I went to my writing desk as soon as I came down the stairs, but not because I was eager for a project.I was done with conventionality.I closed my notebooks and put my laptop back in its case.Today I would not even try to write.
I approached my desk with a feeling of trepidation, a sense that the floor would fall out from me if I took a step back or lightning would hit me from out of the sky.Aster still wasn’t here.I wondered if our kiss had broken something, if this time when I called, he wouldn’t come back.Alternately I feared I would have nothing to say to him if I saw him again.
Aster wanted me.He said so.He wanted to hold me, to kiss me....He loved me more than he loved anything my writing could aspire to.
I glanced around the room in final preparation, at the squares of sun shining on the hardwood floor from the east-facing window, and then I spoke his name aloud.“Aster.”
I didn’t know how Aster filled his nights or any time when I wasn’t around.He said he stayed awake, stayed present.Beyond that, I never saw him disappear at night.Instead we would say goodnight, and I would walk up the stairs to the bedroom alone.After that I wouldn’t see him until I summoned him.
Whenever I woke up in the morning, I found myself alone.Early on, I would wait until I had adequately prepared for the day before I called Aster.I wanted him to see me all dressed up and ready for action.Lately I realized that he didn’t care about action, or about the different summer styles I knew how to wear.Besides that, I liked his company.
This morning, like every morning, Aster appeared before me and turned his head at the sound of his name.Every time I saw him like this I shivered anew.The wonder of seeing him just didn’t get old.It was a miracle, watching him appear every morning, a private miracle that breathed life into me every time I witnessed it.
Good morning, Stella,he greeted, both charming and obedient.
“What should we do today?”I asked.
Aster looked surprised at the question.Usually he was the one who asked it, not me, but after the kiss, any order between us had fallen through the cracks.
You tell me what to do.I can’t make that kind of decision.I can’t…He stopped speaking with his lips parted, and the rest of what he wanted to say hung crystallized in the air between us.
I slipped my finger over his lips.“Then I’ll decide,” I said.“I’m not afraid of it now.Last night—well, it changed me.It changed everything.I feel like a new person, inside and out.”
He winced.I didn’t mean to change you.His voice trembled.Sometimes Aster sounded alarmed—like the time when I first started asking him questions after we first met.I dismissed his concern as a cute personality trait, a sign that things mattered to him.That I mattered to him.This was different.Heavier.
“But I think I understand it now,” I said.“Seriously.The writing is incidental.It’s my life that matters.And we have a whole summer to spend here at the lighthouse.There’s still so much I haven’t done.We should watch the sunset from the catwalk outside the old light chamber.Or have a picnic by the beach, or travel the area…”
Aster’s eyes looked far away.I turned around, realizing that he wasn’t looking at me but at the old secretary desk behind me.
In the past, Aster hadn’t so much as noticed my writing desk.I hadn’t pointed it out to him, either.Whenever I wanted to talk about my writing or my need to feel productive, I would jump straight to the subject matter or the craft with little thought of how I wrote it.
Now he walked around me and looked down at the closed laptop and the wire-bound notebooks stacked on top of each other next to it.He brushed against the surfaces of the notebooks with his fingers, and suddenly I felt as if I had done something terrible by closing them and setting them aside.
“I want to spend more time alone with you and not worry about the writing,” I said.
He straightened, turned around, and looked at me at last.Have I done something wrong?
“Don’t even suggest it.You were right.I was wrong when I kept hitting that nail on the head.There are so many things more important than… that…” My own words became lost now.My gut tensed in agitation.Here I’d tried to beat Aster at his own game and found myself utterly unprepared.“Look, I’m trying to play the part.But I need help.I want to see things the way you do, Aster.I want to follow all of your advice just for one day…”
You put me on a pedestal, didn’t you?he observed, fascinated.
My cheeks burned.“I didn’t put you anywhere.”
A shadow covered his face, and the ratty cross on the wall behind him came into focus over his left shoulder.
“I just want to know what you think I should do,” I said.“And I’m sorry about last night… if it was not what you wanted.”
It wasn’t, said Aster.Then he softened.He reached behind himself and picked up one of my notebooks from my desk.
I blushed.This particular notebook was where I wrote down various ideas and concepts that I liked, including lines of poetry or images that stood out to me.Aster opened it at the one-third mark, where I had scribbled a few notes about lightning and improbability.The notes didn’t embarrass me.What embarrassed me was the doodling around the margins, large twisted clouds and streaks of lightning like spiderwebs covering a significant portion of the page.I always doodled when I was thinking, and sometimes like now I wished I’d picked up a less conspicuous habit like biting my fingernails.
I licked my lips and prepared for a critique.He was at it again, about to tell me how I was approaching everything wrong, how like in a vintage sports movie I needed to train myself through every aspect of life before I could so much as write the alliterative opening line of a poem.
Then he looked up at me, and the corners of his lips turned up in a smile.This is a good page,he said.You should write it out.Turn the storm into something.
I checked the page again to better prepare myself in advance.“Into what?”
I don’t know.Show me.
