Page 60 of Only Some Stars Fall

“Your feelings might have been real, but I never said mine were.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Then I lied.”

His words slam into me like a Mack truck. The tears stop, my breathing stops, and I’m pretty sure my heart stops as well.

The room has gone dead-silent other than a few stray whispers. “Just go back to the city, Everly. You don’t belong here.”

Without another word, he walks out the sliding door into the darkness. This time, I don’t move, and I don’t run after him. I stand there, blinking, in shock. People start to move about again, the whispers turning into chatter, no doubt about our latest public display, but I can’t focus on the words. All I hear is a buzzing, and then I feel it. My heart starts back up, and all there is is pain.

The rapid breathing begins. My ears fill with the familiar sound of static. My eyes dart around the room, but no matter how much I blink, everything remains blurry. Just as my knees feel like they are going to give out and this panic attack will consume me, I feel familiar hands wrap around me.

“I’ve got you, you’re okay.” I look over my shoulder to see Alex’s amber-colored eyes.

“But I’m not okay, Al.” The first sob escapes as I turn and collapse into her arms.

We stand together in some rich kid’s house and cry as the storm outside intensifies.

My heart, it’s casualty.

TWENTY-EIGHT

HUX

I gotthe call at 3:23 a.m. I was already awake, tossing and turning while the rain pounded and the wind slammed the roof and walls of my cabin. Three saucepans and a bucket were collecting water from the leaks I have still not found the time to fix. With every sharp ping of rain hitting metal, I replayed another moment from the fight with Everly.

I had been contemplating what the chances were of getting shot if I showed up at the Croft house, throwing my fists at the front door and pleading for Everly to come out when my mother called me. My father still hadn’t returned home, and she had been awakened by a bad dream. My mother takes her dreams very seriously.

“Something’s not right, Huxy, I can feel it. Something is off.” I assured her that my dad knows how to handle these conditions in the woods, which probably had slowed him down.

Maybe he just wandered farther than he had expected and miscalculated the time it would take to return. I told her if he didn’t show up sopping wet on her front porch, hollering forsome warm coffee by the morning, I would head out looking for him.

She begged me not to, to stay put, and we would call the wardens when the sun came up and set up a proper search. But I feel it too. Something isn’t right, and I know I won’t be waiting until daylight hours.

Over the last two years, any time my dad even tried to tell me about his search plans, I would immediately shut down the conversation, and eventually, he stopped bringing it up. His absences were not something we discussed.

Still, growing up in the woods, our family knows how dangerous it can be, and my dad still religiously leaves a map of where he planned to search before every outing. There was a silent agreement that if he wasn’t back within a few days of his intended return date, I was always ready to come looking for him.

The entire Maine’s North Woods encompasses over three and a half million acres, and although the vast majority of it could be ruled out as too far for my dad to have gone, thousands of acres of wildland still could be probable search areas. There is a reason why the hundred-mile wilderness is considered the most challenging part of the Appalachian Trail. You are completely secluded, miles away from food and help while on that section. Once your supplies are depleted out here, it becomes perilous territory.

That’s only part of why I find it an extremely unlikely pipe-dream that Storm has somehow survived living off the land, especially for this long. However, my concern is now my dad and whatever trouble he might have encountered.

With no chance of sleeping, I immediately started gathering my supplies, organizing my backpack, and spending some time looking over his route. It looks like he had planned to follow part of the Appalachian Trail for a while and thenveer off into some very dense forest that I’m not at all familiar with.

I notice about twenty miles west of the trail is a small river. I have a feeling that’s where he was headed. My dad is determined to check every riverbank he can. He knows that if Storm could survive, he would need to have found a water source.

Part of my dad’s theory that Storm had gone into the woods to live in complete solitude and not slip away was that we still hadn’t found his fishing rod. Sadly, I never shared the same hope as my dad, and although I’m not ready to admit that Storm is gone forever, the probability that he’s out there surviving seems like a juvenile idea to me.

As for the fishing rod, there are a million places it could be, including in the still-destroyed cabin that Storm left behind.

I left my cabin an hour before sunrise, as soon as there was enough light to see my feet in front of me. I have my dad’s map in hand to guide my search.

I’ve beenout in the pouring rain for over twenty-four hours. Last night, I spent the night under the overhang of a boulder, trying to keep dry, but the wind shifted, and I ended up just as wet as if I had laid down in the middle of a field.

Still, despite the rain, I’m making good progress through the thick underbrush. Even my best rain gear barely keeps the wetness off me. I think I can make it to the riverbank by nightfall at this pace. Even then, the river meanders for miles, and it would take weeks to explore the whole thing. I have no real plan for when I get there. I need to keep moving, one foot in front of the other.

I try to push thoughts of Everly out of my head as I walk, but being out here alone with only the sound of rainfall makes itimpossible. All I have is time to think—too much time. I’m starting to regret my choice to not leave a note. Everly will most likely have left by the time I get back, and my unexplained absence makes any chance of getting her back slim to none.

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