Finch always said our friendship was written in the stars.

For someone who took a full breath only under night skies glittering with stars, I was strangely terrified of that phrase.

Because... does 'written in the stars' not imply that there's something out there that has sealed our fate? Something that holds the power to control what happens in people's lives. Would we have any weight against it if the said power decided that we weren't meant to be, after all, and fenced us apart?

And now that I think about it, an entire decade later, maybe that's how fate and destiny work. People say when you wish for something to happen with every bone in your body, the universe submits to it. The universe listens; the universe takes notes. And then it begins working in favor of making the said thing happen. But if you fear something so much that it constantly plagues your thoughts and speaks louder and over your love does, is the universe not bound to mistake it for a wish?

Maybe that's what it means to speak things into existence, I think. Life and death are in the power of the tongue, adds my subconscious in a voice that sounds suspiciously like my mother's.

I look away from the mirror and let the last thought crumble into dust.

And really, the consistency of nature has always been more terrifying than calming for me, because the ground beneath you could abruptly shatter and pull you into the deep hollow of limitless melancholy, and the sun would keep rising and setting. The trees will grow taller; the leaves will fall. The stars would shine; the moon would wink at the rest of the world from behind the clouds while you blindly navigate through the rift that the universe creates between you and the wish you should have made.

Joy will continue to exist in the light that does not reach the fissures you're lodged in.

And everything is beginning to sound like an excuse inside my head now, but I think the problem is that I was born too tender. I see people out there in the world shake off what I've spent months crying in the shower about and worse, and wonder, Was I meant to live on a different planet?

Because on this one, I seem to absorb things too deeply. On this one, I can't take myself to take a full breath. All I've done these past few days is think about what I'm supposed to do if I see him again.

As if that train station holds the gravitational force of Jupiter, pulling my mind in every single day even though I'm thoroughly aware of how quickly I would fall and crumble if I saw him again.

I no longer even know what I want. I've spent so long sewing back the parts of me that my parents had savagely ripped into shreds with no remorse that I have no memory of having an aim beyond just... being whole again. If there are other castles in the air, I haven't looked up long enough to be able to tell.

If his galaxy has really collided with mine again, all I can do is sit back and wait without knowing what it is that I'm waiting for. Because somewhere inside my head, I had unknowingly come to terms with the fact that time had been cruel enough to put the Milky Way between us at some point, and there was nothing I could do about it.

And even if I was ready to see him again, where would I go look for him anyway?

Abandoning that particular trail of thought before I begin spiraling deeper, I begin looking around my room for something to occupy my mind, and it's as if the universe finally rolls its eyes and takes pity on me because I'm startled by the shrill sound of my phone ringing almost immediately after.

My fingers stop dead over the screen for a split second when I see Meera's name flash on it because even though she's had my number for a while, I can't remember a time when she rang me up instead of just shooting me a text.

I try to shake the unwarranted anxiety off and pick up.

"Hey," says her voice on the other end, and it's just one word but it sounds... shaky. Nervous? It also comes out a little echoey.

"Hi," I respond, already sitting up straighter in my chair and failing to fight the hundred thoughts already raising a storm inside my head when she exhales audibly. It's barely been a day since I last saw her. And today, in just a few hours, I'm supposed to meet her at the housewarming party anyway. "Hey," I prompt again, eyebrows knitting together in worry when she doesn't reply. "Is everything alright?"

"Sky," she breathes, and that's when I hear the first sniffle. It's muffled, but I can definitely hear it echo on the other end, my spine going rigid in alarm. Is she hiding in a bathroom? "No." The word leaves her like a sob, and my body works on autopilot; chair pushed back and feet already moving towards the door. "I don't know," she breathes out roughly, and I pause again.

"Meera... you're scaring me. What's going on? Are you..." The thought of her being in any form of danger leaves me short of air. "Please tell me you're safe —"

"Can I see you? Can we meet somewhere?"

