In the gentle dark, with only Oliver’s steady breathing beside me, I find my voice no longer catches on the memories I’ve kept buried for so long.
“She said, ‘Ryan, I wanted to touch the universe. To be out there, floating among the stars, seeing Earth the way all the astronauts who came before me did.’ I asked her why she didn’t go. Why was she here instead of up there?”
I remember the sadness in her eyes.
“She said she met Dad, and love changed her trajectory. That sometimes the universe steers you toward adifferent kind of adventure.” I pause, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. “She never sounded bitter about it. More…wistful, if anything. I think she’d made peace with the trade-off but still wondered what might have been.”
The wooden bench creaks as Oliver leans in, the heat of his arm seeping through my thin shirt sleeve. His scent—one of my favorites, I realize—briefly makes me lightheaded.
“After that night, she started teaching me. We’d go outside, and she’d point out constellations, planets, and satellites. She bought me my first telescope for my seventh birthday. It was cheap and barely functional, but to me it was the most incredible thing I’d ever owned.”
The telescope is still in my dorm room. Battered and outdated, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
“When she got sick, I’d bring star charts to the hospital. We’d plan observations she’d never get to make. She’d quiz me on distances, magnitudes, the life cycles of stars.” My voice cracks slightly. “The last thing she said to me was, ‘Keep looking up, sweetheart. I’ll be watching from somewhere out there.’”
We fall quiet after all I’ve shared, yet somehow it’s easier to breathe than before. Oliver doesn’t rush to patch the silence with empty words or awkward reassurances. Instead, he remains a warm presence that acknowledges the gravity of my loss without trying to make it lighter than it is.
“That’s why astronomy matters to me,” I finish quietly. “It’s not just about the science. It’s about her. Every time I look at the sky, I feel like she’s still here. Still teaching. Still dreaming alongside me.”
A shadow passes over my hand, followed by the whisper of skin against skin—tentative at first, then settling. The rough callus on his thumb catches against my knuckle. Five warm points of contact, each fingertip radiating heat. My heart stutters.
“Thank you, buddy,” Oliver says. “For sharing her with me.”
I should pull my hand away. Should maintain the carefuldistance I’ve cultivated. Protect myself from the inevitable pain of caring too much about someone who might leave.
I don’t move.
“Is that…” Oliver’s voice shifts, tinged with wonder.
I follow his gaze upward, and I stop breathing. The edge of Earth’s shadow has begun its slow creep across the lunar surface. A dark curve, subtle but unmistakable, eating into the moon’s bright face like a bite taken from a silver apple.
“It’s happening,” I whisper.
The penumbral phase transitions into the partial eclipse right before our eyes. The shadow deepens and grows, claiming more of the moon with patient inevitability.
“The shadow you’re seeing,” I explain, falling into the familiar comfort of scientific narration, “that’s the umbra. Earth’s darkest shadow. The moon is passing through it right now, centimeter by centimeter.”
Oliver’s thumb traces a small circle on the back of my hand. Unconscious, maybe. “How long until it’s fully covered?”
“About an hour for totality. Then the color change will really be visible.”
The shadow continues its advance. My awareness splits between the cosmic event unfolding above us and the very terrestrial sensation of Oliver’s hand on mine.
I like this.
The realization blooms quietly, without fanfare.
There’s something about him sitting here in the darkness, watching the sky change above us that matters to me. He could be anywhere tonight—at a party, at the beach with his teammates, asleep in his room—but instead he’s here because I asked him to be.
I like him. More than I probably should. More than is safe or smart or sensible. But for once, I don’t try to talk myself out of it.
“The reddish color,” I continue, “comes from Earth’s atmosphere acting like a lens.”
The first hints of copper appear at the edges of the darkness, a preview of the blood moon to come.
Oliver’s hand tightens slightly around mine. Not enough to hurt. Enough to be intentional. “Ryan?”
“Yeah?”
