The Stars Behind Your Eyes

Eden

**AN: This is a VERY rough draft, but I wanted to share my work so far!! I appreciate you reading and feel free to leave feedback (I haven't written in a while and just got back into it :D)!!!

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A while ago, I never knew why love was so treasured. It was just another way to end up getting hurt - at least in my eyes. As time went on, the way love is desire and the way people fall into it began to interest me. I've read about it in so many books, although I had yet to see it in real life. A little while later, I wish I'd known what it feels like. 

I grew up in a small town: one where the homes look like cottages and the sidewalks are just planks of wood. We're three hours from the city. It is quiet and beautiful and I wouldn't change it for anything. We live in the middle of open plains and forests after all. But there is a neighbouring town, just south of the forest to keep us company. It is is huge compared to ours. They've got a block full of shops and we've only got a street of them. Everyone is a stranger there too... well except for one family.

The Hayes have been our family friends for a while now. Before the tragedy, their son, Cade instantly became good friends with my brother, Cain. And yes, their names are extremely similar as our mothers named them. Our mothers had grown up together - my mom from this town, Cade's mom from the neighbouring one. They were great childhood friends and wanted their sons to be best friends as soon as they found out they both would be expecting boys. 

I wasn't apart of that plan. My mother got pregnant a second time two years later with me, around 5 months before Cade's mom was too with her second boy, Zenith. Although now our mom's sons would have siblings, they still wanted to their boys to grow up together like brothers. It was Cain and I, Cade and Zenith. Growing up, I knew that my brother was closer to his friend than his own sister. And that always made be feel like the second choice. I was the second child, the younger, annoying little sister after all - it was expected that they would both ignore me. 

But there was Zenith too, Cade's little brother. He was the first person to ever really see and understand me. For that, I will always remember him. He was being left out too, I could tell. The way he tried to join our brother's conversations and they ways they always shut him out of them had stuck out to me. Him and I were more similar than I thought. 

I wasn't exactly the most social, so I just stuck around my brother, Cade, and Zenith while growing up. Even though my brother and Cade were super close, it was always nice to have their company. 

Despite Zenith and I being left out on some occasion, I would say that we were all pretty good friends before. I miss the times when we would stay up late and Cain and I would meet Cade and Zenith halfway in the forest. We would stay up telling stupid ghost stories and play tag. We would sit along this one log that resembled a chair with the way it's roots had eroded from the ground. That was our "spot".

I recall one night - one of the last times all four of us were together. It was just the start of spring and it was Cade's 10th birthday. 

We spent the day at the Hayes' house. They invited my family over for a big dinner. Cade was about three weeks older than Cain, and he used to always rub it in his face. But Cade turning 10? That seemed so far away for 8 year old me. 

Cade had a huge cake that was decorated with a milky way pattern of icing on the center. He was always a big space nerd - a phase that every four of us had previously been in, but one that he never left. 

Our parents went off to talk to each other, so us kids decided to go to the forest - our go-to spot. 

"Should we play tag?" Cade suggested, but we couldn't exactly say no. We made the rule a few years before: we always had to agree to what the birthday person wanted to do. 

"Dibs out!" Cade had said, holding his nose and dropping to the floor. We all followed, but my brother clearly lagged behind. "Okay, Cain's it. Give us a minute heads up."

"A minute?" Cain exaggerated, crossing his arms. "Fine." He started counting then, and I remember running as fast as I could through the shrubs and around the towering trees. I kept going until I couldn't go any further and my legs burned. The forest was so vast - there was no way anyone would find me. 

As I waited, I recall the way I tried locating the sun through the hundreds of branches above me. Yet, the sun still shone through even there in the deepest parts of the forest. It was just beautiful.

I waited a long while until I finally heard someone's voice. It was Cade - he was the first to be found. He and Cain called for Zenith and I, but their voices were still quite distant. 

And then a voice surprisingly close: "Psst, Eden!" 

I shook hard, almost jumping right out of my skin. I looked to my right and there was Zenith crouching under a bush and waving his hand to motion me over.  

I glanced around me before running over to where he was. Cain's voice was close now. We crowded under the bush, pressing up beside each other.

"I thought I was the only one over here," I whispered.

"I happened to be going the same way. But luckily I did." Zenith reached into his pocket and pulled out a small blue hair bow. My hair bow. "I was coming past and I saw this stuck in a branch. And then I saw you sitting over there just a few feet away. It would've been a dead give away." 

I sighed, relieved. "Gosh, yeah. Thanks." As I reached over to take it, I noticed something else in his hand. "Hey, what's that?" I asked, pointing. 

Zenith opened his hand a little more to reveal a glistening mix between a turquoise quartz and polished wood. It looked like a type of exotic mineral. The sunlight made it glow in his hand.

"It's petrified wood," he said in an excited whisper. "It's super rare and only found in really old forests." He paused as Cain and Cade's voices approached ever so slightly. "I mean, this forest is pretty old, but I've never found anything like this before here."

I leaned closer, inspecting it. "Yeah, that's actually really cool."

Then he passed it to me, dropping it into the palm of my hand. "You should have it." 

I looked over at him, surprised. "Seriously?" 

He nodded. And just at that moment, I saw two people's shadows appear above us. I looked up at Cain and Cade. 

They let out a loud cheer.

"Finally found you guys. And it's a bonus that you were hiding together!" Cade said, grinning wide. 

I smiled, disappointed. "I guess so." 

Zenith laughed, brushing the dirt off his pants as he got up.

The four of us made our way back to the log. By that time, the sun just began to set and the ground became dark around us. We said our goodbyes as we headed our separate ways. Two siblings from two towns, directly across from each other and separated by the forest. It was just meant to be. 

That was one of the best days of my life. I wish I could relive it. I still remember the way I walked home, clutching onto the piece of wood still in my hand.