Page 57 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Thea

Tears streamed down my face as I drove home. I was hitting an emotional wall. And somehow moving here had finally given me the capacity to set firm boundaries—even boundaries for the people I loved.

I nearly hit a mailbox on the corner because my brain was being too loud.

Once I pulled into the parking lot next to Marshall’s driveway I could breathe again.

I reached for my phone, hoping to buffer and dissociate for a few minutes with cat videos or something equally mood enhancing before going to Marshall.

I’d been ignoring alerts all day because I had been in a rush since climbing out of Courtney’s window, but they weren’t just the typical junk emails or my mom.

A couple of my old concert and festival buddies were texting on a group chat that had been inactive for months.

Have you listened yet?

I feel bad listening since it was leaked

Duuuuude it’s so good.

Did you read the liner notes?

Just enough to know it’s really personal

Thea, have you heard it yet?

Where’s Thea?

Thea’s probably in a music coma right now.

Can’t wait to hear what she thinks.

She’s been waiting for this for yeeeeeeears.

“Holy frolicking turdballs. What ?”

Courtney’s album leaked today?

I knew I probably shouldn’t listen to the leaked tracks, but I didn’t have enough self-control to stop myself either. I clicked the link they sent and cranked up the volume.

There were already thousands of reaction comments and videos. Most casual fans of the Trikes had no idea who Kestrel was or that she was often a cowriter with Demetrius. Some people were disappointed that what had been rumored to be a sister album was actually not that at all.

My heartbeat was treating my sternum like it was a snare drum.

The song people seemed to be losing their minds over was called “Astrolabe.”

Astrolabe, like the one in the studio.

But I had already heard this song. Part of it at least.

We were naked on the floor of the living room. Our legs were oriented in opposite directions like wheel spokes on the old shag carpet. Our faces were inches apart.

“Play something.” My eyes flickered to the cello on the stand in the corner.

“Now?” Courtney’s laughter reverberated through the floor.

“Yes…” I kissed her nose. “Please?”

“Are you making me re-create some orchestral-themed porno fantasy?”

“Would you mind if I were?” I kissed one cheek, then the other and continued to find new places I hadn’t kissed yet on her neck and collarbone, always missing her lips at the last second.

“Probably not.” Frustrated with the teasing, Courtney caught my mouth in a playful kiss and then rolled to sit. “What should I play?”

I rolled over onto my back and wrapped an arm around one of her thighs. “The song of your soul.”

Courtney snorted. “Guess it’s kicked in for you.” She seemed unable to resist the challenge. She slipped away from me and sat behind her instrument without a hint of shame. I propped myself on my elbow, completely transfixed as Courtney’s bow moved over the strings.

Courtney had played this song.

She hadn’t sung it. She had played it like the only thing that existed in the universe were the strings beneath her fingers and the bow as it swept over them.

It began with a cello solo on the track too. It was exactly the kind of song that might be featured in the sort of prestige television soundtrack moment that even someone like Marshall could appreciate.

It’s seventy-five and he’s on LA time

Leading you down to that secluded coastal climb

After he took your face into his sweaty hand,

he said yes that you were fine

You were folded while he scored you like a ticket meant to be torn—

his lies left you on a table in the storm

Shivering cold, feeling a million years old

Just bloodstained trash made grittier with sand.

So you struck out into the wildest of waters,

Let any blinding beacons fade

You found the stars in your eyes

were enough of a guide

To a new endless horizon miles away

from every mess you ever made

You might always be drifting

You might stay windswept and afraid

Your ship might have lost its anchor

But you can be its astrolabe.

Heels held by stainless steel

Cheap body wrapped in a thin pink gown

“Just breathe, honey, it’s almost over,

I need you to settle down.”

Flesh beginnings with porcelain endings but you never made a sound.

How did those gouging tides change to begging for rides?

Why do you keep finding yourself swimming,

while wishing you could drown?

So you struck out into the wildest of waters,

Let any blinding beacons fade

You found the stars in your eyes

were enough of a guide

To a new endless horizon miles away

from every mess you made

You might always be drifting

You might stay windswept and afraid

Your ship might have lost its anchor

But you can be its astrolabe.

