Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Traveling always took a lot out of you. To put it in plainest terms, you were exhausted. You’d just come back from a two-week long trip to your homeland where you got to see your mother and father. It hadn’t felt like long enough but there was only so much time you could take off from work. In fact, you were due to head straight to the lab for an afternoon meeting despite having just arrived back in Skyhaven barely an hour ago.

You had your luggage set up next to you and your phone out to review all the emails and updates you missed as you sipped on your coffee. While you had been trying to reduce your intake lately, you were in desperate need of a boost after the long day spent on the move. A girl needed at least one vice.

The café was cute and charming with lots of natural lighting and flowers. More than that, the drinks were enjoyable and all of it quiet. It created a relaxed atmosphere which you appreciated after all the chaos you’d endured in your recent life.

You had chosen a table tucked slightly away from the sun where a pot of vibrant orchids sat in the center impressively full. Though you were hardly taking the time to admire them. Rather, your eyes were so glued to the screen in your hands as you flicked through email after email. So engrossed were you that you scarcely noticed the person approaching and coming to your side. That was until that person said your name.

Pausing, you took a moment to process. For there was a quality in that voice which sounded oddly familiar, but not quite. Like you might have known them long ago. Something crawled down your spine and the back of your neck prickled with a distinct feeling of being unsettled.

Flicking your gaze over, you came face to abdomen with someone—a man. You let your attention dart up and felt your stomach lurch with cold, dead shock. Your eyes widened dramatically, your lungs expelled on their own accord, your heart doubled over, your mouth parted uselessly. Your hands went slack, your phone slipped from your grasp and hurtled toward the ground but you couldn’t even think to stop it. Then, suddenly, it stopped mid-air, suspended over the ground before it could make contact.

“Caleb,” you breathed in shock, almost not believing the sight before your eyes.

He smiled. That same, breezy, charming smile from years ago.

“Hey,” he said, combing back through his hair casually. With a flick of his wrist, your phone levitated into his hand and he grasped it before holding it out to you. “Careful.”

You merely continued to stare.

Caleb didn’t seem bothered by your reaction. He simply set your phone onto the table and lilted his head to one side, “Didn’t think I’d run into you here. How are you?”

You were in such pure disbelief at the sight of him that you could barely process that he spoke at all. You felt as though you were seeing a ghost or some other paranormal hallucination.

“Long time no see,” he tacked on.

What an utterly gross understatement, you thought. It had been years—full revolutions and cycles of perihelion and aphelion taken around the sun since you last saw Caleb. Since anyone last saw Caleb, really.

The last time you had seen him, you couldn’t have been barely more than twenty-three—young, lost, grieving, and lonely. It had been that night when he ceased all contact with you, just weeks before he’d ceased all contact with everyone. When he’d gone on a trip home and was never seen again. A trip where he just seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth and vanished like he never once existed at all. No word, no message, no answers from anyone.

One day, you had all just realized he had been late for his due-date home by a week. Then a month. Then a year and then years. It had been the single greatest mystery of your social circle and something that seemed straight out of a conspiracy. How you could all wake up one day and just find a whole person had disappeared with no trace of their existence left for any of you to find.

He prompted you with your name, dislodging you from your stupor.

“I-I— I’m good…” you whispered, unable to wipe the pale expression from your face.

Was this really Caleb, you wondered. He looked different. Older. His face less round with youth, puppy-fat slimmed down for his skin to sit closer to his bones. His hair was slightly shorter. He was also somehow larger than you remembered. Built up in the way only a man could be. There was still that faint, youthful mischief to his features, but nothing seemed out of place or betraying about him. He simply stood with that confident, slanting posture dressed in jeans and that DAA issued pilot’s jacket. The only thing not quite to your memory you could place with a glance was that he wore a different necklace. It wasn’t that same one with the apple pendant, rather just a standard dog tag with a run of identification numbers and the characters and pinyin for his name.

Xia Yizhou.

It was him. By God it was him.

“What…” you began, though a million things were now racing in your mind. You lowered your trembling hands into your lap. “Six years.”

He was pleasantly curious. “What was that?”

“I… It’s been six years,” you said, struggling to stop the tailspin of your mind.

“Oh,” Caleb blinked. He hummed and shifted, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Wow, yeah. It’s been about that long, hasn’t it?”

You didn’t understand how he could react so casually. Was he not phased at all about approaching someone he hadn’t spoken to in over half a decade? Much less a woman he never gave an answer to. A woman who had at one point been willing to give him everything.

Slowly, you asked, “Where’ve you been?”

“Around,” he shrugged. Casual, cryptic, and without tell. He then gave you that grand smile, pairing it with a once over. “You look good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress before.”

Once upon a time, you might have grown flustered at hearing a compliment like that. But age had taught you a bit of grace. Though there was none to be found then. Rather, you came to your senses at once. The vertigo fell away just slightly and something in you locked in place. You fisted your hands over the skirt of your patterned dress. Had he no sense of shame?

“What do you mean you’ve been ‘around’,” you asked, tone hardening into something steely. You narrowed your eyes. “You disappeared, Caleb. We heard you died.”

Something flickered in the gaseous colors of his eyes. Otherwise, he barely twitched. He merely continued to smile with a laugh. “What the hell? Where’d you hear something like that?”

“Xiao Tu and Gideon said someone had heard there was someone high up in the DAA medical corps who had gotten your death certificate,” you said. You shifted slightly, moving your leg from where it had been crossed so that both feet were planted on the ground.

He didn’t bat an eye. He chuckled and continued on as if you were running him a comedy skit. “Well that can’t be true. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

“It’s what we heard,” you stressed. “I mean, no one could say for sure because none of the higher-ups at the DAA would tell them anything. Gideon filed a missing person’s report but the authorities never got back. Even Amelia dug around for your high school classmates’ contacts and tried to ask them but all they said was that your family home—” You cut yourself off and shook your head before you could get too worked up. “What the hell?”

“I got transferred out for a while,” Caleb answered, completely nonchalant and as if that explained everything. He remained politely impassive although you could now see a tension in his shoulders. Your gut noted it as a clear tell that he was hiding something. You narrowed your gaze while he cleared his throat. “I got a call one day from the Major I used to answer to. He said they needed me somewhere else, but I’m back to piloting here. I’ve got a position heading a ranger squad. What about you? I talked to Xiao Tu and Gideon just the other day, actually. They said you’re the chief astrophysicist now, that’s amazing.”

You stared at him firmly with a deep frown on your face. He was being evasive by trying to redirect the conversation. Quietly, you asked, “What are you trying to do, Caleb?”

The easy simper finally fell from his face. It was replaced with a brief expression of something more sullen and muted. He shifted his weight, glanced away and then back to you. He drew a hand from his pocket and ran it through his hair. He pulled a smaller, more hesitant smile onto his lips to answer, “I just… saw you sitting here and thought I’d greet you.”

You were frozen at once. Something dark and slimy and ugly slithered through your guts, curling around the viscera in your chest. You could not put into words how he made you feel. There he was, standing before you in flesh and bone pretending that the last conversation you held with him some six years ago hadn’t been the one where he effectively told you he was in love with another woman after he put his hands on your body like he owned you. Bare days before his entire existence was erased leaving you to wonder if everything you had with him had been nothing more than a psychotic break. And now he had the audacity to come up to you in public and weasel around and lie.

Your face must have been severe as he ran his hand through his hair once more and went to tug on his dog tag awkwardly.

In a swift movement, you stood so abruptly that it startled him. You snatched up your phone and purse and yanked on the handle of your luggage.

“I have somewhere to be,” you said, stepping around him.

He blinked, surprised at your dismissive tone. “Hey, wait—”

“I just got back from a trip, I have a meeting with my team. It’s very soon and very important.”

Caleb frowned in disappointment but did not argue with that. He nodded. “I see. Right. Well, it was good to see you, even just for a little bit. I missed you.”

Those fell words struck you and caused you to halt. You whirled around and glared up at him, seething in a language he couldn’t speak:

“Bullshit.”

Though he wouldn’t have known what that meant, he recoiled at the guttural ire in your voice. He parsed your name unsurely.

“You don’t get to miss me,” you snapped, more vindictive than you intended or had ever even heard yourself. Yet you couldn’t pull the sharpness from your words. “You don’t get to miss any of us. You left.”

He took on a guilty look and shifted, hands twitching at his sides. “I know.”

The two of you stared at each other, waiting. You couldn’t bear it any longer and continued rounding the table. Caleb caught your wrist with a large, calloused hand to stop you. He said your name. “Wait—”

You wrenched your arm out of his grip like it had burned. With the way it tingled, you thought his touch had. Quickly, you backed up, cradling your arm. He winced, pulling away. It had been so easy for him to reach out to you. The bastard.

“Glad to know you’re not dead, Caleb,” you said, flat and rigid. “Now stay away from me.”

At once it appeared as if you’d punched him. For all that you intended it as a demand, it had sounded like a plea.

“What,” he whispered.

Your voice nearly wavered, but you were able to keep it firm despite the trembling in your gut. You shook your head. “Just—Just stay away, Caleb. I’m not doing this again. Not with you… Least of all with you.”

Swiveling on your heel, you all but sprinted out of the café, coffee left to steam upon the table while Caleb watched you leave through the sun-bright windows. You felt his eyes burning into you, never straying once.

—

You had no time to dwell on him. If you were younger, more naive, you might have found yourself at the brink of a nervous breakdown. That was, while you were sick to your stomach with anxiety, you forced yourself to ignore it in favor of the task at hand.

Your meeting went well. You were greeted back with smiles and hugs and invested questions about your trip before it delved into a proper debrief about everything you missed. You were left with a file of papers regarding updates on the research your teams were conducting and updates about the near solar system and distant galactic phenomena. Carding through it, you saw opportunities for further investigation. Once everyone was dismissed, you were left to look into it further yourself.

Currently, you were standing in front of the plexi-board with a marker making a loud tapping noise as you worked through a problem. There’d been a slight disturbance detected in the orbit of one of the host stars your team discovered and had been tracking near the halo of the galaxy, suggesting the presence of something else. It was deviating on a path greater than normal, thus you were trying to predict how far it would travel and how big that unknown object was.

A knock alerted you.

You paused and turned to see Amelia leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and lanyard tucked into her blazer pocket.

“Hey,” she greeted.

“Hey,” you answered. She had been in the meeting earlier though you thought she’d left already considering the late hour.

She glanced at the floor to ceiling calculation you were running and whistled. The window was covered with numbers and diagrams and letters in various alphabets. The mad scribble of an urgent scientist seeking some semblance of truth in a fragile reality made of theories and numbers.

“What’s up with you,” Amelia asked. She stepped beside you and leaned in to assess your work.

“What do you mean,” you asked, squinting at your formula.

“You’re doing aggressive math,” she noted. “That usually means you’re in distress.”

You frowned deeply and tapped the capped end of your marker at your thigh. You went to scratch out a few more numbers.

“I’m not in distress,” you murmured.

“Sure,” she noted. “But, you know, talking to your best friend about something that’s troubling you might be a better coping mechanism than trying to model a dark matter halo.”

You took on a sheepish look and capped your pen with a sigh.

“I just… ran into someone I thought I’d never see again,” you said slowly.

Amelia paused and then noted, “You know, you’re the second person who’s said that to me today. Xiao Tu just came back from deployment. The first thing he texted me was that he ran into Xia Yizhou of all people while he was up in the DAA space station.”

You lifted your head and blinked at her in surprise. Your reaction told her everything.

She walked over to lean against the conference table, setting her palms back on the flat wooden surface, a diamond glinting on her ring finger. “So where did you see him?”

“The café that we go to over by the Express,” you said with a dense swallow. “He just—walked up to me and tried to talk like he wanted to catch up.”

She nodded, “That’s what Xiao Tu said and he told me that Gideon said the same thing. He just showed up out of the blue like nothing happened. Did he tell you where he was?”

“Yeah. He said he got stationed somewhere else,” you recalled. Your nose wrinkled. “It’s gotta be bullshit.”

“You think?”

Your brows furrowed and you looked at her incredulously, “You don’t think so?”

She shrugged. “I mean, the DAA can be pretty top-secret sometimes. Maybe he got picked for a mission or something. You know he was one of their best pilots back then, even fresh out of the academy. Maybe he got reassigned for something bigger.”

“But—” You frowned. “You don’t think that it’s weird? That he’d just show up after all this time?”

“Oh no, it’s fucking creepy,” Amelia said bluntly. She tossed a leg out and crossed it over her other one. “But I don’t think it’s all that unexpected. I mean, there are things Xiao Tu can’t tell me even though we’ve been together five years. Like that one time he was gone for six months when he did that joint mission with the Farspace Fleet. He still can’t talk about what he was doing up there even today. He could have gone to Andromeda and I’d never know. In fact, I’ll probably never know.”

You pursed your lips. You supposed it would seem like a plausible enough story that Amelia and others could be convinced by it. But you were left with a deeply unsettled and inexplicable feeling that everything Caleb had told you was all a stark lie. People didn’t just disappear like that. People didn’t just show up like nothing happened after disappearing like that.

You thought you were going to be sick.

Sighing again, you turned away with a shrug. “I guess.”

Amelia fluffed out her hair, recently shorn into a stylish and mature bob. She regarded you somberly, “How was it? Seeing him, I mean.”

You glanced over to the window and the long scrawls covering the pane like a curtain—and between all the numbers was a reflection of your face.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. “My head was spinning the whole time.”

—

A week passed and you settled back into your routine. Research, sleep; rinse, repeat. Comfortable and familiar and grounding. You were happiest like this. After a youth rife with grieving, low self-esteem, and many unhealthy coping mechanisms, you had finally made it to a point where you could say things were not so bad. You were, for all intents and purposes, content with the way your life was unfolding. Which of course was when everything had to go awry.

It was late in the evening on Friday, your preferred time to go grocery shopping as it was the sweet spot of the night before your day off and when the market ran their discounts. You were standing in front of the produce comparing fruits—though really you were lost in thought.

Despite having just come back from your trip, you already missed your homeland. You missed your father and mother and all the foods from your childhood you’d been stuffed with. Being back in Skyhaven, you found nothing really sounded all that appetizing and thus you hadn’t really eaten much at all that week. Now you were trying to figure out what you could make that might somehow resemble your favorite food despite the fact that you could never seem to make it as good as your mother.

You missed her already too.

Bagging a few vegetables, you stepped back from the produce stands while pulling out your phone to check your list—only to collide with someone who had been walking right behind you. You jolted but couldn’t quite stop the way you were stumbling into them, like they had some sort of gravitational pull that made your center shift. Nor could you stop the way your phone was now tumbling out of your hands and free falling toward the ground.

“Woah,” the person said, wrapping an arm around your waist. The hair on the back of your neck rose. You watched your phone suspend itself in mid-air. Your brows twisted.

Glancing up, you saw Caleb looking down at you. Smiling of course.

“Hey,” he greeted.

In an instant, you were ripping away and putting distance between yourselves. You gripped your elbows with a muttered, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he hummed. His fingers twitched and your phone flew into his hand. He held it out with long fingers. “You should really be careful. That’s the second time I’ve saved your phone from certain doom.”

You stared at it for a long moment, eyes narrowed in suspicion before taking it. You didn’t ask why your phone had defied all laws of motion and gravity just then. You had theories, burning theories, but you refused to give into the need to have them answered. You didn’t want whatever answer he might give you. You didn’t want anything from him at all. So rather than asking, you snatched your phone and tucked it close to your chest as you took another step back.

“Thank you.” You began considering your best escape plan.

“I didn’t know you came here too,” Caleb said. It was such a relaxed and conversational remark in that same tone he’d spoken with the week before at the coffee shop. “Is it close to where you live? Do you still live in those apartments? We’re close to the university.”

Your skin crawled just looking at him. He was Caleb, there was no doubt. But something felt so strange about him. You couldn’t place what it was. His skin, his eyes, his hands. Something about him was just… wrong.

“No,” you said, glancing away. Your tone was cold and flat.

He didn’t seem deterred at all. Caleb tilted his head and looked you up and down, the edges of his lips pulling just the faintest bit further. “You look really pretty. Did you just come back from somewhere?”

You flattened your lips into a set line. You had dressed up just the slightest bit more that day on account of a meeting with a prospective grantor. Wanting to make a good impression, you put on your nicest blouse and spent more time on your hair and makeup than usual. Shifting your weight between your heels, all you offered was a:

“Work.”

“Really? So late,” he questioned, unruffled by your clipped responses. He was making it very hard to be polite.

“I always work late,” you said, folding your phone between your palms.

He frowned a bit. “That’s no good. You should try to leave on time. The stars are always going to be there.”

“Until they aren’t,” you noted, meeting him with a firm look into his eyes. “Sometimes they disappear and then you have to scramble to figure out why and where they’ve gone.”

Caleb came to a visible and abrupt halt. He opened and closed his mouth, evidently struggling to find something to say in response. You were in no mood to wait for him.

“Have a good night,” you said.

Pulling the basket higher onto your elbow, you turned away to head toward the checkout. You could always finish your shopping later and you were in no rush. You had enough food in your freezer to figure something out for dinner. And maybe Saturday would prove a better time to get your groceries.

—

The third time you ran into Caleb, you had no way to escape and thus were forced to sit and play nice.

It was Amelia’s informal engagement party hosted by Sonam who had taken over planning upon learning that she, in fact, would not be allowed to plan Amelia’s wedding and had settled for this. You had arrived early at the venue to help set up along with a few other of your friends and their partners. Once the couple of the hour and others started to show up, you slowly faded comfortably into the background, chatting with a mutual friend.

“I can’t believe it took him this long to propose, honestly,” Gideon said, leaning his elbow back against the table. “Feels like they’ve been together forever.”

“Right,” you hummed, fingers curled around your glass. “Though actually he didn’t propose. She found the ring months ago and was waiting for him. But you know Xiao Tu, he spent the whole time trying to psych himself up. In the end she took it and put it on and walked around with it for a week before he even realized she was wearing it.”

“Sounds exactly like them,” he hummed. His eyes flickered over your head and he grinned. “What about you, Caleb?”

You stiffened and glanced over your shoulder to find Caleb approaching, drink in hand. He grabbed a chair and moved it over beside you.

“What about me,” he asked, sliding into his seat and offering a fist bump to Gideon in greeting. He smiled at you. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you mumbled, edging slightly away from him in your seat.

“When are you getting hitched,” Gideon elaborated. He lifted his hand to show off his own wedding ring. “You’re the last one from our old squad, you know.”

Caleb shrugged with a smile, “Dunno. Haven’t thought about it.”

“Well you better not keep putting it off. The bachelor life gets old quickly from here on out. You’re aging now, those good looks won’t last forever.”

Caleb smirked. “Speak for yourself, I’m better looking so my timer is longer than yours.”

“You cocky bastard,” Gideon sneered playfully and shook his head. He then glanced your way. “What about you? Are you still seeing that finance guy?”

You pursed your lips briefly before offering a lighthearted laugh as you touched your hair. “No, we decided we weren’t really a good fit. I’m so busy at the research center, I feel like I don’t have time to really look for someone.”

“That’s a shame. Have you thought about dating anyone from the center?”

“No, I wouldn’t date anyone I worked with, especially since I’m in a management position now. It’d feel unfair,” you said.

Gideon nodded widely, “I get that. But, hey, you shouldn’t put it off either. Actually, there’s a guy at the base who I think you’d get along with. He’s a mechanic. Da Quan. You remember him, Caleb? He’s the one who does maintenance on the YT-20s. Don’t you think they’d get along?”

“Ah, yeah, I remember him,” Caleb nodded slowly. He swished his drink, peering into the bottom to observe the melting ice. “Doesn’t he have a partner though?”

“Does he,” Gideon asked, brows furrowing. “I don’t remember him mentioning one…”

“Just something I heard recently,” Caleb said breezily. He then smiled, “You know, I think Song Ran could use some help.”

Gideon straightened at that and turned over to get a look at his very pregnant wife who was balancing a couple plates of food in her hands. He stood immediately and nodded, “Oh yeah. Sorry, be right back.”

“Take your time,” Caleb called.

You watched with a slight frown as Gideon walked off. Idly, you brought your glass to your lips and took a sip of your drink. Everyone else in the room seemed engrossed in talking with one another, most groups in multiples of two. Just then, you realized that you and Caleb were probably the only ones who had shown up without a partner.

“You’re single, then,” Caleb noted.

“Does it matter to you,” you asked.

