Page 128 of With Stars in Her Eyes

When I stopped sobbing, my teeth were chattering from the tepid water. I got out of the bath, threw on the sweatshirt I had basically stolen from Courtney, and snuggled down into bed to read.

CHAPTER 47Thea

It was long past when I should have gotten out of bed, but the unexpected September cold snap made me reluctant to emerge from my comforter cocoon. I grabbed my phone and swiped to turn on Courtney’s album. I’d lost count of how many times I had listened to it since it dropped last week. It had exploded in popularity, as anyone who knew Courtney’s talent and Demetrius’s brilliance and tenacity would have expected.

I had overheard two clients whispering about Courtney having worked in the bookstore and no one knowing. College students played it loudly in their cars as they drove down the streets around the St. Clare Park neighborhood. It was inescapable.

And I didn’t want to escape it.

I had received fifteen books since Courtney left, and they all sat on my nightstand even though I had read most of them. If I managed to get out of bed, I was contemplating eating a piece of the ice cream cake that had arrived on dry ice yesterday for breakfast. The ice cream cake had come with a slightly different book. A bound version of one of those inanimate object “romances” in which a woman falls in love with her birthday cake and then eats it… out. I fell asleep last night still laughing about it.

Sometimes the books arrived with longer letters, and sometimes they just had a quick note as to why Courtney liked that book. They each came with a bookmark or some other indication of where she had bought them. Courtney always seemed to find time to visit a bookstore in every city she played in. Sometimes the books were new, and sometimes they were used.

Every single one had a clinch cover—except the birthday cake one of course.

A month ago, Samantha had stopped by Squid to ask Denise a question at the same time that I received a package. There had been no way to hide how much I lit up with excitement to receive it. I suspected Courtney had heard because the books arrived a little more frequently after. Courtney had also started underlining certain parts. There were never notes in the margins, but it seemed like she wanted to draw my attention to certain places that she particularly loved.

The last book package that arrived had been from Seattle. It arrived on the day the album had dropped. I had the day off work and spent most of it in bed just like I was now, listening to it over and over again just like I would have if I hadn’t been in love with the woman who turned out to be Kestrel.

I couldn’t decide which song was my favorite.

“Peg Board” was another of the songs I listened to on repeat. It described the process of figuring out someone was a lesbian in a series of particularly hilarious vignettes. I had seen too much of Courtney’s mind and soul to be surprised by how good the record was, but it was absolutely surreal to think about certain memories of Courtney while listening to her songs. The sexy song that had been leaked was a little different in the final version. On the album it was called “Pulp Fiction,” and somehow the lyrics of the forbidden fruit sapphic ballad were even hornier than the leaked version.

You drank me dry, honey

Til my lips were bruised

Crushed, infused, and flooding in my core

Take another bite, baby

Slice the rind with your quick fingers

see what’s hidden deep inside

where all I need, all I need is more (of you) to keep

It was definitely crass to be unable to browse the Trader Joe’s produce section without one’s underwear becoming damp every time she saw the display of split, prepackaged papayas.

You can pretend they never knew

How you plucked me in the sunshine,

And sucked me down to the last seed

But I know you walked away

with bits of me stuck like citrus peels

beneath your pretty painted fingernails

Always lingering with need

I wanted to know who hurt Courtney. I wanted to know everything about whoever inspired that song. The ending made me both sad and angry. And if I were being honest, a little relieved that Courtney had seen through whatever woman had led her on.

You spit me out and said I was your worst addiction

But to me, honey, your overripe, sugar-tongued words