The Power of Celeste
Celeste pounded on Matt’s hotel room door. Well, Matt and Julie’s door. “I am terribly sorry to disturb you. Really, terribly, horribly, mightily sorry, but this is of an urgent nature!”
“Are you on fire?” Matt called after a minute.
“Well… no.” Celeste admitted. “Not in a literal sense, but figuratively and emotionally, I am very much on fire!”
If this hotel had crickets, their chirping would be ricocheting off the walls.
“Matthew!” She hammered her hand on the door. “Julie! I am fully aware that I am interrupting you both, but in the name of love, I am begging you to open the door!”
She heard scuffling sounds, and Matt whipped open the door. “I do not see any figurative or emotional flames shooting from your head.”
Celeste kicked her foot between the door and the doorjamb before he could shut it. “Julie!”
Julie laughed. “Matt, let her in.”
He sighed and grandly gestured for her to enter. She covered her eyes and slithered past him. “I do not wish to witness anything I should not witness. I am simply here to retrieve the car keys.”
“Where you going?” Julie asked.
Celeste paused. “I am going to San Diego.”
Matt pulled her hand from her face. She loved the adoring look he gave her. “Are you really?”
She held up a hand, palm out, to partially block her view.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Shielding my eyes. You do not have on a shirt and we are not at the beach.”
“Well, don’t come knocking on the door an hour after a guy proposes marriage. And it’s not my upper half you should be hiding from.”
“Matthew, gross! I realize this is an inopportune time, but you’ll have plenty of chance for that after I am gone. And for the rest of your lives. I need the car keys!”
“You’re really going to San Diego?”
She held up the piece of paper with the quotes and waved it frantically at him. “I found my hinge, Matty.”
He nodded. “Okay.” Matt turned to Julie. “We gotta go.”
“On it.” She was thankfully still dressed, and immediately hopped off the bed and picked up her shoes from the floor.
“No.” Celeste stopped them. “I want to do this alone. I need to. You two must remain here and allow me to handle this myself.”
“I know you can handle it,” Matt said. “We both do. We just want to support you. Besides, you drive like a damn maniac, and you should arrive there in one piece, not eighty-seven.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You will drive fast, though?”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Very, very fast?”
“For you, yes.”
“We have that outrageous Tesla sports car that you insisted on, so you best not attempt to blame the car for any inability to break speed limits. I need to be there by sunset and that is at six minutes after seven.”
“Understood.”
“Drive as though your life depended on it,” she ordered.
He shrunk back exaggeratedly. “Based on the look you’re giving me, my life does depend on it.”
“Suck it up.” Julie appeared next to Matt and tossed his geeky T-shirt at him. “Let’s go get her man.”
Matt did as he promised, and he drove them to San Diego with the speedometer well over the legal limit. Granted, it would be difficult for anyone not to make good use of the car’s capabilities.
Except for the music blaring from the speakers, the car was silent. Julie kept her hand on Matt’s shoulder for the entire ride, occasionally running her fingers up into his hair and back down. They were both whole again.
Celeste needed to think.
Actually, what she needed to do was feel. The words that Julie read out loud today rang through her head. Ignore everything you think you know and listen only to your heart, without doubting anything.
Matt had it right, but she would not wait years to implement what she saw so clearly was the truth. She would act now. But she would need help.
Celeste started to text Michelle, Justin’s roommate’s girlfriend, whom she’d met that day at Barton. Then she stopped. A text was safe and impersonal. This called for a phone call. So she dialed her number. Michelle was surprised to hear from her, but friendlier than Celeste would have expected given what had happened.
“Michelle, I realize hearing from me may be odd, but I am throwing myself on your mercy.”
Michelle’s voice immediately soared. “Are you calling for the reason I think you’re calling?”
“I am. I need your help, if there is any chance that you are willing.”
“If you are going to restore order to my world, then I’m all yours.”
“I am going to do my best.” Celeste hesitated. “Thank you. Thank you so much. It means a tremendous amount that you are agreeing to facilitate this.”
