Tracing Constellations

Chapter 1

VEGA

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” I tap each of the pills in Maya’s hand. White. Pink. Blue. “Catch a tweaker by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” My finger lands on the little blue oval.

“Happy Hump Day, Vega,” she says and places the Xan on my tongue like a communion wafer. I sigh with relief.

We jump up onto the tailgate of her truck and watch as other cars start to roll into the school parking lot. I snag her vape.

“Which one are you taking?” I ask.

“Neither I’ve got a quiz first period that I need to pass.” She drops the pills back into the bottle between her knees.

“Ooooh look at you, suddenly giving a shit,” I tease and nudge her with my shoulder.

“Yea, well, even community college has standards.” She pulls her jacket taut around her willowy frame. “We don’t all have full rides to one of the state’s best schools.”

“It’s not a full ride.” I look up at the abnormally vivid September sky. “It’s employee tuition assistance. You know that.”

“Whatever, it’s more than most of us get.”

I hit her vape again then hand it back. “It doesn’t matter. I’m taking a gap year.”

“Oh yea? And what does the good doctor think?”

I shrug. “Haven’t told her yet.”

The very thought of telling my parents, no, of disappointing my parents, in such an epic fashion would normally send my anxiety rocketing into the stratosphere but knowing my stomach acid is hard at work breaking down that little pill settles me.

“Gonna backpack through Europe, like some rich kid cliché?” she asks.

“Maybe,” I watch her take a deep drag and blow the vapor into the crisp Ohio air, “but probably not.”

She grins, and I take a moment to commit her expression to memory. That’s the Maya I want to remember ten years from now when I debate if it’s worth slogging back to this nowhere town for our class reunion.

I nudge her again. “Admit it, you’d be jealous if I came back with a kilted Scotsman, wouldn’t you?”

“Not if he comes with a friend,” she hops off the tailgate and slides both the vape and the pill bottle into her jacket pocket, or brother."

“Let’s go. Wouldn’t want you to miss that test.” As the words leave my mouth, an older sedan enters the lot and slowly pulls into a space at the end of our row.

Maya slings her messenger bag over her shoulder.

“New kid?” I tilit my head towards the unfamiliar car.

She turns around for a better look and shrugs.

We linger until the driver gets out and makes his way up the row. He’s tall and slender with wild hair and hipster glasses. His eyes are firmly planted on the ground as he passes us.

Maya’s expression slowly morphs from curiosity to something I can’t quite identify. The color drains from her wind-kissed cheeks and I can see her teeth clacking together between her lips.

“WTF Maya? You alright?” I ask, looping my arm through hers, and leading her to the building.

The guy glances at us over his shoulder then pulls his hood over his head and quickens his pace.

“Do you know him?” I ask.

She swallows hard and nods. “I don’t know. I mean, he reminds me of someone I used to know.” She shakes off whatever it is she’s thinking. “It can’t be him though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cause I’m pretty sure he died five years ago.”

#

The classroom slowly comes into focus. I pick my head up and see my notebook splayed on the linoleum floor in the middle of the aisle. I must have been asleep. After wiping the drool from the corner of my mouth, I press my palms into my eyes.

Elliot Daniels, pharmaceutical distributor, occasional hook-up, and douchebag extraordinaire, turns his perfectly quaffed head in my direction and slides his size twelve Jordan-clad foot out from under his chair. He kicks the notebook towards me and makes an obscene gesture with his fingers and tongue. I flip him off and reach down.

He’s had it out for me since we hooked up in Zeke Keller’s kitchen pantry a month ago. I don’t remember much about the party, but I do remember telling my former bestie, Anna-Grace, who happens to be his girlfriend and the only girl gorgeous and sweet enough to make abstinence seem cool, to not bother breaking her purity pledge for him. Now she thinks we’re both trash and has relegated him to the proverbial doghouse. He’s been a total dick to me ever since. The joke’s on him though; you can’t destroy the reputation of someone who doesn’t give a shit.

