The Stars Will Shine by Eva Carrigan Page B

centerpiece on the coffee table. I force a smile, but Leah still watches me with the keen child-like sense that something is wrong. I don’t want her to see me how I really am—I don’t know why. I never act like I care about how everybody else sees me. But hearing Leah talk about me as though she admires me moves something in me, and it would just…break my heart to let her down.
    She settles back into the couch, still watching me but with a lighter expression now.
    “I’ve always wanted a big sister,” she says. “I mean”—she examines her hands and fingers as she twists them together—“it’s not that I don’t love Dylan. I really do…a lot. Just, sometimes I wish I had a girl to talk to.”
    This is exactly what Dylan doesn’t want. Not that he doesn’t want Leah to have all that, but he doesn’t want me to take on that role. And at this moment, while my heart thumps hard in my chest at her words, I don’t blame him. I am not the girl Leah should be looking up to. I am not the one she should be talking to about girl things. I can’t give her what she wants. But I can’t explain that to her because she’s staring at me with hope in her eyes, a light so bright it burns me on the inside, and she wants me to tell her I’ll be everything she’s looking for.
    “Yeah,” I whisper shakily because it’s all I can manage right now. “Yeah, I’ve always wanted a sister, too.”
    With a pout she says, “You and me, we got stuck with just boys.”
    “They got stuck with just girls, too,” I point out, and she giggles.
    “But we’re more manageable than they are.”
    Oh, if only she knew how untrue that is.
    “Is there a boy you like?” Leah’s voice is still like candy, colorful and sweet and delightful. “I like a boy. He’s in my class. And I think he likes me, too. Mom says I can’t like boys yet.”
    I feel a stab to my chest. Tommy’s face swims before me, and I grip the armrest of the recliner so hard my fingers go rigid and pale.
    “Well, maybe you should listen to your mom.” I try to slow my breathing, but all my lungs want to do is expand in a gasp for oxygen.
    “But he’s super sweet. We held hands during recess on the last day of school. Do you think he’ll still like me when school starts again?”
    I blink slowly, hard. “Boys can seem sweet,” I say. “But a lot of times, they just break our hearts.”
    She blinks back at me with a look that makes me feel like the ultimate dream-crusher.
    “I mean,” I blurt in a rush to make things right, “of course, not all boys are like that.” My thumb and forefinger come up to pinch my ear, a nervous habit. “What’s his name?”
    “Jacob,” she answers, still staring like a child that’s just discovered Santa isn’t real.
    “I’m sure Jacob is a very nice boy. I just meant that sometimes we girls need to protect our hearts.”
    Her expression grows soft. “Did you love somebody that hurt your heart?”
    How does she see right through me? My chest squeezes again, and I turn away so she won’t see the pain on my face.
    “No,” I let out, “I just know somebody who did.”
    “What happened?”
    Hot prickles build behind my eyes, but I steady my voice when I say, “My friend—she loved a boy before she understood what it really meant to love somebody. And she thought he loved her, too.”
    “But he didn’t?”
    “No, he didn’t.”
    “That wasn’t very nice of him to go on giving her the impression he did, when he didn’t.”
    “No, it wasn’t.”
    She shakes her head, a somber look about her. “I don’t think Jacob is like that. He picked me flowers once.”
    I lean forward and pat her knee gently.
    “Leah, I heard your mother say something to you the other day. She said, ‘You’re a woman now.’ What did she mean by it?”
    Leah turns a deep shade of scarlet.
    “Oh.” Picking at the seam of her skirt, she mutters on, “I started my…you know…my period.” She whispers the last word like it’s