Page 52 of Chasing Fireflies

“This and that,” she counters. I bounce my knee so she bounces, too. She smiles and looks up at the sky. “It’s a perfect night.”

“It is,” I agree, looking up just as a star shoots across the sky.

“Did you see that?” Sara asks, wide-eyed.

“I did.”

“Make a wish, baby,” she tells me as she closes her eyes. I close mine, too, and wish for more perfect days just like this one.

“Did you wish?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“What did you wish for?”

“I can’t tell you.”

She grins. “You’re no fun, Cash Williams.”

“If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

“Did you wish for babies?” she asks me quietly. I look over her pretty face. It’s slightly flushed from drinking, and her hair falls carelessly around it.

“Didyou?” I ask.

“Maybe.” She shrugs.

“We can work on that, you know? All you have to do is stop taking your birth control.”

“I know.” She smiles, and then her face turns serious as though she had a bad thought.

“I’m getting tired,” she says, sliding off my lap. “I’m going to call it a night, guys.” She walks away and into the house as the girls tell her bye. Leigh looks over at me with a concerned expression. I look away.

“She’s had a long day,” I say. Like I said, lying for the people you love is easy, and soon you become so good at it you don’t know what the truth is anymore. Sara hasn’t had a long day; she slept most of it away and actually didn’t get up until I told her everyone was coming over, and I only did that to get her out of bed. She can’t be tired, or maybe she can. Who really knows?

*

I walk into the house after I put the fire out and everyone leaves. Sara sits at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in her hand.

“Why did you do that?” she asks me.

“Do what?” I question as I lean against the doorway.

“Invite everyone over, knowing I was tired today.”

“You slept all day, Sara. How in the hell can you be tired still?” I push off the doorframe and walk around the countertop.

“You don’t know what I am or how I feel, Cash, so stop acting like you do.”

“I’m just saying you slept all day. There is no way a person can still be tired if they slept for fourteen hours.”

“I can,” she says. “I could sleep for a week and probably still be tired.”

“Well, then we need to get your medicine fixed.”

“Fuck my medicine. I’m sick to death of taking that shit. I’m tired of getting it changed all the damn time. Nothing helps. Nothing helps with these shifty feelings I have.” She slides off the stool and dumps her coffee into the sink. “I’m never going to feel normal, and I don’t want to bring a kid into this world and risk them feeling like I do. I can’t put that on anyone else.”

“You’re the one talking about having babies, Sara. I never mentioned it.” She doesn’t say anything back, but her eyes fill with tears.

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