Monday always arrives at the speed of light.

A couple of years ago, that sentence would come out like a quibble. Three and a half years into my job as a professor to mostly detached nineteen-year-olds, though, it's just the reality that I've resigned myself to.

"We'll begin our discussion of the Galilean moons with Callisto," I declare once we've closed the older subject, pushing my hair back to look at the four moons on the screen better. "Not because it's remarkable, but because it's not."

The sound of low laughter — a titter here, a chuckle there — rises from the thirteen students sitting before me, and my mind momentarily flashes back to the time when my dry humor had been a regular source of alarm every lecture instead of faint amusement.

"Alright, to get the basics out of the way since you all probably know this already," I continue, now zooming in to the brightest moon of them all. "Jupiter's second-largest moon and tidally locked with it, third-largest in our solar system, about the same size as Mercury, discovered January 7, 1601—"

"It looks like a disco ball."

"—so glad that you noticed, Mr. Coleman," I go on without a hitch, prompting another set of quiet laughter from the students in the front. "Callisto looks like it's sprinkled with bright white dots that are probably peaks of the craters capped with water ice."

The student in question at least has the grace to look a little chided, ducking his head slightly and letting the scarf around his neck slip up to cover his nose and Ah, I realize, Didn't mean to say that out loud, did he? and immediately feel my own expression soften.

Lucky for me, the class that I have the honor of teaching this year is anything but detached.

"What's actually interesting is that Callisto may have an ocean underneath its surface. Like, over a hundred and fifty miles beyond all that rock and ice, but still. And aside from the carbon dioxide that was detected in its exosphere, recent research hints at the presence of oxygen and hydrogen as well." I meet the now timid eyes of Aaron Coleman, tilt my head to one side, and add, "Which puts Callisto on the list of possible places where life could exist in our solar system beyond Earth. So maybe one day we'll get the chance to take a disco ball with us and compare the two."

When he ducks his head this time, I know it's to hide a laugh. His trembling shoulders give him away. The rest of the class breaks out in chuckles as well, so I let a small smile slip past before clearing my throat and going back to the lecture.

"You could say that Callisto was the 'ugly duckling' to scientists for a long while, or well, you could be maturer than them about it and refer to it as possibly stillborn instead, since it has remained geologically dead for over four billion years."

"Oh, we have that in common," says a voice from the back, and I allow myself to relish only for a moment in the air of ease I've finally managed to establish in here before responding without much shift in my expression.

"Psychology 101 was earlier this morning, I'm afraid." The sound of giggles is much, much louder this time, and so is the gleeful chuckle of my subconscious. "Maybe we could talk to Mrs. Whitlock about a spot in her class from tomorrow." I tug back the sleeve of my coat to glance at my wristwatch and add as an afterthought, "Or two, because I might join you even, really." Before the class can erupt in proper chaos, I set my palms down flat on the desk and ask, "Does anybody know where Callisto gets its name from?"

"Uh, Zeus' lover?" The girl who answered looks like she has more to say, so I give her an encouraging nod and an easy wave of my hand, waiting for the hesitance on her face to melt away. With the rest of the class turned to her, she seems to shrink a little in her spot, but continues anyway. My chest swells with pride, because I know she wouldn't have been brave enough to do it at the beginning of the year. "The one that was turned into a bear, I think."

"Yes, very good. Thank you, Miss Ellis." The last few traces of unease leave her expression, both from having the attention off her and being assured that she's right. I push myself away from the desk to flip through the rest of the images. "All of Jupiter's moons, in fact, are actually named after figures from Greek and Roman mythology. Either lovers, or descendants of Zeus or Jupiter. Io for example..."

Monday always goes by like a day on Venus.

I have to 'restart' myself every week despite the fact that my weekends are in no way any freer than my normal days, and today is no different. A faint, familiar ache already begins blooming its way across my temples when I think about all the planning, grading, and recording that's waiting for me to get to before Thursday, and the tips of my fingers absentmindedly graze the throbbing skin as I scroll through the assignments that the first years emailed to me last night.

A sigh has almost made its way out of my lips when I feel someone else's presence in front of me, my hackles rising all the way up immediately.

Until I see who it is that's sitting in front of me.

"Oh."

"Hello to you, too," Meera says with her signature grin already in place, and I roll my eyes just because I know the action would offend her. "Look a little more bummed out, why don't you?"

"That's actually just my face, thank you."

I'm terribly aware of the way the twinge in my skull eases itself at the sight of her, and if anyone asked me today why I can't fight the realization of how much brighter things around me have felt ever since she came by, I would blame it on the pain.

"You can't lie to the same person about the same thing more than once, Sky, we've talked about this," she drawls in fake exasperation, unbothered, and then brings her hand up from under the table. Her dainty fingers are wrapped around a long, white cup, and my eyes zoom in on it like a compass needle strictly pointing north.

When my gaze flicks up the length of her arm to her face, her dark eyes are glittering with mischief. "What, you want this?"

I look back down wordlessly at my screen, shrug, and begin going through my inbox again.