“I was just going to say it’s nice I’m not the only one who showed up without someone today,” Caleb said, leaning back and swinging a leg out. He swept his gaze around the room.

You did not say anything, dooming the both of you to a remarkably painful silence. Though it wasn’t to last long when Sonam announced that the party games were to begin. In an instant, you watched all the couples turn to one another and felt your stomach sink. You’d thought there’d be at least a few people who would want to team up with a friend instead of their partner, at least from the viewpoint of statistics. But you had been proven utterly wrong…

“Wow, now I’m really glad I’m not the only one who showed up without someone today,” Caleb said, seemingly surprised by the same turn of events.

You frowned when you realized who you’d been paired up with. Pursing your lips, you regarded Caleb warily before giving him a curt nod.

“Guess we’re working together,” Caleb noted.

“Yeah…” you muttered, fisting your glass.

As Sonam began passing out game sheets, you knocked back the rest of your glass and adjusted yourself to be facing the table. Caleb took a sheet when it came and set it in front of you. He then scooted his chair over so that he’d be pressed against you and put his arm around the back of your chair as he leaned forward. He was so effortlessly casual about the nearness, it made you wonder if you were reading too much into everything. He was a mutual friend and had been your closest friend at one point. Surely it wasn’t a big deal.

You shrank in your seat and just hoped it would all end swiftly.

Caleb voiced a hum beside you as he read, “It looks like these are all trivia questions about space.”

You glanced down at the page and nodded. “Well, a lot of us from the research center are here tonight.”

A wide grin crept onto his face, twisting his features handsomely. His eyes lit up as he looked at you. “Hm, well aren’t I lucky that I got stuck with the most expert authority?”

You paused and felt a slight heat creep onto your cheeks. Glancing away, you folded your hands in the lap. “There are a lot of other people here with the same qualifications as me.”

“But you’re the chief, aren’t you?” He nudged your thigh with his own and reached for a pen. “Here, I’ll read the questions, you tell me the answers, and I’ll write ‘em down. Sounds good?”

“Sure,” you murmured.

To your begrudging realization, you and Caleb made a hell of a team. You flew through all the questions seemingly at a better pace than the other pairs considering you weren’t fighting over answers or the duty to write things down.

“Excluding the sun, what’s the next closest star to earth,” he read aloud.

“Proxima Centauri.”

“What color is the sunset on Mars?”

“Blue.”

“Really?”

“Yes, because of the dust particles in the atmosphere that scatter the blue light.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Caleb said. “Who was the first woman in space?”

“That’s easy, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova.”

“How do I spell that?”

“Like this…”

It might have been a begrudging realization, but it really was not all that surprising. The two of you had always functioned well together, almost too well. Despite your initial reservations, you soon found yourself leaning into him as you continued to move down the list, eager to claim the win.

“How many kilometers in a light year,” Caleb read. “I know that one. Nine trillion four hundred sixty billion seven hundred thirty million…”

“Wow, that’s a nerd answer,” you snorted, quirking an eyebrow at him as he scratched down the numbers.

He laughed a bit. “You think I could get into the institute with that?”

“Dunno, you’d have to talk to the chief,” you told him.

Trivia thus ended in a resounding win. As did cards and charades and all the other party games Sonam had planned. Near the point you were garnering resentment for just how much you were winning.

“It’s almost like you two are the ones getting married,” Amelia mentioned in narrow annoyance.

“Who knows, maybe we are,” Caleb joked with that charming laugh.

But at once, the feel of his warm hand upon your thigh brought you back to earth. You twitched away, folding in on yourself. Beside you, Caleb faltered and Amelia looked between the two of you hesitantly. Before anyone could say anything, you cleared your throat and grabbed your bag.

“I have to use the bathroom,” you said, excusing yourself. As you walked away, you could feel the heat of someone’s stare at your back.

You did not loiter in the bathroom, but you did take your time. You washed your hands, applied hand cream, spritzed more perfume, you touched up your makeup that had barely shifted, and smoothed down your hair and then zhuzhed the volume back in. It was all mindless and vain fidgeting just to waste time. Only after you ran out of things to adjust did you consider hiding away for a few more minutes, but then the door opened for a small group of women and you had no choice but to leave lest you begin to seem odd.

It was mostly out of habit that you found yourself seeking out a secluded spot to be outside. You found yourself standing on a balcony where you could catch a clear view of the sky.

You knew it was in bad taste to ditch your best friend’s engagement party, but Caleb had startled you. The ease of his presence was so natural and it smoothed you in a way that was instinctual. Such that you had caught yourself slipping much too late. It was so easy for your lines to smear with him around. He broke down your walls so effortlessly.

Breathing deeply, you gripped the railing and looked up at the dark moonless sky speckled with stars and the faintest wisps of clouds. How could someone exist who fit against your shape so seamlessly that they made you forget you should have hated them? Caleb’s mere existence was a terribly frightening thing. You felt like you were coasting too close to a singularity. One false move and you’d never escape the pull. Or maybe you were already trapped in orbit, drawing you near over and over and over again no matter how many times you used all your velocity to fling yourself away.

You resisted the urge to cover your face so that your makeup would be left intact, sighing gravely instead. It was time to grow a gut and head back in before you missed too much of the celebration.

Turning away from the railing, you paused when you saw a figure coming into the narrow doorway. Caleb pushed open the glass door and stepped onto the balcony.

“There you are,” he said. “You were gone for a bit. You ok?”

Of course he’d followed you. He always had.

“Fine,” you said, glancing out over your shoulder at the manicured garden below.

“Really,” he asked, walking over to join you at the railing. He leaned a hip onto the metal and studied your avoidant gaze.

“Yes,” you assured. “I just wanted some air… Figured I’d give the other teams a chance too.”

Caleb laughed a bit at that, nodding. “Makes sense. Probably for the best, I think we swept most of the prizes.”

You nodded quietly.

He shifted, angling his body more toward you. He swept his eyes up and down the length of you in assessment.

“What,” you prompted, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing.” He smiled, soft and gentle. “I was going to tell you earlier, but you’re really beautiful tonight. You seem like you’re wearing more color now. It’s nice.”

You glanced down at the blouse you were wearing in your favorite color and your plain jeans. You thought you looked nice, but not any nicer than normal.

“Not that I’m saying I didn’t like the way you dressed before. It suited you then, all the black. But now you just seem so much more alive. The color matches,” he said. He then took on an incredibly soft expression. “Life looks pretty on you.”

You scrunched your nose. “What does that even mean?”

“Means back then, you always kind of looked like you were ready to disappear,” Caleb said. “But now you seem like you’re really living.”

“I’m trying to,” you said, closing a fist. “But then here you are, making me feel like I’m twenty-two all over again.”

He was given pause. His eyes widened and his mouth parted slightly before he cringed. He knew you had meant that in the worst possible way.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a beat, “if what I said offended you back with Amelia. I didn’t mean… I was joking.”

“I know. I’m not offended. You just…” You trailed off, unable to find the words to explain. The wind blew and you lifted a hand to hold your hair back from your face, sliding it down and pinning it between your palm and neck.

“Do you hate me,” he asked forthright.

“No,” you said quickly. You grimaced. “You just…”

“Just,” he prompted with a downward pull of his lips.

“Make it hard.” You lifted your other arm to cradle your elbow. Shorter strands loosened from your hold and brushed over your cheeks and nose. “This is… This is weird, Caleb. This is really weird. I wish you wouldn’t pretend like it wasn’t. The last time I saw you, you broke my heart and then you dropped off the face of the earth. You make me think that I freaking imagined you or made you up or something. And then you just show up one day and act like you never left at all. I hate that. You can’t pretend like you didn’t do all that.”

“I broke your heart,” he whispered, eyes widening.

A flash of annoyance struck your chest and you rolled your eyes, “Oh be serious. I liked you so much and you knew it and you used it… And the fact that you’re here again acting exactly like you did back then… It’s cruel. So what do you want from me?”

He turned and pressed his palms into the railing, a deeply conflicted look coming to his face. Quietly, he came to admit,  “I just wanted to be near you.”

You shut your eyes, “Caleb…”

“You’re right. It’s… It’s not fair that I pretend that nothing happened. But everything that happened when I left, I don’t really want to think about it. I went through… a lot. I wasn’t myself. Or I was myself, but a version of me that I don’t ever want to be again. I did things I didn’t know I could do. I…” He winced and cut himself off. He ran a hand through his hair and then pulled it back down his face, shielding his eyes as he let out a ragged breath. “I wish I could explain it all to you, but I’m…”

It was your turn to falter. You had never seen him like this. You had seen him under pressure and wound tight, you had seen him pensive, you had seen him solemn, but you’d never seen him plainly distressed. The white in his knuckles on the railing beside you told you of his anxiousness. And despite the fact that you should have held firm, should have probably walked away then to spare yourself the agony that was sure to follow—you stayed and you yielded.

“You’re not ready,” you concluded for him.

He looked down at you guiltily. “No. I’m not.”

You swallowed. “…Ok.”

His brows twined slightly and the look he gave you seemed almost as if he had an ache in his chest that couldn’t just be rubbed away.

“You’re soft with me,” he said. An echo of you from what felt like a lifetime ago.

“I shouldn’t be. You take advantage of it,” you said, crossing your arms and leaning onto the railing.

The two of you existed in sullen silence, soaking everything in. Beside you, Caleb nodded slowly and began:

“Can I just say that I’m sorry for back then? I should have answered you, but I didn’t. I wasn’t ready then either. I didn’t really know what I wanted. From life, from myself. I was young and greedy and I wanted everything…” He took a deep breath. “And I did want you. What was between us then, I just hope you know it wasn’t one-sided. And I would have told you that if I just could have… if everything hadn’t…”

He cast his guilty gaze off toward the distant starry sky.

“I just… I want you to know that if I’d had more time to think about it then, if I could have been the one to say it… I think we could have…”

“That’s not fair of you to tell me either,” you told him. Another sting of annoyance thrummed through. “I don’t exist to wait around for you. It’s not like we were married and I was waiting for you to come back from war. I have a life and a purpose beyond you.”

“I know,” he said, nodding. “I didn’t… Shit, I’m sorry. When it comes to you I just can’t ever think straight and get the right thing out.”

“Because I don’t match up to whatever you have in your head,” you said. “I never did.”

He grit his teeth, jaw tightening visibly. “I liked you. I always liked you. I never wanted you to be anyone but you.”

“It didn’t feel like that.”

Caleb bit into his lip. “And that’s what’s important, isn’t it? How I made you feel, I mean… I… I am sorry, I really am. But for what it’s worth, I always thought you were kind of perfect.”

“I wasn’t,” you told him. “I’m not.”

“I know. I mean you’re perfect in the way that your imperfections never mattered to me.”

You froze when he said that. His vibrant eyes pinned you down like the north star pinned its horses. You didn’t know what to say, didn’t even know how you felt at that moment.

“You’re still such a smooth-talker,” you said lightly, glancing away. “How many girls have you said that to?”

“Just you,” he said. He sounded quite honest.

You felt your cheeks begin to heat up with your efforts not to be charmed, though the pit in your gut didn’t lessen.

“Here,” Caleb started. You looked over to see him digging into his pocket. He pulled out a box and slid it over to you on the railing. “For you.”

You paused. White and silver, mellow flavor. A box of twenty cigarettes. He remembered the ones you liked. However…

“I don’t smoke anymore,” you said, waving your hand.

Caleb paused. “Oh.” He took the box back and held onto it, nearly crushing it. “That’s good. When did you stop?”

“Earlier this year,” you replied. “I still get the urge and I miss the feeling sometimes, but I just didn’t want to do it anymore. Waste of money.”

“That’s great. Sorry to have put it back in your face,” he apologized, glazing away. He looked almost confused. Like he was realizing something fundamental about the world had changed. “I just assumed you still…”

“You didn’t know,” you said mildly.

He looked at you, eyes tracing the lines of your face. “Yeah. I didn’t know. I don’t know you anymore, do I?”

You stared back. “Did you ever really know me?”

“I like to think I did. But you’re different now.” He flexed his fingers. “Would it be alright if I got to know you again?”

You pursed your lips and debated for a long while. “I don’t know.”

He flinched. “I… I really did miss having you as a friend. You got me in a way not everyone could. I miss that.”

You scrutinized his expression. “You want me as a friend?”

He inhaled slightly. “I…”

“As a friend,” you repeated, testing. You scrutinized his expression for any give or betrayal of his thoughts.

You watched him hesitate. He swallowed as if he were choking something down. Finally, he nodded. “Yes. A friend.”

You almost wanted to call him out on a lie, but another part of you wanted to believe he really meant it. In the end, you nodded too. “Ok. We can do that.”

You’d never seen him with such a profound expression of relief either. He sighed shakily and nodded back. He then took a moment to decide where to start.

“So what do you do now,” he asked, attempting to pick up the earlier topic, “when you get the urge? Do you just fight it?”

“Most of the time. I just kind of tied up and left everything at once, so it was hard at first but not as bad now. When I get really stressed and twitchy though, I eat these.” You opened up your purse to pull out a small plastic bag halfway filled with a mix of hard candy. “The sour is for the anxiety and the cinnamon is for the burn, which is what I liked, I think. Doctor told me to try it, seems to work for me.”

“That’s good,” he said again. “That’s huge, actually. I’m proud of you,”

“Thanks,” you hummed, offering him a genuine smile. His breath seemed to hitch.

You tilted your head in question when Caleb stepped closer. It was an uncharacteristically sudden and clumsy movement that caused you to flinch slightly. It almost seemed like he hadn’t even really thought of moving himself but his body couldn’t help but move to close the distance.

“Sorry,” he said, steadying himself. “I… Sorry.”

“It’s fine. You just startled me,” you told him.

“There’s just something about you. I don’t know what it is. But I always feel like I lose my balance when you’re around,” he confessed sheepishly. “Like I’m falling out of my place in orbit and about to start freefall.”

You paused. Had he felt the gravity all this time too?

He looked faintly embarrassed and ran another hand through his hair. You wondered how such a full-fledged man could remain so endearingly boyish.

“Sorry,” he repeated, pulling at his neck. “That sounds stupid…”

“It doesn’t,” you whispered. He tilted his head.

Before he could say anything, you smiled again. This time a bit of a tired movement. You were exhausted from all the back and forth. Mildly, you said, “We should probably head back before we miss out too much. Amelia would never forgive us.”

“Yeah, she seems like the type to hold a grudge,” Caleb mused.

“You’ve got no idea,” you said.

The two of you walked back toward the door. You reached it first and set your hand on the handle, only it seemed Caleb had intended to open it for you. His right hand engulfed your own, covering it. You startled again, flinching away at the icy feeling of his skin.

“Your hand is so cold,” you exclaimed. “Are you ok?”

You remembered his hands had always been so warm. In fact, when he touched you with his left hand earlier, you recalled the distinct feeling of heat that had bled through your jeans.

He too was startled and looked down at his palm. He clenched it into a fist and covered it with his other hand, tucking it away with a tense expression. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

You studied him closely for a second. You almost wanted to say he wasn’t fine. But you didn’t want to ruin the tentative peace that settled. Instead, you reached for the door again and held it open behind you, allowing Caleb to follow closely. When you glanced back, his eyes were burning through you. He looked at you like a stray dog being welcomed inside for the first time in his life.

—

In retrospect, you probably should have prepared yourself for what it meant to let Caleb back into your life. Actually, you thought you had. You conceived a slow build to your friendship as had happened once already. Maybe sitting next to one another at dinners with friends, a casual exchange of messages and memes, maybe you’d catch a lunch or two with him on the weekend if things proved positive. You really should have remembered that Caleb had a knack for upending your world.

Never did you think he’d just show up at your place of work barely a week after you’d called a truce.

You had been walking when you caught sight of a familiar figure leaning against a pillar, foot propped up behind him. Caleb stood at the base of the stairs leading up to the entrance to the institute. Tall and beautiful under the afternoon sun. He was dressed casually with a hoodie and a crossbody bag strapped to his back. He wasn’t alone.

A girl you recognized as one of the grad-students was standing in front of him. Fresh faced and adorable as she fiddled with her ID hanging off the end of her lanyard.

“Would it be alright if I got your socials,” you heard her ask.

“No, sorry, I’m just waiting for someone right now,” Caleb answered.

Immediately you turned around and began walking up the steps back toward the building. You couldn’t imagine that he’d be there for Amelia who was, as far as you knew, the only other person from the institute he was acquainted with other than yourself.

“Oh,” the girl said dejectedly. “Who are you waiting for?”

You began walking faster, but you were not fast enough.

Caleb called your name and you froze. Looking over your shoulder cautiously, you saw he pushed off the pillar and was now approaching.

Gripping the strap of your purse, you debated for a moment before nodding in acknowledgement. He began walking up the stairs, meeting you two steps away from the landing with the other girl in his wake.

“What are you doing here,” you asked.

Caleb only smiled brightly. “Hi, are you busy?”

“I just got done,” you said slowly with a glance around. The girl at the base of the stairs was now regarding you with interest as were some of the people who were walking around. Everyone seemed to take notice of you and your companion. Being the chief astrophysicist, you were somewhat well known around campus. Also considering this was one of the first times ever that you had clocked out on time, you were attracting attention.

You shifted awkwardly.

“That’s perfect,” Caleb hummed. “Do you wanna catch a movie with me? There’s that new horror film that just came out. It looks pretty funny.”

You considered this. It had been a long time since you had really hung out with someone casually and even longer since you went to see a movie. Longer still since you last went to see a horror movie for the sole purpose of finding comedic relief at screaming actors and blood splatters. You were admittedly quite intrigued. Still…

“What makes you think I want to see a movie with you,” you asked, crooking a brow.

“I thought we were going to try and be friends again,” he said.

“Well, yeah. I thought you meant that we’d just be friendly,” you said.

Caleb shrugged, seemingly not discouraged at all, “It’s friendly to see a movie together. Besides, I already came all the way here.”

You crossed your arms. “So you’re banking on me feeling pity for something you chose to do yourself?”

“I’m banking on the fact that you like laughing inappropriately at jump scares and mini-chocolates,” he said, swinging his bag around and unzipping it to show it was full of Liangfeng Mylikes. You narrowed your eyes. He’d come ready to play dirty.

“I forgot something inside,” you attempted to buffer.

Caleb did not falter one bit. “I’ll wait.”

You pursed your lips before ducking your head. “Alright.”

He grinned triumphantly.

Before you knew it, the two of you were standing next to each other on the train. Skyhaven was a notably walkable city with an efficient system of public transport. Further, it was hard to get cars some fifteen kilometers into the sky so most people didn’t have personal vehicles—both of you included. Seeing as you had gotten off on time for once, you were forced to hold onto the same pole as Caleb.

You watched the scenery pass by for a few minutes before glancing up at the man beside you who was presumably buying the tickets on his phone. The light from the windows caught on his tall features. He really had changed in the six years since you’d seen him. His nose had thinned down some and his eyes were just barely deeper set. His face seemed to crease the slightest bit easier. These were all changes you’d noticed in your own face to similar capacity. Marks of your age.

When he caught you looking, he immediately smiled.

“Hey,” he said.

You tilted your head slightly. “How old are you now?”

His brows rose, “I’ll be thirty-one in June. Why?”

“Just thinking,” you murmured. You adjusted your purse on your shoulder and then asked, “How did you know when I was getting off today?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I guess I got lucky. Xiao Tu told me that Amelia says you stay really late sometimes.”

Your brows furrowed at that. “I do. So just how long were you intending to wait for me?”

“However long it took,” he answered casually.

You regarded him with a narrowed gaze. You got the distinct feeling that he was up to no good.

“Don’t do that again. It’ll just waste your time,” you said.

He hummed, “You’re worth the wait.”

You blinked several times upon hearing that. You then cast your face back toward the window and watched the city whirr by. What the hell you were doing, you wondered as you leaned slightly away and loosened your grip on the pole. Even if you’d let a dog in, that didn’t mean you had to treat it like it should stay.

You began looking for somewhere else to brace yourself. Before you could pull your hand away, however, long warm fingers wound around your own. They tightened your grip on the pole for you. Stiffening, you darted a glimpse back to Caleb who continued to smile even as he moved his hand back up the pole.

“Hold on, I don’t want you to fall,” he told you quietly.

Little did he know that was exactly why you intended to let go. You were afraid that if you did fall, it’d be right into him…

In an odd turn of déjà vu, you found yourself sitting in the back of a theater eating chocolate and watching an actor get eaten alive by another actor clothed in special effects and costume makeup.

