well if your mom cooks as bad as you say, then that’ll probably be your dinner; my dad can’t cook for shit.”

I giggled and jumped from the porch, landing on Jake’s left and pulling my iPod out of my pocket. I handed him an ear bud as we neared the sidewalk in front of his house. He smiled and stuck it in his ear as I did the same with mine, glancing both ways down the street. “Which way?” I asked, stopping once we got to the sidewalk, hitting play on my iPod and ripping the corner off of my Skittles package.

“I don’t know,” He shrugged, opening his own candy and nodding to the left. “That way’s the beach.”

I grimaced at the word but he didn’t notice, as he was nodding down the other side of the street. “And that way, there’s a playground.”

“Playground,” I answered immediately, not waiting for him to respond as I turned on my heel to the right and started walking down the empty sidewalk, going just slow enough as to not pull the headphones out of his ear.

He raised an eyebrow, probably at my eagerness to completely avoid the ocean, but didn’t comment; simply shrugging and popping a few Skittles into his mouth as he nodded his head to the loud music.

“So shorty, are you liking it here so far?” He asked, glancing over at me as we walked down the street at a slow pace.

I shrugged. “It‘s not so bad. I mean, I miss New York and all, but it’s nice here too. A lot less noisy and a lot more . . . green.”

He laughed at that part, nodding his head before filling his mouth with candy again.

I popped a green skittle into my mouth, a question was burning on my tongue that I was afraid to ask.

However, as we continued walking the curiosity was eating away at me. That’s another one of my flaws; if I think about something for too long without voicing it, it will bother me until I do. “Hey, Jake?”

He glanced over at me, his mouth full and an empty candy wrapper crumpled in his fist.

I looked up at his eyes. “The woman, in the picture at your house, is that your mom?”

Jake
I nearly choked on my skittles when she asked me that question. I mean, I knew that she was looking at the pictures in my living room but I didn’t know the one of me and my mom was still up there. I haven’t looked at those pictures in years. They made me remember when things were easier, and remembering leads to self-pity. And believe me; I had enough of that for everyone. So, I just completely avoided them.

When I swallowed the candy that was lodged in my throat and had myself composed, I cleared my throat and looked over at her awkwardly. I don’t remember the last time I spoke about my mom with anybody. Actually, I don’t remember the last time I spoke about anything emotional at all. Not about my mom, or my situation with Bella, or the fact that I practically hated myself for being a giant monster; nothing.

So, as I looked at Stella, with her big innocent eyes, I figured it wouldn’t hurt so much to tell her about my mom. “Um . . . yeah. She died when I was little.”

Stella’s eyes widened as she blinked at me, unsure what to say.

I nearly slapped myself. What a wonderful way to start off that topic.

“I’m sorry Jake, I just wasn’t sure . . .” She trailed off as she looked at me with sincere eyes.

I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the approaching playground in front of us. “Don’t worry about it shorty.” I wanted to say more, to tell her about my mom, but I didn’t know how to start; so I kept my mouth shut until she spoke up again.

“She’s beautiful.” She whispered, shoving her still half full bag of candy in her pocket and glancing at me quickly before turning her head forward again, probably afraid that she’d gotten me upset.

My heart swelled a bit with pride. Maybe it was because she didn’t use past tense when she spoke about her, like everyone else did, or maybe it was just because we were talking about her. I didn’t think I’d ever know.

“Yeah,” I whispered, a smile tugging at my lips. “You know, I think she’d love you.” I told her suddenly, a full blow smile on my face now.

She looked over at me with a shy smile and a raised eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Why?”

“She had quite a thing for weirdoes,” I teased, pushing her arm playfully and laughing when she stuck her tongue out at me.

“No but really, she had this whole fascination with people who were different from everyone else.” I explained, as we walked through the gate of the empty playground, slowly making our way to the swings.

“Different?” She asked, tilting her head to the side lightly.

I nodded, claiming one of the swings and watching as Stella plopped down in the one next to me. “You know, people who didn’t follow the status quo, who said what was on their mind, despite what people thought of them.”

She nodded slowly, I small smile on her face as she gripped the chains on her swing. “Do you miss her?” She asked softly, glancing up at me, as I was still considerably taller than her, even sitting.

