Stargazing with You

4. Columbia University

Chapter 4

Columbia University

Sophomore Year

I t wasn’t often that I found myself wandering the halls of the engineering school. Even less often that I did so on a Saturday, when the place was nearly empty. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

I hadn’t seen Javi in days, so it did not feel like an exaggeration to say that these were desperate times. We never went more than a day or two without seeing each other, at most. Not even the summer break had separated us, Javi staying in the city to continue his work in the lab developing his wearable EEG device. Though I had stayed busy too, taking up a scribe position in the ER at Mount Sinai West Hospital, we had been more inseparable than ever. We spent our free hours between shifts sunbathing on the grassy lawns, finding the restaurants and cafés on the upper west side with the best air conditioning, and pretending like we owned the campus in the absence of 90% of our fellow undergraduates.

Since the start of the academic year, however, things had been different. Our coursework this year, Javi’s in biomedical engineering and mine in pre-med, had proven to be far more demanding compared to the previous year. Javi had always been a “show up and ace the test” kind of guy. I had always envied his innate and effortless genius. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge. He not only understood difficult scientific concepts incredibly fast, but he seemed to enjoy it too. I had seen the guy read a physics textbook as hungrily as I read a Bridgerton novel.

But Javi didn’t seem to be floating through life as easily this year, not with his invention taking up so much of his time and mental energy. Now that classes had begun, Javi had to work his invention into the little free time provided by his packed course schedule. He had started dating a girl from the engineering school named Ava at the end of the summer, but she had called things off a month ago after feeling like he didn’t have enough time for her.

Between the girlfriend and the invention, I had begrudgingly accepted that Javi had less time to spend with me this year. Our adventures in the city had come to a dramatic halt—but I didn’t mind that part, really. I didn’t care where we were in the world, as long as we got to spend time together. But that time had been dwindling steadily. Even when we did spend time together, Javi hadn’t been himself lately. Gone was the carefree soul I knew and loved. In its place was left Javi: The Mad Scientist.

It took me some time to find Javi’s lab—I had been there only a couple times before. When I found a door that looked vaguely familiar, I pushed against it, unsurprised when I saw his form across the room, hunched over a desk, illuminated by the harsh glow of his dual screen monitors. I moved quietly down the aisle created between the workbenches toward him. When I was within a few feet of him, I could hear him muttering quietly to himself, sounding frustrated with whatever he was working on. When I was right behind him, he still hadn’t noticed me. I could see the tangled nest of wires and circuit boards between his hands.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. I reached one hand out and rested it on his shoulder. He jumped nearly a foot out of his seat at the unexpected contact. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing until he realized who I was. His defensive posture—hands flat and raised as if he had been preparing to karate-chop the intruder—relaxed back into its previous hunched and tired form.

“Jesus, Doc,” he breathed the words out with a shaky breath. “You scared the ever-loving shit out of me.”

I fought a smirk. Though I was concerned about him and hadn’t really intended to scare him, seeing him jump into full karate-stance had been hilarious.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “But I wouldn’t have had to scare you if I hadn’t had to track you down. When was the last time you left this lab?”

I handed him a cup of coffee, and he sipped at it gratefully. He looked at his desk thoughtfully, as if trying to decide when the last time was that he had seen anything else.

“I slept in my dorm last night. At least, I think I did. Maybe that was the night before...”

From the dark shadows beneath his eyes, I was skeptical.

“You need to leave this lab, Javi,” I told him sternly. “There’s a whole world out there that misses you. I miss you.”

He smiled at me ruefully. “I’m sorry. I’m just stuck. I was making such good progress with the device these last few months, and I hit a rut this week. I can’t seem to get past it.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You know, sometimes it’s possible to be too close to a problem to fix it. You know what I mean?”

He shook his head, his brows furrowing in confusion.

“You know what the doctors I work with in the ER do when they can’t figure out a problem? They take a step back, look at the whole picture. Talk it out with a colleague. Gain a new perspective,” I explained. “I think that’s what you need. You’re getting lost in the weeds. Give yourself a little distance from the problem, and you may happen upon the solution.”

“Any suggestions on how to do that?” he asked. He looked and sounded so tired, but willing to try.

“Come with me tonight,” I suggested.

