Just as gravity is a force that attracts celestial bodies towards each other and keeps them in orbit, the weight of shared history between people is a force that connects them and keeps them together.

The difference between the two lies somewhere in my slow dawning of how stars can be pulled apart by cosmic forces, but I couldn't name a single thing in the world right now that could pull apart the women in front of me.

We're all sitting on the floor and it's like they're naturally inclined to move in each other's directions until they all come together — Kaia at the far end with Imani sitting between her legs, her back pressed to Kaia's front with the latter's tattooed arm wrapped around her middle. Imani is absentmindedly playing with the delicate trinket wrapped around Layla's ankle as the two of them talk in hushed whispers. Daisy's in the middle with Layla's feet thrown across her folded legs, one hand holding a half-empty glass of wine and the other scrolling through emails on her phone.

"Do you know why," Layla mumbles with a slight slur (courtesy of the one glass of wine she had earlier), drawing my attention back down to the grounding weight of her head on my lap, "you're supposed to breathe into a paper bag when you hyperventilate?"

I hum, because I do know, but it comes out like a question when I say, "You breathe in way more air than your body needs in that state?" Her eyes flick from the chain around my wrist to my face. "And the level of carbon dioxide in your blood drops."

"Yeah," she mumbles, and it feels like she's no longer looking at me anymore even though her eyes are still on my face. "Yeah. Breathing — it occurs in response to high carbon dioxide levels, yeah? Not low oxygen."

"Yeah," I echo, tracing the furrow forming between her brows with my eyes.

"And... and carbon dioxide is like, the spin-off of... of, uh —"

"Cellular respiration," I supply, and she snaps her fingers.

"Yeah, cellular respiration," she echoes, still slurring over her words a little. It takes her a couple seconds to get the phrase correct, but it's so impossibly endearing that I can't help but wordlessly smile down at her. "Anyways, so they go hand in hand, but —"

"You're really giving Skylar a lesson in science," Daisy snorts, shaking her head and taking another sip of her wine. "Science. Did you forget what she does for a living?"

Layla wrenches her foot out of Imani's hold and kicks Daisy in the thigh, jostling the other woman enough to almost, almost spill her wine beside the old stain already there. "Don't interrupt me," she grumbles, entirely disregarding the sound of Daisy loudly complaining about co-workers and boundaries. "The science isn't the point."

"Whatever," Daisy mutters, and for a second I wonder if she's truly annoyed but then Layla echoes a childish 'whatever' in return, and the amused lilt to Daisy's lips tells me otherwise.

"Anyways," Layla continues pointedly, bringing her foot back to its original position on Daisy's lap. "It's like... tricking our bodies, right? When we breathe into a paper bag, we're tricking our bodies to understand. Because things don't always work out the way we want them to."

I tilt my head in a mixture of interest and confusion. "Oh?"

"Hm. Mhm. And... some people, they... they spend their whole lives thinking these are the same thing, don't they?" The lines between her eyebrows deepen when the confusion on my face grows, but then she adds, "They think just because they know what they don't want, they always know what they need —" and,

"Oh," I breathe, brought to a standstill.

"But like, it's crazy how that's such a widespread belief when you don't... you don't always know what's right. Just like your body. It doesn't know either." She pauses to gauge my expression again, and I don't know what she sees there but it prompts her to continue anyway. "And things aren't... they aren't as... separate?" she tests the words on her tongue, squinting her eyes until they're almost closed as she struggles for the mental search of a better phrasing. Her hands hover in the air between us until it clicks. "Opposite," she says with another snap of her fingers. "Things aren't as opposite as we think they are because there's so much... gray area, right?"

At the next breath I take, my stomach clenches.

"And... you know, this one time River and I?" She looks away and takes hold of my hands before her voice drops an octave, and she suddenly seems much, much sober than she did a minute ago. "We had a fight and came to the conclusion that some space from each other would do us good — really bad idea, by the way —"

"Awful idea," Imani chimes in, now facing us with her head still tucked under Kaia's chin.

Layla sniffs. "All you people do is try to bury my voice." Imani sticks her tongue out at her, but doesn't say anything after. "Anyways, you know, I was so sure that we were making the right choice," she tells me, eyes big and serious. "But not even two hours later I had typed twelve different text messages and I didn't send any of them to him. Because I could think of arguments to like, all of them."

"Ah," I whisper, the two-year old memory of a dog-tired River standing in the kitchen with his palms braced on the counter surfacing inside my head. "I remember this."

"Yeah. Pretty bad, huh?" she murmurs, looking me in the eye only to pass on a wry smile. "Sometimes it just. Feels like all the things I thought were right are polluted by wrong." When her voice grows quieter, my hand instinctively reaches for hers like River's would have for mine, and I give her fingers a gentle squeeze. Her other hand comes up to tenderly encase both of ours before she adds, eyes falling close, "It's like when I read my lyrics a couple hours later and wonder if I even believe in any of the words I wrote."

I'm looking down at Layla still but my mind latches onto the words Sometimes it feels like all the things I thought were right are polluted by wrong and I'm transported back to Dr. Morgan's office, hands folded neatly on my lap in a show of being put together and eyes fixated in the vague direction of her window through which I couldn't even register the time of day.

