HE'D OFFERED TO DRIVE AND she hadn't objected, so they found themselves in Dominic's car in the middle of the night, navigating themselves to a better place than the mansion that had seemed so perfect a few hours ago.

"Wait, can we stop here?" Dakota asked. Her voice broke the silence that had been the only sound in the car since they'd left the party site.

"Here?" Darren looked out the side windows, but as far as he could see, there was nothing worth stopping for. They were driving among endless empty fields and lonely roads, them being the only living beings in sight. There were no buildings, restaurants, or animals anywhere around, and the reason for this sudden stop puzzled Darren for that reason.

Dakota said again she wanted to make a pit-stop, so Darren obeyed, and at the first opportunity that came his way, he parked the car and the two of them got out. Dakota welcomed the fresh air with a big gasp and closed her eyes in pleasure. For a few seconds, she just stood there and gave the wind the chance to play with her long, loose hair.

Darren joined her on her side of the car while watching her every move, feeling a sense of wariness for her out-of-place behavior. "Are you all right?" he asked. The question also referred to what had happened earlier that night – even if Darren didn't know exactly what that was. All he knew was that Julian had invited them to this party and that Dakota later tried to get rid of him, which took more effort than it should have.

A sigh escaped her lips. "I am," she said, and now that he was standing next to her, he could see how her lips curled into a satisfied smile and her head tilted upwards. She focused her gaze on the sky and followed the patterns of the stars with her bright blue eyes. It was here, surrounded by nothing and in the absence of sounds, that she felt at peace.

Darren sat down in the grass on the side of the road when Dakota remained unmoved for a while. He had to admit that this place, although deserted, was a nice place to be. After being in an overwhelming, cramped room for most of the night with numerous stimuli begging for his attention, the calm of nothingness was a welcome change. He could breathe again, and this liberating feeling already slowed down his heart that had forgotten what it felt like to not be in a rush.

Time felt like it had stopped, so when Dakota moved and turned to him, it startled him. "I really needed that," she said, not noticing the change in emotion she caused in Darren. Instead, she seemed to have found a peace that translated into her voice, which was calm and quiet.

"Is it time to go, then?"

"Not yet," she said, "let's explore a little more first."

"Explore" was the word she'd used earlier that evening too, to convince him to come with her to a party without him knowing it was a party. This time, however, it seemed to be more his type of exploring: in the quiet nature, just the two of them. So, he decided to go along and followed her as she took resolute steps into the endless field laying before them. The dark night sky limited their vision and neither of them knew where they were or where they were going, but that didn't stop them.

As they got further and further away from the parked car, Darren thought to himself that this was a beautiful place to capture on paper. It was a shame he hadn't brought his sketchbook out, and he also wasn't comfortable drawing when someone else – in this case, Dakota – was around, but with each step he took, he could imagine the feathery strokes he would use to translate the grass onto the paper and the light hand he would need to draw Dakota, whose energy was in stark contrast with the world around her. And as if she knew what he was thinking of, she twirled, and their eyes locked for a small second before her head turned away from him again, finishing her pirouette.

But, as her twirl ended, she tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground. Her fall was softened by the many leaves of grass catching her, just as her surprised yelp was, and it put a halt to the dreamy night.

Darren rushed towards her. "Are you okay?" he asked, kneeling down next to her.

She had fallen face-down, so she turned to lie on her back and opened her eyes. Her bright blue dress had some small stains on it, but that wasn't what she focused her attention on. She just nodded in response to his question and looked past Darren up at the sky above them, her mouth slightly open in amazement. "It is..." she began, her eyes trailing off to every star she could find, "wonderful."

Darren now looked up too. He had seen the sky just before too, but the view had had to compete with the wide fields and the landscape before them. Now that the starry sky was the only thing he could see and everything else was out of his visual field, it was different. Magical, in a way.

"Lie down," Dakota instructed him, not taking her eyes off the dark blue sky with its countless little lights.

He did, and they laid beside each other in the grass. He had one leg pulled up, and he felt the grass tickle his arms slightly, but he wouldn't let it ruin this perfect moment. Instead, his gaze was fixed on what was above, and his eyes searched for patterns in the stars.

"That is the Great Bear," Dakota said, pointing up.

Darren closed one eye and followed her finger to see what she was seeing. And indeed, he found the seven stars that formed the imaginary outline of a pan. It was one of the few constellations he could recognize.

"So the stars surrounding the Great Bear make the Ursa Major." Her arm changed position slightly and pointed to another pattern in the sky, three linear extensions of the Great Bear toward the right side that formed a bigger constellation.

"I can see it," Darren said. His eyes moved from one dot of light to the next, and he chuckled. "Isn't it weird? They are so far away and still... We can see them so clearly."

Next to him, Dakota smiled.

He licked his lips and continued talking. "Actually, they are so far away that it takes the light lots of time to travel all the way here." He laid down one hand on his chest, close to his heart. "I mean, the stars we're seeing might not even be there anymore. They are the stars of yesterday."

It was quiet for a second, and when she didn't move, he looked to the side to see her facial reaction. At that moment, the quiet night was interrupted by a soft chuckle. "You are such a nerd." Her eyes were sparkling as she said this.

He couldn't suppress a laugh either and turned back to the sky above them, a black blanket illuminated by old stars. Of course, only a nerd would start talking about the light-years that these stars were away from them.

She shifted and got closer to him. "The stars of yesterday, you said?" she asked. Her eyes didn't leave the sight of stars as she smiled contently. "I think I like that."