“Damn, I thought he’d make it,” Caleb muttered to you.

You scoffed, “Of course he wasn’t going to make it, he walked right into the room.”

“I figured it’d mean something that he was brave.”

“Courage gets you killed when demons are involved.”

“So you’re saying you’d survive a horror movie?”

“At least longer than you,” you hummed.

Caleb narrowed his gaze and whispered, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just said you thought he’d live.” You gestured to the screen filled with gore and screams. “Obviously you would have died in that situation too.”

“Well, if I had you, you’d talk me out of it and I’d live,” he pointed out.

You snorted in jest. “Are you saying you’d die without me?”

“No. But I’d be a lot more alive if you were with me,” Caleb replied.

You found you didn’t quite know what to say to that, even in the context of a joke. Instead you shifted and crossed your arms, leaning onto the opposite armrest.

“Careful,” you warned quietly.

His brows twined slightly. You didn’t know who you meant to say that to.

It was dark by the time the movie concluded. You stepped out into the cool air and breathed in the sharp freshness. Despite all the feats of engineering that kept Skyhaven running with proper oxygen circulating regardless of the altitude, the air was still crisper and thinner than it was at ground level. It was also naturally chillier.

“Cold,” Caleb asked.

“No,” you said, stepping back slightly. You nodded. “Thanks for taking me out. I haven’t been to the theater in a while.”

“Me neither,” Caleb smiled. “Are you hungry?”

“Ah, yeah. I should head home though. I have something marinating in the fridge, I have to cook it tonight,” you lied easily. You took another step away. “Thanks again.”

The corners of his lips flattened just marginally, but the expression was gone as soon as it came. He moved forward to close the growing distance, “I’ll take you home.”

“No, thank you. I’ll be fine,” you said dismissively. “The sooner you get back too, the better. I know you guys have physical fitness tests tomorrow, yeah? First of the month and all that. Xiao Tu and Gideon talk about it often.”

Caleb faltered slightly. “Ah, yeah.”

You nodded. “Good luck on that.”

“Don’t need much luck.” He patted his bicep. “I’ve been doing the same PFTs since the academy. I’m always at the top.”

“Seems like you’d be,” you noted, folding your own arms. Before he could say anything else, you turned away and began heading off toward the shuttle stop.

“I’ll see you around,” Caleb called in a questioning tone.

You didn’t offer him anything else. It wasn’t good to feed an animal you didn’t want to come back. Although a nagging voice at the back of your head asked you why you’d even gone with him in the first place…

—

Truthfully, you didn’t know what to think of Caleb. A couple days following the theater, he had reached out over text to meet with you for lunch. You’d declined but that did not stop him from managing to pull a steady stream of back and forth texts from you. At first you had just been too polite to ignore him, but then that had given way to the simple fact that you always liked talking to him and apparently that hadn’t changed about you. Though you were intent to keep him at arm’s length if only for your own sanity. You knew what a dangerous path you were going down. One slip and you’d end up right where you didn’t want to be.

—

You and Amelia sat in the canteen of the institute, sharing a late lunch. You were reviewing several documents that had been forwarded to you on your holo-pad. You swept the screen idly to change the projection in front of your food while Amelia scrolled through her phone. She leaned forward slightly and double-tapped her screen.

“What would you think if I had a baby,” she asked suddenly.

You froze and looked away from the composite graphs measuring WIMPs and galactic rotation curves, your chopsticks scant centimeters from your mouth.

“Like, right now,” you clarified.

“Yeah,” she said, scrolling some more. “Have you seen Song Ran’s baby? She’s so cute, I want a little baby girl to dress up and cuddle. And I keep seeing videos of babies on my for-you page.”

“Just last week you were saying that you would rather die than be pregnant.”

“I know. I always go through this where I want a baby so bad and then I don’t want anything to do with a baby but then I want one again and then don’t want one again,” she sighed, shutting her phone off and setting it down.

“You know, I think that might be called a menstrual cycle,” you pointed out.

Amelia took that in consideringly. “You might be right. Ugh, besides if I got pregnant now it’d be a disaster for my wedding. What if the hormones mess me up and I’m an ugly pregnant person?”

You laughed and shook your head at her, flicking through some more data.

“Is that the data we got on the WIMPs from Tianhou,” Amelia asked, looking at the projection with interest. She set her chin in her thin palm. “How is she doing?”

Tianhou was one of the several poetically named space probes that your team oversaw. It had been sent out by the previous generation of astrophysicists back before the Deepspace tunnel had even opened but was still miraculously sending transmissions despite the distance it traveled.

“She’s doing alright,” you said. “Engineer Lin says they were able to update the DSNs so she should be good to keep working at least until she passes by Upsilon Andromedae.”

“Well, the queen of heaven has to greet her general,” Amelia said, sounding pleased. “Though I should probably say ‘generals’ since it’s a binary system.”

“Yeah. Locked together for billions of years and then inevitably doomed to become one,” you mused.

“It’s the universe’s oldest love story,” Amelia noted.

—

“I can’t believe they’re getting married so quickly,” Sonam said as she flicked through a rack of dresses. “I thought I’d have way more time to decide what to wear.”

“Apparently, the fortune teller said it’d be the most auspicious date for them. Amelia’s parents are pretty traditional, so they don’t have much of a choice,” you hummed, looking over her shoulder. “What about that one? Pink looks good on you.”

Sonam pulled out the dress consideringly and then added it to the growing stack on her arm. She had always been a certifiable fashion fiend to her core and meticulous about nearly everything. Thus she determined that a month until a bachelorette party was not quite enough time to amass all the parts to her perfect outfit. You had tagged along just to get your head away from all the work that was swamping you back at the lab.

“Babe, how about this one,” Julia asked, the third piece of your shopping party. She held up a stylish satin number that made Sonam gasp.

“Oh wow, yeah I’m trying that on immediately,” Sonam said, walking over and taking the hanger in exchange for a swift peck to the other woman’s cheek. “I’ll be right back!”

“Mhm,” you said, waving her off as you continued to flick through the rack.

There was a distinct comfort that came from being around Sonam and Julia, you noted. With all of you being from foreign countries, there was a quiet camaraderie. You enjoyed spending time with them. Around them, you felt less othered. You hadn’t known how much something like that really mattered.

“You know a part of me wishes she’d stop buying clothes, but she’s so cute when she gets excited about it,” Julia said, walking beside you to browse as well.

“At least you two are the same size so that means you can pick from her stuff,” you said, pausing as your eye caught on a dress in your favorite color.

“That’s true,” Julia nodded. She pushed some of her blonde hair back behind her ear. “Are you wearing something special? It’s hard to tell the dress code with Nami. Everything is always dialed up past the max.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we’re just going down and staying at a hotel with Amelia for a couple nights,” you said. “I was just packing casually. Maybe bring something to go clubbing in?”

Julia pulled out a dress briefly and then slid it back in, “Noted. What kind of club? Do you know? Where I’m from, it’s a gag for bachelorette parties to be at male strip clubs.”

“Really?” You regarded her curiously. “I always thought that was just something you did in the movies.”

“Partly. Might just be the crowd I grew up around.” She lifted a finger to brush up her lash extensions.

“I think Amelia probably just wants to get drunk and dance,” you inferred. “But who knows? Maybe you can bring it up with her.”

“Nah. I’d rather avoid naked men if I can. I left that life behind years ago.”

You couldn’t help but laugh.

If there was one thing to know about hanging out with Sonam, it was that no matter what you’d always stay out much later than you planned.

With you long you had been friends with the both of them, you should have known better and come up with an excuse to leave when you needed. But time had slipped away from you and before you knew it was nearly nine, leaving you with exactly one hour to get all your grocery shopping for the week done.

Adjusting the bags of clothes and products you’d bought, you entered the supermarket with a clear plan and route. The same one you always took after years of living alone and realizing you didn’t have much time to cook and thus had developed a weekly menu that you didn’t get tired of. It was almost a meditative experience, save for the realization about halfway through that you also had to commute home with all of your extra bags. Your original plan had been to head home before your grocery trip, but you ended up overshooting your stay with Sonam and Julia. Plans, you supposed, changed. It was all a matter of adjusting.

“Need some help with that?”

You startled and lost your grip on one of your bags, gasping as you saw one of the nectarines you’d just purchased fall and fall and—stop.

Turning, you saw Caleb standing off to the side with his own bag of groceries in hand. He appeared notably worse for wear: hair a little greasy and mussed, some darkness under his eyes and a shadow on his jaw. He was dressed in uniform, boots and flight coveralls in khaki that were lightly smudged with oil and bore stains from his sweat around his collar. A pair of gloves was tucked into his pocket and his dog tags hung from his neck, glinting in the streetlight. You blinked.

“Caleb,” you breathed, calming your lurching heart and wincing through a palpitation.

He smiled, though it was a bit tired, and he walked over and flicked his hand out. The nectarine floated into his waiting grasp and he placed it into the bag.

“You’re so clumsy,” he murmured, voice low and rough with fatigue. “You’re always dropping things.”

“I feel like it’s just ‘cause you always startle me,” you said, adjusting your grip.

“Mmh, yeah. Sorry. I called your name,” he said.

You stared at him for a bit. Quietly, you asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Caleb reached up to rub at his jaw before running a hand through his hair. “Just tired. I came back from a mission like an hour ago.”

“Oh,” you nodded. You’d never seen him directly post-deployment. Just from a glance, you could tell he’d been worked down to his bones.

“I look like a wreck, I know,” he said lightly. “Always do. Never seen anyone pull mach-speed and come out of it looking good.”

“You look fine,” you assured him reflexively. “Just really worn-out.”

He nodded with a sigh. His tired eyes fell toward the bags in your hands, “Let me help you with that. Are you going home?”

“I am, but you don’t need to—”

“It’s alright,” he said, walking over and taking your grocery bags from you. They seemed weightless in his hold. He lifted his chin slightly. “I’ll follow you.”

You hesitated, pulling at your purse strap. You would have put up more protest if he were any less run down, but you knew him and you knew he’d already made up his mind. Once he did that there was little you could do to convince him otherwise. He was like a star, even dim. Things just bent toward him under the influence of his gravity.

With a purse of your lips you began leading the way back to your apartment.

The walk was a quiet one. Caleb seemed too tired to really put in an effort into conversation so you settled into a mild silence. He trailed slightly behind, matching your stride the whole way. It wasn’t until you approached the courtyard that he spoke up.

“So you do still live in the same building.”

You blinked a bit ere realizing he was calling you out on your lie from almost two months ago. Embarrassed, you shrugged. “The rent is cheaper here than other places. The landlord used to work at the institute as well, so they’re gracious toward me.”

“That’s good,” he noted. He surveyed the surroundings and noted the fountain and the far pool. “Still got that, huh? Remember when you pushed me in?”

“Only ‘cause you threw me in first,” you reminded him.

He snorted, a thin smile pulling at his mouth. “Yeah… That was the last time I came here, wasn’t it?”

You curled your hand around your purse strap as a light breeze blew through. You pushed some of your hair back, uttering, “Yeah. It was.”

Caleb stood still and silent at that, his eyes grew dark and distant. He then began walking again. “Can’t believe that was only six years ago… Feels like it’s been a hundred.”

You shouldn’t have been, but part of you was surprised that Caleb knew the way back to your apartment even after all those years. His strides were always even and sure, never once faltering. He waited patiently as you dug around in your purse for your keys and unlocked the door. Pressing it open, you allowed him to trail in after you. He stepped out of his boots and glanced around.

Nothing much had really changed about your apartment. You had the same rug and the same floor sofa. The same thrifted chairs and you still bought bouquets of orchids every week. There were some differences, though slight. Your curtains were different and you kept a few plants in the corner along with your very own telescope. There was a banner of hanging stars and crescents on one wall and in the other sat an automatic night-light that scattered even more stars across your ceiling. There were also a few framed prints hanging on the wall.

Caleb set down your bags on the kitchen floor and straightened to look at a block print of two dogs wearing space suits posed in front of a galaxy with a winking moon and a darting rocket streaking behind them.

“That’s…” he started.

“Belka and Strelka,” you said.

He then turned his attention to the other print framed beside it. A man and a woman, both pale figures and vaguely featureless as they soared in the afterburn of a spaceship heading toward the bright sun against a starry background. The man had one arm extended out toward the cosmos, guiding, and the other reached for the woman who reached with one arm for him with a gesture of longing. Blocky blue lettering was pressed into the bottom.

“What’s this one say,” Caleb asked.

“To the stars,” you translated.

He smiled softly. “You really do love everything to do with the stars, don’t you?”

“They’re my first love,” you said.

He stared at the print for a moment longer and then turned away. “Do you want help putting everything away?”

“No, I’ve got a system,” you answered.

He nodded and ran another hand through his hair. “Alright. I’ll go, then.”

You watched as Caleb sluggishly moved toward your door. He seemed even more dead on his feet just from that simple walk to your home. Before you could think any harder, you blurted:

“Did you eat anything?”

Caleb clearly did not expect you to say anything more to him. It was evident in the way the line of his back drew tense. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “I didn’t, but I’ll be alright. I’ll probably just eat tomorrow, I’m kind of beat.”

You hesitated and watched as he went to go cram his feet back into his boots. He picked up his own grocery bag with little fanfare and dipped his chin to you with a hand on your door.

Don’t feed something that you don’t want to come back, you reminded yourself. But you’d always been bound by kindness.

“Wait,” you blurted suddenly.

His hand stuttered over your doorknob.

You turned around and went to your fridge to pull out a container. You rounded back toward the entrance where Caleb was waiting dutifully. You held out the glass to him.

“Thanks for helping me carry everything,” you said.

“It wasn’t anything,” he dismissed.

You pushed the container into his chest. “Take it. It’s not all that nutritious, but just so you can eat something before you go to bed. Or at least so you have breakfast for tomorrow.”

“What is it,” Caleb asked, lifting the glass to peer inside.

“Honey cakes,” you said. “My mother taught me how to make them the last time I visited. They’re not as good as hers, but they’re palatable.

He smiled at you softly and then tucked the container close to his chest. “Thanks.”

Wringing your hands, you replied, “You’re welcome.”

—

“I know you are busy, but do not forget to call your cousin to tell her ‘congratulations’!”

You nodded idly as you combed through the roots of your plant. You were kneeling on your balcony with a tarp laid out as you tended to your neglected plants, many of them long overdue for a pot change. This was one of the few Saturdays you decided to fully devote toward relaxing instead of checking your emails and trying to get a head start on work. Beside you, your phone was sitting as your mother nagged you on speaker. The rhythm and flow of your mother tongue was soothing to the perpetual homesickness in your chest.

“I won’t,” you replied. “I’ve just been busy. I’ll do it the next chance I get.”

“Right, right. Because you just came back from Amelia’s bachelorette party, yes? I hope you remembered to tell her ‘congratulations’ from me too. That is so exciting, her mother must be so happy she is getting married,” she mused.

You sighed and braced yourself. Here she goes…

“Honestly, when are you getting married? You’re thirty years old now! When I was your age I was already celebrating my tenth anniversary!”

You nodded along even though she couldn’t see you, tuning her out as you nipped some of the bad roots.

“You need to put more effort into meeting people. You’re not getting any younger, if you wait too long it’ll be hard for you to have children. Not even giving birth but raising them. It’s best to do that when you’re young. And it’s not like it should be hard for you, besides. You look just like me so you’re very pretty and you are smart like your father and you have a good job and—”

“Yes, I know,” you said, not even really listening at that point.

She kept up with her lecture for a good half-hour while you finished up with your plants. By the time you were heading inside, her lecture had progressed to her woes about you living so far away—all things you’d heard a thousand times before.

“It’d be best if you married someone nice from home, but I understand that it’s hard to find other people from here where you are. So if you could just find a good person who is willing to move back with you when your father and I get old.”

“Yes, mom,” you hummed, washing your hands thoroughly. You then picked up the sponge in your sink to start the dishes piled in your sink that too had been neglected.

“And make sure whoever you marry knows how to cook! You’re not very good at it so I always worry you’ll starve. And they should know how to peel a pomegranate properly! If they are patient and attentive they will make a good partner.”

You were content to let her talk herself in circles. When you had still lived with her, you always found her to be an annoyance and her ability to talk for hours draining. But being that you were separated from her by thousands of kilometers and had been so for many years, the distance had taught you a few things. You realized that your mother only cared and worried about you deeply, you realized that you missed her voice among the most of all things. It was almost meditative to hear her nagging now.

A short knocking at your door pulled you from the trance. Lifting your head, you waited a minute to confirm you hadn’t imagined the sound. The knocking returned. You wiped your hands on the dish towel and shut the water before opening up your phone to look at the notifications. No one had texted you, thus you shouldn’t have been expecting anyone. Perhaps your landlord had come by to check in on you. He was an elderly man who treated you much like family and often stopped by unannounced to give you fruits.

“And you should also make sure that your partner knows how to—”

You snorted, unsurprised that she was still going. You took your phone with you as you went to your door and looked through the peephole.

It was not your landlord. It was Caleb.

“Mom, just a second,” you said.

“What was that—?”

You opened up the door slightly and peered up at the man standing on the other side. Caleb stood tall and big as ever with a bag hanging from his hand along with a large bouquet of flowers. You stiffened.

“Hey,” he greeted, smiling.

“Hey,” you replied. “What… are you doing here?”

“I just came to return your container,” Caleb answered. He pulled out a glass container from his bag and you frowned.

Eyeing the filled contents, you asked, “What’s the rest of it?”

“It’s rude to return something like this empty,” he said, eyes crinkling. “I made some braised chicken. I would have made pork but I didn’t know if you’d eat it.”

You looked at the flowers wrapped neatly in brown paper and a plain white ribbon. “Uhm…”

“These are for you too,” he said. “I noticed your other ones were wilting last time. You still like orchids, right?”

“I do…” Though you weren’t sure if you should take them.

“Wait, who’s that,” your mother’s voice spoke over the speaker.

Caleb blinked a bit and glanced down at the phone in your hand. You held up your finger to ask for a moment.

“Sorry, mom, I’ll call you back. Someone I know is here.”

“Someone you know? Is it a man? It sounds like it… Oh! Is he single? Wait, wait, wait! I will video-call! Introduce me, my love!”

Your heart jumped. You absolutely could not let her see Caleb standing at your doorstep with food and flowers.

“I-I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you said, turning away from Caleb and curling around your phone protectively while he regarded you with confusion. “You two wouldn’t even be able to understand each other.”

“So translate! Let me see him! Is he good looking?”

“No, he’s ugly,” you blurted, hurriedly tapping at your screen. “Stop trying to video-call!”

“He is definitely handsome if you are hiding him from me,” your mother laughed. “Show him to me!”

A flush curled over your cheeks as you jammed your thumb into the screen, “I’m hanging up!”

“Wait—!”

You cut her off by ending the call with a grave sigh. You squinted as she began trying to call you again and put your phone resolutely on do-not-disturb. Huffing, you covered your face before turning back to Caleb whose brows had twisted together slightly.

“Sorry, was I interrupting,” he asked.

“No, no,” you said, pocketing your phone. You nervously pulled your hair behind your ears and shifted. “That was just my mom. She was just, uhm, reminding me about some things.”

You placed the back of your hand on your warm cheek. Caleb huffed in amusement, eyes twinkling.

“Really? It sounded so intense, I thought you were arguing,” he said. He held the flowers out to you first. “Anyway, here you are.”

You hesitated a bit, slowly taking the bundled stems into your arms. They were admittedly gorgeous, dark purple and speckled, each flower face seeming to gaze up at you. “You shouldn’t have. Really.”

He shrugged, “It wasn’t anything. I saw them on the way here and just thought you’d like them.”

While Caleb had always been a generous person to you, you weren’t quite sure if really didn’t mean anything. A bouquet this full must have been expensive. You pursed your lips briefly and then nodded, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said with a self-satisfied expression. He then handed over the container of food, “And thanks for sending me home with those cakes, they were really good.”

“It wasn’t anything,” you said dismissively. “You didn’t even have to return it to me. I would’ve been fine.”

“I’d never just take something from you without giving back,” he hummed.

You became quiet at that and stared at him. Caleb faltered slightly, realizing the error in his words. He would—for he already had.

“Let me know how you like it.” His voice was a bit softer, nearly hesitant as he pressed the container into your hand.