“We all screw up. We all run from stuff when we shouldn’t. It’s okay, Celeste. I get it. Maybe not exactly what you’re going through, but I get it still. Everybody runs from something good sometime. Tell me what you need.”
They talked for ten minutes, and then Celeste tucked her hands under her legs and looked out the back window of the car. She shut her eyes. There was no stopping now, and she didn’t want to.
Matt got them to San Diego in under three hours. He made the stop at Starbucks that she requested and continued with the directions from the navigation system until they reached a spot on the coast. Matt and Julie got out of the car.
“It’s going to be dark soon. You okay?” Julie asked.
“I will be, yes. Either way, I will be.” Celeste scanned the area at the top of Sunset Cliffs. They were just past the spot where she had stood a month before. “You can go.”
“What? We don’t get to stay and watch?” Matt stomped his foot and pretended to have a fit. “You interrupted us just as things were about to—“
Julie clapped a hand over his mouth. “Call us if you need us. We’re going to get dinner. And you know what? I’m proud of you. Really, really proud. You’re doing what I couldn’t do.”
“Thank you, Julie. Matt?” She stepped toward her brother. “Matty?”
“You can do this.” He was done joking now. “It’s going to be fine.”
“Okay.”
“You can. You’re the bravest sister anyone could have.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, Celeste.”
She fell against him and let him hug her and rub her back. “I love you, too, Matty. You are going to have a wonderful life.”
“You are going to also.”
“But nothing has happened yet.”
“A ton has happened,” he said.
She squeezed her arms around him. “Yes. You’re right. A ton has happened.” He took the Starbucks coffee cup from Julie and gave it to Celeste. Then he tousled her hair and smiled.
Celeste crossed the street and watched Matt and Julie drive away. But they were riding away together, and that was perfect. She waited only a few minutes. A car pulled up not far from her, stopped by the cliffs, and then drove slowly as it passed. Michelle waved and winked.
Celeste had to compose herself before she could look at the boy who was now less than fifty feet from her. Finally, she lifted her eyes.
Justin stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, a backpack slung over his shoulder, his hair blowing in the ocean breeze, and a look on his face that she couldn’t read. It took all of her might, but she walked to him and he to her. They met in the place on the rocks where they had been once before. Her heart clenched when he was before her. Now she could see clearly that Justin’s eyes were wet, his face pained.
Celeste struggled to hold back the immeasurable reaction to seeing him again, but it was impossible. After everything she had been through over these past months, with him and with herself, she couldn’t. So she gave in, sobs erupting from her as she hung her head. She dropped her head as the tears fell.
Justin stepped in and put his hands on her waist. He didn’t say anything, letting her get the worst of it out.
She finally spoke through her heartache. “Hey, Justin?”
He took forever to reply, but finally he said the two words that saved her from collapse. “Hey, Celeste?”
She looked up. This look from him? This one she knew. “I brought you a coffee.” She held out the cup to him.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She sniffed hard. “I had to special order it.”
Justin knew what to do. He took off the lid and looked down. When a smile broke through, she knew that he understood. “This is the most beautiful peace sign I’ve ever seen.” Then he read the marker writing on the side, scrawled in wobbly cursive.
Make love, not war.
Now he sniffed. “I told you that you were a pacifist.”
“I won the battles, Justin. And I won the war. And now there is no more fighting. Now there is peace. You told me to let joy win out, and I am choosing to do that.”
Justin took a deep breath. “This coffee looks, like, totally amazing and delicious, but I really want to kiss you. And for that I need two hands because I’m going to have to hold you up. That’s how hard I’m going to kiss you.”
Without hesitating, Celeste batted the cup from his hands.
He stepped in and immediately wrapped his arms around her waist. “I missed you. I didn’t think you’d come back to me.”
“But I did. And you waited, didn’t you? You didn’t give up.”
“No, I did not.”
