Here is Home • The Pack

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The Final Chapter
Chapter Thirty-Eight
(I'm not kidding)

The Holiday's rolled around faster than Preston expected. He and Ruby decorated the entire house with paper snowflakes they made. It was slightly inconvenient in the middle of the night when Preston woke up really having to pee. He'd walk just a few steps and bam, his face caught by the paper snowflake draping across the ceiling. But, hey, Christmas spirit.

Christmas Day was a little underwhelming, but that's just a part of being poor. Jerome got nice gloves because he's been complaining about his hands being cold. Vik got a pair of boots that he thinks he looks badass in. Jess received a straightener which probably wouldn't work that well considering her thick hair. Rob got nunchucks, they were made out of plastic and foam, but Rob would probably still find a way to terrorize the house with them. Alfie received a hardcover Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book which everyone seemed jealous of, after all that was their favorite Harry Potter Book. Ruby got a tea set that wasn't made of glass, thank god. And Preston got a giant fluffy blanket he was totally in love with.

He did nothing in New Years Eve, not even drink. Jerome invited him over, but denied. Preston never really saw the hype to a new year. If anything, it's the perfect time for existential crisis, but no existential crisis's happened to him. He was happy with his life, he had nothing to dwell on... Besides the whole "Lachlan may be released early." The wait was killing him. He didn't even know when in January Lachlan's parole hearing was.

Preston wouldn't admit it, but every day he waited for a call from Jerome either delivering good or bad news.

• •

"It's a full moon—the Native American tribes named it a wolf moon because it appeared when wolves howled in hunger outside their villages." Preston explained, Ruby in a bundle of winter clothes to keep her warm sitting on his lap.

Preston's calm and collected, unsurprisingly, trying to show Ruby a trail of stars and how they connect; he urges her to take notice of one of the biggest and brightest stars in the cluster, a bit above them, calls it 'polaris' or another, before excitedly getting into an explanation of the chain of stars attached to it within the Ursa Minor constellation.

"Beta and Gamma are a little further down, those two, big, bright ones, do you see them? They form a bowl, sort of, with the other two over there..."

He's tracing the stars with his fingers, and Ruby keeps quiet; legs now crossed, knee knocking against Preston's thigh.

"It's a little strange to call it a bowl. Anyway, if you trace back up in one single line, using those stars in between, to connect back to Polaris..."

His voice is soft and warm, like he's happy to be able to talk to someone, whether it be Ruby or Jerome or even Mitch. She tries to figure out all the wonderful things that Preston's telling her, but all the stars look the same to her.

And it's under the purple and cobalt frame of the night sky that Preston realizes how he knows all this and who taught him this. It wasn't some old annoying science teacher, it was Lachlan. Preston wondered if he could see the stars where he was. Many places were to illuminated by light to be able to truly see the stars. He was snapped out of his thoughts by his phone buzzing in his pocket, he jumped, knocking his knee against Ruby's small calf.

"What?" He answered.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" It was Jerome.