You took it with a distant, “Thanks.”

A twitch flicked at the hinge of his jaw as his mouth set into a frown. He shifted his weight between his toes and then asked, “How was Amelia’s party? I saw you guys went down to Linkon.”

“She had a good time,” you said, glancing away. “I need to call my mom back. Thanks for coming to drop this off.”

“Right, yeah,” Caleb nodded. “I’ll… see you later then.”

“Yeah,” you nodded, stepping back.

Once you’d locked the door, you placed your back against the wood. You gazed down at your armful of flowers and the glass container over your stomach. It was still warm, you noted. So why did you feel like you were drifting through the frigid vacuum of space?

—

You were sitting with your knees up as you typed away at your laptop with a one-handed, annoyed vigor. A glass of iced tea, half touched as you glared forward into the screen. While you liked your job just fine, you absolutely dreaded all the conferences that came with the title.

As the chief of the Skyhaven Research Institute’s Astrophysics department, you were given the grand task of attending academic conferences where you’d often encounter colleagues in similar positions and fields of study as you. While most of the time it was a pleasant experience, often you’d find yourself put into uncomfortable spots due to your biological disposition. As in: regardless of how scientifically and technologically advanced society was, a patriarchy was unfortunately not something you could dismantle with protocores or spaceships or even revolutionary interstellar research. Or at least it felt that way at the moment.

Sighing, you leaned back into your seat and looked out the window. You were anticipating a meeting with the engineering department and the head of the institute to discuss plans for a new project and a possible grant to fund it. While the head of the institute liked you well enough, the chief of the engineering department did not. You got along with mostly everyone else and even if you may not have liked someone, you weren’t the type to go out of your way to make working with them a miserable experience. But the chief of the engineering department did not feel the same way.

It was a classic mix of prejudice. The chief engineer was an older, established man who went by the name Zhuang Yun. He held traditional values and liked a work hierarchy that reflected his ideal social order. You, a much younger woman hailing from a foreign country but in a position of equal power to his own, did not quite fit into that.

He had not been particularly hostile to you in the beginning. In fact he had been mostly indifferent when the previous chief of astronomy (the professor who had overseen your graduate program and a man similarly situated to Zhuang Yun in age and experience), had retired and named you his succession candidate. At the time, there were many people who had doubted you mostly considering your background and age. Thus he hadn’t stood out too much and you respected him all the same. But then it turned personal. One day, you’d made the fatal mistake of attempting to politely contradict his opinion at a meeting with the board about three months into your promotion and he had seemingly never forgiven you. Now every time you saw that you had a scheduled meeting with Chief Engineer Zhuang, you knew to dread it.

It was never anything overt as a direct verbal insult, rather it was all in the slight. He would cut you off with vindicated questions when you were presenting. If you spoke up during someone else’s opinion, he would turn to the nearest man and ask for his thoughts instead. He frequently addressed you by your given name, which would not have bothered you if he did not address everyone else with their proper title and surname. All of it petty and with the intent to make you feel smaller and less than him. To make matters worse, it was difficult for you to call him out considering his seniority in both position and age without seeming like the rude one. A few of your coworkers had spoken up for you and the head of the institute had also once had a word with Chief Engineer Zhuang. But nothing had changed and you did not expect it to.

Rapping your nails on the table, you watched as a few drops of rain began to fall. It was the thick of typhoon season and so rain seemed to come and go every other day. Being so high up, you got to miss most of the actual storm and caught mostly light showers. Today seemed like it would be especially light.

You set your chin into your hand and leaned onto the armrest while you zoned out into nothing.

“You like this café, don’t you?”

Jolting slightly, you looked up at Caleb standing across the way with a paper cup in hand.

“What are you doing here,” you asked, letting your hand fall.

He held up his cup scrawled with his name and order in response. He then slid into the seat parallel to yours. “I could say the same to you. Shouldn’t you be at the institute?”

“I… I stepped out for a little,” you said. “I have a meeting in a little bit.”

“You don’t think it’s gonna go that well, I’m guessing,” Caleb noted.

You frowned and crossed your arms. Leaning back in your seat, you eyed him over your knees. “What told you that?”

“You,” he said. “When you’re upset, you get that look.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re about to float away. Like you’d rather be anywhere else but earth.”

You glanced down. Had you always been so easy to read?

“Well, it’s not really the outcome I’m worried about. Just the people I’ll have to deal with,” you admitted. “But regardless I’m going to get what I want out of that meeting.”

“Of course. You aren’t the chief astrophysicist for nothing,” he said so earnestly that it struck a chord within you.

You allowed a slight smile onto your face and hummed, “You’re right.”

He smiled back.

“So when do you have to get back?”

“Mmh, not till later. Maybe half an hour. I took the morning off,” you said. “What about you? You don’t have anything going on today?”

“Not really,” he said. “My craft had a lot of damage the last time I went up, so I’m waiting for her to get fixed. I’m mostly just doing conditioning and overseeing drills with my squad right now. It’s nice. Almost like a vacation.”

“Oh,” you said. “You did look like you went through a lot when I saw you that night…”

“Yeah,” Caleb laughed a bit. “It’s been crazy lately. I got caught in the solar wind. It’s totally different than feeling the wind down here. It’s a little scary, to be honest. Flying up there alone in a situation like that, I’d take flying in a hurricane over that any day.”

You listened with interest. “What does it feel like?”

He considered your question. You knew in theory what it would feel like, but you were curious about a first-hand account. Caleb set his arms on the table and tucked his hands into his elbows.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” he admitted. “There’s usually no turbulence because there’s no air current, right? But this one I did feel the ship move a little. It was mostly the system that got messed up since it’s all electronic. My landing was pretty rough. Haven’t made one like that since I was practicing simulations at the academy.”

“Was the ship really that affected? We had a few issues with satellites but we were able to bring everything back up after a couple days,” you said.

He adjusted the chain of his dog tags, long fingers curling around the ball chain idly. “Yeah. I fly a lot closer to the sun than satellites do, so that kind of thing hits my girl harder.”

You crooked a brow. “Your girl?”

Caleb grinned, “Yeah. My girl.”

“You anthropomorphize the fighter jet you use for spacefaring into a woman?” An unwitting snort left your nose.

He only laughed too, the purples in his eyes flashing. “She’s definitely not a guy, I’d be able to tell you that much. She’s too pretty.”

“Oh God,” you said, rolling your eyes.

“What was that?”

“You’re ridiculous,” you told him, unable to keep the simper from cracking over your lips.

He leaned forward, tilting his head such that the soft daylight caught on the sheen of his ash-dark hair and the corners of his lashes. “She takes care of me. Am I supposed to disrespect her when she gets me home safe every time?”

“You’re giving it feelings?”

“Of course she does, she’s sensitive,” Caleb attested. You giggled and quickly hid it behind your hand. Across the way, his eyes took on a look of near satisfaction. He went on, “If you meet Feifei, I hope you won’t say any of that to her face.”

“Feifei? Seriously? You just came up with that.”

“It suits her.”

“Maybe she gave you a hard time because you’d come up with a stupid name like that,” you said, lips quirking to the side. “When we name our probes and stuff, we always give them good names. You could call her something pretty like Xihe. Maybe I’d feel inclined to give her more respect and address her as the Righteous Heavenly Mother of the Ten Suns.”

“Now look who’s anthropomorphizing,” he said, grinning wide.

You lifted your jaw challengingly, “A good name will inspire that sort of reaction. Besides, that’s way better. Xihe and Xia Yizhou, her summer sun.”

“That is a little more poetic than Feifei,” he acquiesced. The light in his irises seemed to dance as they looked at you. “You’re surprisingly good at storytelling.”

“Astrophysicists need to be creative,” you replied with faux haughtiness. “You just stick to flying. No one will fault you for that.”

“Flying takes creativity. It’s an art,” Caleb argued.

“Flying’s more like painting or sculpting,” you said. “Physics is like poetry. It takes a different sort of creativity. Sorry to say, Pilot Xia, but I don’t think poetry is much your strong suit.”

He nodded with a low sound emitting from his closed lips. “Guess not. I’ll leave the poetry to you, Astrophysicist.”

“Chief Astrophysicist,” you cued him.

He grinned again and amended, “Chief Astrophysicist.”

It had been a while since you had really talked to Caleb like this. You forgot just how comfortable his presence could be. By then, you were scarcely thinking of your impending conference and everything you were dreading.

It had been a long time since anyone made you feel so present.

The conversation flowed naturally. You continued your back and forth with him while slowly draining your tea, laptop and meeting long forgotten.

“Did you like the chicken,” he asked.

“I did, thanks,” you nodded. “You really didn’t have to go out of your way to do that. It was a lot too, it took me a while to finish it.”

“I was just thinking you might be more hungry now, since you don’t smoke. I remember you said it killed your appetite.”

You were surprised he remembered that. You’d only mentioned it once, maybe twice.

“Oh, yeah. It did.” You pet at your hair absently, quickly folding your arms again when his eyes followed the movement. “I am eating a lot more now, actually. I should probably be careful and work out more to compensate.”

“That’s good,” Caleb told you. “You need to eat more. Makes me worry about you less.”

You gave him a look of confusion. “What’s there to worry about me?”

“Everything,” he said with a seriousness you weren’t ready for.

You stared at him, mouth parted hollowly with no words to parse. For a long moment, the two of you merely gazed at one another. You unsurely and with hesitance and him with a grave intensity that stoked a burning on your skin.

Before you could think of anything, your attention was stolen by a call of your name. It gave you pause. The inflection stood out, ringing in your ears. It sounded like home.

Across the way, Caleb’s eyes flitted up, darting over your head and his brows knitted. You followed his line of sight, turning in your seat. A gasp burst from your mouth and you stood immediately, a wide grin on your face.

“Oh my god,” you said with delighted laughter bubbling from your mouth.

A man walked over. Tall and handsome and familiar. He smiled back at you as he strode over. You stepped around the chair and the moment he was near enough and threw your arms around his neck to pull him into a tight hug. He reciprocated it easily, folding his arms around your back while you kissed his right cheek, then left, then right again.

“What are you doing here,” you asked in a breathless rush, slipping into your mother tongue like tugging a blanket of warmth over your shoulders.

The man responded to it easily, squeezing your upper arm, “There’s a craft from home that had to make an emergency dock here. I’m here to work on it. I remembered you were in this city. I was actually going to message you but it seems like I found you first.”

“It must be fate,” you mused. “How long have you been here?”

“Only since yesterday. I’ll be here until the end of the week at least, there’s a lot of troubleshooting to be done. The solar storms are out of control,” he sighed.

“Oh, I know. I was actually just thinking about that and I have a meeting about it later today, we’ve been tracking them—”

A sharp scuff of a shoe across linoleum caught both of your attentions. You glanced over at Caleb. He gave you a smile, though you could see there was a twinge of something in his eyes. Sliding him a questioning brow, you then realized you’d completely ignored him.

“Oh, geez, sorry Caleb. This is—”

“Boyfriend,” the man in front of you cut in, tilting his head curiously.

Even after all these years in Skyhaven, you had a knee-jerk reaction to the sound of your native language. You looked back at your friend and found him glancing at Caleb with a slight pause. His question finally caught up to you and you flushed immediately at the implication. You laughed nervously, eyes falling to the side shyly as you smoothed down your hair and cleared your throat.

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.”

The man hummed, lips twitching, “You know your mom is gonna be over the moon to hear you’ve got a boyfriend up here.”

“He’s not, really. He’s… He’s a friend,” you settled on with a wince.

“I see,” he said, accepting. He grinned at you. “Well, don’t let me take up your time. I just came for the coffee. I should get back. Lots of work to do.”

“Right, right. I’ve got to get back soon too,” you said.

You stood on your toes to kiss his cheeks again and hug him. Before you could pull away, however, he grasped your hands and kissed over each set of knuckles. He slid his gaze over to Caleb once more with an amused look and then stepped back.

“I’ll message you; let’s get dinner sometime,” he said. The only sentence he spoke that was not in your shared language. With one final glance toward Caleb, he turned away with evident humor playing to himself and waved to you.

You gave him an odd look. You hadn’t realized he even spoke another language. After watching him leave, you slowly lowered yourself back into your seat and resumed your attention to Caleb. You startled.

The dark glower on his face was something you’d never seen before. His eyes were narrow and burning cold. Threatening with drawn brows and a jaw so set it resembled stone. You were almost nervous to speak.

“Caleb,” you asked hesitantly. You folded your hands in your lap and pressed your fingers together.

He snapped his gaze back and for a second all his cold fury was directed at you. Then it was gone in an instant. He sat further back, spreading out in a casual way. His tone was both deceptively light but sharp as a wire as he asked, “Who was that?”

“Uhm, he’s an old classmate,” you started, feeling oddly as though you needed to explain yourself. “He’s an engineer; we’re from the same town and we had a lot of the same classes in undergrad. I haven’t seen him since I moved here.”

Caleb’s fist tightened over the table though nothing about his face or voice betrayed anything. “You seemed really happy to see him. Were you close?”

“Pretty close, yeah,” you confirmed. “We hung out a lot. He’s a great guy and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I can’t believe he’s here right now, actually. It’s really been forever. We message sometimes but last I heard he was working at the cosmodrome.”

“That so,” Caleb said.

You weren’t quite sure what to do with the strange and sudden mood, so you continued with the topic in hopes to ignore it.

“Yeah, he moved all the way across the country to do what he does, so he’s dedicated. It’s a desert and there’s really nothing out there. What’s even more impressive is that his wife puts up with all of that.”

At this, Caleb paused. “Wife?”

“Yes. I’m friends with her too. We all did our undergrads together. She went into teaching, I think.”

Caleb tilted his head, brows crooking. “Oh.”

“Sorry, I should’ve introduced you,” you said. “I think he was in a rush, though.”

“No, it’s fine,” Caleb assured. He thought for a moment and shifted again. “Is that how you greet each other normally?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just… very warmly,” he noted.

“Oh,” you murmured. You nodded. “Yes. I guess we’re pretty liberal with touching when it comes to greeting people back home… Well, some of us. Depends on your religion. But the both of us have known each other since we were kids so we’re especially comfortable.”

“I see,” he said. Once more, he said, “You seemed really happy to see him.”

“I mean, I hadn’t seen him in a really long time,” you explained.

He pulled his fist from the table and nodded. Suddenly, a brilliant smile took over his face that was so blinding you nearly forgot what you were saying.

“It’s probably time for you to head over to the institute, yeah?”

You checked the time and startled. “Oh yeah, you’re right.”

Immediately, you stood and began packing your things into your work satchel. Just as you were about to pull it on, Caleb reached across the way and slung it over his shoulder. You blinked.

“I’ll walk you,” he said.

“Oh, thank you, but you really don’t have to,” you tried to protest.

“I want to,” he told you.

You supposed you couldn’t say much to that.

The walk to the institute was not a long one by any means. It took maybe fifteen minutes, but it felt like it stretched over an hour.

Though Caleb kept a steady conversation, you were partly inclined to think that something was amiss. He did not seem like he was exactly stewing, but there was a contemplation in his face that implied he might be scheming. The distinct feeling that he was up to no good made you hesitate.

You reached the steps leading up to the building where you took your satchel and hauled it over the straps of your purse.

“Thank you for walking me,” you said. You took a backward step onto the stairs and gave him a polite tip of your chin. “And thanks for catching my bill.”

“Wasn’t anything,” he told you.

You hesitated and then said, “Right, well, I’ll go in now. Bye.”

You went to turn away, only to be caught by your wrist. Facing Caleb again, you were about to ask him what was wrong when he grasped your hands and tugged them up. He stared into you as he lowered himself to your knuckles, kissing each hand tenderly. You froze.

“I’ll see you later,” he murmured, brushing his lips over your skin.

Your cheeks warmed over slightly despite the fact that the gesture shouldn’t have meant anything at all. Many other people had greeted and bid you farewell like that. Caleb was just emulating what he’d seen, it was natural. Right?

“Right,” you whispered, stunned and breathless.

He squeezed your fingers and then pulled away with a smile. You took the next step and then quickly walked up the rest of the way, unable to do much but pretend as though you weren’t so flustered.

—

Autumn had come in with a chill. You grew increasingly busy with work as Amelia took more and more time off to plan her wedding, leaving you to cover the gaps she left. You did not mind knowing she would do the same thing for you if ever in a similar position. However, it did leave you with little free-time. And the little free-time you had was also often spent with Amelia as she went on the hunt for her dress.

She had made up her mind about having the perfect western wedding dress to fulfill her childhood fantasy. The only thing was that there were no bridal stores up in Skyhaven and so you found yourself commuting with her down to Linkon via the Express to scour the city.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” she declared to you one day.

You privately wished she would know it soon.

In the aftermath of one such day, you found yourself up to your eyes in papers and data, utterly oblivious to the rest of the world. You had stowed away in your office for a chance to be alone with your plexi-board and calculator while you attempted to make sense of all the compiled information your team had provided. You aimed to finalize your grant proposal and prove that what you wanted to research was worth the investment. Scientific research, after all, was seldom funded through the mere goodness of someone’s heart.

You didn’t realize how much of the day had gone by until you were interrupted by a sharp knock on your door.

Snapping your head, you saw Halley—one of your grad students—lingering in the doorframe.

“Uh, sorry chief. Are you busy,” he asked.

“I’m just working on the same thing,” you said, turning back to the plexi-board. You stepped onto the top-rung of your ladder to write out a formula. “Is it time for you to head out? You can go, I don’t have anything for you.”

“Uhm, right. I was going to, but reception sent me back up here to talk because you weren’t answering the phone. There’s someone here to see you,” he explained.

“Ok,” you mumbled, barely paying attention.

A beat of silence passed before Halley cleared his throat and said your name again. This time, you pulled away and looked over.

“I’m sorry, what,” you said.

“There’s someone here to see you,” he repeated.

Your brows furrowed.

You walked with Halley back down to the lobby where you found Caleb waiting patiently by the desk. He appeared to hold a polite conversation with the old man perched on a stool near the doors who served as night security.

“What squad do you fly for?”

“I captain for the Coreburn Warden Unit,” Caleb answered dutifully.

The man nodded widely, “I see. You’ve gotta be a fast flyer, then. I was captain for Hyperion back in my day.”

“You’ve gotta be pretty fast yourself, then.”

“I was, but we didn’t have all that fancy tech you guys got these days. We did it all analog with nuclear power. I hear those third-gen spacebirds you guys fly now’re haulin’ half-way to light speed with the protocores that charge ‘em.”

“They’re definitely faster, but I’m sure you’d catch on quick,” Caleb said with that charming grin that caused the old man to stroke his chin approvingly.

“Caleb,” you called in question, halting just before them.

He looked over, eyes crinkling. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here,” you asked, walking over.

“I came to pick you up,” he said.

You gave him a once over. He appeared to be freshly showered, hair just slightly damp. He was dressed typically with a Henley, jacket, jeans, and boots. He had his crossbody strapped to his back, apparently prepared to go out. You were not.

After a beat, you turned to Halley and patted his back, “You can head out now. I’ll see you on Monday?”

“Uhm, no, I have class. But I’ll be in on Tuesday in the afternoon,” he said, grasping his backpack straps.

“Sounds good,” you said. “Get home safe.”

“Will do, chief,” Halley said. He gave one glance to Caleb before ducking out through the door.

You looked at the expectant man before you and then to the old security guard who had raised his thick overgrown brows. You had known him since you were a grad student yourself and he treated you much like a niece. He gestured to Caleb with his eyes and expressed a curiosity, questions clearly rising. He seemed to be asking if he should turn him away for you.

“Sorry I just showed up,” Caleb said. “You weren’t answering your phone.”

“I’ve been busy,” you told him. “Why are you here, even? What do you mean you’re picking me up?”

Caleb smiled and swung his bag to the front so he could unzip the pocket and pull out two narrow slips of paper. “One of my airmen bought tickets to that light gallery installation downtown. He ended up getting sick so he gave them to me as a favor. I thought it’d be fun to go with you.”

“Oh,” you uttered, blinking. “I…”

“They’re only good for today,” he told you, flashing the date printed in blocky ink. “But if you’re busy, it’s cool. Just thought I’d ask.”

You hesitated. Sonam had mentioned to you that she’d been dying to go, but that tickets sold out almost immediately. Apparently it was a trendy thing as you’d seen several posts about it on your for-you page. It seemed intriguing, but you didn’t think it’d be something you would get to attend. But then here Caleb was with two tickets conveniently in hand.