“Where?” he asked, and I had a suspicion he didn’t remember what was happening tonight at all. He probably didn’t even remember what day of the week it was.

“To the winter formal,” I supplied with a grin.

He scoffed, running a hand through his greasy, disheveled hair as if to highlight the fact that he was not suitable for any formal occasions this evening.

“The winter formal? To do what, dance my problems away?” he asked skeptically.

“You never know where inspiration might strike,” I coaxed. “But I do know that you need a break. You need to let off some of this steam. I can practically see it coming out of your ears…”

I feigned fanning off his head, and he batted my hands away with a laugh.

“Your brain is frying before my eyes. Give it a break, just for one night.” I squeezed between Javi and his desk and leaned against it, forcing his rolling chair back a few inches. Maybe if I physically put myself between him and his invention, I could persuade him to spend one night away from it .

He sighed. “Aren’t you going to the dance with that beef-head lacrosse player you’ve been dating? Brad, or whatever his name is?”

“Brooks,” I corrected him, rolling my eyes. “And he’s on the rowing team, not the lacrosse team.”

“Same thing,” he retorted.

“Not even close to the same thing,” I countered with a laugh. “One is literally in water. One is on land.”

He shrugged. “You’re not going with Muscles McGee?”

I shoved him playfully. I had been planning on meeting up with Brooks, but I wouldn’t say we were “going to the dance together.” We had only been on a few dates so far, nothing serious. I would text him to tell him that my friend needed me tonight instead.

“Come with me,” I insisted. “It’ll be fun.”

He sighed again, deeply, but I could tell I was winning the battle. Honestly, I couldn’t remember a single instance since the day I met him that he had told me no.

“Fine,” he relented, and I cheered. “But I’m not wearing a suit. I don’t even think I own a suit.”

“I don’t care what you wear,” I told him. I made a show of sniffing the air around him. “I do care that you shower though.”

He laughed. “I can do that.”

“If you go now, you could even take a nap,” I suggested, still concerned by how much fatigue he held in his bloodshot eyes.

He nodded. “Not a bad idea.”

“I’ll meet you on the sundial at eight,” I told him.

I watched him pack up his things and walked out of the lab with him at my side. We parted ways on Broadway to head back to our separate dorms.

A few hours later, I walked up the pathway leading from Butler library to the sundial—a dangerous feat. The old cobblestones in front of the library were treacherous to tread upon on a good day, in sensible shoes. My shoes for the evening were not sensible—they were four-inch-tall gold heels with very thin straps.

I had decided last minute, after parting with Javi that afternoon, to make the trip to my parents’ apartment to acquire a heavy garment bag from the back of my closet. My original plan had been to wear the same black cocktail dress that I had worn to a dozen other formal events before. That dress was flattering, but nothing special. The dress that I now wore instead was the one I had worn to my senior prom, and I had secretly been longing for any excuse to wear it again. The silhouette of the dress was rather simple—a satin sweetheart neckline, a tulle A-line skirt. But the structured corset, the high slit over my left thigh, and the bright, cherry-red color of the fabric made me feel like I was Aphrodite incarnate.

I lifted the skirts of the dress as I made my way a little clumsily down the path, watching my feet as I walked to make sure my heel didn’t catch on any of the deep cracks in the pathway. I stopped suddenly when I saw an outstretched hand in front of me.

I looked up, knowing instantly who that hand belonged to. I beamed at Javi.

He grinned down at me, looking much happier than he had a few hours before. Of course it was dark out, but I couldn’t see those large circles under his eyes anymore. I suspected he had taken that nap that I suggested. He looked clean and put together. He didn’t wear a suit, as promised, but he looked nice in his black button-down and black slacks. He had on a long, gray coat that he had left open despite the chilly evening.

“You came,” I remarked .

“I did,” he replied, with a slightly guilty expression. “I considered staying in my bed and sleeping for the rest of the weekend, but I’m glad I came. Diana, you look...”

I raised an eyebrow when he went silent, waiting patiently for the adjective he was searching for.

“Like you’re going to fall,” he finally supplied, with a burst of laughter. “These pathways weren’t built for heels. I think they were built before heels were invented, in fact.”