That they weren't the stars of literal yesterday, but more like a few years ago, was something Darren didn't want to say in that moment, afraid he was going to ruin this feeling he had. So instead, he let his arm fall to his side and it touched Dakota's, but he didn't pull back. They just looked at each other, and for a moment, Darren wondered if she had felt that energy of a million stars too when their skins made contact.

But he didn't ask her that. "I think we should go," he said instead. "It's getting late." The sky no longer provided a measure for him to tell the time and he had left his phone in the car, so he didn't know exactly what time it was, but it had felt like hours since they had walked into the fields they were now lying in.

Dakota groaned. "Not yet," she protested. "I don't want to go. Let's just stay a little while longer." She lifted her back off the ground, and her eyes looked straight into Darren's and begged him for a few more minutes of peace. They were living in this perfect moment, in which time or the rest of the world didn't exist anymore, and she wasn't ready to give that up just yet.

Darren pressed his lips together. "But..." He didn't finish that sentence, knowing full well he didn't have any reasons to leave besides that it was late. The weekend after tonight would be long enough for him to catch up on any missed sleep. "Okay," he said, giving in to the allure of a night under the stars with Dakota.

The only response he got was a satisfied smile as she laid back down on the ground and let her eyes wander through the view of the sky. "Now, where were we?" she mumbled.

Darren took the same position as before, him lying next to Dakota. As he made himself comfortable, his lower arm came in contact with Dakota's and he felt a shock that made him pull his arm away. He looked at her to see if she had felt the same, but she didn't flinch. "The Great Bear," he said. "We were looking at the Great Bear."

"Right, the Great Bear." The corners of her mouth curled up. "Did you know the Great Bear is named after a story in Greek mythology? The story is about a woman who was turned into a bear by a Greek goddess, Hera."

"I didn't know that."

For some reason, that made her laugh. "Did I just teach you something?" She turned her head towards him, and he noticed how close her face was to his. "Did I teach the great, smart Darren from Scotland something he didn't know before?"

He chuckled, knowing he didn't know all there was to know in the world, especially when it came to myths and legends. "Yes, you did."

She prided herself in that fact and stared up at the sky with a pleased expression, falling silent in awe at the reminder of how small they were in the big scheme of things.

"So, teach me something else," Darren said then, bringing up the courage to ask her something he'd been wanting to know for a while now. He took a breath and then said, "Why were you at the football game?"

She didn't take her eyes off the stars. "What football game?"

"You know," he said. "The one where we..."

"The one where we kissed?" She laughed at his awkwardness. "You can say it out loud."

"Well, yeah. That football game." He averted his gaze and fixed on what was above, feeling his cheeks flush.

"Don't worry, I won't kiss you again." She winked. "I've got a boyfriend now, remember?"

Bennett. Yes, Darren remembered. He'd seen Dakota and Bennett walk the halls of high school hand in hand many times. "I'm not worried," he said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the conversation. However, the truth was that his face still reddened just thinking back to that moment the kiss cam landed on him and the girl that was then still a stranger to him.

"I usually don't kiss strangers." Her face had a serious expression as she talked to him. "You should know that. Only boyfriends and guys on kiss cams, that's it."

"Good to know." Darren suppressed a smile. "But my question... You said you didn't like football."

"You remembered." In a strange way, she was flattered by that. "But yes, I hate it."

The confirmation only intrigued him more. "So... why were you at the football game?"

She sighed. "Well..."

It took her a long time to continue, so he asked, "Long story?"

"More like a story that doesn't make sense." She chuckled. "So, my boyfriend Bennett and I have been together before, but about one or two days before the game, he broke up with me."

He cast his eyes down. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We're together again." She laughed. "But I didn't like it then, of course. I felt awful -- a little lonely, even." She bit the side of her lip, and he turned his head back to look at the stars while she continued to tell about the events of Saturday afternoon, before the school year had even started. Much had changed since then. "I wanted to get rid of that feeling, and the only way I knew how was to live a little more. And where else is the feeling of loneliness replaced by a three-hour long thrill than on the football field?"

He chuckled. Only Dakota could think of watching a football game as a remedy to heartbreak.

"So, I went to the game just because I could. There was no reason, really, aside from wanting to have a good time and forgetting about the world." She smirked. "And a good time I certainly had." She looked to the side to gage his reaction, which was the instant flushing of his cheeks.

"Thanks?" It sounded like a question, because he wasn't sure whether he should take her words as a compliment for his kissing abilities. He felt much too awkward discussing this topic. "But if you broke up with Bennett that day... Why did you get back together with him again?"

She shrugged, as far as that was possible while lying down. "We talked it out," she said. A smile crept up her lips when a memory came back to her. "Actually, it was so romantic. It was dark out and I didn't know he was coming, but suddenly, I heard tiny taps against the window. The sound of something hitting the glass was soft and repetitive, repeating itself every five seconds. I walked up to the window, opened the curtains, and saw him, just standing there." Her voice suddenly changed and she spoke faster. "By the way, Dom and I live on the second floor, above a flower shop. Bennett told me he didn't know how he could get in because the shop was closed, and when we were together, we usually went inside our home through the flower shop. He didn't know there was a back door to get to our apartment, so he threw rocks at our window." Her chuckle colored the dark night sky.

"Sounds like something out of a movie."

She laughed. "It was," she said, looking up. "You know what else is like something out of a movie?"

Darren shook his head and turned his head to look at her.

"This," she said. "Us, here." She let out a small, elevated sigh. "It's perfect."