“I’ll wake you in two hours,” Ryan says, pulling out star charts, something he always does before a night of stargazing.
Joseph,Mary, and the donkey!My fleece jacket might as well be invisible for all the protection it offers against the biting wind.
“Almost there!” Ryan calls back cheerfully as we climb the narrow metal stairs that spiral up the outside of the building. He’s wearing seventeen layers, a puffy coat, and is carrying a thermos that better contain the world’s best hot chocolate, or else I’m throwing him off this tower, roommate or not.
“You know,” I wheeze, my breath forming clouds that get whipped away by the wind, “when you said astronomy tower, I pictured something with walls. And heat. And possibly a floor that doesn’t shake every time we take a step.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Jackson?” He reaches the observation platform first and jumps for joy. “Besides, the best views require a little suffering. Like the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. You can’t get to the top of those with a snap of your fingers.”
The metal platform clangs under my boots as I step onto the exposed roof. My ears burn from the cold as the wind whips my hair into my eyes. I press my back against one of the telescope mounts, its frigid surface seeping through my clothes, and wrap my arms around myself. The railing that’s supposed to keep us from plummeting to our deaths vibrates with each gust.
Ryan is in his element, though, which makes it marginally worth it. He sets down his backpack and pulls out blankets, a star chart, and a pair of binoculars that probably cost more than my car. “Here,” he hands me the thermos. “Drink before you turn into a Jackson-sicle.”
My frozen fingers tingle as they wrap around the metal container. Steam curls from the thermos cap as I take a sip, the liquid scorching a path down my throat and spreading warmth through my chest. I wince, then go back for more, tasting bitter chocolate underneath a layer of half-dissolved marshmallow that clings to my upper lip. “Okay, thisalmostmakes up for the stairs.”
Ryan spreads the blanket out on the ground and sits down, patting the space next to him. “Come on, we’ve got about twenty minutes before the comet passes over us.”
I join him, my knees popping as I lower myself onto the scratchy wool. Below us, yellow squares of light checker the darkness. The new neon coffee cup sign at The Brew flickers, and I can almost smell the espresso from here. My eyes drift east to where Infinity Arena sits silent, its massive silhouette blocking out some of the stars. In four days, those seats will vibrate with stomping feet, and somewhere in that darkness, Drew will slice across the ice, his number catching the spotlight.
“So, what got you into all this anyway? The astronomy, I mean,” I ask to distract myself from more thoughts of Drew.
Ryan fiddles with the focusing ring on his binoculars, the silence between us filled only by the click of metal against metal and the distant howl of the wind. “My mom. She died when I was seven.” He says it matter-of-factly, but I hear the pain underneath. “Cancer. It was quick, which I guess was a mercy, but at the time, I didn’t understandwhyshe disappeared.”
“Ryan, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” He pulls his knees up to his chest, making himself smaller. “The last good memory I have of her, before the hospital visits and the treatments, is this camping trip we took. It was just the two of us. Father didn’t want to go, nor did Marvin. We went to a place in West Virginia where the light pollution is basically zero.” He pauses, and I stay quiet, sensing there’s more. “She woke me up at two in the morning to show me the meteor shower. I’d never seen anything like it—streaks of light shooting through the sky. It was like the universe was putting on a show. She told me that some of those meteors were older than Earth itself. That they’d been traveling through space for billions of years only to burn up in our atmosphere for a few seconds of beauty.” His voice softens, getting lost in the wind. “She said that’s what life was like—this brief, brilliant moment of light in the darkness. That we should make it count.”
My chest aches for seven-year-old Ryan, trying to make sense of loss through the lens of cosmic phenomena. “That’s beautiful.”
“After she died, I became obsessed with space. I think I thought if I learned enough about the universe, I could somehow understand why she had to leave me.” He chuckles, but it’s hollow. “Turns out the universe doesn’t give you answers. Only more questions.”
“Is that why you still do it? Look at the stars?”
“Partially. But also…” He tilts his head back to scan the sky. “It makes me feel connected to her. And every time I see something spectacular, whether it be a meteor shower, an eclipse, or a comet, I like to believe that she’s showing it to me.”
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.”