I rolled my eyes at him. I don’t know what I had been expecting, really—Javi didn’t typically comment on how I looked. But considering that most days I spent with my hair in a ponytail, minimal makeup, sitting in the library wearing a t-shirt and jeans, you would think he would at least take notice.

I took his offered hand. He threaded his arm through mine, lending me a stable support as I crossed the commons. We made our way up the many steps of Low Library, past the statue of Alma Mater .

The music reached us well before we made it into the building. We checked our coats and made our way into the center of the building, the grand rotunda. Though the building was called “Low Library,” it hardly contained any books. It had been the university’s main library over a hundred years ago, before Butler was built. Now, it served as mostly administrative offices, doubling as an event center for nights such as these.

The theme of the evening was “A Night Under the Stars,” and the space had been decorated accordingly. The room was lined with enormous marble pillars, and between each pillar hung heavy curtains of midnight blue. A celestial scene was projected upward onto the domed ceiling above.

After we had both taken a moment to stop and admire the beautiful venue, we started searching the crowds for familiar faces. Javi found several quickly, as he always did—some friends from the engineering school, some former floormates from John Jay. After that, I started to lose track of how he knew the people we spoke with, since it seemed like he knew just about everyone. But I didn’t mind stopping each time to converse with people who loved Javi, because each time, his face lit up in a way that it hadn’t in weeks. This is what I had been hoping for.

Javi was a social creature. He thrived on the energy of people around him. He loved being around friends, and they loved being near him. He didn’t do well in isolation, and he had been isolating himself to an extreme. So, even though I was never particularly extroverted myself, I didn’t mind pretending—I knew this was what he needed. So I chatted and socialized and danced at his side.

A slow song started to play, and our group dispersed, either to couple up or retreat to the periphery. Before I could turn to hide in the margins of the room, Javi held a hand out to me.

“Dance with me?” he asked.

I smiled, putting my hand in his and letting him pull me in for a dance. We started to sway to the steady rhythm of the song.

“Thanks for getting me out of the lab,” he said against my hair.

“Thanks for letting me get you out of the lab,” I responded. As we turned, I looked up at the flashing of faux starlight against the inside of the domed ceiling. I thought it bore some resemblance to the flashing of neurons inside the brain.

I stopped admiring the ceiling to meet Javi’s gaze. “Has anything inspired you yet?”

He pushed me away gently into a spin. My red skirt fanned out around me, and I laughed in delight .

“Yeah, I’d say I’ve been pretty inspired,” he said warmly, grinning at me as he drew me back in.

After a pause, he added, “Did I tell you yet that you look amazing tonight?”

A flush heated my cheeks at the compliment. “No, you didn’t. You told me I looked like I didn’t know how to walk.”

He laughed at the reminder. “Oh yeah. I guess I did.”

The laughter in his eyes settled into something different—something pointed and piercing. My skin tingled in a not unpleasant way in response.

When the song ended, I pulled away from him, avoiding meeting his eyes. I still felt very flushed and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

“Thirsty?” he asked, his voice sounding a little hoarse. He cleared it before asking, “Want a drink?”

I nodded, grateful for the opportunity to collect myself in his absence, and I watched him retreat in the direction of the refreshments. I tried in vain to convince myself that the fluttering sensation of my heart was from dancing. But that little voice in the back of my mind—the one that had to be stifled every now and then—said traitorously, friends don’t look at friends the way he just looked at you.

Stop it, I admonished that voice.

Breaking me out of my internal debate, I heard a deep voice behind me say, “Punch?”

I turned in surprise, seeing Brooks. He was wearing a blue suit with a Columbia blue shirt and tie, his blond hair swept up in a purposefully messy kind of way. He held a cup toward me with red liquid inside. I knew Javi would be back any second now with another drink, but I didn’t want to offend Brooks more than I already had after blowing him off tonight. I took the offered drink.

“Thanks,” I told him. “It’s good to see you. ”

“Yeah. How’s your friend?” he asked.

“He’s good. Feeling a lot better,” I replied. “He was going through a hard time.”

He stayed quiet, sipping his glass of punch without meeting my eyes.

“Are you having a nice time?” I asked, trying to fill the heavy silence.

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Could be better.”

I started to lift the cup to my lips as I thought of how to respond, wondering if I should apologize for my role in his less-than-perfect night.

