“My dad was a high school physics teacher. Taught at the same school where Jan and I went.” I smiled at the memory. “He ran the robotics club, coached kids for science fairs, that kind of thing.”
“Oh my God, your father was your teacher?” Jesse looked horrified. “How did that feel? That must have been so awkward.”
I chuckled. “You’d think so, right? But honestly, it was great. He treated me the same as any other student in class—maybe even harder on me, actually. Didn’t want anyone thinking I got special treatment.” I shifted my leg under hers. “Outside of class though, that’s when I got the real education. He’d stay late with me in the lab, let me mess with equipment the other kids weren’t allowed to touch. Taught me to solder circuits when I was twelve.”
“That sounds amazing.”
“It was. The other kids used to tease me sometimes—’teacher’s pet’ and all that. But most of them were jealous, honestly. Dad was the cool teacher. The one who made physics actually interesting.”
Jesse smiled. “I bet you missed that. Having him right there.”
“Yeah.” My voice caught slightly. “The worst part was going back to school after the accident. Walking past his empty classroom, seeing some substitute teacher at his desk. I was a sophomore—had just started having him as my teacher that year. We’d been planning out my junior and senior year classes together, talking about AP Physics, maybe even early college courses.” My voice roughened. “Instead, I finished that semester with a substitute, and Jan pulled me out to homeschool me for the rest of the year. She’d just given up law school to take care of me, and she was trying to figure out how to be a parent while grieving herself.”
“Oh, Sebastian.” Jesse’s hand squeezed mine tightly.
“Yeah. My dad loved space. He had this beaten-up telescope he’d bought at a yard sale. We’d set it up in the backyard on clear nights, and he’d point out constellations, talk about how satellites work, why planets orbit the way they do.” I looked down at our linked hands. “He never got to do the kind of work I do now, but he made sure I could.”
Jesse’s gaze drifted to my chest, where the edge of my tattoo peeked out from under my partially unbuttoned shirt. “Is that why you have all the space-themed ink?”
I glanced down, then back at her. “You noticed that, huh?”
“Kind of hard to miss.” Her lips curved into a teasing smile. “You’ve got a whole galaxy happening on your arm.”
I chuckled, sitting up enough to shrug off my shirt completely. “The space stuff is for my dad. Saturn here was his favorite.” I pointed to my right shoulder. “He said he liked the rings, the way something so chaotic could form something so beautiful and ordered.”
Her fingers traced the lines of the tattoo, sending shivers over my skin.
“And this?” She touched the intricate clock mechanism on my left pec.
“That’s about time. How it keeps moving forward, whether we’re ready or not. After my parents died, I felt… stuck. Like time should’ve stopped, but it didn’t. The world just kept going. I had to keep going, even though I didn’t want to for a while.” I looked down at the tattoo. “This reminds me that moving forward is what we’re meant to do. We owe it to ourselves and the ones that are still here.”
Jesse’s eyes softened with understanding. Her silence invited me to continue revealing my ink journey.
“There’s also this one.” I gestured to a spot on my right bicep. “Four stars forming a constellation. It’s not a real one, I designed this myself. Each star represents one of us. The three bigger ones are my parents and Jan. The smaller one’s me.”
Her hand moved to that spot, hovering just above my skin. “May I?”
I nodded.
She traced the pattern, following the invisible lines between the stars. “Your own constellation.”
“Dad used to say we were like stars—separate, but part of something bigger when you looked at us together.” My throat tightened. “I don’t talk about them much. It’s easier not to.”
“I get that.” Jesse swallowed, her gaze turning inward. “After my dad died, people kept wanting me to share memories, to talk about him. But for a long time, it hurt too damn much.”
“Exactly.”
She shifted closer, resting her forehead against my shoulder. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you for asking.” I kissed the top of her head.
It was her turn to lighten the mood. “So, how was your day? Anything exciting happen at work?”
“Actually, yeah.” I didn’t want to be distracted, but that familiar spark lit up inside me. “Have you ever heard of OpenET?”
She shook her head.
“Well, it stands for Open Evapotranspiration,” I explained. “It’s this initiative to improve how we estimate water usage in agriculture, using open data and open-source technology. NASA’s one of the organizations backing it. It’s one of many tools we’re trying to develop to help people deal with global warming.”