“Oh,” you said again. You contemplated your options before giving in with a nod. “Uhm, ok. Yeah. Just… Here.”

You reached up to pull your lanyard off and handed it over to him.

“Put this on,” you instructed. You then turned to the security guard and gave him an apologetic look, “Sorry for the trouble, Lao Guan. I’ll take him with me.”

He gave a flippant half-shrug before addressing Caleb with a stern look. “Plan it better next time, young man, alright?”

“Yessir,” Caleb said, deferent. “Thank you.”

“And next time answer your phone and don’t keep your boyfriend waiting, chief,” the man instructed you.

A rush of heat flooded your face as you tried to explain, “He isn’t— We’re just—”

He barely listened, shoo-ing your away with a bored wave.

Sighing, you tugged Caleb along by the arm as you headed for the elevators, pointedly avoiding his gaze.

You took him up to your office on the eighth floor. Caleb stepped inside and glanced around. He let out a low whistle at the sight of your floor-to-ceiling plexi-board nearly entirely covered with numbers and mathematical notation.

“Shit, that’s a lot of math,” he said.

“I’m still working on the proposal for that grant,” you said, organizing a few papers.

“How do you even keep track of this,” Caleb asked, walking over to take a closer look at your work. “Are you modeling cold dark matter ratios?”

“I am,” you said, vaguely impressed. “You can tell?”

“Only that much,” he said. “I’m no physicist, but some of the basic concepts I get. I had to study them when I… when I was transferred out.”

You tilted your head. “Really? Normally that kind of stuff doesn’t concern near-space combat. That’s the kind of thing you’d be concerned with if you were getting pretty far into navigating the Deepspace tunnel. I thought the DAA didn’t have jurisdiction past one AU. Everything beyond that falls under the Farspace Fleets territory.”

It was his turn to regard you with surprise. “How do you know that?”

“We work with the DAA a lot,” you explained, adjusting your hair to pull the strap of your purse on. “And I’ve had to meet with some people from the Farspace Fleet on occasion for consultation purposes.”

He seemed to still. His posture went rigid and he grasped his right shoulder absently, squeezing it slightly. “You have?”

“Yeah.” You rounded your desk and nodded to your board. “They’ve asked me to personally calculate things for them before. It’s always a pain. They’re so classified that usually they only give me so much information. I don’t know why, even. They have a lot more resources than we do and their own astrophysics team.” You hummed. “Their chief astrophysicist offered me a position, actually.”

He stepped in front of you, face paling slightly. His voice was grave and strained as he demanded to know:

“When was that? What did you say?”

You leaned back with a slight frown, wary as he loomed over with an alarmingly serious expression on his face.

“Maybe two years ago. Around the time I’d just been promoted. Obviously I said ‘no’.” You shifted. “I mean, it would have been a good opportunity and they were offering a lot of money. You know me, though. They aren’t concerned much with stars. Also they don’t share their information. I don’t believe in that. Knowledge is an equalizer. I like knowing my research is going to be available to average people.”

You tilted your head a bit.

“Besides,” you went on, “I just had a gut feeling that I didn’t want anything to do with that. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to a part of the Fleet was just… off. Like, something just wasn’t right. They acted cultish, almost. I made it clear I wasn’t interested so they dropped it—”

You were cut off when Caleb grabbed and hauled you into his chest. His arms wound around your shoulders tightly as he squeezed you almost tight enough to hurt.

“C-Caleb,” you stuttered, thrown off by the sudden hug.

His left hand wound into the hair at the back of your head, pressing you close as he curled around you almost protectively. His right arm bracketed your back, distinctly colder than the rest of him. He bowed his head forward and buried his nose into your hair, breathing you in and letting out a ragged sigh.

Beneath his ribs, you could hear the pounding of his heart.

“Caleb,” you said again. “What…?”

“That’s good,” he choked out, folding around you like he wanted to hide you from all the world. “That’s good.”

“What’s good?” You went to pull away so you could get a look at his face, only to stop.

He was shaking.

“Caleb,” you repeated, softer this time.

“It’s—It’s good that you said ‘no’,” he rasped. “It’s— I’m— I’m… proud. I’m proud that you chose to pursue your passion instead of money like that.”

Your brows furrowed deeply. The tone of his voice sat strangely in your ears, ringing dissonantly. You were quite sure that hadn’t been what he really wanted to say. Slowly, another fractal of the mystery shrouding Caleb clicked into place. A note of fear settled in your chest. Not for the first time, you wondered what had really happened in those six years he’d been gone.

Slowly, you lifted your arms to return the hug and smoothed your palm up and down his back. He melted over you.

“Thanks,” you said after a beat, not quite sure what else to parse. “But you shouldn’t hug me so tight, my makeup is going to stain your jacket.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s fine. You’re fine. You’re fine. I have you, you’re fine.”

He said it as though he weren’t reassuring you, but himself. A self-soothing reflex as if he almost lost something precious.

The two of you eventually began making your way downtown to make it to the light showing before it closed. However, you noticed that Caleb was suddenly behaving strangely.

He was close. Too close, almost. On the shuttle, he stood so close to you that his side was completely melded against yours. Not to mention his left hand that he kept resolutely on your person at all times. On your knee, around the back of your neck, on your shoulder, tugging on your jacket, smoothed across your lower back. You tried to move away, but he moved with you, chasing you into the corner of the seat and through the street and up to the ticket booth of the convention center.

You wanted to tell him to back off or to give you room at first, but along the way you found you didn’t quite mind his ever-presence. It was nostalgic in a way—grounding.

You finally made it into the light gallery and you found your breath taken from you. The room was entirely dark save for hundreds of dim lights hung and scattered and reflecting across the infinity-mirrors that covered the entire ceiling, floor, and all the walls. You stepped forward, eyes wide with Caleb trailing behind.

“Oh my God,” you whispered. “Oh my God.”

“Cool, huh,” Caleb noted.

“It’s so beautiful.”

“What was that,” he asked.

“They look like stars.” Your voice was thin and weak with your awe as you slowly turned around.  To you, it looked like being in the dilated macrocosm of all that you had ever dedicated yourself to studying. It looked like you were standing among the stars.

“They do,” Caleb said. “Kinda looks like it does when I’m flying.”

You stepped forward, entranced as you lost yourself in the illusion. Your heart was pounding. You felt a thick emotion abounding within your chest. It was all fake, you knew. All of it a trick of carefully arranged lights and mirrors—and yet it was everything.

“Caleb,” you whispered, voice thick.

“Yeah?”

You finally faced him. He inhaled sharply at the sight of the tears flowing down your cheeks, multicolored with all the lights.

“Are—Are you ok,” he asked, brushing your hair back. “Why are you crying?”

You were so overcome with thick emotions abound and more grand than you could ever describe. You didn’t sob, you didn’t gasp, but the tears streamed down your face in ceaseless silver rivers, twinkling like the Milky Way as they fell.

“I’ve had dreams just like this,” you told him. “Where I float and walk through space and see all the stars and galaxies.”

You reached up to pull his hand from your hair, folding it tightly between your own and pulling it to your chest. His knuckles grazed your sternum, your heart.

“This is heaven,” you declared, soft and filled with all the joy and sorrow and ecstasy and painful misery of divine rapture.

Gazing into his eyes like nebulas, you watched as the lights made it seem as though stars were being born and bursting right in the pigmented strands of his irises. Gas clouds consolidated and went supernova, full cycles of stellar evolution. He was so beautiful. Everything in that tiny, microscopic, simulacrum of the vast and daunting and haunting universe was beautiful to you.

You looked aside, taking in the room once more as the tears came in droves.

“This is heaven,” you repeated.

He did not once take his gaze away from you. Quietly, he came to agree with wonder, “Yeah. It is.”

The two of you stayed until you were asked to leave, walking hand in hand through the cosmos. Belatedly, you’d realize that the entire time you had felt weightless. If only it could have lasted for eternity…

Your comeback to earth was a quiet one. It was late by then, the moon had rolled far across the sky and you sat on a bench waiting for the last run of the shuttle. Caleb had insisted on seeing you home and so the two of you were sitting together, thighs pressed together. You had clasped your hands in your lap and you could feel the arm Caleb had stretched behind your back.

“How are you getting home,” you asked.

“I can probably catch a cab or something,” he said. “If not I’ll walk home.”

“It’s really far from my apartment to base,” you frowned. “And it’s late. You won’t get home till… What? Two?”

“I don’t live on base anymore,” Caleb said. “I have an apartment that’s a bit closer.”

“But not close,” you deduced. “You should just head home now. If you wait a bit after, there should be a shuttle route that takes you directly.”

“No, I want to make sure you get home safe. I don’t mind.”

You gave him a wan look that he merely smiled at. Knocking your ankles together a few times, you wondered why he had to be so insistent.

“But aren’t you tired? You had conditioning today, didn’t you? Amelia mentioned it today,” you said.

“I did, but I’m alright,” he tried to assure.

You huffed. “Why do you have to be so difficult about things like this?”

He frowned slightly. “I just need to make sure you’re safe.”

“We live in Skyhaven,” you told him. “Crime rates here are the lowest in the country.”

“Still, you don’t know what could happen.” He implored you with a pleading expression. “Just let me do this for you.”

You bit into your lip before glancing away. “If you’re going to be like that, just crash at my place tonight.”

The shuttle did not keep you waiting much longer. As a pair, you made two out of the five stragglers inside. It took some twenty minutes to reach your stop.

It was just past eleven when you opened the door to your apartment and allowed Caleb inside.

“Thanks for having me,” he said, stepping on the heels of his boots to take them off.

“You’re so stubborn,” you muttered, going over to set your bag on the floor near your counter.

Caleb followed you in and looked around. The only thing different in the kitchen from the last time he’d been there was the flower arrangement. You had gotten a bunch of stargazer lilies. Bigger and a little more bold than you usually preferred, but they had made you happy in the moment. They were half wilted by now and due for a change.

“I should have bought you flowers,” Caleb said, turning the vase slightly. A petal from one of the lilies fell.

“You don’t need to buy me flowers,” you said.

“I know.”

He then glanced toward your living room. There too was a difference.

“What happened to your sofa?”

“Oh, yeah. Song Ran came over with her baby last weekend. We had an accident. I tried to clean it but it was kind of beyond saving. I liked it a lot too. I’ve been trying to find one like it,” you sighed. “So you can take my bed.”

His brows furrowed, “And you’re gonna sleep on the floor?”

“Well, I’m not making you sleep on the floor.”

He shook his head. “I’ve slept on worse. I’m not taking your bed.”

“Pilot Xia, you are not sleeping on my floor,” you set your hands on your hips.

He challenged you right back by addressing you by your full work title. “I am not letting you sleep on the floor in your own home.”

Another twenty minutes later, you found yourself tentatively lying shoulder to shoulder with Caleb on your bed like something straight out of a rom-com.

“This is so dumb,” you mumbled.

“I can take the floor—”

“Just go to sleep already,” you said, turning onto your side. “You’re annoying me.”

He laughed, “When am I not?”

“That’s a really good question,” you said, pulling the blanket up to your chin. “Please work on that, Pilot Xia.”

He made a soft noise from the back of his throat. “It’s cute when you call me that.”

You blinked into the inky blackness of your room. “What?”

“Nothing,” he murmured. He reached out and picked up a lock of your hair, twirling it around his finger. Quietly, he told you, “I had a good time with you tonight.”

You turned your face into the pillow and nodded, “I did too. Thanks for taking me… It really was everything.”

“I’m glad,” he said.

“Tell your airman I said ‘thank you’ too.”

“Yeah, I will,” he whispered.

The room became quiet. You closed your eyes and listened to the soft drone of your thermostat and the slow evening of Caleb’s breaths. His fingers stilled in your hair and you came to believe he’d fallen asleep until he said your name.

“Yeah?”

“You really said ‘no’ to the Fleet, right?”

You shifted slightly, tucking an arm under your pillow. “You’re still on that? I said ‘no’. Why would I lie about that?”

“Nothing,” he said again. You heard him swallow and breathe in slightly as if to say something. In the end, not a word more left his mouth…

You fell asleep not long after. It was a pleasant, dreamless sleep that took you swiftly to darkness. Though it lasted only a few hours.

You woke up to something wet blooming on your shoulder. Furrowing your brows, you opened your eyes and stared forward as you tried to orient yourself within the world. You were sleeping on your side as usual. What was unusual was the feeling of something wrapped around your waist and draped over your back. And the sound…

“Caleb,” you whispered tiredly, turning over slightly. You stilled.

He was crying.

He seemed like he was asleep, but his dark brows were knitted and tears were flowing down his cheeks, seeping into his dense lashes and your shirt where he had his face pressed into you. He made short, gasping sounds as if he were out of breath and his arms were like iron around your middle. He was nearly crushing you, like if he eased by a millimeter you’d slip away from him.

“Caleb?” You shifted to face him. You swiped away some of the wetness from his face and shook him. “Caleb, wake up…”

He roused at the sound of your voice, eyes blinking open and causing more tears to run down. You brushed them away. He was a pretty crier, you thought.

“Caleb,” you said again, voice sweet and gentle. You were still not quite awake all the way. You looked at him in concern, “What’s wrong?”

He focused on you with a watery and widened gaze, like he couldn’t believe you were real. “I…”

“You’re crying,” you murmured, holding his face.

Caleb swallowed, throat bobbing as he stared at you. The tears made the violets of his eyes shimmer. He let out a ragged breath. “I was… dreaming.”

“What about,” you asked.

“You,” he said, leaning forward to press his face into your breast. He hugged you tight. “That you were gone.”

You started to come to fuller consciousness. Confused, you said, “But I’m right here.”

“Are you,” he asked. “Because every time I look at you…”

You debated for a moment before sliding your hands into his hair and bringing him closer. “I’m here right now…”

He was silent. Then he nodded, “Ok.”

He could work with now.

Slowly, the two of you eased back to slumber. Both your hearts were now able to rest now that you both had cried.

—

The morning came swiftly.

You woke this time alone and on your back, an arm extended into the empty spot at your side. Lids fluttering, you looked around your room cast in the blue-grey light of morning as everything from the previous night came back to you. Had it all been a dream? It certainly felt like it.

Pushing yourself up, you rubbed at your face and then slid your feet onto the cold hardwood, wrinkling your nose at the sting. You remained there for a moment as your consciousness belatedly aligned with your body. Once it did, you realized there were sounds coming from your kitchen as if someone were moving around.

Was it not a dream?

Rising, you stood and walked out though the hall and further toward the bathroom so you could brush your teeth and wash your face. Following, you stepped out into the living-dining area where you found Caleb standing in your kitchen. You observed him for a beat, looking for any signs of distress but he seemed utterly fine. More than fine, if the humming and the happy expression on his face was anything to go by. He turned to you and your haggard appearance and smiled wider.

“Coffee,” he asked.

“Please,” you muttered, walking over to the counter and sliding onto the bar stool as you put your face in your hands. “What time is it…?”

“Seven-forty,” he answered.

“Ugh,” you groaned.

He laughed at you. “Still not a morning person?”

“Maybe in the next life,” you said.

He set down a mug in front of you and at the clatter you peeled your face from your palms. Your brows furrowed. “What happened to your hands?”

Caleb glanced down. His pale fingers were stained with something dark and red—like blood. He then smiled and reached over to pick up a glass container. He set that in front of you too. You blinked. A bowl filled to the brim with dark red arils like a hundred thousand miniature hearts all picked and bleeding for you.

“What is this,” you asked, looking up.

“I saw you had them on the counter,” Caleb said, gesturing to your now empty fruit bowl. “Just figured I’d peel them for you.”

Two days ago, you had been doing your grocery shopping and saw that there were pomegranates. Pomegranate season came much earlier in this country than you were used to, thus it tended to catch you by surprise. You had bought three of them and knew they’d likely be the last you’d get for a while. As it happened, with all your focus at work you hadn’t found the time to eat them.

And they should know how to peel a pomegranate properly!

You stared.

Peeling an orange was one thing, peeling an apple was another, but peeling a pomegranate… That was a dedicated labor of love. It took time, no matter how good you were at it. To score the skin, to break it open, to peel the membrane, to pick out all the arils.

You glanced at the stains on his hands again. He hadn’t used a spoon to dislodge them, he’d gone in with his fingers to pick out every last seed for you. No shortcuts, three whole pomegranates carefully and meticulously peeled for you.

“Thank you,” you said, marveling.

“They’re your favorite, right?” He rounded the counter to slide into the spot beside you, tugging the other stool away for room.

You nodded. “My mom used to buy a dozen of them. My brother and I would sit on the ground and peel them all for our family. We’d have them after dinner with our tea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They mean fertility and renewal, where I’m from,” you found yourself saying. “They also mean love.”

He smiled, eyes crinkling. “Perfect.”

You swallowed. “What do you mean by that?”

Caleb reached out and smoothed down an errant strand of your hair. Softly, achingly. “You know.”

Tilting your face up toward him, you exhaled shakily. “Caleb…”

He set his hand on the counter and one on the back of your chair, leaning down. Your heart began to beat faster. His eyes flickered down to your lips before rising again. You swallowed, unsure what to do. Caleb seemed to take your not moving away as an invitation. Without missing a beat, he kissed you.

His lips were warm and dry and soft—just as you remembered. He tasted like toothpaste and honey toast. You were frozen, trembling as his hands slid over you. One curled into the nape of your neck and the other into your hair, tugging you back by the roots so he could cover you. Caleb’s mouth moved slowly, coaxing you into a response. When you allowed your lips to part, he pulled you closer.

You were helpless. You couldn’t stop him nor yourself. Like it was coded into you, ingrained in your DNA, you responded to him. Hands slid over his chest, fisting the fabric of his t-shirt. You opened your mouth to him, let him invade your senses. When he stepped closer, your thighs twitched around his hips, allowing him flush to you.

You were melting.

He kissed you deeply, tongue sliding against yours. He fisted your hair and drew you up before sliding his mouth along your jaw.

“Ah,” you gasped, jolting as his teeth found your neck.

He kissed and sucked and bit, trailing along the lines of your throat. One of his hands slid down, squeezing into your soft thigh before rising back up to your hip. His fingers slid under your shirt and pressed into your waist, caressing the curve of your body. He then grasped your breast, squeezing and tracing the edge of your bra.

“Caleb,” you whimpered out between kisses.

He groaned, “I missed hearing you say my name like that… I missed you so much.”

“I— ah,” you shut your eyes. “I didn’t go anywhere. You’re the one who left…”

“Yeah,” he murmured into your quivering skin. “So why do I always feel like you’re about to float away…?”

Your breath hitched as he nibbled on your ear. He grabbed you, hauled you up to place you on the counter so you’d be at an even level.

He drew you into another kiss, insistent and urgent as he took, took, took you. It felt as though he were trying to swallow down everything you were, an energy transfer in a binary system where he’d leave nothing left of you at the end of it. You made a noise when he leaned forward, one hand splaying across the counter while the other cradled your nape. He pressed his body so close that you were pushed backward and had to wrap your legs around his waist just to stay upright.

Caleb breathed your name and grabbed your thighs to tug you flush against him. He said it again and again like he was using it as his act of contrition.

You struggled to keep up against his sheer passion. So overwhelming you thought he’d soon draw the life from your lungs. Your mouth was buzzing from how hard he was kissing you and you winced at how tight his hands gripped your flesh. It felt like he was going to crush you.

“C-Caleb,” you managed, pulling away. “Wait a second—”

“No,” he said, closing his palms into you even tighter.

Your brows furrowed at that. He pulled you impossibly closer and something about it caused the awful feeling of doubt crawled into you like a rat burrowing its way down your throat and into your chest. You realized if you didn’t push him away now, he’d take everything from you. A small part of you wanted him to take everything. You wanted to be taken and held down and grounded. To find footing in the wide chasm of the cosmos where gravity was absent more than it was present. But another, bigger part of you was terrified.

All of a sudden, you couldn’t bear to be near him any longer.

You shoved him back in an abrupt move and jumped off the counter, stumbling out of the cage of his arms. Caleb looked at you, seemingly confused. He then leaned forward.

“Are you—”

“You should go,” you said, voice hollow and shaken.

His eyes widened. “What?”

You shook your head, catching yourself on a stool as you tried to regain footing on your gelatinous legs. Shakily, you reiterated, “I need you to go.”

He slid a hand over the small of your back which you promptly slapped away. He stopped and stared at you utterly lost. Caleb murmured your name, a small and pleading sound.

