Behold the Stars by Susan Fanetti

stopped and, his chest heaving, soaked in sweat, he turned to her again. “You should leave me. You should get out. Get away. Because this place is dead. It’s not even dying. It’s just fuckin’ dead. People keep looking to me to save it, but I’m the one pulled the goddamn plug. I’m the one that decided to help the fuckin’ cookers instead of running ‘em out on a rail. That was my idea. Took forever to get everybody on board, too. I brought it to the table, I leaned on my brothers to get it to pass. Meth put us on Ellis’s radar. Meth got Will killed. It’s all on my head. And here I stand. None of it’s fuckin’ touched me.” He dropped the splintered wood. “Jesus Christ, Sport, we were in a fucking paint store while somebody was putting a bullet in Will’s head and setting his whole fucking history on fire! We were shopping .” He slid to the floor against a tall metal shelving unit. It rattled at first, threatening to topple on him, but then settled. He drew up his knees and rested his head on his arms. Lilli put the blade down and went to him.
    She kicked the club away and knelt in front of him, laying her hands on his arms. “Isaac.” She said nothing but his name. When he didn’t respond, she said it again. He looked up. She knew the look. Haunted.
    “I love you. I’m not going anywhere. I’m in. I’m here. Because we talked. You talked to me, and we worked things through. I’m not going to say we need to do the same for you right now. You’ll talk when you’re ready. For now, you can listen. Because I am here. You’re not on your own. Not in this house, not in this town, not in this fight.” She brushed his hair back from his face; he was soaking wet. “You didn’t bring crystal to town, Isaac. You just figured out a way to make it do some good, balance out all the bad it does. You kept the people in town, people working at Marie’s and at the feed store, and the hardware store. You did something good with something bad.”
    His expression had eased some as she spoke, and she turned and sat at his side, hooking her arm around his. “What happened to Will is not your fault.” He flinched and huffed, but she held onto him and pressed her point. “It’s not. It’s Ellis. It’s the scum he hired to get it done. You were right to pressure Will not to sell—and he knew you were. Otherwise, he would have sold anyway.”
    They sat quietly side by side on the floor of Isaac’s woodshop. Lilli looked around. He’d done a lot of damage in those few minutes. She thought the damage he was doing to himself, inside, was worse. But she knew he would be deaf to anything more she said. So she sat with him and waited.
    The sky outside the windows was just beginning to lighten from deep black to smoky grey before he spoke. “I can’t do it, Lilli. I can’t. I’m not good enough. Not strong enough. Not smart enough. I’m nobody special. I can’t fight this guy. I’m gonna get people killed. Already have.”
    She hadn’t been sleeping, but she had been deep in thought, thinking about the fire, and Ellis, and Isaac. And her dad, strangely enough. Shooting Comet had called to mind the one and only time she’d killed a deer. That time, she had not shot cleanly with her first shot, and the buck, like Comet, had been screaming and struggling. Her second shot had been true, but the experience had upset her very much. She loved her father, and she’d loved the way he’d been patient with her, had trusted her to make it right, but she’d never wanted to hunt again after that. Her father had taught her well that a gun’s only purpose was death. Lilli found no joy in pulling a trigger—ironic, then, that she’d chosen a career as a soldier.
    She stirred and sat straight when Isaac spoke. Now, she swung around to face him. He was staring at the floor in front of him. “Isaac. Enough. Look at me.” She grabbed his beard and lifted his head. “You keep saying I . You really are an arrogant