Page 22 of Before We Break Again
Mom offered to help, but that would mean having to deal with my father.I’m trying to get away from him.
“What do you want to do, San?”Halsey asks, her voice softer now, laced with concern.
I can see the worry in her eyes, and it hits me—hard.I want to know how much she knows about my condition, how much she understands about what I’ve been going through.Or maybe I just want to know if she still cares about my life at all.
“All I want is to go back,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them.“Play a few more seasons.Can you ...?”
I trail off, unsure of how to finish the question.Can you what?Can you come see me?Can you let me hold you like we used to?Can you just lay next to me like you did when I was sick?Can you be my ...what?I can’t find the words.There’s too much between us, too much left unsaid.Everything I want to say feels too exposed, too impossible.
Halsey looks at me for a moment before she sighs.“I don’t know if I can ...”she says quietly, and I’m not surprised by her answer.We don’t even know what we can be.“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
I nod, probably more times than necessary, just trying to hold onto the thread of this conversation before it slips through my fingers.
Dustin’s watching me, his usual bravado gone, replaced by something softer.Sad, almost.He knows how fragile this is, how close we are to breaking everything again.And I want to tell him to take her away—keep her safe from the wreckage that is Santos and Dustin.Keep her from seeing just how far we’ve fallen.Or maybe I want him to bring her to me, to let me hold onto the one thing I’ve always wanted but could never keep.
But the words don’t come.
So instead, I end the call.No goodbye.Just a tap, the screen going dark, leaving me alone in the quiet, with all the things I couldn’t say.
ChapterTen
Santos
The silenceafter the call is suffocating.Seeing Halsey again—it hits me harder than I expected.It’s like a wound I thought had long since healed but never really did.One glance, and the ache resurfaces, sharper and deeper than before.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shove it all away, trying to block the flood of emotions threatening to drown me.But instead, I’m dragged back.Back to Blissful Meadows.Back to the beginning, where it all started.Where we started.
I was seven, and it was one of those perfect summer nights where the air smelled like freshly cut grass, and the world felt wide open.Halsey and I lay on sleeping bags in her backyard, staring up at the stars.The sky stretched above us, endless and full of possibilities, like it held all the answers we didn’t even know we were searching for yet.
She was beside me, close enough that the warmth of her arm brushed against mine.The crickets chirped softly around us, the wind whispered through the trees, and for a moment, everything felt right—the kind of perfect that only exists when you’re young and untouched by the world’s harsh edges.
“Do you think the stars are people?”she asked, her voice soft, like she was sharing a secret with the night.
I blinked, turning my head to look at her.“People?”
She nodded, her eyes wide, glowing with that curiosity she always had, as if every question held the key to a mystery.“Yeah, like people who were here before.Grandpas and uncles.Aunts and ...people who loved us but died.Maybe they’re looking down at us, watching what we do.”
I frowned, trying to wrap my head around that idea.“But how would they get up there?”
She laughed, that soft, tinkling sound that was pure Halsey, and nudged my arm playfully.“It’s not about how, silly.It’s just something I heard in a movie.Like when people die, they turn into stars and watch over the people they love.It sounds better than them being masses of gas, don’t you think?”
I looked back up at the sky, the stars twinkling brightly against the inky black.“I don’t think I’d want to be a star.I’d miss being here too much.I would miss you.I never want to be without you.”
Halsey shifted beside me, and when I glanced over, she was watching me with this look—like she’d seen more of the world than I had, like she understood something that was just out of my reach.“But what if one day you had to leave?”she asked, her voice quieter now, a sadness creeping in.“Wouldn’t you want to know you could still watch over the people you love?”
I didn’t answer right away.The question felt too big, too complicated for my seven-year-old brain to process.But before I could come up with anything, she nudged me again, a grin spreading across her face.“Never mind.You wouldn’t be a star anyway.You’d be ...the moon.”
“The moon?”I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, the moon,” she confirmed.“It’s strong, bright, and always watching.It keeps the stars company.That’s you, San.”
“That’s dumb,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes.“If I’m the moon and you become a star, we’d never be together.I’d miss you too much.”
She sat up, glaring at me, her curls bouncing as she moved.“You’re the perfect moon, though.The moon’s important.It keeps everything in balance.You have to be it.”
I shrugged, lying back down and folding my arms behind my head.“Fine.I’ll be the moon, then.”
She flopped back onto her sleeping bag, staring up at the sky again.We lay there in silence for a while, just the two of us beneath the vastness of the universe, feeling both small and infinite at the same time.
