When the Stars Fall (Lost Stars Book 1)

the creek that we weren’t supposed to be anywhere near. How to climb a fence and swing from a rope. On the Fourth of July, we set off fireworks in the back yard and had a bonfire party. We stole a beer from the cooler and hid in the barn, passing it around and taking turns drinking. We’d only taken a few sips each when Jude’s dad caught us and hauled us up to the porch. My mom gave us a lecture about underage drinking and how many brain cells we’d just killed off by drinking those few sips of beer and once again we got punished.
It seemed like we spent most of that summer shucking corn, peeling potatoes, and cleaning beans while we tuned out yet another lecture.
One night in August we talked our parents into letting us camp out in a tent in the McCallister’s back yard. Brody slept with a flashlight and I got the feeling he was scared of the dark, even though he’d sooner cut off his arm than admit it. We got sick on junk food and stayed up late telling ghost stories, passing the flashlight around and holding it under our chins to make the stories that much scarier.
Halfway through the night, I woke up to the sound of thunder and ran to the house so fast, I surely would have beaten the boys if it had been a race. I dove under Jude’s covers on the bottom bunk, my body trembling, and he and Brody joined me not long after. Jude slept with his feet by my head and I complained about how smelly they were. Which prompted him to move his feet right under my nose.
Secretly, I didn’t care about his smelly feet. I was just glad he and Brody were sleeping in the same room with me. It made the storm less scary and they took my mind off it by telling pickle jokes that were so stupid all I could do was laugh.
I never wanted that summer to end.
But like all good things, it did.

Chapter Three


Jude
“Summer’s over. She’ll be coming back soon,” Brody said, trying to wrestle the suitcase out of my mom’s hands. “I don’t want her to get upset if I’m not ready to go.”
“Brody,” my mom said with a soft smile. “If your mom comes back, I’ll help you pack—”
His hands balled into fists. “Not if. When. You said if.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right,” she said. “When your mom comes back, we’ll pack up your things. But until then, you and Jude are sharing a room and we don’t need this suitcase in here, honey. How about we just move it into the attic until you need it?”
“Yeah, okay. I guess,” he mumbled. “Can I ride Maple Sugar tomorrow?”
“Of course you can. You can ride her when you get home from school.”
She tousled his hair like he was another one of her sons and not her nephew.
I didn’t know where Brody was before he came to live with us but just after Memorial Day weekend, Dad went and picked him up and brought him back to our house. Nobody had heard from his mom since then. But he kept thinking she’d come back to pick him up. Every now and then he’d pack his suitcase so he’d be ready for her. I had a bad feeling that she wouldn’t be coming back and I could tell by the look on Mom’s face that she thought the same thing.
I’d overheard my parents talking about Dad’s younger sister, Shelby. Dad said she’d gotten messed up with drugs when she was a teen and had always been trouble. He said that Brody was better off living with us and that he’d do everything in his power to make sure we could keep him here.
But I wasn’t supposed to know any of that, and I wasn’t about to tell Brody that I knew stuff that he didn’t. He missed his mom, I guess, and I couldn’t blame him for it. I’d miss my mom something fierce if she just up and left me like that. It wasn’t something I could ever imagine my mom doing. She loved us too much and said so all the time.
My mom hugged us and kissed us goodnight and Brody climbed into the top bunk which used to be mine. Mom made me give it to him because she could tell he wanted it. Not gonna lie, that had pissed me off. We had a spare bedroom that he could have moved into but Mom thought he’d be scared to be on his own so now I had to share.
After making sure the nightlight was on for Brody who claimed he wasn’t scared of the dark but really was, Mom turned off the lights. “Sweet dreams,” she said like she always did before the door closed softly behind her.
“Jude?” Brody said a few minutes later.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t think my mom’s coming back, do ya?”
I tucked my arms under my head and stared up at the bunk above me even though I couldn’t see him. My mom and dad were always saying that you should never lie. And usually, I prided myself on telling the truth. But something about his tone of voice stopped me from being honest. “Sure I do. She just needed a vacation is all.”
“Yeah,” he said, letting out a breath as if he’d been holding it, waiting for my answer. “That’s what I think too.”
We were quiet for a few minutes and I was just drifting off to sleep when he said, “You think Lila’s pretty?”
I snorted. “No.”
It was the second time that night I’d lied and I had no idea why I’d done it. I just didn’t want to admit it to Brody, I guess. Lila Turner was a whole lot prettier than Ashleigh Monroe, and all the boys thought Ashleigh was the prettiest girl in our class. But Lila was our friend, she was one of us, and she was mine