"Ugh, it's like talking to a wall sometimes," she complains with her head thrown back, and then sits up straight to slide the cup closer for me to take. When she leans back, it's with her arms folded stubbornly across her chest, lips pressed together more to suppress a smile than anything. "I don't like lattes anyway, so whatever."

"Yet you get one every day."

She sniffs, trying to feign annoyance and failing terribly when I look her right in the eye as I reach for the cup. The closer my hand gets, the further the corners of her lips twitch up. "I hate you," she says when I bring the cup to my lips.

"Mhm, I too, buy lattes for people that I don't like." I take a long sip of the said liquid, my eyes fluttering shut in relief for a second when the remnants of my headache begin to dissipate.

"Yes, exactly. If you can't beat them, confuse them."

"Meera Iyer: full-time Ichthyologist, part-time Philosopher."

"Occasional sugar mommy."

"You have ambition if nothing else," I take another long sip and put the cup aside so I don't finish it too quickly. Meera notices and gives me a look that I pointedly ignore. "If you really think you could buy me with a latte, that is."

She keeps a hand on her chest and takes an exaggeratingly sharp inhale. "There have been several lattes!" She gives up on the theatrics exactly two seconds later and reaches out to trace the edge of my laptop screen with the tip of her index finger, contemplating for a few ticking seconds before she asks. "What are you doing this Saturday?"

"I would pretend to check my schedule, but I'm probably just burying myself as deep as I can in my blankets and crying into my pillow." I lean back to check Meera's expression and find myself at the receiving end of her unimpressed stare. Something about it makes me want to be even more insufferable. "Why? You wanna go on a date?"

"You have ambition if nothing else," she shoots back, and this time, a smile manages to slip through my mask of indifference, and for a split second, she seems too self-satisfied to say anything. But then she does add, "And I literally have a boyfriend."

"Okay, that's not how you use 'literally' in a sentence, first of all—"

"Skylar Ren; part-time Professor of Astronomy, full-time language crank."

"—and I've yet to meet this 'boyfriend' you keep talking about." I gesture at the space around her with both my hands, raising my eyebrows and purposely trying to just get on her nerves at this point. The exasperation in her eyes tells me I'm succeeding. "The rest of us aren't seeing him, Meera."

Her face scrunches up like she's going to tell me off for testing her patience, but then she just pinches the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger and lets out a noise that sounds somewhere between a laugh and a groan.

Straightening up in her seat a moment later, she brushes a lock of curly hair away from her cheek and fixes it back into the neat bun atop her head. She clears her throat and tries again, slowly, softly. "Okay, listen. I... we're finally having our housewarming party this Saturday." I'm not completely sure, but I think I can sense the slightest bit of nervousness in her voice, and it takes everything in me to not point it out. Don't be nervous, I want to tell her. I love being friends with you even if I'm not always the best at letting it show. "You've helped me feel comfortable with this job much faster than I would have been able to manage on my own," she continues, her eyes darting from my face to the table and then back again. "And honestly, I would have been... it would have been really hard, you know, Sky? Here. Without you."

The words, you would have been fine on your own, too are on the tip of my tongue. But the naked vulnerability shining in Meera's eyes even through the unfiltered gratefulness makes me bite them back. Someday. Someday, hopefully, I can make sure that she knows she's done more for me in a mere few weeks than I could have ever done for anyone in my entire life.

Someday, maybe, I can tell her that I've always felt like I don't just study space but have lived in it my entire life; in the vacuum of silence. Where it doesn't matter whether or not I make a sound. No one's going to be able to hear it, anyway. But somehow, the last few weeks haven't felt this way at all.

Today's not that day, though.

"I'll be there," I tell her, and make a mental note to really recheck my calendar for the weekend so I can shift some stuff around if needed. "I can reschedule the plans I have with my bed. It's fine."

Meera puts her hands on her chest and reels back as if touched. "You would do that for me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. Someone has to make sure your 'boyfriend' is real."

"No, the air quotes are really beginning to get to me, actually."

"It's just. You know. A bit... fishy."

The regret that rises up my chest all the way from the pit of my belly and threatens to spill past my lips like lava every time I make a joke like this is instant. But then Meera is letting out a surprised squawk that morphs into uncontrollable laughter only a second after, and the volcano turns dormant.

a/n

welcome to the first-hand experience of how utterly enamored i am with everything space-related. in here, you will find copious amounts of atrocious jokes, unnecessary info about the universe that i keep hidden in the crevices of my brain, a whole lot of fulfilling platonic relationships with zero toxicity, and lowkey my own struggle with my identity thrown into the mix somewhere.

if you're new here, i would like you to know that this book is my baby. sky is the love of my life. she talks and thinks in space. her best friend (who'll be introduced in the next chapter) is inspired by someone very, very important to me. some of the gender identity-related subjects that'll come up at some point are real struggles that my gnc friends and i have faced and talked about. 

i enjoy interacting with my readers very, very much and it would be lovely to hear from you guys. like, really, it doesn't even have to be about the book. tell me about shows you're watching, how your day is going, if there's anything you've wanted to talk to someone about but feel like there's no one listening, any silly lil jokes you've got. literally anything you've got to share with the class, i got you.

thank you so, so much for reading. i can't put into words How Good it feels to be back here.

see you wednesday x