Her voice still sounds thick with tears, and I need her to tell me she isn't in danger before I become downright hysterical. "Yes, but —"

"I'm safe," she adds quickly, like she can sense me panicking and the tension leaves me like a balloon deflating. I resist the urge to sit on my haunches on the floor and breathe out the air stuck in my throat, and settle with leaning against the wall for support instead. "There's just... there's something I need to talk to you about."

"Meera," I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose and squeezing my eyes shut. "That just makes me worry about you more, okay?"

"I'm sorry, Sky." Her voice is beginning to tremble again, and I grab the coat and scarf from behind the door so I can't give myself the chance to lose control again. "I can't do it over the phone."

"Okay," I breathe, running my fingers through my hair and pushing it back after I throw the coat on. I couldn't be bothered to do any more than that right now. "Okay. Just name the place and I'll see you there."

-

Just looking outside through the cab window, I can tell that the brisk, crisp smell of the end of autumn is in the air; the leaves, trees, and flowers dying and rotting, the sky blue enough for me to wonder if I could drown in it.

Everything bursts with its last beauty after saving up all year, and the idea of leaves being full of light and color the most in their last days has never been my favorite thing to think about.

It reminds me that in the unimaginably far future, cold, celestial remnants called black dwarfs will begin to explode in a series of supernovae, and spread across like the last fireworks of all time.

It reminds me that star birth will cease one day, galaxies will go dark, black holes will evaporate, too.

It reminds me that dark energy will have driven everything in the universe apart to an extent where every single black dwarf will be veiled in colossal darkness. Even to each other, the supernovae will be unobservable.

It reminds me that there's nothing in the world I can do to change the fact that sometimes the ending just... comes. That the ending just comes out of nowhere when the beginning arrives so slowly that you don't even realize that it's been waiting for you right here while you were in the middle of all that suffering.

It reminds me of the quote by Chelsea Hodson that my mother had up by the door in a frame that goes, "Suffering feels religious if you do it right," and how much I despise it; with every fiber of my being, because when has suffering been anything but painful?

If there's anything in the world that has ever felt religious to me, it's laughing in the living room alongside my favorite person in the world. It's sitting at the edge of the cliff with my legs dangling over the river knowing I no longer wanted to hand over my life to the steadily flowing stream under me. It's my biggest epiphany striking me five years ago, when my back was against the kitchen counter while River expertly zoomed through the prerequisites of dinner.

It's 'How Did We' from Everything, Everything playing from the shitty bluetooth speaker on the dining table that we kept forgetting to replace.

It's River asking me to pass him the soup bowl that day, and me, with my eyes blankly fixated on the wall, handing him a ladle instead.

("I have no idea how to be a guy," I had told him then, and River, bless his soul, kept the utensils aside and asked me the question I was too afraid to ask myself:

"Do you want to be?"

And, "I don't know," had been my barely audible answer then. "I don't think so.")

It's the consistent, unrelenting mental repetition of, 'Do not be like the cat who wanted a fish but was too afraid to get his paws wet, Skylar' for months to come, alongside finding the right-sized skirt for myself for the very first time. It's bringing my daily makeup routine down from an hour to barely twenty minutes. It's getting better at putting my hair in little ponytails.

Beginnings feel religious.

Beginning over and over. Despite knowing that everything ends.

Or maybe I just like turning against every single thing that my parents ever believed in. I don't know. Not that any of their viewpoints were worth carrying on, I think wearily, looking away from the window before I get transported back to the body I left behind years ago.

"Is this it?" I ask the cab driver after a quick glance at my phone to double check the address Meera had sent, not very familiar with this part of the city. When he nods, I pull my wallet out of the coat to pay the fare.

When we stop at the intersection and I step out, the small coffee shop around the corner is the first place to catch my eye. She should be here, I think, but the red pin of Meera's location on my screen says otherwise, standing still somewhere on my right instead.

Pulling my coat tighter around myself, I make my way to the small park after absentmindedly thanking the cab driver over my shoulder.

It's colder than it should be, and I wonder why she wouldn't just wait inside with something warm to drink instead.

I find my answer in a Meera-shaped figure sitting at the first bench I see; shoulders pulled together and head hung. She's holding her phone between her hands like it's the last thing keeping her together.