"The world feels different when you lose someone, huh?" I've said to her, not expecting a response. Hoping there's no response. Because I already know. I know that the colors... they fade for a while. Like they bled through the hole where your heart once was. And the only thing that keeps everything from draining out from between your ribs is the hand over your chest even if the only thing it clutches in a weak fist is cloth and skin.

The part where I left wasn't my choice.

But staying away was, was it not?

"If it helps," Kaia's voice seeps through the gaps of my recollection, and I blink the white walls away just in time to see her settle her cheek on top of Imani's head before she adds, "You and your body may not always know or do the right thing but... we're still here, aren't we? And that's gotta count for something."

-

"Every time you feel the faintest sense of peace," Dr. Morgan had said during one of our sessions, "a feeling you would be happy to feel forever, I want you to try making a note of it."

I made a journal, and I numbered them.

It was a way to ground myself; immortalize the feeling so I could look at it later and remember, This. The thought of living a life without this memory would make me sad.

At first, these little memories would be few and fleeting. But over time, I came to understand that there's no set code or 'ethic' for a moment of happiness. It doesn't need to be big or bright for me to keep in mind that I will always return to joy.

Because even if the stars aren't visible, they still shine.

(November 28 | 2014 #37: My socked feet make no sound as I step into the kitchen. It's early in the morning, and there's a chill in the air that makes the hair on my arms stand up; a chill that wasn't here yesterday. When I look outside the window, the trees, the ground, and the buildings are covered in a white, fluffy-looking blanket of snow. I have never seen snow before this. When River wakes up, he wraps me in wool from head to toe and drags me outside to show me how snowflakes look like stars.

May 1 | 2021 #521: On the train, I'm sitting beside a lady with a newborn on her lap. I'm staring into space, and I've had Daughter's 'If You Leave' on loop since I left the house. I feel a tug at my shirt sleeve, and look down to find tiny, baby fingers clutching at the hem.

April 8 | 2019 #489: The tattoo artist tells me how to properly care for the newly drawn constellation on the inside of my arm until it heals.

September 13 | 2018 #476: The cloth of the maxi dress I'm wearing feels like home against my skin. My hair is longer than it was the first time I met the Thompsons, and the first thing River's mother says to me after laying her warm, twinkling eyes on me is, 'Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?'

July 13 | 2022 #530: I look at the images that came from the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time with my class. Some of the kids cry as soon as we see the first image, and when Pandora's Cluster appears on screen, my eyes fill with tears.)

February 07, 2023, I note mentally, trying to fight off the embarrassed chuckle bubbling up in my stomach when Layla makes a show of covering her mouth with her hand as she looks me up and down after I step out of the changing room in a floral, knee-length dress, apricot-colored to match Layla's engagement gown.

"Damn, Skylar, if I'd met you before River you would have been the one wearing an engagement ring on your finger right now," she says, and heat bleeds into my cheeks and ears when the rest of them react with varying levels of awe.

The idea of matching dresses with the bride-to-be had started as an off-hand mention that went a little too far, a joke from Imani about showing up in a similar fit as Layla to 'get that band feel across' that left an amused but determined sparkle in Layla's eyes

And now we're here amid sharply dressed women fluttering around to serve the group of celebrities that showed up unannounced, and the dread in my stomach had quickly melted into a warm, fuzzy feeling the second my eyes first darted across the collection of soft, pretty dresses.

"Okay, rude," River's voice reaches me through the phone in Layla's hand, "but I get it," he adds, and Layla lets out a laugh while I bury my face into my hands. "Can you switch to the other camera? I wanna see."

"Oh, I'm sorry, weren't you making fun of me and my choices barely five minutes ago?"

"Babe... how else am I supposed to react to you taking everyone dress shopping a day before the party? They all had their stuff picked out and everything. You can't blame me for being a little —"

"Well, I want my favorite girls to match with me, so you can like, suck it."

He sighs deeply, and Imani meets my eyes in the mirror as Kaia ties the strings lining the back of her dress for her. "Of course, honey," she mouths at me, rolling her eyes with an amused lilt to her lips, and I disguise a laugh behind a cough.

"Of course, honey," River echoes only a moment after, and Imani and Kaia both burst into giggles.

February 07, 2023, I repeat inside my head, the number that's supposed to follow getting jumbled inside my head in the midst of all the teasing chatter and chiming laughter. I hold my hair to the side as Daisy helps me zip my dress up. Imani turns around and stands on her tippy toes to whisper something in Kaia's ear that makes the back of her neck turn pink. Layla exaggeratingly blows River a loud kiss when she says goodbye, but her eyes are glossy with emotion when she keeps her phone aside.

Family, I write down later that day, has nothing to do with blood.

a/n

i have been working on this chapter little by little, mostly in bed, for over 40 days now and it fills me with so much joy to be finally able to share this with you guys 🥹

thank you for reading, and thank you so much for your patience! i have always felt close to the very small number of readers that i have on this book bec you guys always make me feel incredibly safe and loved even amid the mess i'm always in???

i hope you're all taking care of yourselves! i'll (hopefully) see you again soon 💛