Chapter 11 #2
It’s only as I’m hunched on the blanket, watching Ryan sketch the constellations above us with his finger, that it strikes me how weird it all is.
Not the astronomy part or the part where I’m out here, voluntarily freezing my ass off at an ungodly hour instead of curled up in my warm bed. The invitation itself.
I’ve spent three years listening to Ryan as he slipped out of our dorm after midnight, the faint halo of his desk lamp blinking before I fell back to sleep.
He never once asked if I wanted to tag along, not even after nights when I’d been up late, grinding through stats homework until my eyeballs bled.
I always assumed he wanted to be alone. That his midnight pilgrimages were private communions between him and the stars.
But now, sitting next to him as the wind tries to sandblast our faces off, I finally get it.
This is something you keep to yourself unless you want someone there—not out of necessity, but out of trust.
I can’t help but be honored to be here with a guy who, for all his brains and emotional constipation, is one of the best friends I’ve ever had.
I nudge his shoulder with my own, partly to keep my arm from going numb but mostly because the silence is getting too heavy. “You know, I always thought this was your version of, I don’t know, night running or something. The kind of thing you do when you need to clear your head.”
He snorts, his breath fogging the air. “I do need to clear my head. You have no idea how loud it gets up here.” He taps the side of his temple.
“But you’ve never asked me to watch a comet with you before.”
“You weren’t ready.”
“For a comet?” I arch an eyebrow. “I promise I’m always ready for celestial events. Especially if there’s hot chocolate involved.”
He smiles, but it’s a tired, worn smile—one you build after years of practice. “No, I mean…for the escape. You needed a distraction tonight. I could tell.”
I don’t say anything, because he’s right. I did need a distraction, and I still do. Maybe I always will.
“Speaking of distractions…you and Oliver were getting pretty friendly at the beach.”
It might be dark, but I notice the blush spreading across his face. “It’s been years since we last saw each other. It was nothing more than two people catching up, if you can even call it that. He did all the talking.”
“He talked because he was excited and happy to see you again.”
“Oliver wouldn’t be the captain of the team if he were shy.”
“Ryan, you’re deflecting.”
He sighs wearily. “What do you want me to say, Jackson? Seeing him again made my stomach twist into knots? That I spent three hours after the Polar Bear Plunge searching everyone’s social media for photos of him?
That I’ve been thinking about those three years we were neighbors more in the past two days than I have in the past decade? ”
“I mean, yeah. That’s exactly what I want you to say.”
He shoves me, barely, before burying his face in his hands. “I’m mortified.”
“Welcome to the club. You can be the VP.”
“At least you hang out with your crush.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, passing the thermos back and forth.
Despite the cold, there’s something peaceful about being up here, removed from the chaos of campus life.
No Ice Queen, no unrequited crushes, no pressure to be anything other than two friends enjoying the wonders of the universe.
“There!” Ryan suddenly points to the eastern part of the horizon. “Do you see it?”
I lean in close and follow his outstretched finger toward the star-choked sky.
At first, it all looks the same—a wild, glittering mess of pinpricks.
But then, to the right of Orion’s Belt, something shifts.
A brilliant point of light streaks across the black, slicing its way through the distant constellations.
I tell myself it must be a plane on the way to Boston, but then I register that there’s no blinking and no sound.
Just a pure, clean arc moving with a calm, inhuman confidence.
It’s nothing like the cartoonish shooting stars you see in commercials or sappy movie montages.
This sucker is slow. Determined. Absolute.
I can’t stop staring as it burns a silent trail through the atmosphere. “Holy shit.”
Ryan scrambles for the binoculars and thrusts them at me, knocking over the thermos in the process and splashing a dot of hot chocolate onto the blanket.
I press the cold metal to my face and line up the comet in the tiny, jittering field of view.
Through the lenses, the comet explodes into color and motion.
It’s beauty as I’ve never seen before. I stare until my vision blurs and my hands cramp.
Sneaking a glance at Ryan, I smile at how his eyes are shining in a way that has nothing to do with the wind and the cold.
I try to picture what it’d be like if Drew were here. Would he be into it, or would he make snarky comments about the lack of Wi-Fi? Would he and Ryan get along, or would it be a disaster?
The more I think about it, the less sure I am. All the certainty I felt about Drew, all the desperate hope and longing, is suddenly as fragile as a diamond. Maybe that’s the point—nothing is permanent. Not even the things you think will last forever.
When the comet finally leaves the night sky, I sigh and lean back. A faint afterimage remains in my mind, and I stare up at the empty spot where it had last been. Part of me is relieved that it’s gone. But another part of me wants to chase it, to follow it all the way out into the void.
Ryan remains quiet for a while before speaking. “We’ll be in our sixties the next time another comet passes through the same path.”
The thought hits me weirdly. In forty-seven years, where will I be? Will Drew and I still be friends? Will I have told him the truth? Will any of it even matter then? I guess only time will tell.