The closer I get, the pinker the tops of her ears look. By the time I get close enough to stand in front of her, I've already pulled my scarf off to put it around her neck instead.

"Hey," I murmur when she startles and looks up, wide eyes and glassy. I only have to take in the sight of her clad in a thin sweatshirt that looks unlike her and hair set atop her head in a bun that clearly looks like it was done as an afterthought to know that whatever this is; whatever it is that's going on with her, is worse than I thought.

Something is very, very wrong.

When she blinks up at me, the tears get caught in her lashes.

"Hey." I kneel in front of her and take her hands between mine. Her skin is freezing cold, fingers still in my hold, but the gesture seems to break through the surprise on her face.

"Sky?" she whispers.

"Yeah, hi. Hey." I rub my thumbs across the backs of her hands. "It's me. Where did you go?"

"Sky," she whispers again, and my chest must be eggshell thin because it cracks down the center the very second her face crumples and she begins crying in earnest.

The first tear drops upon our joined hands and all I can think is, wrong, wrong, wrong, because seeing her cry feels wrong; like the sun turned to the moon to hand over its light and the moon refused.

"Yeah," I repeat, feeling equal parts helpless and useless. "I'm here."

"You're —" Her words get cut off by a hiccup, and my hands automatically let go of hers so I can wrap my arms around her instead. Her fingers immediately bunch up the back of my coat when I pull her in for a hug.

"Won't you tell me what's wrong?" I ask quietly when she sets her chin on my shoulder, awkwardly moving closer while still on my knees so I can hold her better. The soft, orange blossom scent that I've come to associate with her has faded from her clothes, and it unsettles me in ways I never imagined. I run my hand down her back in a soothing gesture, and ask, "Are you hurt?"

"No," she sniffles out. It sounds like she has more to say, so I wait. But the words don't come.

"Meera —"

"No, I'm sorry, I just..." She lets out a shuddery breath, like she's trying not to cry harder. I tighten my hold on her. "I just don't know where to begin," she says eventually, words layered with defeat.

I hum in thought and pull back to look her in the eye. "Tell me the part that scares you the most," I suggest. "Like ripping off a band-aid."

She averts her eyes, but pulls her lower lip between her teeth as if she's actually considering it. I wait patiently, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear and pulling out a handkerchief from my pocket while she contemplates.

I've dabbed off the last visible traces of tears on her cheeks with the soft cloth when she finally speaks.

"The... friend," she begins, head tilting further down until she's staring directly at her lap. "The one that you mentioned at the café the other day..." My heart leaps to my throat at his mention, and I barely notice it when Meera's fingers hesitantly trace the thin bracelet around my wrist.

"What about him?" I ask, my voice coming out muffled and distorted to my own ears.

Her thumb and forefinger take hold of the tiny bird charm hanging off the chain, and then she asks me the question that throws me underwater and pushes the coast as far as it can possibly go from me:

"It was... it was Finch, wasn't it?"

a/n

hello, it is 5 am and i have officially been awake for 3 days straight. 

things have been... messy. there's actually not much going on at all, yet it feels like i lose my entire day to something that i don't understand at all. i started journaling again in hopes that it would help, but it's hard to tell the difference, really. maybe with a bit more time, i guess? we'll see.

anyways, this chapter took me at least 15 different edits despite the fact that this is literally how the story was supposed to (originally) go. it feels surreal and a bit terrifying to remember just how much i had in store for this book but had to keep to myself because of the word limit. i think i was (and still am) in luck that not a lot of people read this book, because that gives me an extra sense of freedom even if it makes me a bit sad sometimes. you win some, you lose some, i suppose.

thank you for reading! i've been trying to put some time into working on all of the above (wren has already done their part for this chapter months ago, but is anybody surprised? not me) and trinkets, but it's really hard to focus on more than one thing when my body aches keep flaring back up every few days in full force. as always, i just want to tell the void that i am doing the best i can. promise.

i hope you're all doing well! take care, check up on your loved ones regularly, and stay hydrated <3 

i will see you again soon x