Page 96 of With Stars in Her Eyes

CHAPTER 32Thea

We sat on Courtney’s living room couch watching the second episode ofPride and Prejudice, waiting for the psilocybin to take effect.

When the credits rolled, I shifted to face Courtney. I wasn’t sure whether what I was feeling was the mushrooms or because everything that had happened since yesterday when the wedding shower was canceled still felt like a fever dream.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Courtney grinned.

“I’m trying to know all your secrets telepathically.” I put my fingers on her temples and then moved them back to mine.

“Do I look like someone who has a lot of secrets?”

“Truthfully?” I smirked.

“Fair enough.” Courtney draped a leg over my lap so she was half straddling me. “I think my biggest secret is that sometimes I think I hateeverythingthat other people like. I think that’s why it’s usually so hard for me to talk to people. Small talk is the worst. When I was growing up my parents said I just had a bad attitude.”

“That’s something we have in common.”

“Really? But you have all those dimples, and everyone wants to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets.”

“Yes, but it’s not something Ilike.That’s probably why I hated all the things I was supposed to like as a good little Alabama girl. Fancy dresses. Parades, holidays, birthdays.”

“Birthdays. The fucking worst.” Courtney was giggling. I hadn’t ever heard Courtney laugh like that. “Idolike ice cream cake though. My grandmother got me ice cream cake for my birthday once. My parents and I went to visit her and ended upstaying there through my birthday. Pretty sure they just left me there for a bit now that I think about it. She had a pool too. I remember that, but I don’t think I ever saw her again before she died.”

“Gosh, I haven’t had ice cream cake since… probably the late nineties when I was little. Cookies-and-cream ice cream cake. So good.”

“When’s your birthday, Thea?”

“September twenty-eighth.”

Courtney intertwined her fingers with mine. “I’ll bring you ice cream cake on your birthday.”

“I’d love that.”

“I really don’t think the mushrooms are doing anything.” Courtney kissed my shoulder. “Maybe they don’t affect me.”

“Just give it a little longer.”

CHAPTER 33Courtney

A little while later Thea and I lay mostly naked on the grassy ground in my backyard. I should probably feel very grateful for the tall fence shielding us from the prying eyes of my neighbors. But I couldn’t make myself care about anything in the present, really. I was remembering things. I was feeling things.

The last twenty-four hours hadn’t been a dream even though they felt like one. The experience had been enough to make up my mind on what to do. I didn’t want to lose this. I could be happy here with Thea. At least, I wanted to give it a shot.

If I did the tour, I would have to pack up and leave Thea behind. If my divorce had taught me anything it was that prioritizing the wrong things could permanently fuck up my life. Leaving somewhere hadneverfelt this impossible before. I had literally never understood why anyone would ever do something as ill-advised as U-Hauling until this exact moment.

Before we had ended up naked outside, I had known what I wanted. I charged my phone enough so it would turn on and sent Demetrius a long text message explaining that my answer had to be no. Then I switched the phone back off again.

There weren’t as many stars visible as there had been in the Flint Hills, but I counted hundreds before my focus shifted back to earth. “When I’m with you… I feel like I do when I’m onstage performing.”

Thea’s palm slid against my forearm. “Is that a good thing?”

“You make everything glow, Thea. You’re like the old light bulbs.”

“The old light bulbs?” Thea laughed.

“You’re…God, words are weird right now. But you’re… I think you’re incandescent.” I paused. “But not incandescent like a light bulb.”

“I’m not?” Thea’s eyes widened.