Counting Stars

He watches her from inside the house as she sits in the grass, naked and painted in silvery moonlight as she makes a garland of marigolds. She had been childlike in her wonder, bright and effervescent as champagne with her heart on her sleeve and stars in her eyes. But not anymore. Now she’s dulled, gone flat. He thinks he’s finally broken her, shattered the fine porcelain of her personality and scattered the shards to the wind. She’s fragmented and he has no hopes of putting her together again, nor does he care to.

That first day they’d met she’d told him about a better place, one she was worried she’d missed her chance to go to, and he’d promised to find a way to help her. He didn’t intend to help, of course—he just wanted to possess her, to own her, to hold her close to him and let her burn out until she gave off no more warmth and he could discard her. She was everything he wanted but he was nothing that she needed.

He had gotten to know her, played her, made her trust him. He isolated her socially and physically, bringing her here to the old farmhouse his grandfather had left him. There was no one around for miles and the silence and stillness of the rolling hills stripped you of the need to conform. He was able to drop his mask here without worry of censure or being held to some societal standard of consideration for others. It had felt good to release what he always kept confined, letting the parts of himself that he kept bound and hidden stretch and grow, able to prowl the rolling hills at their leisure.

She hadn’t been certain of the farmhouse at first—the isolation had felt cold and wrong—but then night had fallen. Out here, so far away from everything else, the stars painted the ceiling of the sky in a beautiful cacophony of light with riotous swirls of violets and blues. She’d stared entranced and sworn she’d count every star in the sky.

He used to love her bright personality, craved it in the way darkness craves a candle flame. But now? She had become something different, something needy and so, so easily hurt. Possessing her had started to lose its appeal and he felt it was time to cut her loose.

He supposed he should feel some regret that he’d broken her spirit, and he did in some distant way, but he felt it was unfair to have to be saddled with her forever. No, it was best for both of them if that didn’t happen.

She’d been talking about that better place more and more lately, sitting outside and gazing up at the sky as if she could find answers written in celestial folds if only she looked long enough. It was like she was waiting for something. He figures that he’d tried to bend her to fit around him but maybe he’d broken her more than he thought. She spends the days and nights watching clouds and counting stars, completely content and swearing she’s leaving soon. Something about Mars — he doesn’t know. He doesn’t pay that much attention anymore.

He shakes his thoughts away like cobwebs. She’s lying on the grass now, her laughter tinkling over the hills as she waves at the sky. He tries to see what she’s looking at but can’t from where he’s standing. He heads to the door to step outside—it’s time she came in anyway, it’s getting late.

He opens the door but the moment he does there’s a blinding light. He staggers and tries to get his bearings as strange shapes dance before his eyes in luminescent blacks and dark blues. He waits a few precious moments as his eyes adjust to the moonlight.

She’s gone.

He runs out and looks around. She can’t have gotten far, there’s nowhere to hide in the fields around the house, but she’s nowhere. He yells her name but his only reply is the chirping song of crickets and the dry melody of the wind. He looks around frantically, not knowing which way to run to look for her. Where is she?

He doesn’t know what to do. It’s like she vanished into thin air. He looks down and sees the garland of marigolds crushed under his foot, the petals broken and bruised and mangled by his callous disregard. Where could she have gone?

He doesn’t know what to do. He was nothing that she needed but she was everything that he wanted. He tips his head back and looks up into the night sky, searching.