“So sorry to wake you Miss Resnik, but I’m glad you could join us,” Mr. Cliburn says, in that lazy, out-of-place southern drawl of his.

As I’m grabbing for the notebook, I notice the empty seat next to mine now contains a body, or I should say a ghost. I stare at the waterfall of freckles spilling from under his glasses and over the bridge of his nose and study the rise and fall of his chest. He is most definitely alive, and I am most definitely freaking him out. His white-knuckled hand is gripping the edge of the desk and his lips are pressed into a hard line. His eyes never waver, he stares straight forward, as if I don’t exist, as if none of us exist. I wait for him to blink, not once or twice, but three times before I finally look away.

As Cliburn barks about supply and demand, I pick at my nail beds and wish I’d taken the Adderall instead of the Xanax. No one ever said “Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe” was the best way to choose your poison.

#

“Your dead friend's in two of my classes,” I say, falling in step with Maya.

“Oh, yeah? Which ones?”

“Econ and calc.”

“Shocker.” She rolls her eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I’m not surprised he’s in AP classes. That’s all,” she says.

“So what’s his story?” I ask, directing the conversation away from academics, a topic Maya hates discussing. I don’t get her, she’s smart as hell but a total underachiever.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You know exactly what I mean.”

She senses my annoyance and fishes the vape pen out of her pocket and offers it to me.

I decline, waving her off. “Why weren’t you at lunch today?”

“I was in the library.”

She’s lying. She avoids the library and an ex-boyfriend who practically lives there, like the plague. We cross the parking lot and I see the new kid leaning against his car. He’s all folded arms and asphalt stares.

“Waiting for you?” I nudge her.

She laughs. “God no.” She hitches her thumb over her shoulder towards the soccer field. “His brother.”

“Huh?”

“Yea,” she takes a drag from the vape, “he’s a Harrow.”

“Harrow as in, Miles Harrow?” I ask, stopping in my tracks.

“That’s the one, but don’t forget about big brother, Corbin.”

We both sigh dramatically at the sound of his name and in a voice as sweet and fluffy as cotton candy, I say, “so dreamy.”

“He was, wasn’t he?” Maya clicks her key fob.

“Yea, and he was actually legit nice too.”

“Pretty much your perfect teen heartthrob, right?”

We both laugh and climb up into the cab of her dusty pink truck. Corbin Harrow was a senior when we were sophomores. He was one of those people you always wanted to hate for having it all—college scouts at his soccer games, a high GPA, involved in Student Government, and a stream of pretty girlfriends—but it was impossible because, on top of everything, he was a genuinely nice guy.

“I didn’t know they had another brother,” I say.

“Actually, there’re four Harrow Brothers. He’s between Miles and Corbin. Isaac, the oldest, should be like, a senior in college now if I remember right.” She goes quiet for a moment.

“What?”

“Josh was friends with Isaac.” She sucks in a quick breath and waves her hands in front of her watering eyes. “Sorry. Sometimes it, well, it just creeps up on me.”

“It’s all right. You’re allowed to—”

She cuts me off, which is par for the course whenever her brother is mentioned. “So, Phoenix,” she continues as if nothing had just happened, “the last time I saw him was the summer between seventh and eighth grade. He was a year older, about to start his freshman year.”

“His name is Phoenix?” I cringe at the tragically hip name. “Like the city?”

She nods.

“So, you knew him?”

“Not well,” she says. “We had some mutual friends. Hung out a few times that summer. He was a huge burn-out.”

“And then?”

She presses her lips together in a tight line and shrugs.

“And then he died,” I say as the truck slowly rolls past where he is standing.

Maya’s quiet for a few minutes and I can tell she’s mulling something over. Something important. I stare at my phone and pretend I don’t notice.

“Vega,” she says, “let him be a ghost, okay?” There’s a pleading edge to her voice that I don’t expect, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“Yea, sure. He’s dead to me.”

“That’s so not even funny,” she says.