I shrugged lightly, thinking about her question. “I was really little when she died,” I started, scrunching up my face as I admitted the truth out loud for the first time. “It’s hard for me to remember her, but there are the little things that I do remember. Like, she was always singing. Didn’t matter what the song was or where we were; she just always did it. I used to love it when she sang along to the radio, because she always had this big smile on her face, like she was the happiest person alive, even if she was in the worst of moods.”

I glanced over at Stella and she was watching me carefully, a concerned look on her face. “You okay Jake?” She whispered gently.

I didn’t even realize I was crying until she asked me that. It was like I was completely oblivious to the water pooling in my eyes. The tears hadn’t spilled over yet, but I knew that if I blinked, they would.

“Sure, sure.” I grumbled, rubbing roughly at me eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset or anything . . .” She mumbled, biting her lip with a guilty look on her face.

“No, don’t worry about it.” I shook my head. After a minute of not saying anything, I decided I would change the subject. “So, how come you moved here anyway?” I asked curiously, looking down at her.

She bit her lip, looking unsure. “It’s a very long, very dramatic story.” She warned me.

I just smiled encouragingly; she listened about my mom, so I would listen about this. “I’ve got time.” I assured her, chuckling when she made a face, obviously hoping that I was going to dismiss the subject.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, my mom was actually born here. This is where she grew up with her parents, and her brother who died when she was fourteen. Something about an animal attack.”

I was surprised when she said her mom grew up here, but I was even more surprised about her mom’s brother dying from an animal attack. There weren’t any animals around here, not any harmful ones anyway. Unless…

Stella interrupted my train of thought as she continued and I tried my best to pay attention.

“She used to hang out with these guys she basically grew up with, and when she was fifteen she started dating one of them. They were going out for like two years or something when they decided that things weren’t working out. He stuck around though, even when she met my dad. She was dating my dad for about a year and a half when he told her that he didn’t want to be with her because he felt like she was cheating on him with the other guy; so he left.”

As my brain processed all this information, I nodded. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with why she moved, but I listened anyway. “Wait, he left? Where’d he go?”

She shrugged, “I dunno, like Canada or something. Then, a few weeks after he left my mom found out she was pregnant with me, but she never told him. So when he came back to visit some friends four years later, he stumbled upon my mom and me. He caught on right away and they both decided that they would settle their differences for my sake.”

She looked over at me to make sure I wasn’t lost, and when I smiled she continued.

“He was never really much of a father to begin with, and when my mom had Austin I was kind of hoping that he was snap out of it and realize what he was doing wrong, but it had the opposite effect. He became completely distant. He barely ever went near Austin and because my mom had to work every day, I was pretty much left to raise him myself. A few months ago we found out that he had been seeing another woman, who had three kids of her own. He left us for his new perfect family.” When she was done with her story she was glaring daggers at the dirt, her hands were clamped in fists around the changes on her swing.

This wasn’t the Stella I was used to seeing. Normally she was happy and jumpy and quirky, but now she looked like she had all this pent up anger that was just dying to get out. I knew exactly how that felt, and I knew that it wasn’t at all helpful to not do anything about it.

“He’s not worth your anger Stella.” I told her softly, not wanting to get her more upset. I noticed her clenched jaw relax after a little while as she took a deep breath.

“Sorry,” She mumbled. “I just get so mad sometimes . . .”

“Yeah I know the feeling,” I told her with an eye roll.

She gave me a bit of a confused look but didn’t say anything as she gazed up at the dark clouds forming over our heads.

I don’t know how long we sat out there, talking about anything and everything. We talked about easy things, and emotional things; whatever was on our minds. It was nice to have someone like that to talk to. I mean, sure I had the guys, but I couldn’t talk about that kind of stuff with them without getting shit for it, and I barely even saw Bella, what with her always being around that goddamn leech. So, as the sky got darker with clouds, and we just sat there on our swings talking and laughing, I felt my smile grow with every passing minute.

Paul may have imprinted on Stella, but that wouldn’t stop me from being there for, because somehow, I had a feeling he would only hurt her, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.