It was then that Javi returned to my side, handing me another glass of punch that I awkwardly accepted.

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Brooks asked Javi, and his angry tone immediately set warning bells off in my mind.

Javi peered up at Brooks, looking only vaguely concerned by his threatening tone. “What do you mean?”

“Can’t you see we were talking?” Brooks demanded, his eyes narrowing. He inched closer to Javi, his chest seeming to inflate as his shoulders squared. Despite their obvious physical differences, Javi didn’t seem at all intimidated by him. He held his ground firmly as Brooks approached.

“I was just bringing her some punch,” Javi responded, his tone neutral.

“Are you blind?” Brooks asked. “She’s got a glass right there.”

My eyes darted between the two of them as they spoke. My mind reeled, trying to figure out how to dispel the tension before things progressed any further.

Javi shrugged. “Look, dude, it’s no big deal?— ”

“No big deal that you’re all over my girlfriend?” Brooks seethed.

What had before sounded like quiet warning bells in my mind now sounded like blaring sirens. Anger surged through me, hot and boiling and unexpected in its immediate intensity. For one, I wasn’t Brooks’ girlfriend —we had been on a few dates. We had no conversations about the exclusivity of this relationship, nor had he given me any signs that he wanted something serious with me. And Javi had not been all over me .

I shook my head in protest. “Brooks, we’re friends.”

“ Friends my ass,” he responded, never taking his eyes off Javi.

Javi crossed his arms over his chest, his voice still unnervingly calm despite the anger radiating from Brooks. “Seriously, bro, you’ve got the wrong idea.”

Brooks looked from Javi back to me, his glare boring into my face. “Whatever. It’s not worth the trouble for a dumb slut like you anyway.”

The words pierced into my mind like daggers. The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion. I knew with every fiber of my being that Javi was not going to stand for this. He was not going to let Brooks get away with calling me such an ugly name. But I also knew that Brooks had six inches of height and fifty pounds of muscle on Javi and could put him in the hospital, if he so desired.

Before either of them could move an inch, I stepped between them, my back to Javi and my hands held out toward Brooks, though I still held both glasses of punch. Javi’s chest pressed briefly against my back as I halted his approach, and I stumbled forward a bit with the impact, sloshing some punch on the floor in front of me. I could practically feel both their anger as a physical heat radiating between them .

“Walk away, Brooks. Just go,” I instructed him calmly, despite my heart pounding violently against my ribs, my blood pulsing through my veins.

He sneered at me, turning to leave. But at the last second, he popped the cups out from my hands, the remaining liquid splashing upward onto my face and chest and the bodice of my dress. He strode away before I could react. I stood stunned for several long seconds before reaching up to wipe some of the dripping red liquid from beneath my eyes. My skin was already turning sticky with it. I felt my breath hitch in my throat and my chest grow tight.

I needed space. I needed to not be surrounded by people and sound and lights. I needed to get out of here.

I moved quickly to the back of the room, shoving through the heavy midnight blue curtains into the hallway. It was lined with administrative offices, with tall, official-looking wooden doors. The hallway was lined down the middle with marble busts atop pedestals. I braced myself against one of the statues. Now that I had a chance to register what happened over the last several minutes, my brain felt like it was on fire. My chest started to heave uncomfortably, my breaths becoming more ragged with each passing second.

Javi emerged into the hallway after less than a minute, his expression changing quickly from panic to relief when he found me.

“Diana,” he said, approaching me slowly as if I were a skittish deer that might bolt at any moment. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, though I knew deep down it was a lie. My voice came out shakier than I wanted. “Yeah. Needed a second to breathe.”

He looked conflicted—his face passing through a full range of emotion. I couldn’t process his emotions while I dealt with a full spectrum of my own—anger, embarrassment, panic. I slid to the ground, leaning against the statue behind me as my skirt billowed around me. I leaned forward and rested my face in my hands but was immediately grossed out by the sticky sensation.

“I’ve got so much punch on me,” I complained.

“Here,” Javi said, and he knelt on the ground in front of me. He held a damp cloth in his hands, and when I lifted my face to meet his eyes, he started to clean the sticky punch off my cheeks. I wondered vaguely where he got it, imagining him charming it off a waiter, but didn’t care enough to ask. He lowered the cloth from my face as if to clean off my chest, but then stopped short. He handed it to me instead and stood once more, presumably to give me some space. I cleaned the sticky patches off my neck and chest, watching him pace in front of me.