“You could have. You likely should have. That would have been fair. I imagine that I hurt you significantly, that you were very angry with me, and for that, I am profoundly sorry. I pushed you away because I thought I needed to protect us, and instead I threw away what was protecting us, what was making us both stronger. Justin, I am so sorry. I will do whatever I can to make things better.”
“Things are already better. You don’t need to apologize, Celeste. I knew, even during that wretched talk on the beach, that what was happening wasn’t really about us. It was about you. So I wasn’t angry. Hurt and sad, yes. My heart shattered, yes. But you had stuff going on that was greater than us, and you had to go deal with that. I didn’t know if that was really going to be the end or not. And when you never picked up the phone, or replied to my emails, or… Well, I really got worried when I texted you the coffee froth picture of the Mad Hatter that I, like, really labored over. Fine, I know that picture sucked, but you must have seen the effort that went into it, because I even used a toothpick and tried to swirl the chocolate into an expressive face, but—”
“I loved it. I absolutely loved it.” Then her mouth was on his, and she drowned in the immeasurable scope of what it meant to be back with him. She touched his face, ran her hands through his hair, felt the skin on the back of his neck in the way that he loved so much.
When Justin stepped back, she almost whimpered, wanting more. Wanting everything. But he turned her to face the ocean. “We can’t miss this sunset.”
So together they followed the sun as it dropped, both imperceptibly and all too fast. Justin stood behind her and held her close, his chin resting on her shoulder.
Celeste took an empowering breath. “I’m submitting my acceptance to Barton.” Before he could say anything, she continued. “It’s where I want to be. Not because of you. Partially, of course. But truly, it’s because I’m choosing a more important path for myself. Matt helped me see that. Just because I assumed that I would go to an Ivy does not mean that is the right choice for me. It’s not what I want. Not anymore. In fact, I don’t think I’ve wanted that for a while. I refuse to be left behind in this world, so I need to catch up. This is a smart step for me.”
Justin’s hold on her tightened. “I’m so happy for you.”
“You have taught me, Justin…” She took some calming breaths. “You have taught me that I am allowed to like myself just as I am, at whatever stage I am in. I can change, I can stay the same, or I can be whoever it is that is right for me; but I can be satisfied. No, more than that. I can be proud. I can celebrate. That is what I am going to do.”
“And you are going to do that brilliantly. I have no doubt.”
“I have hope that you and I will continue this relationship, because I care so deeply for you, Justin. So much so that I withdrew. But I know that not every love is forever. That’s the practical side of me talking. I do not want you to feel a responsibility because I am going to Barton. I am, very sincerely, going for me.”
“And I want to you know that I get this, Celeste. I really do. Your choice comes from strength, not from dependence.”
“Yes.”
“And now I have a very important question for you,” he said. “Why do I have a backpack? Michelle made me take it and wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought maybe she was dropping me off for some sort of vile reality show survival game where I’d have to kill a pig in order to eat dinner.”
Celeste laughed. Oh, how she’d missed him. “I was hoping that you would lead me down the steep rocks and to the beach.”
He kissed her cheek. “You want to sleep down there?”
“She brought me appropriate shoes, and a blanket and… I don’t remember what else I asked for. I don’t care what we have. I just want to sleep on the beach with you.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“And I am considering something else.” She stepped from his arms and walked forward, closer to the edge of the rocky cliff. The view just before night hit was incomparable.
“What’s that, my brave girl?”
Celeste watched as the sun threw the last of its light across the water. “One day, when the color of the sky is perfect, when I have spent the night in your arms, and when I am fully back where I belong, I may just jump from the cliffs to the water below. Maybe. Maybe I will; maybe I won’t. But in either case, I will still be just fine.”
She could feel Justin studying her. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” He clapped. “You are. That is the power of Celeste.”
Celeste smiled without reservation and peeked back at him. “Maybe,” she said coyly. She winked and raised both hands in the air, flashing the peace sign to the world before her. The world that used to terrify her and the world that now welcomed her.
“I am choosing a love that defies boundaries and a life that defies boundaries. That is the power of Celeste.”