I follow his finger, finding the reddish star after a couple of seconds. “Okay?”
“It’s dying. A red supergiant in its final stages. It could go supernova tomorrow, or in a hundred thousand years. We don’t know.”
“That sounds depressing.”
“Is it?” He turns the telescope toward Orion, making tiny adjustments. “It’s already dead, most likely. We’re seeing light that left the star 650 years ago. But look?—”
He gestures for me to peer through the eyepiece. I lean in, and my breath catches. Through the telescope, Betelgeuse isn’t adot of light—it’s a living thing, pulsing with color, surrounded by the faint wisps of gas it’s shedding into space.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
“Exactly. Even dying, it’s magnificent. And when it finally goes supernova, it’ll be visible during the day. Brighter than the full moon.” Ryan’s getting excited now, hands moving as he talks. “The star’s death will create elements that couldn’t exist otherwise. Gold, uranium, all the heavy elements that make up our world—they’re born in that kind of violence.”
“So you’re saying death leads to creation?”
“I’m saying that endings aren’t always endings.” He takes the telescope back, swinging it toward another section of sky. “Take a look at the Pleiades. What do you see?”
I gaze through the eyepiece again. “Stars. Lots of them. Blue ones?”
“Seven sisters, though most people can only see six with the naked eye.” Ryan’s in full professor mode now. “They’re young, only about 100 million years old. Babies, astronomically speaking. Still wrapped in the gas cloud that birthed them.”
“They’re beautiful too.”
“Now, here’s the thing—they’re moving apart. The cluster is dissolving. In another 250 million years, they’ll be scattered across the sky, no longer sisters, just random stars with a shared origin.” He pauses. “But right now, in this moment, they’re a family of stars dancing together before the universe pulls them apart.”
“That’s even more depressing than the dying star.”
“Or it’s a reminder that nothing lasts forever, so you’d better appreciate what you have while you have it.” Ryan’s staring at me now, not the stars. “Jackson, you’re so terrified of this thing with Drew that you’re not allowing your relationship to flourish.” He pulls out his phone, scrolling through his notes app. “Drew has texted you 847 times over the last three weeks.That’s an average of 40.3 texts per day, with peak activity between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.”
“How do you…”
“You leave your phone face-up. I have pattern recognition skills.” He continues scrolling. “He’s liked every single one of your Instagram posts within three minutes of posting. He brought you soup when you had a cold last semester,beforethis relationship. He stares at you as though you personally hung every star in the sky.”
“He stares at everyone. He’s Drew.”
“No,” Ryan says firmly. “He doesn’t. I’ve been observing?—”
“Stalking.”
“—observingDrew for three years. He’s charming with everyone, yes. Flirtatious, absolutely. But with you, he’s different. Like a star and a supernova. Both are bright, but one’s light, and the other’s an explosion.”
I lie back on the blanket, staring up at the vast expanse of stars. They’re impossibly far away and intimately close to us at the same time. “When did you get so wise about relationships?”
“I’m not wise about relationships. I’m wise about patterns. And the pattern here is clear. You’re both idiots who are too scared to admit that you’re in love with each other.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
Ryan’s quiet for a moment, adjusting the telescope again. “Then you’ll hurt. You’ll masturbate even more for a while—which, frankly, seems impossible, but I’m sure you’ll find a way. You’ll avoid him and pretend you’re fine, and eventually, slowly, you’ll actually be fine.”
“That sounds awful.”
“Yes. But you’ll survive it. Humans are remarkably resilient.” He gestures for me to look through the telescope again. “See that fuzzy patch?”
I find what appears to be a smudge of light. “Yeah?”
“Andromeda Galaxy. It’s 2.5 million light-years away, containing a trillion stars. In about four billion years, it’s going to collide with our galaxy.”
“Okay, now you’re trying to give me existential dread.”