I thought of how close Javi had been to being hurt, and I winced at the thought.

“What are you thinking right now?” I asked him quietly. His brows were furrowed, and there was a dark shadow in his eyes. I had never seen him look so agitated before. The question made him pause in his pacing briefly. He made an exasperated noise.

“I’m thinking you really know how to pick’em, Diana,” he said, and his harsh words felt like they physically cut me as they left his lips. I flinched.

“You’re blaming me for this?” I whispered feebly.

“ No !” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “God, I’m sorry. That was the worst thing I could have possibly said. He’s an asshole. He’s not worth your time, anyway.”

We stayed quiet for several minutes. He finally stopped pacing and sat on the floor at the foot of the adjacent statue six feet away. He stared into the distance, at the little marble statuette above my head.

Several minutes later, I heard him quietly chuckle. I looked at him curiously.

“What’s so funny?” I asked him, my voice sounding as tired as I felt. All the adrenaline was starting to seep out of me, leaving a pit of exhaustion behind it.

“Of all the moments for inspiration to strike,” he muttered, sounding almost annoyed at the idea. “I think I know how to fix my device.”

“What was it that inspired you?” I asked, too tired to sound pleased, even if inspiring Javi had been the entire point of the evening.

He pointed to the figure above me. “The statue. It’s Artemis.”

I looked up at the little figure of a maiden in a toga with a bow and arrow, aimed at some unseen prey in the general direction of the dean’s office. A tiny marble deer stood in wait near her hip. I didn’t know if the curve of her bow had revealed some vector that he had been searching for to perfect his device, or if the sweep of her hair back from her marble head had shown him some perspective on the brain he hadn’t yet thought of.

“The Greek goddess?” I asked. I looked around at the row of similar statues and busts. They all looked like gods or goddesses of some sort. I recognized them vaguely but wasn’t particularly good with all that mythology stuff.

He stared at her intently, deep in thought. Even if he explained the logic behind what inspired him, I’m not sure that I would have understood it. But I was glad that he had found inspiration somewhere.

“Do I need to let you get back to your lab?” I asked him.

He shook his head, coming out of the spell he was under suddenly. “No, the idea can wait until the morning. Let’s get out of here?”

He posed it as a question, and I took him up on the offer gratefully. He lifted himself off the ground and lent me a hand, pulling me up off the marble floor. We followed the hallway all the way around the building, avoiding dipping back into the dance. We retrieved our coats and made our way out into the cold night.

We walked across the commons, directly toward Butler without discussing it. Rather than struggle to traverse the pathway again, I wrenched my heels off and held them in one hand as we walked. The security guard didn’t even look up at us in our formal wear when we scanned our IDs to enter the library. The library was as empty as I had ever seen it, most of the usual occupants currently across the commons at the dance. Our path through the library was so familiar, I would have bet I could find my way in my sleep. Down the hallway on the top floor, through the gray door to the stairwell, up the stairs, past the tattered copy of The Iliad.

We had hidden a few blankets in the stairwell since the weather had turned cold, and we pulled them out now. When we were settled on one of the blankets on our familiar ledge, I linked my arm with his and leaned over to rest my head on his shoulder. Across the lawn, we could still hear the dull sound of dance music coming from the doors of Low.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” I whispered.

He made an annoyed scoff. “Don’t apologize for the actions of a dickhead like him.”

I sighed. “I wanted this to be a fun, relaxing night for you. I wanted to give you a chance to be carefree, like the old days. Instead, you nearly got the shit beaten out of you, because of me. ”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “But for the record, I think I could have taken him.”

I chuckled, patting his knee in a consolatory way. “You keep thinking that.”

He said, “Well, seeing you throw yourself in front of me like a fucking human shield scared the shit out of me, but it was also impressive as hell. So maybe I couldn’t have taken him, but I think we could have fended him off together.”

I squeezed his arm gently. “I was only able to be brave because I knew you had my back.”

“It’s you and me against the world, Doc,” he said. “Always.”

“Always,” I agreed.