“We’re not doing this again,” you said, waving your hand in the space between you. Gathering your wits, you quickly rounded the counter to put distance. “That was a mistake.”

He could not have looked more hurt at your words. “It wasn’t.”

“It was,” you told him firmly. “It—It is.”

Caleb’s expression folded into one of self-frustration and regret.

“Wait, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I should have— Please. Can we just— just talk?”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” you sniped, furiously smoothing down your mussed hair. “I don’t want to do this again. You don’t get it, Caleb. I’m not— Not again. I can’t do this again. We said we were going to be friends, not—not this.”

“Please,” he said, grasping at your arms. “I’m sorry. I— I shouldn’t have just done that. I should have asked—”

“You’re being cruel,” you whispered, shoving him again and backing away. “You don’t— Not again. I can’t do this again.”

“Cruel?” He had never seemed so lost. “What do you mean?”

“You’re doing it again,” you told him. “You’ve done this before. This is how you break me. Every time, you do it like this.”

“Break you,” he echoed. “I’d never—”

“You did. You’ve done it twice and I’m not going to let you do it to me a third time.” You scrambled into the kitchen, fearful as he followed.

“That was before,” Caleb said, pleading your name. “It’s different this time. I’m different. I was young and dumb then. But now—”

You shut your eyes and covered your ears childishly. “It’s not! I don’t trust you! Every time I do, I get hurt. You pull me in and then you shove me away at the last minute—”

“You’re doing the same thing,” he scoffed. He grabbed your wrists and pulled them away from your head. “These past months, that’s all you’ve been doing. You let me in, you let me close, and then you just push me away when I get too near. Don’t you get it? I’m right here and I’m here for you.”

“No, you’re not,” you snapped. “I’m not falling for this again. You’re not here on this earth for anyone but her.”

Caleb blinked several times, processing what you’d said. “Are you—? Who are you talking about?”

You managed to wrench one arm away, but his cold right hand kept your other wrist in a tight, shackle-like grip.

“I need you to leave, Caleb. Let me go and leave,” you begged.

“Don’t ask that of me,” he begged right back. “I can’t do that.”

“What do you mean you ‘can’t’? Just let me go,” you snarled, trying to pull away from him but his grip was too strong—too tight even. You winced at the pressure of his hold. You thought your bones might break if he held you any tighter.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. But every time I… I just can’t let you go. I want you, I want everything you are, I want you to look at me, I want to be the only thing you look at—”

“Stop saying things like that! I’m not a fucking thing that you can own, Caleb,” you said hotly. You snatched his forearm and tried to pull it away from your left wrist where his grip was still unfailing and bruising. “Now let go.”

His brows furrowed and turned up while the bridge of his nose scrunched like he was in pain. “Just let me talk! Please.”

“Let. Go.” You glared. “You’re hurting me.”

He bit his lips together and looked down at the white knuckled leverage he had on your forearm—tiny in his hold. Just barely, he eased and you ripped your arm away in a second, holding it with a wince. His expression quickly shifted into one of guilt and blooming horror.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, near desperate. “I’m sorry. Are you ok? I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t care,” you yelled. You panted, voice growing quiet. “You hurt me one more time, Caleb, and I will make sure you don’t ever see me again. Don’t you get it? All you ever do is hurt me.”

He flinched with his bones. He said your name pleadingly. You met his gaze, serious and every word dripping with a brutal honesty as you said:

“You make me want to die.”

He was forced into silence. Blood drained from his face and left him white as a ghost. He might have been one already, your words had just stabbed him in the chest.

“Leave me alone, Caleb. I mean it. Now get out of my house,” you said, turning away. You couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore.

He lingered in front of you, utterly broken for several minutes. You thought if you looked at him long enough, you might stop meaning it. When you did not acknowledge him once, he slowly stepped away and grabbed his things. The door clicked shut behind him and you let out a gasping breath you didn’t know you were holding.

He made you feel like you were blurring. You didn’t know who you were anymore.

—

You did not speak to Caleb for a month. The first week after you had kicked him out of your apartment, he called you incessantly. Morning, noon, and night, your phone was constantly ringing and your notifications blew up with texts and messages on your socials. All of it was just his begging. He begged to see you, to talk to you. It was a little frightening to see how adamant he was on trying to contact you, but it was more frightening to know how little it had taken for you to fall in love with him all over again.

As a scientist, you liked to think of yourself as a mostly rational person. While you were certainly an emotional person, you were still functional and able to balance your heart with your head. But then Caleb came along and wrecked every semblance of rationality you held.

There was just something between the two of you that felt almost cosmically doomed. Like there was no possibility in any iteration of your life where you could escape him. Like your existence was tethered to his. As if you were destined to keep meeting him and meeting him and falling in love hard and fast each and every time. For that was the painful, awful, aching truth of everything—you had always loved him.

You had loved him when you were twenty-two from that day he’d lit your cigarette and listened to your grief, silent and ready to bear it with you. You had loved him when you were twenty-three, when you were running away from parties and he’d chased after you and kept you warm and saw you home. You had loved him at twenty-four when he disappeared off the face of the earth and left you waiting for any sort of sign that he was still out there, somewhere—anywhere. You had loved him at twenty-six when you grieved him too, accepted the fact that you’d never see him again but also the fact that there had indeed been someone in all the wide, lonely world who was capable of seeing you and accepting you and making you feel like you were right where you needed to be. You had loved him at twenty-eight, fondly and tenderly for those small moments of joy he’d given you in those short years you had together. And now you loved him at thirty.

You loved him at thirty when he laughed at the prospect of his own death like it were nothing but a joke. You loved him at thirty when he told you that life looked pretty on you. When he showed up at your work just to steal you away for a movie he thought you would like. When he remembered what kinds of flowers and cigarettes you liked from years ago. When he kissed your hands and called you a poet. When he whisked you away to bring your biggest, most far off and impossible dream to life. When he peeled those pomegranates for you. When he had kissed you like it was the only thing he was made for. You loved him at thirty. You loved him more than you’d ever loved him before at thirty.

And that was terrifying to you.

Despite your urge to answer him, to let him close once more, to see if he really meant what he was saying this time—you held firm and did not respond to anything. After two weeks, the messages stopped completely.

—

“You’re doing math again,” Amelia noted, waltzing into your office as if it were her own. She peered up at you from where you were standing on your ladder, etching dark numbers to fit along the edge of your board.

“I do math every day,” you replied, pausing to look at the calculator in your hand. “It’s our job.”

She reached out to shut the door and walked over to your desk. “But you’re doing it aggressively. You’ve been doing it aggressively for weeks. That means something happened.”

“I’m not doing it aggressively. I’m just doing math,” you said.

She kicked off her heels and leaned back in your chair, crossing her ankles and setting her heels on your desk. She laced her fingers over her stomach leisurely.

“Mhm… By the way, you forgot to carry the two.”

You froze, leaning back slightly to assess your equation. Frowning, you smeared it away with the rag tucked into your pocket. “Fuck.”

“You don’t normally make mistakes like that,” Amelia pointed out. “So, my observation stands, something happened.”

“Nothing happened,” you said. “Don’t you have a report to finish?”

“Handed it over to the engineer team already,” she informed you.

“Go to lunch then.”

“Sure. How about you come with me?”

“I’m trying to finish this.”

“You’re not finishing that today,” Amelia said. “Come to lunch with me. I’m not asking, babe.”

You looked at her wryly. She only gave you an impassive look.

Not long after, you and Amelia were sitting in the canteen with trays of food and a slice of cake to share as desert between you.

Amelia tilted her head. “So, you and Caleb again, huh?”

You twitched, snapping your head up to stare at her with a doe-eyed wideness.

She stabbed a piece of chicken and leaned back with a pleased hum, “Knew it.”

“What?”

“You have your ‘Caleb’ look,” she told you, shining her nails on her slacks.

You squinted at her. “What does that even mean?”

“Means you look troubled. When you think about him, you always get that same look on your face,” she explained. “But also, Xiao Tu was asking me if something happened between the two of you because Caleb has been really quiet.”

You wrinkled your nose at her and stared down at your noodles. After a cycle of silence, you breathed out and came to admit, “He kissed me.”

She didn’t seem surprised at all. “And then what?”

“I told him to get out of my house,” you said, poking at your food.

“Oof,” Amelia said, wincing.

“Yeah…”

She leaned forward, crossing her arms on the table. “Why did you kick him out? Did he, like, force himself on you or something?”

“No, he didn’t. I mean, he didn’t ask, but I had time to pull away if I’d wanted to… but I didn’t… I kissed him back, actually,” you admitted with a cringe.

Her brows furrowed. “Wait, so he kissed you and then you kissed him back and then you kicked him out?”

You shrank into your seat, cringing further. “Yes…?”

“That’s… new,” Amelia allowed slowly. “I think we’re missing a few things here. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

It seemed as though you’d be taking an extra long lunch break.

You recounted to Amelia everything that happened over the past six months and she listened intently, not speaking or showing her thoughts. At the very end of it, all she managed was a plain:

“Wow.”

“I know,” you sighed, setting your elbows on the table and burying your face into your hands.

“You seriously haven’t talked to him in a month?”

“Not a word,” you said.

“That’s brutal,” she commented. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

You flinched slightly. “Do you think I’ve been unfair?”

“No, you’re protecting yourself. You have every right to do that, especially when it comes to him considering your history,” Amelia assured you. “But, I will say it sounds like you really flipped the script on him. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but he’s sort of right. You’re doing what he did to you way back then.”

You frowned deeply. “And I hate that. I feel like a hypocrite, but I just don’t know what he wants…”

“I think it’s pretty obvious what he wants,” Amelia said, swirling her fork.

“Well, I can’t give it to him,” you said.

She nodded, though it was evident she neither agreed nor disagreed. “I will say, he does kind of sound like he’s serious this time around. I mean, he basically told you he’s in love with you.”

You chewed on your lip. “He didn’t say that.”

“He basically did.”

You sipped on your drink.

Amelia sighed and carded through her hair, bringing it to one side. “Look, babe, I’m just gonna say this. However much you pretend otherwise, I just don’t think you can deny that what you have with him is… different. Ever since back then, the two of you just orbit one another. The two of you, it’s like you’re destined for each other or something.”

“I don’t believe in soulmates,” you said.

“Me neither. But I believe in science. You’ve got serious chemistry with him and you guys just function on a different level. It’s like you can’t stay away from each other. Like I’m watching a binary star system—you guys are bound together somehow.”

“It’s nothing like that,” you said, staring down into your food. He was no star. He was a blackhole trying to draw you in with the strength of his gravity to swallow you whole. What was more terrifying than being utterly consumed?

Amelia tapped her fingers on the table a few times. “This is your life. As much as I feel that way about the two of you, no one really knows what’s gonna happen. I’m definitely not saying that there aren’t a billion more guys out there who would treat you right and love you hard. Just, whatever you decide, make sure you’re happy in the end. That’s all anyone would want for you. Whether it’s with him or with someone else or with no one at all. Just end up happy, ok?”

“Ok,” you murmured, reaching across the table. She grasped your hand and interlocked your fingers together.

—

With the clock ticking down to Amelia and Xiao Tu’s wedding, you soon realized that there was little more than a month left. You, who had been spending all this time working and helping out with planning, realized that you had completely forgotten your original intent to buy Amelia a wedding gift. While you knew it was perfectly acceptable to simply offer her and Xiao Tu a red envelope, you aimed to provide Amelia with something a little more personal to show your appreciation for her as a person.

It would be a good opportunity, you reasoned, to spend the day with yourself and focus on an important and heartfelt task for your beloved friend. Bright and early on one of your days off (that was at noon), you set off downtown for a specific business you’d researched earlier in the week.

Considering how well you knew Amelia, you hadn’t stressed much about finding her a meaningful gift. The consultation and order you put in went smoothly to match and by two, you were leaving the business and bidding the owner a good-day.

Figuring you had more time to kill, you began window shopping and browsing through a few stores that caught your eye. At one point, you entered a specialty soap shop and left with a few bottles of the handwash you only treated yourself to on special occasions. Smiling to yourself, you pulled the paper bag up onto your elbow and stepped out, only to falter as you were confronted with an all too familiar figure.

It’s like you can’t stay away from each other.

Amelia’s words rang in your head as you stood in front of Caleb who was looking at you like heaven had sent him a miracle.

He said your name and you immediately backed up. He looked incredibly hurt by your reaction and his expression muted itself, turning into one of sore resignation.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” you replied, biting your lip. You reached up to adjust your scarf, tugging it higher against your neck.

A painfully awkward silence settled, turning the cold air of nigh winter that wrapped around your body even colder.

“How’ve you been,” Caleb asked, clearly grasping for anything.

“I’ve—I’ve been alright,” you said. “You?”

“I’ve… been alright too,” he offered.

It was dreadfully clear the both of you were lying terribly.

“Uhm…” You fiddled with your coat.

Caleb did similarly, adjusting the strap to a purse that was hanging from his shoulder. You took note of it with a pause.

It was distinctly feminine with all the charms hanging off the straps and buckles. Caleb caught where your attention lay and he shifted slightly. He gripped the strap tighter, appearing caught between keeping it there and taking it off. Yet he began quickly, “This is—”

“Sorry, sorry! The queue for the bathroom was so long! You can head out now!”

You glanced over to see a woman perhaps a few years younger than you hurrying over. She stopped short at the sight of you, clear eyes blinking in surprise and curiosity.

“Oh,” she said, looking up at Caleb as she took her purse back from him. “Who’s this?”

Caleb reached a hand to the back of his neck and pulled before introducing you a bit awkwardly. “She’s, uh—”

“We have some mutual friends,” you said with deliberate casualness. Caleb gave you a slight frown at the downplay.

“Oh,” the woman said again. She took on a charming grin that warmed her face pleasantly. “I’m Eve. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah,” you nodded, gripping your bag. You’d known who she was even before she uttered her name. Pleasant as you could manage, you said, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

You saw the way Caleb flinched slightly. Eve tilted her head, apparently clueless.

“Really? I don’t think Caleb’s mentioned you before,” Eve hummed. A sour taste developed in the back of your throat while Caleb shifted uncomfortably.

“I wouldn’t expect him to,” you graciously offered. You flashed her a polite smile that had her breathing in slightly.

“Oh wow, you’re so pretty,” she said, eyes wide. You blinked, caught off guard by her abrupt statement. She laughed, “No wonder Caleb didn’t tell me about you.”

Your brows wound in confusion as you watched her glance back up at Caleb and mouth something that seemed along the lines of: this is her, isn’t it? You were even more confused. Had Caleb actually said something about you to her? At once, he seemed properly flustered.

“Eve,” he started, but she had already turned back to you.

“Are you shopping too,” she asked. “I was about to get coffee, I’d love it if you could come with me so I can get to know some of Caleb’s friends. Every time I come here, he doesn’t introduce me to anyone. It’s so annoying hanging out with just him, you know.”

“Did you just call me annoying,” Caleb asked.

“Yeah, ‘cause you are.” Eve playfully elbowed him in the side. She grinned at you, “What do you say?”

You yourself were caught off guard. “I—I don’t want to intrude.”

She waved you off. “You wouldn’t be. Caleb was about to ditch me like a loser anyway; they just called him in to move some jets around the docks back at the base.”

“Eve,” he said again, slightly chastising. He then looked at you. “If you’re busy…”

“I mean, I’m not. I was just—” you began. Eve cut in swiftly.

“Perfect!” She grinned at you like you had said ‘yes’. She stepped forward and linked her arm through yours and began tugging you along. “I was going to that café over there, have you been? I heard it’s really popular.”

“Once or twice,” you said, bewildered. You looked over your shoulder toward Caleb who had been left several paces behind. He wore a decidedly pained expression. “Uhm, are you sure it’s ok to leave him like that?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Eve said. She waved. “See you later, big brother! Don’t crash anything!”

She then fixed you with that blinding smile so dazzling that you didn’t realize what was happening until you found yourself seated at a table beside Eve as she gushed praises at you.

“You really are so pretty, you know. Your complexion is so gorgeous. What’s your skincare routine? I’m so jealous.”

“Honestly, it’s the foundation I wear,” you said mildly. Though you nearly thought her words were a joke, she had one of the most perfect faces you’d ever seen.

“Oh, what do you wear? I’m always looking for a new one,” she said.

“Uhm, it’s this one. Here, I just ordered some recently,” you said, pulling out your phone to show her the emailed receipt. She took out hers to note it down.

“I’ll have to try it,” she hummed. “I don’t like to wear a lot because I sweat so much for my job, but everything I try just melts right off because I go so light with it.”

“I see. I don’t know how that one will hold up to be honest. I sit in an office all day so I don’t think I’ve really put it to the test.”

She nodded. “‘Cause you work at the institute up here, right?”

“I do,” you said. You furrowed your brows slightly as a curl of suspicion rose in your gut. “How did you know that?”

She smiled sheepishly, “Ah. See, I think I lied a little by accident earlier. Caleb did tell me about one of his friends that lives here. He said that one of them is the chief astrophysicist over at the research center. He just never mentioned you by name. Probably ‘cause he knew I’d try and track you down on social media.”

You blinked.

“Not in a creepy way,” she quickly said. She laughed again. “Well, maybe in a creepy way. You know how it is. We’re girls, we can’t help it.”

“No, yeah. I get it. You wouldn’t have found a lot anyway. I don’t post much.”

“Oh you’re just like Caleb,” Eve huffed. “He barely posts anything ever. His profile picture isn’t even his face, it’s one of his stupid planes. He’s such a nerd. Why do men always do that? Like, hello, I’m trying to show my friends what you look like. And when they do post their face, it’s always the worst possible photo that could have been taken.”

You couldn’t help but laugh aloud too. You began settling in for an earnest conversation. “No seriously. My best friend Amelia—Caleb might have told you about her or her fiancé, Xiao Tu.”

“I think so, he was one of Caleb’s squadmates, right,” Eve asked.

You nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, I feel you. Every time I’m talking to someone, she’ll pull them up on social media in two seconds and it’s so embarrassing ‘cause there’s never any good photos for her to see.”

“Right?” Eve snorted and then shifted closer. “I bet she’s hard on you too because you’re so pretty, jie.”

Sister, she’d said. You shook your head, “You keep saying that. Thank you, that’s really kind of you. I hope you know you’re really pretty yourself.”

Eve’s face did a funny thing then. Her brows twitched and she shielded her eyes from your smile like you had blinded her. “Ugh. What the hell? You’re so scary!”

You lifted your brows amusedly, “Scary how?”

“Well, you’re just perfect,” Eve said. “I mean, you’ve gotta be a genius to be heading the astrophysics department at the Skyhaven Research Institute of all places.”

You shook your head, “That’s just something you work hard for.”

“And you’re humble. What the hell is Caleb even doing? You’re the whole package!”

You paused at that. “I’m sorry?”

Eve sighed and leaned her elbow onto the table while stabbing her spoon into her matcha tiramisu. “He’s seriously an idiot. I mean, he’s always been so oblivious when it comes to girls. But you’re right here and you’re out of this world and he’s just sitting on his ass doing nothing about it.”

You went quiet at that.

“But he never makes things easy,” Eve laughed. The sound twinkled. “Ever since we were kids, he had to make things difficult for everyone. Especially himself. Like it’s fun or something.”

A sour taste burned at the back of your throat as she spoke.

“He’s always been so popular, but he hardly ever paid attention to anyone. All the guys wanted to be his friend, all the girls wanted to date him. But he was super focused on his studying and training to get into the DAA academy. So all that took a back burner. You know once he had me pretend to be his girlfriend just so he could get people off his back? He’s so lame. I mean, to be honest I kind of had a big-brother complex when I was younger. Like, I didn’t really have a lot of friends aside from him so I’d always get jealous. But he was never really interested in girls anyway—”

“He was interested in you.”

Eve stopped and glanced at you, a surprised look on her face. She breathed in slightly, like she hadn’t expected you to know that. You stared at her firmly. After a moment, she glanced down at her drink and swirled it. “Yeah, he was.”

She shifted in her seat slightly, tugging at her stylishly short skirt to sit neater over her fleece tight covered thighs.

“We… It’s weird, I know,” she said with a self-conscious laugh. “I call him ‘big brother’ and I’ve always seen him that way, but he… he used to feel a lot different.”

“I know,” you told her.

She gave a wry smile. “He did say that you knew him really well. Even without him saying much, he said that you just knew.”