Astrolabe, astrolabe

You can be its astrolabe.

So you chart a course for a fresh disaster,

Walk the plank in his wandering eye,

Decide to be the worst kind of monster,

But choose to never let them see you cry.

Their stones were always trying to sink you,

And keep you quiet and ashamed.

Their maps were never what you wanted,

You might be battered and broken,

But you never needed to be saved.

Your ship has star-flecked skies over the horizons,

And you are its astrolabe.

The melodic hook echoed in my brain after the track faded out. Comments flooded every single video. Somehow everyone knew this song was about an abortion even though it wasn’t explicitly said in the song. People kept referencing liner notes.

People talked about the song like Courtney was telling their story.

The best thing about it was that it wasn’t a haunting ballad. It wasn’t weepy. It felt epic. Like the moment the hero leaps aboard a ship to save the day.

It was like something out of a swashbuckling romance.

There was no apology. After the heartbreaking beginning, it shifted to defiance and growth. But the music beneath the words added so much to the story. It was stunning.

This was the song she didn’t want to release?

I listened to the two other songs that had been leaked. One was a fairly scathing satirical statement on religion. The last one was sexy and sensual and also definitely about being with women—the plural quite intentional.

Geez Louise. Fuck me.

This was the kind of song that would probably make sapphics everywhere flock to see Kestrel perform just so they could throw their underwear at her or something.

I was still in my car. If I looked behind me, I would see where Courtney had basically done to me what she described doing in the song—though in a more metaphorical, poetic, and clever way.

Courtney had put her soul into these songs. How could she have been trying to decide to quit? I knew Courtney well enough—not just in the carnal way—to hear the poorly concealed anguish in her voice when she talked about quitting.

Had she just been scared about the reception to the songs?

The brief overheard conversation replayed itself as a series of small snippets.

“She’s a put-down-roots person. How can I tell her I’m going to be gone for months and months?”

Basically a nicer way of saying I lived in a much smaller world than Courtney.

But still, how could Courtney think so little of me after everything we had shared the last few days?

Even if what I had overheard wasn’t the whole story of how Courtney felt, what if it was partly true?

Her anxiety about me must be real. Could Courtney be considering giving up on a part of who she was because she thought I couldn’t handle her being a rock star or going on tour?

Did I truly seem like the sort of person who would ask someone as talented as Courtney to be less than she was?

Maybe I had said too much about wanting to create a new life here.

Maybe that’s why she thought I wouldn’t understand the choice she needed to make right now.

Holy bajesus . This record would be huge for her career.

She might not even be able to stop the momentum no matter what she did if the reception over the last hour was any indication.

No wonder Courtney was so gutted about being too panicked to perform.

That must be why Samantha got her the psilocybin.

All this was a much bigger deal than I could’ve possibly imagined.

I headed inside.

Marshall’s keys weren’t in the bowl by the door. Maybe he went to his dad’s house?

I shot him a quick text before heading down the hall to my room. Given that Courtney had never been in my room, it was almost alarming the number of things I had accumulated in a few months that reminded me of her.

The pile of romance books on the nightstand.

The sweatshirt I’d stolen yesterday.

The flyer for the book club I had pinned up to a small bulletin board over my desk. The shirt I had to wash six times to get rid of the ferret pheromones.

After I was ready for bed, freshly showered with pajamas on, tears welled in my eyes. I wasn’t even sure why I was so upset, but I blinked and my mind was back in those bare-skin moments beneath a sky too cloudy to see stars.

“Courtney Starling?”

“Yes, Thea Quinn.” Courtney kissed my nose.

“If I tell you something crazy, will you promise not to laugh?”

“Promise.”

“What would you say if I fell in love with you?” Courtney’s eyes were smiling, but something else was behind those warm green irises. Fear.

“I’d say you deserve someone a little less battered and lost.”

“Baby, no one’s too battered or lost to be loved.”

“Maybe.”

I shifted my weight against something digging into my back under the comforter.

It was the first book Courtney had ever found for me.

As I flipped it open, out fell my copy of the aura photo we had taken right before that first kiss.

After pushing it back between the pages, I held the book to my chest and cried until I fell asleep.