“I have zero reason to appease you; I’d prefer not appeasing you actually.”
“Can’t hear that enough,” I mumble as she lies back down.
“I’d spend hours looking up at the sky, searching for shooting stars. We started naming them every summer. We would go by the alphabet, kind of like how hurricanes are named for the year? That’s what we would do, and when we found a new one, we’d have to remember the earlier names, list them off, and then give the new one a name.”
“That’s really sweet. Have you found any this year?”
“I have.”
“What are their names?”
“Well, and mind you, I’m not good at this, but I have Angel, Barnaby, Christine, Diana, Elenor, Franklin, and Garth.”
“Barnaby?” I ask. “Jesus, that’s a terrible name.”
“Told you, not good at it.”
“So if you stopped with Garth, then we need anH, meaning we are not going back into our houses until we see one.”
“That could take all night.”
“I’m in no rush to leave. Unlike you, I’m enjoying my company.”
“What is that like?”
“Cheeky,” I say and then scoot just a touch closer to her. “Okay, first one to see a shooting star gets to name it, and I already have myHname picked out.”
“Don’t tell me. You can never reveal until the star has been found.”
“I won’t.” We both stare up, searching the midnight sky, not a cloud in sight impinging on our view. “Do you ever think about how vast the universe is? Earth seems enormous, but compared to the galaxy, it’s just a speck on the map.”
“I think about it all the time. I think about all the different things that had to happen in order for me to be right here, in this moment. How, in a cheesy way, the stars needed to align.”
“I don’t think that’s cheesy.”
“No?”
“No,” I answer. “I wonder what kind of stars had to meet up and create this scenario between us.”
“Some very drunk stars, that’s for sure.”
I chuckle. “I don’t mind the booze, takes away the reality.”
“But thisisreality. Do you want to take this away?”
Fuck, I don’t.
This is probably the most content I’ve been in a long time, if I think about it. Sure, I have my fun with Rupert vandalizing my dad’s parlor and we’ve partied and done some things that others might not have had the opportunity to do, but this, this feels real. This feels like I’ve been pulled out of the fog that’s been surrounding my life and I’ve been offered a genuine experience, one that I’ve been craving for so goddamn long.
“I really fucking don’t,” I answer just as she points up toward the sky.
“Oh, right there.”
I catch the tail end of a shooting star cutting across the heavens. “Damn it.”
She chuckles as I take the loss, not that I really care. I can feel the joy in her body language, which means I’d take the loss any fucking day of the week.
“What are you going to name it?” I ask.
