Inhale.
Exhale.
I turn to look at him and I make sure he’s looking at me. Our faces mirror each other’s—?eyes red and wide, tears wandering down cheeks, and noses sprinkled with freckles.
“This,” I say to him, and he frowns. I bring our twined hands to my face, pressing the back of his hand to my cheek. “This is a girl who thought no one would ever believe her. This is a girl who is not lying.”
He’s sobbing now, his cries rising between us to settle in the sky.
I untangle our hands and step away from him.
“Eventually, Sister Twin realized that she had to tell her story. Because that story was hers. Because she was worth the telling.”
“Mara . . .”
But he doesn’t go on. Just buries his face in his hands, a tiny boy made of stars.
And in that moment, Sister Twin breathes in a universe full of constellations, taking them with her as she leaves. Because she knows it’s time for the brother and sister to leave the sky for good.
Chapter Thirty
ANDROMEDA WAS CHAINED TO A ROCK by the ocean and left to be devoured by a monster. Only she wasn’t. She was saved by a man, Perseus, but he rescued her only because her parents promised to hand her over to him in marriage.
Even girls made of stars are captives, bound at the wrists and traded like property. Even girls made of stars aren’t asked, aren’t believed, aren’t considered worth the effort unless they can offer something in return.
Even girls made of stars buy into those lies sometimes.
My skin feels electric as I knock on my parents’ bedroom door that night. I’m not sure if it’s nerves or adrenaline or stars waking up, rising to the surface and escaping.
But I’m not a girl made of stars.
I’m just me, just a girl, just Mara.
Charlie waits in my room. I called her after I came in from the roof with Owen and she was at my house within ten minutes. We spent the rest of the evening curled up on my bed, curtains shut tight against the sky, her fingers plaiting little braids into my hair, our limbs tangled, quiet whispers and a few tears and kisses. Never more than that, always exactly what I need.
“You can do this,” she said to me after the house quieted, everyone inching toward sleep. I listened for my mother’s soft footsteps in the hall outside my room. She’s been retreating to her bed pretty early for the past couple of nights, armed with a cup of tea and a book. Sometimes my dad joins her and I hear the gentle murmur of their voices late into the night. Everyone’s been so hushed lately, all of our movements around one another careful and wary.
“I still don’t want to,” I said to Charlie.
“I know.”
“And I do. Want to, I mean.”
“I know that too.”
“I just never wanted to be that girl, you know?”
“What girl?”
“The cautionary tale, I guess. The victim.”
“You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor. You and Hannah both. There’s a difference.”
Survivor. The word sank into my skin and settled on my bones. “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her.
“Will you come with me, when I come out to my parents?”
I raked my hand through her hair, making it stick up even more than usual. “You know I will.”