You lifted your shoulders and brought your mug of warm coffee to your lips.

Eve leaned forward, imploring you with her earnest countenance. “You’re special to him, jie.”

You frowned. Dismissively, you muttered, “Not that special.”

She laughed slightly, eyes crinkling. “Now that’s really not true. Listen, I know how Caleb is. He’s confusing and a lot of the time he doesn’t really say what he means, but I can tell. You really are special to him.”

You didn’t answer her. Instead you swirled the dark coffee in your mug and stared at the reflection of the ceiling on the surface. Eve set both of her feet on the ground and crossed her svelte ankles to the side.

“I don’t know everything that happened with the two of you,” she began quietly, “but would it be ok if I told you my side of the story?”

You glanced at her through the narrow corner of your lashes. Her face was soft with hope. Sighing, you nodded. “Alright.”

She flashed you a smile.

“Six years ago, he disappeared. I know you know that. But, he came back to me after only a couple of months. When he did, I was so overwhelmed,” Eve said. She hummed, musing her painful past. “I thought I lost him, you know? Like, really. So to have him back in my life so suddenly and with how strong he was coming off, I… I didn’t know what to do. You know him, he’s…”

“Manipulative,” you supplied. “Overbearing?”

She laughed a bit and shrugged, “Yeah. He kind of forced me into a spot where I didn’t know what was happening until it was too late… I was so eager just to have him back in my life that I didn’t realize that what he wanted was different from what I did. Sometimes, being around Caleb is like letting someone fly you right into the clouds. You’re blind until you’ve landed.”

Eve poked at her cake again and went on:

“Caleb has a really hard time letting things go. He’s got it in his head that at any moment, things are gonna get taken away from him. It’s why he acts the way he does. He doesn’t really open up to a lot of people and he doesn’t let people in. But when he does find someone he wants around, he pushes and he tries to keep them close and he squeezes too tight. That’s why he and I don’t work. I hate that. I need space and the autonomy to do what I want. For my career and myself, even if what I decide to do is dangerous. I get suffocated easily. But you…”

She lifted her eyes up to yours. Clear sighted and piercing grey. She saw right through you.

“I know I don’t know you well, but from what Caleb’s said… you kind of seem like the type of person who’s perpetually out in the void, always on the brink of floating away. Seeing you now, I think you might need someone who will hold you tight and close and never let you go.”

She left you feeling like a wound with those words. Raw flesh flayed open for her to see, open and bleeding and sore.

“Look,” you said, curling your hands in your lap. “I don’t really want to talk about this—”

“No, wait, I’m sorry,” Eve cut in. She winced. “Sorry, I’m going about this in a really long-winded way. I just… I want you to get the full picture.”

You gave her a wan look.

“What I wanted to say was that one day, we got into a fight. We don’t do that normally, but I finally realized that I didn’t want to go where he was trying to push us and we got into it. Just, fully screaming at each other. We hadn’t done that since we were kids. But then he started saying these things and I realized that he had all these memories of us that just… didn’t exist,” Eve said.

Your brows furrowed. “What?”

“He was saying that he didn’t know what happened between us but that he had all these things that he missed about me. Listening to me laugh at horror movies, sitting outside a club and just talking, watching me name stars and smoke,” she elaborated. You felt your stomach flip. She laughed slightly and shook her head. “But I’m not one for horror movies and I’ve never smoked in my life.”

You felt the ground slowly leave you.

“I told him that, and all of a sudden he looked so confused.” She started to mash and mix her cake as she recounted. “I asked him when I’ve ever gone to a club with him in Skyhaven and he tried to tell me something about nines and someone named Sonam and Amelia, but I had no idea who those people were. The only time I ever met his friends was back when he was still in flight school.”

She looked back up at you, a knowing twinkle in her pretty eyes. “But he did those things with you, didn’t he?”

You couldn’t answer her, but she saw it in your face.

Eve leaned forward, “Obviously he had me mixed up with some other girl. Someone he was projecting onto me.”

You bit your lips together. You then closed your eyes. “He chose you over me. Twice.”

She winced a bit. She then placed her hand on your forearm and squeezed, “But don’t you think it means something that everything he thought he wanted with me, he’d already gotten with you?”

You set your coffee aside. Low and firm, you told her, “No. I don’t. Because even if he got it with me, he didn’t want me. He wanted you.” You looked into her eyes. “I’ll tell you what I told him. I don’t want to be someone’s understudy, I want to be someone’s one and only.”

“I think you could be that with him—” You gave her a sharp glare and she swallowed, catching herself. “I’m sorry. I… I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want… I didn’t mean to patronize you, I was just… I mean to say I’m not right for him.”

“Neither am I,” you said.

She looked at you dejectedly.

“I realize that as his… whatever you are,” you said with a loose wave and perhaps colder than you intended, “You have to advocate for him. But it’s in poor taste for me to hear all this from you of all people. I don’t know you. If he wanted me then, he should have done something to prove it. I know what he wants from me now, but it’s not your place to try and make me give it to him.”

Eve nodded slowly, lowering her gaze. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to offend you.”

“You didn’t offend me,” you said. “You just pointed out the obvious.”

She appeared confused. “What do you mean by that?”

“You were the dream,” you told her. “I was the reality. And because I couldn’t compare, he didn’t want to wake up.”

You stood and gathered your things. “Thank you for taking me here. I have to go now. Don’t worry about the bill, I’ll catch it on my way out.”

She set her cup down and fisted her hands, nodding. “Alright. Thank you. I’ll owe you one.”

“You won’t. You’ve done enough,” you said and walked away.

—

Another week passed. You spent the entirety of it contemplating what Eve had said at the café. Caleb had projected memories of you onto her? How was that even possible? None of it made sense. You had always been under the impression that you were the canvas he projected her onto, not the other way around. It was like the magnetic field of your planet had shifted and now South was West and North was East. You just couldn’t wrap your head around it.

But, you wondered, did it even matter?

Despite these thoughts weighing on your mind, you did your best to keep up with your workload even if Amelia had to double check your math a lot more often now. You were closing in on finishing your grant proposal and you were also anticipating Amelia’s wedding at the beginning of December. Further, you had gotten word that the wedding gift you ordered would be ready early and you’d be able to pick it up a week in advance.

This was, of course, when the universe had to throw you yet another curveball.

It was around nine in the evening and you were getting ready to sleep early for once in your life. But just as you finished brushing your teeth, your phone began ringing. Curiously, you looked at who was calling you. The caller ID was even more curious.

“Hello,” you answered after placing the phone to your ear.

“Ah, hey,” Gideon greeted you. “Sorry, is this a bad time?”

“No, what’s up,” you asked, leaning into your bathroom counter as you propped up a leg and crossed your arm.

“I have a really big favor to ask,” he started, sounding extremely unsure. “I really hate to put you in this spot, but Song Ran and Huihui came down with a pretty nasty cold so I don’t want to leave them alone. And I’d ask Xiao Tu, but he’s so busy with his wedding that I don’t want to bother him either…”

You frowned. “Is this about Caleb?”

“Er, yeah. I know you guys aren’t really talking right now, but he got pretty banged up today during a flight drill. I was going to go over and check on him tonight but with Song Ran and baby…”

You frowned deeper. “Banged up how? Is he in the hospital?”

“No, not that serious. I think the med-corps was able to treat him, but I’m pretty sure he said his ribs are bruised and his foot’s in a boot. Knowing him, he’s gonna try and push himself too hard so…” Gideon trailed off and you could hear some murmuring in the background and the sound of a baby crying. He sighed before coming back, “I get it if you’re not comfortable with going over there, but I just thought I’d ask.”

“No, it’s not a problem. I don’t mind going over,” you said, running a hand through your hair. “You should take care of your wife and baby first.”

He let out another sigh, this one of relief. “Thank you so much. You’re seriously a life saver. I’ll owe you one, yeah?”

“Sure. Just text me his address, I haven’t been to his new place before.”

“Will do. Thanks again. And if he gives you trouble, don’t feel bad about leaving. Just call me, I’ll drop everything and come over.”

You smiled a bit, “Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Right, yeah.”

You pulled the phone away to see Gideon had already hung up. Turning to face yourself in the mirror, you found your reflection grimacing back.

An hour later, you found yourself standing in front of a modest apartment complex that was situated just about equidistant between the DAA base and Skyhaven’s downtown. You lingered outside for a while before steeling your nerves and approaching the gate.

Gideon had given you the code so you were able to slip in relatively easily. You took the stairs to stall slightly, ascending five flights before rounding into the hallway and searching for the apartment number in your messages. You found it right in the middle of the main hall. Before you could psych yourself out, any further, you lifted your hand and rapped on the door.

You gave it a while considering the person moving around inside was likely very injured. In the end, you had only needed to knock that once before being answered.

The door opened to reveal Caleb leaning heavily on a crutch. He looked worse for wear. Smudges of dirt on his cheeks, a plaster across the bridge of his nose and another on his jaw, and a split on his lip. He was still wearing his flight jumper, half undone with the sleeves tied around his waist and a white tank top smeared with grease and sweat clinging to his chest. Indeed his right foot was in a boot and the other was bare.

Neither of you said anything for a moment.

“Hey,” he greeted eventually, seemingly surprised by your presence. He gripped his crutch tightly. “What’re you doing here?”

“Gideon asked me to come and check on you,” you said. “What happened?”

“Nothing, just a little hiccup during training today,” he answered. He shifted a bit. “Just a few scrapes. And I twisted my ankle. Should be alright in about three weeks—a month at the longest.”

You nodded in understanding. Caleb bit into his lip.

“Look,” he started.

You were quick to cut him off, “Can I come in?”

He faltered and then nodded, “Yeah. You can. Sorry.”

He moved aside for you, allowing you into the foyer where you stepped out of your sneakers.

“I picked up some takeout on the way, I didn’t know if you ate or not yet,” you said, moving inside.

“Thanks,” Caleb said. “You can put it on the dining table.”

The interior of his apartment was much different from the small pod you remembered he had at the base, but the overall vibe was similar. There wasn’t much decor and everything was simple. The floorplan was small, similar to your own apartment. He had a three-seater in the center of the living room, a projector on a TV stand that was playing a rerun of a basketball game. It was all very clean, a single coat thrown over one of two dining table chairs and the kitchen was narrow.

“I haven’t really decorated much since I moved here,” Caleb said, moving behind you slowly. “I think about it sometimes, but it just slips my mind.”

“It’s your home, you can do what you want with it,” you told him, moving to set the food down. “I just got you something light from the Vietnamese place on Gala. I hope you like it.”

“I’m not picky,” he assured you. “Did you eat?”

“I did,” you said, pulling out a chair for him.

He gave you a small but grateful smile before slowly easing himself down. You watched closely as he set his crutch aside and then lifted his arm to reach for the bag—only to wince and instinctively reach for his side.

“Gideon said your ribs were bruised too,” you observed.

“A little,” he admitted, grabbing at his left side.

You decided to pity him and walked over to open up the takeaway containers for him. You broke his chopsticks for him and set them down before moving into his kitchen to get him a glass of water. His eyes tracked you all the while.

“How’s Song Ran and Baby,” Caleb asked. “Gideon said they’re sick.”

“Yeah, sounds like they’re not doing so hot,” you said. “It’s Huihui’s first time getting sick, so I’m sure they’re kind of freaking out, but it doesn’t seem serious.”

“That’s good,” he said, picking up his chopsticks. “Must be flu season. A lot of the guys on base are getting sick.”

“Same thing at the institute,” you nodded, rounding back over to the table to set the water down.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “You can sit if you want to, no need to stand.”

You nodded and placed yourself at one of the bar stools. He obviously meant that you should sit beside him, but you weren’t quite ready to allow the distance to close. Caleb frowned but kept quiet, slowly eating his food.

At least a solid ten minutes must have passed without either of you saying anything. Caleb was a quick eater, so by then he’d cleared everything.

“Thanks,” he said once more. “That was good. How much was it?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

You stood and went to gather the trash and clear the table for him. He thanked you again while you brought it all to the kitchen. When passing, you paused as something sitting on the counter caught your eye.

A white paper dove made of familiar creases and folds.

“You still have this,” you asked, brushing your fingers over the carefully folded wings. It was a worn, fraying thing now with smudges of what looked like grease discoloring one of the wings. Like it had been handled many times.

“Why wouldn’t I,” Caleb said, as if the thought of getting rid of it had never once crossed his mind. “I take it with me on every flight.”

“What,” you uttered.

“Yeah, it’s my good luck charm,” he told you. “I keep it in my breast pocket. It works. Every flight I’ve been on with it, I’ve always come back.”

“It’s just a piece of paper,” you swallowed. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it means something, you made it for me.” Caleb stared into you.

You didn’t dare meet his gaze.

Turning, you dumped the trash away and then asked, “What were you doing before I came?”

“I was just watching the game,” he said. “I almost fell asleep, actually.”

“Like that,” you questioned, gesturing to his clothes.

He turned a bit sheepish, the tips of his ears reddening. “Yeah. I’m pretty beat and showering kind of seemed like a hassle so I was gonna put it off until tomorrow.”

“You should shower now, before you crash,” you said.

He reddened a bit further. “Well, I was thinking I’d do it later when I can raise my arms higher.”

It was sort of endearing to see him so embarrassed about not being able to take care of himself. You wondered if he would’ve been so openly vulnerable with Gideon. You had imagined he would be cracking jokes about his inability, not so self-conscious. A traitorous part of your mind whispered that it was you who made him feel that way.

“I can help,” you said.

He seemed to startle, wide eyed. “What?”

“With your hair, at least,” you clarified. “That’d probably be the hardest part for you, right?”

“It would,” he admitted. He scrunched his pink nose and then dipped his chin. “If that’s alright with you, I’d like that.”

You handed him his crutch. “I offered.”

Soon, you found yourself kneeling beside Caleb as he set his back against the tub. He was still dressed in his dirty clothes, his injured leg extended and his other propped up at the knee. You fiddled with the shower handles, making sure the water was warm before you took up the handheld sprayer. Gently, you pushed him down.

“Lean your head back for me,” you said.

He complied to the best of his ability, awkwardly leaning his head back as you wet his hair. Carding your fingers through the strands, you made sure to wet it thoroughly before reaching for the shampoo to lather in your palms. Once suitably sudsy, you began gently scrubbing at his scalp and his eyes fluttered shut.

“That feels nice,” he said. “I could fall asleep…”

“Don’t, I might drown you,” you said, leaning over him.

You worked meticulously, taking care to clean everywhere. His hair was not long at all but it was caked with grime that you were quite sure was equal parts engine oil and rocket fuel.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb spoke quietly.

You went on scrubbing wordlessly.

“About last time,” he continued. “I really shouldn’t have just come onto you like that. I wasn’t being considerate of your feelings.”

You huffed, rolling your eyes, “Seems to run in your family…”

Caleb paused and he nodded. “Eve told me that she made you upset. I’m sorry about that too… She… She’s the type of person that can’t help but try and fix everything that’s broken.”

“We’re not broken,” you said. “You’re just trying to make something out of nothing.”

He let out a ragged breath and looked up at you with that desperate and pleading face. “But we’re not nothing. You know it, don’t you? You have to feel it too. What’s between us isn’t something we can ignore. It’s big, it’s—”

“Caleb,” you whispered. “Please don’t make me do this right now.”

He bit his lips together at one corner before nodding and leaning back against the tub.

“You’re afraid of me,” he said. He had never sounded so wounded to you.

Your chest clenched. “You hurt me.”

“I know.” He reached out, sliding a warm, loose hand around your outer thigh. “I wish I could take it back.”

“You can’t though.”

“I know,” he said again.

You finished helping Caleb with his hair quickly. Following, you helped him strip down to his boxers before you left him on his own with instructions to make sure he sat down while he showered. While he cleaned himself, you took care of some of the dishes in the sink. When drying them off, you found yourself staring firmly into the little white paper dove lying on the counter.

He really kept it all this time…

You waited patiently for Caleb to finish with his shower, intent to help him settle into bed before you headed out. In the meantime, you took up a spot on his couch to scroll through your phone while you waited.

After a good forty minutes of scrolling, it occurred to you that the sound of the water had long stopped but Caleb had not yet emerged from the bathroom.

Cautious, you pocketed your phone and went to check on him. You approached the half open door slowly, pushing it just the faintest margin more open so you could peek inside before you barged in without knowing if he was decent or not.

You could have never expected the sight which greeted you.

Caleb was sitting against the tub, joggers tugged over his hips with one leg scrunched up to accommodate his boot. He was curled forward and breathing heavily with a pained expression on his face. He was gripping his right shoulder—where he was missing an arm. Instead of being connected to his body, it was lying across the tile, limp and unattached and twitching.

You couldn’t help but let out a gasp at the sight.

He stiffened instantly and snapped his gaze over to you. He looked caught, eyes widened and face sweaty pale. Startled, he uttered your name. You were just as stunned.

“Caleb,” you breathed, staring at the twitching arm lying on the ground. “What…?”

“I—” he started, only to be cut off with a grunt of pain. He winced and gripped his shoulder tighter, squeezing his eyes shut as he heaved.

You stared for a long moment, grappling with your shock. When you managed, you turned and walked away.

Silently, you entered the kitchen and opened up the freezer. You pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables and then went back to the bathroom. You knelt beside him and guided his hand away, replacing it with the frozen pack against his shoulder. Caleb let out a shaky sound and braced himself on his good leg, clenching his fists. You then began rubbing at the area to offer extra sensorial-stimulation, lightly pinching at certain points.

He swallowed and glanced at you through a grimace.

“My roommate in undergrad was an amputee,” you explained calmly. “She was missing both her legs from the knee down. She’d get a lot of phantom pains at night. That’s what this is, right?”

“Yeah,” he said shakily. “Sorry, was I being loud?”

“No, I just thought you were taking a while,” you said.

He made a low sound and allowed you to continue rubbing and icing his shoulder. After several minutes, his breath began to even out and he looked at you with a grateful expression.

“Thank you,” he said, breathless.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. He let out a deep sigh.

You pulled the bag away and then used a spare hand towel to wipe away the water on his shoulder. You frowned deeply as you got a good look at the area.

His arm only extended to just beyond the shoulder joint. The skin at the end of it was mangled and crisscrossed with scars that looked suspiciously like burn marks, but they were white and healed over. He’d been without an arm for a long while.

“When did this happen,” you asked quietly.

Caleb shifted, reaching around to cover the area from your sight. His throat bobbed. Even softer, almost as if he were ashamed, he said, “Six years ago.”

You closed your eyes as more of the mystery fell into place.

“Amelia reached out to your high school classmates back when we were trying to figure out what happened,” you said. “They told us your family home exploded.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, not meeting your eyes. He smiled wryly. “You told me once that you thought the absolute worst way to go was to be blown to bits. I can confirm you’re right. Usually when I get the pains, it’s the sensation of what happened that day. I can feel my arm being ripped to shreds.”

You frowned. Your gut churned with memories of your brother, with the images of what could have possibly happened to the man before you.

“Who else knows,” you asked, moving to deposit the bag of vegetables aside.

“That you know? Just Gideon,” Caleb said.

You looked at the prosthetic lying on the wet tile. Still faintly twitching.

“That’s a new one,” he said. “I got that last year. My old one… it was way more high-tech. But I like this one more. It’s a lot more comfortable to wear.”

“It’s very realistic,” you said, reaching out and smoothing your palm down the forearm. In fact it felt just like skin, just utterly lacking in warmth. As you trailed down, you watched the fingers move, almost as if reacting to your touch.

“Yeah,” Caleb nodded. “I have an implant in my head that reads and sends my brain waves over to it. So it functions just like a regular arm. I… It sends a little feedback, I can feel some things, but not a lot. Just to adjust pressure. Which is actually better than my old one, I couldn’t feel anything on that.”

You nodded, “It’s still amazing you’re able to control it with this much dexterity. It must have been expensive.”

“It wasn’t terrible,” Caleb said. “I grew up with this guy who’s a doctor now. He helped me get in contact with a lady who custom makes them.”

“I see,” you murmured. You traced across the creases in the palm before sliding your fingers between the gaps. It twitched again and curled around you, holding you back. Softly, you asked, “What happened to you, Caleb? Where did you go?”

He didn’t answer you. He reached out and pulled his prosthetic instead, fitting it onto his shoulder.

When you returned the vegetable bag into the freezer, you heard Caleb come up behind you.

