Chapter 4

"Why did you say we're all runaways?" he asked some time later, as they walked slowly down the sidewalk, cradling paper cups of coffee. The wary sip she'd taken when he first handed it to her, and the sudden surprise and delight in her eyes, had convinced him she'd never tried the strong brew before now.

"Aren't we? You're running away from something, same as me. Why else would you be whistling Mozart in graveyards and talking to me?"

"Maybe because you're the first young lady of my acquaintance that doesn't pay attention to me solely based on my bank account?" he retorted. "Or maybe I was just interested in what kind of person escapes from a mental health home, falls under a bus, gives me a way to contact her that sounds like something from a spy novel and then vanishes?"

"It's not what you think it is," Celeste muttered into her coffee cup. Her shoulders rounded defensively. "It's a prison."

Okay, so she really does have a few screws loose. Jamie sipped his coffee thoughtfully and looked at her over the rim of his cup. Her curls were dusted with snow that hadn't yet melted, her skin holding a faint blue tinge in the glow of street lamps.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because I lived in it... for years." She shook her head, sending a hail of tiny ice crystals flying. "it's like living in a box. They watch everything. When you sleep, or eat, or go to the restroom. They don't care about what you feel, only what you can do for them. When you do what they want they pat you on the head like a dog, and when you disappoint them..." Her voice trailed off.

"They what?" he asked, anger kindling in his chest, sparked by the sudden wall of remembered fears in her eyes. Her gaze met his and skittered away.

"They don't have any use for you." She keep her face averted, speeding her pace until he had to run a few steps to catch up and catch her arm and slow her down.

"Celeste. I'm trying to help you out here. What's going on?"

Celeste looked at him, and he could read her thoughts like the pages of an open book. Could she trust him? What did he want from her? Was he going to hurt her somehow?

"Have you ever met someone, for the first time, and you know them? Not that they're famous, or anything like that. You know them. Their voice, their scent, the way the move, the sound of their voice. You've seen their face in your dreams your whole life, you were just waiting for that dream to become real. Have you ever had that happen?"

"Like some sort of fated destiny? Romeo and Juliet, that kind of thing? I write about it all the time, but that doesn't mean I believe in it."

"Sometimes you don't have to believe in something to make it real."

"What is that supposed to mean? Celeste, I've gotta tell you, you're starting to live up to the mental patient billing here." His surprised amusement faded as she lifted her head. Dear god, he thought. Those eyes. Like the heart of the sea, liquid and melting and in pain, framed in a ice-flecked lace of long dark eyelashes. Eyes of a tragedy in the making, like a fallen star, like a dream, hot and angry and begging.

"I should have known you wouldn't believe me." Turning in her tracks, Celeste headed back the way they had come, almost running.

"Celeste!" He chased after her, tossing his coffee off to the side. By the time he grabbed her arm, he was gasping for breath, a stabbing pain in his side. "Wait, I'm sorry. Don't take off like that." She shook him off, her eyes raking over him, scorching his skin.

"Just leave me alone, Jamie. Go home."

"I don't want to go home. I want to talk to you!"

"We don't always get what we want." She ducked across traffic, leaving him standing on the curb in the sullen wash of the street lamp.

"Celeste!" She turned back at his shout, huddled inside her bulky coat. "At least tell me how to find you?"

"Why would you want to?" she called back.

"I don't know... to make sure you're okay?" Exasperated, he spread his arms in surrender. "At least tell me where you're staying!"

"You already know that answer." She turned and disappeared into the shadows between streetlights. He stared after her in helpless frustration for a long minute, then turned to hail a cab.

Back in his apartment, he showered and slid into bed, folding his arms across his stomach and staring at the ceiling. Celeste was in his head, and no amount of tossing and turning could drive her away. He rolled onto his side, the cold sheets slithering across his skin. You already know that answer. He thought of her, small against the darkness of the city. He thought of her unruly curls and the way her lips curved upwards shyly, as though afraid to smile. Her voice still lingered in his ears, somewhere between a girl and a woman, light and quick like birdsong.

More than all of that, he thought of the clarity of her eyes when she asked him if she believed in knowing someone before you'd ever met them. He remembered the jolt of recognition that had struck him speechless and fumbling the first time he'd seen her, of the cold fire of that first touch. He drifted into sleep thinking about her, somewhere out in the snow, while a siren wailed in the distance.

He woke up sweating, sitting upright in his bed with the grey edges of morning peeking in around the blinds. His head pounded, his lungs filling with fire as he fought for breath. Nightmare, he told himself. Just a dream.

But the dream stayed with him throughout the day, nudging its way into the notes he wrote, the lyrics he set out in clean lines. He was edgy and snappish, more temperamental than usual. Nothing sounded right or made him happy. He tried to force himself to eat, but the food tasted like ashes on his tongue and lay like lead in his stomach. Long after the others had packed up and gone home, he sat in the studio, music turned up loud, his head thrown back on his chair, staring at the ceiling.

"Fuck this," he growled, pushing himself to his feet. He gathered his coat and gloves, shoving his hands into the leather, yanking the heavy fabric over his shoulders. He walked past the security guard without a word, stalking out into the cold without a backward glance. He hailed the first cab he saw, slamming the door as he settled into the stale, fake-pine scented interior.