“You should stay here for the night,” he said. “It’s late. The shuttles stopped.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll book a driver on the app,” you said, nudging the freezer closed with your knee. You pulled out your phone and entered the passcode.

“No, you should stay,” Caleb insisted. “It’s dangerous—”

“It’s not,” you told him firmly. “I can’t stay here tonight, I have to be somewhere first thing tomorrow.”

“I’ll wake you up early—”

“Caleb,” you stared at him firmly. “I’m leaving.”

He looked upon you wretchedly. He limped forward, crutch creaking under his weight. “Why? What can I do to make you stay?”

“Nothing. I’m going.”

“Please don’t go.” His lips quivered. “Please, just stay.”

You frowned and went to move around him. He stepped in front of you.

“Caleb,” you warned. “I was serious last time. You hurt me again…”

He winced and quickly moved back, cowering like a dog that had been scorned.

“Just… tell me what I can do to fix this,” he whispered.

You brushed past him and headed for the door. He resigned to your silence, simply following you out to see you off. Cramming your feet into your sneakers, you reached for the door and slipped your purse onto your shoulder. Just for a second, you stopped.

“You want all of me,” you said, not taking your eyes off the door. “But you don’t come at me with all of you. There’s a part of you that you’re not sharing with me. That’s the part that makes me think I can’t trust you.”

Caleb didn’t say anything, though you could tell he was stewing.

“Good night,” you said. You left without looking back.

—

Two more weeks passed in complete silence. You left Caleb alone and he you. This round did not bother you so much. You felt as though you’d said everything you wanted to and had come to a certain degree of closure. You knew you loved Caleb, but you loved yourself too. If he wasn’t going to give you everything, you would give him nothing. This, you decided, was the best thing you could do for your own ease and sanity.

—

Sooner than you could fathom and at long, touching last, the day of the wedding had come. You arrived early in the morning as an honorary part of the bridal family to help with the festivities and shenanigans. Amelia had planned for her wedding to be a healthy mix of traditional and western with door games and firecrackers all the way up until the tea ceremony before the completely western after party.

It was an expected blast.

Music was bumping, people were dancing and singing and drinking, cake was cut, cheers were shouted, tears were shed. You had never witnessed a day full of so much unadulterated joy before.

You and Sonam were at Amelia’s side for most of the night. You’d been with her through her hair and makeup, dutifully serving as a lady-in-waiting. You were there to pamper Amelia while Sonam barked bubbly orders at people in the bride’s stead. You kept Amelia fed, powdered her nose and dabbed her waterline with cotton swabs, and helped her go to the bathroom in her dress(—a big white gown like a cotton ball that was so completely tacky and not her style but yet had made her cry the first time she wore it). You were there to fix her veil for the pictures and make sure that her heels didn’t sink into the grass—and you wouldn’t have traded a single moment for anything.

Amidst the chaos, you shared many emotional moments where you’d suddenly find each other crying and could only be consoled by hugging one another.

“You’re like the sisters I always wanted,” Amelia sobbed into your shoulder while Sonam hugged her from behind. “I’m so glad I met you girls.”

“Me too,” you said, sniffing and furiously working to dab her cheeks off.

“Stop crying already, you’re ruining each other’s makeup,” Sonam piped, wiping your face.

“Shut up, bitch, I know,” Amelia snapped, laughing all the while.

It was all such a whirlwind that by the time the after party was in swing and Amelia took to the dancefloor with her husband, you realized you had not ingested a single thing food or drink or otherwise the entire day. Suddenly, you felt your body protesting the neglect and you rushed to go scrape the remaining hor d’oeuvres onto a stray plate before you grew any more nauseous from hunger.

With your dehydration induced headache, you went to step outside for a bit to give yourself a break from the pounding music. It was a skin-prickling cold outside and you shivered the moment you stepped out of the humid reception hall, but the reprieve for your head was well worth the chill. You ended up finding a somewhat secluded bench which you used as an excuse to kick the heels off your swollen feet immediately. Sighing, you downed a bottle of water and looked up at the bright starry sky.

“Do you see me now, little brother,” you whispered. “I’m very happy today.”

You sat outside for a while, zoning out and appreciating the clear sky. So focused on tracing constellations with your eyes were you that you didn’t notice your company until something warm and heavy settled on your shoulders.

“You shouldn’t be out here for too long like that, you’ll get sick.”

Turning your head, you saw Caleb leaning on his crutch, smiling lightly. He was dressed in a proper suit complete with slacks, a tie, a starched collar, and a vest buttoned at his waist. His hair had seemingly been gelled earlier in the day, but had become mussed with his hands running through it. He was without his boot, but his right ankle was wrapped with kinetic tape beneath his slacks.

“Hey,” he said, soft and tender.

“Hey,” you greeted.

He took a limp forward. “Can I sit with you?”

You nodded and moved your plate to the other side, allowing him room to sit. He set his crutch down and propped his injured foot out.

“It’s super clear tonight,” Caleb noted. “You can see everything.”

“I’m happy about it,” you said. “There’s supposed to be a meteor shower later tonight.”

“Really? Did they plan that,” Caleb asked.

“No, they went to a fortune teller who picked this date,” you hummed, pulling the blazer around your shoulders closer.

“It’s fate, then,” he said.

“Guess so,” you murmured. “She is an astrophysicist.”

Caleb nodded and laced his fingers together. “It was a beautiful wedding. Can’t believe Xiao Tu ever grew the guts. I remember when he begged me to use my birthday as an excuse to hang out with her.”

You giggled, “Oh wow, I totally forgot about that.”

“I forgot that too for a while,” he murmured.

You glanced over to him and noted the distance in his features. He turned his head to meet you. A playful smile pulled his mouth up.

“But I remembered. That night was the first time you kissed me.”

You stiffened. “Caleb…”

“You’re really beautiful tonight,” he said. He seemed to trace the lines of your face and the bends in your hair with his gaze. “Really beautiful.”

“Thank you…” you said, focusing on the wrinkles in the lap of your dress.

From the reception hall, a chorus of cheers and squalls of delight erupted soon followed by shouts and laughter. Though it was right behind your back, it seemed as though you were a million leagues away in a world that was all your own.

“Are you staying at the hotel tonight,” Caleb asked.

“I am,” you nodded.

“Me too,” he said. “I’m in room sixteen-twenty.”

Your brows rose at the information.

“I’d really like it if I could tell you something,” he said, seemingly a bit nervous. He wiped his left hand on his slacks and cleared his throat. “I know you don’t want to hear it, so I’ll let you choose to listen or not. If you do, by chance, want to hear me out though, just come up to my room.”

You gave him a skeptical look. He managed a smile in return as he picked up his crutch and took to his unsteady feet. He gave you a single tip of his chin before walking back into the reception hall while you were left to contemplate.

Sly bastard, you thought, curling your fingers into his blazer.

The rest of the wedding concluded with an anticipated amount of clean-up to do. After Amelia and Xiao Tu left, you and Sonam stayed behind with a couple others to clean up most of the mess so that the hotel workers didn’t have to deal with the full aftermath of a wedding party. You swept, you took down double-happiness posters, you rolled up cords for electrical equipment. By the end of it, you went back to the chair in the corner where you’d left Caleb’s blazer and picked it up.

It was easy enough to find Caleb’s room. It was just a floor above your own. You made it to the door with his blazer folded over one arm and your heels in the other. When you arrived in front of his door, you halted for the briefest moment. And then you knocked.

Maybe ten seconds later, the door opened and you found Caleb marveling you with awe. You cocked your head to the side in prompt. You then held out his blazer.

“That was cheap,” you told him. “You tell me it’s a choice, but then you leave me with your blazer so that I have to give it back to you.”

“I didn’t— I didn’t think you’d come,” he said. “I really just gave that to you because it was cold.”

You shook the jacket out to him. He took it. You waited.

“Are you going to let me in,” you asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he said, stepping aside so that you could enter.

You set your shoes down by his and walked inside. It was a standard hotel room. The bed was freshly made and barely used. The only thing Caleb seemed to have brought was a backpack and his crutch. You went to sit on the bed, your feet still aching from your shoes. Slowly, Caleb limped over and joined you, sitting on your right. Both of you were facing the window which offered a good view of the sky.

Caleb breathed in deeply and then he began to speak.

And he told you everything.

About the lab, about Eve, about Josephine, about getting blown up, about Ever, about where he’d really been the past six years, about his arm, about forgetting, about the chip a doctor had pulled from his brain. All of it so horrifying and heartbreaking that you nearly thought it all a lie. But the biggest horror to you was:

“You mean… you were the colonel for the Farspace Fleet,” you said slowly, trying to wrap your head around the fact.

He nodded, gritting his teeth. “It took a lot to get away from them. I… I did a lot of things that I’m not proud of, that I can’t remember, that I still don’t know about. I’m lucky, really. There’s a lot of people who didn’t make it out like I did.”

“But…” You were aghast. “That means… You were right there the whole time…”

He nodded again, sorrow staining his face. Thickly, he said, “I was.”

“You just… The whole time you were right there and you didn’t think to—?”

“I didn’t remember you at first,” he confessed, and this nearly shattered you.

You didn’t want to believe it. “What?”

“I didn’t remember you at all,” he said. “But I had all the memories of what we’d been. I— I associated them with Eve, because she was the only thing I could remember. Even if it was just her face. Everything just became about her.”

Your throat went dry. You stood.

“I don’t want to hear this anymore,” you said.

“Wait.” Caleb rose too and grasped your hands. “Please, there’s more.”

“No, there’s not.” You cast your face to the side. “There never is. Everything you are, it’s always her. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I’m tired.”

“Please,” he said. “There’s more. I’m saying that while some things are still kind of spotty, I remember you. I remembered you that first time I saw you back in the café. I just walked in there and I saw you and the sun was making you glow and you were so beautiful and I remembered.” He hung his head. “And I felt so guilty.”

You narrowed your eyes, “Felt?”

“Originally, I did just want to be your friend. What I did when we were younger, that had been weighing on me for a while and at first I just wanted to make up for what I did to you. But, for all of heaven…” He said your name and looked at you so open and raw. “I didn’t expect to fall in love with you all over again.”

“Caleb,” you warned, closing your eyes and turning away. “Don’t say that.”

“I mean it.” He placed his hand on your shoulder, so gently as if he thought you’d shatter in his grasp. “When I’m around you, I don’t have to fight anything. It’s like life makes sense. You make me feel real and special and completely ordinary and I love it, I love—”

“Don’t say it,” you snapped, voice trembling. “Caleb, you don’t mean it. You don’t— Stop it.”

He said your name again. “I mean it. When I’m here with you, even just like this, you make me mean something. And it’s like I’m touching stars. You burn me alive and I love every moment of it.”

“Don’t say that,” you pleaded, voice giving in to a whimper. “Please. Caleb, I can’t— Don’t do this to me again. I can’t handle it. I’m gonna break, I’m gonna fall apart.”

“I’ll keep you together,” he said, shifting near and pulling you close. He held you so gently you thought you might sob. “Even if you do break, I’ll catch every piece and I’ll help you put it back together. Because I remember.”

He smoothed his hands up your face, one palm warm and one palm cold as ice. He tilted your face up so you could look into him.

“I remember so much,” he said. “I remember what your eyes look like at night when you’re staring up at the stars, I remember what you told me about your brother, I remember the way you laugh, I remember the way you felt—the way you smelled and tasted—and I can’t get you out of my fucking head. When I dream at night, I see myself taking you and showing you all the stars you ever wanted to see. I see us in a little house that’s just our own, I see us with a dog named Belka or a kid named Strelka running around it. I see you under me, I hear you saying my name—”

“Caleb,” you breathed, flushing in embarrassment.

He gripped you harder. “Just like that. I see it all and I want it all. I want you. I want you whether you’re smoking or eating sour candy. I want you even when you push me away. I want you even if you hate me. I want you so bad I think I might die. But, damn everything in this world, I want all of you, but I’d be alright even if I could only have the smallest part of you—even if I could only have your hatred. As long as you were thinking about me in some way too, even if it were about killing me, I’d be alright because that would mean I had some part of you in some way.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” you said. He sounded like he was obsessed with you—and you didn’t know whether you found it more disturbing or exhilarating.

“I know,” he pulled you closer, staring into your eyes with desperation. “I can’t just love normally. I’ve never been normal. This kind of thing doesn’t have a cure, only a death sentence and there’d never be a grave deep enough for me. So please, just let me have something from you.”

You let out a shuddering breath, chest caving in.

“Caleb,” you whispered. “Stop it.”

“No, I won’t,” he said. “Not when I can tell you want me too.”

You shoved him, kicked him, tried to tear away but he held you there, strong and firm.

“You’re fucking crazy,” you repeated. “You’re so fucked in the head.”

“I am, I fucking am,” he said, pulling you in. “You said you wanted to see all of me, this is it. I’m fucking crazy, but, honey, I’m yours. Everything I am, I’m yours.”

And you broke. You could pretend no longer.

“That was all you ever needed to say,” you whispered.

His eyes widened. Before you knew it, he was pulling and crushing his mouth and body to yours. You gasped and he immediately took advantage of your folly. He kissed you like he was never going to kiss you again. His lips moved against yours, tongues dragging. He tasted like champagne and smelled like gunmetal and smoke and felt like gravity.

He moved you back, stumbling a bit with his weak leg and the both of you went tumbling—but you never met the floor.

You were weightless, floating in mid-air for a split-second before you were upright on your feet again.

“Sorry,” he breathed between kissing you. “Ankle.”

“How are your ribs,” you asked.

“Fine,” he assured, biting at your jaw. “Bed.”

“Yeah, bed,” you agreed, tugging him down with you.

“We should— We should probably close the curtain,” he said breathily, groaning as you rolled your hips up against him.

“No,” you said, dragging him into a kiss. “I want to do it like this.”

“Fuck.” He shook his head. “No. The windows aren’t tinted. I don’t want anyone else to see you like this.”

You shivered at his words, the greed in them. You kissed his throat. “So what? It’s not like they could have me.”

He let out another sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Shit. You’re dirty, aren’t you? You wanna put on a show?”

You flushed, “It’s not about that. I just— The meteor shower. I wanna see it.”

“You’re thinking about the meteor shower at a time like this,” he asked, sucking a dark mark into your throat. His voice was fond. “Unbelievable.”

“I just want to be able to see you and the stars. I want to see the two things I love most at the same time.”

His brows knit together and all the colors of a nebula in the hues of his eyes softened. He cupped your cheek tenderly and kissed you promisingly. “Say that again.”

“What?”

“That you love me the most,” he breathed. He pulled at his tie. “Say it again, please.”

Your cheeks warmed. Quietly, you murmured, “I love you most, Caleb.”

He let out a ragged breath and gripped your hips with a crushing force. You swore you could feel the air around you shift, like your weight was diminishing to an unbearable lightness.

“Again.”

“I love you most.”

“My name, say my name.”

“Caleb.”

“One more time.”

You nudged at his waist with your knee. “Give me a reason to.”

His gaze shifted, darkening.

You had never been undressed so swiftly, you were sure of it. In a matter of seconds, you were lying in nothing but your underwear on the white hotel sheets while Caleb loomed over you. He kissed his way down your body like you were something to be worshipped. Every movement was urgent, like he’d been orbiting you for a hundred million years and was now finally getting the chance to become one.

He made his way to the apex of your thighs. Caleb pressed his nose into your core and inhaled deeply, groaning. He fisted the flesh of your thighs and let his eyes flutter shut. He then hooked his fingers into the waistband of your underwear and slid them down your legs. Once freed, he brought the gusset of your panties to his nose and breathed in again, much to your embarrassment.

“What the hell are you doing,” you asked. You swatted his chest, cheeks alight. “I’ve been wearing those all day.”

He groaned at that, squeezing you in his free fist. “I know. I’m keeping ‘em.”

“What,” you said, brows crooking as you simmered. “No you’re not. They’re dirty. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Probably just about everything,” he said with a slight laugh as he tucked your underwear into his back pocket. He leaned down and kissed you again with a hand skating down your front to splay hot and rough over your core. He rubbed with a heavy pressure and you let out a gasp as your legs twitched.

“I just know I’m not gonna get enough of you,” he murmured. Caleb drew his lips along the side of your delicate neck. “That I’m never gonna get enough of you ever again.”

You moaned quietly when his palm began grinding into your clit. “A-Are you saying you’re gonna use them later?”

“Yeah, I am,” he laughed. “‘Cause I know the moment I leave, I’m gonna want you so bad it hurts.”

You squeezed your eyes shut and threw your arm over your face, “Caleb…”

“You’re getting wetter,” he observed, sliding his fingers through your silky folds. His breath was hot and his voice deep and low over the thin shell of your ear. “Does that turn you on? Knowing how crazy I am about you? I want you, you know. I’ve wanted you for a long time. From the moment I saw you again at that coffee shop, I knew I wanted you again. I wanted to kiss you, I wanted to touch you; I wanted you under me, above me, around me.”

He slipped his fingers inside one by one, drawing them in and out while caressing the most sensitive parts of you.

“It’s so hard to stop myself. You just draw me in. Your eyes, your smile, your smell. Everything about you just makes me want.” He continued to fuck you slowly, every slide of his thumb like hot torture. You felt yourself begin to burn up, your breaths coming in thin and broken.

“I was so fucking stupid back then,” he muttered. “I spend every moment of the day hating myself for running away. For forgetting you. I don’t know how I could forget you when you were so perfect for me.”

You drew him down, thighs wrapping around his waist as you shuddered and gasped.

“Caleb,” you moaned.

“You’re every star in my sky,” he declared. “Every moon and planet. You’re physics, you’re gravity.”

Your breath hitched as he continued to fuck you with his fingers. You gasped out his name several more times, voice pitching higher and higher.

“I’m—I’m gonna,” you panicked.

“Come on, let go, honey,” he murmured, curling his fingers as deep as they could go.

You let out a strangled cry and clawed into his back as ecstasy washed over your body. He kissed you through it, never once letting up. By the time you had your come down, you were boneless and panting. He leaned down and pressed his forehead against yours.

“You ok,” he murmured, kissing your cheek.

“Y-Yeah,” you nodded. Your lashes fluttered, “Are you gonna fuck me now?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

You gasped as he lowered himself again and pulled your knees over his shoulder. He kissed his way up from your knee to the hinge of your pelvis and glanced up. The look in his eyes was dark and manic. You knew this was only the beginning.

The universe became timeless. It all seemed to blur by with Caleb. You could only lie back and attempt to brace yourself as he drew climax after climax from your body. By the time he actually got to fucking you in earnest, you could only hold onto him tight and whimper his name as he took and took and gave and gave.

“So gorgeous like this,” he moaned, rolling his hips up, up, up so that the head of his cock pressed against your cervix every time. “You’re so perfect. I’m yours, you’re mine…”

“Mine,” you nodded, sobbing through the pleasure. “Yours!”

“I’ll never let you go,” Caleb told you, almost frantic. “Never. Not until I’m dead.”

You pulled your nails down his muscled back, body alight. You could feel the knot winding tight within you, the end of your orbit lying just beyond the brink. You looked up at him and his burning eyes and his flushed skin and the sweat falling from his temples. You thought no one on earth had ever looked so beautiful.

“Caleb,” you puled. “Gonna—Gonna—!”

“I know, honey,” he whispered. You squeezed down on him and it drew a strangled whimper from his throat. He curled over you, right arm bracing himself against the mattress and left holding you so tight and tender. “C-Come on, one more, baby. Give me one more. You’re so good for me, just one more…”

He rutted up harshly into your core again and again, each movement like a strike to your soul. Before you knew it, you were tipping over the edge, light bursting behind your eyes as your body seized with ruthless shocks. You felt Caleb freeze and heard him gasp above you as he burst at the same time. A kilonova a billion years in the making.

Your orgasm was brutal, shocking, wracked through you with a nuclear force. The shocks ran through you, firing again and again. You cast your gaze to the side, still quivering in the desolation—and you began to cry.

Caleb, faring little better than yourself, trembled as he kissed you. “Are you ok?”

“Look,” you breathed, nodding to the window.

He regarded you with mild question and then followed the trajectory of your attention. You heard his breath hitch in his throat, a thin and wondered sound.

The stars were falling.

—

You woke up feeling as though you’d been run through a wringer. Your body ached, your core felt raw and used, and the exhaustion that settled into your body was unlike anything you’d experienced before.

Caleb was wrapped around you. His arms wound tightly at your waist with his face pressed into your hair. You shifted with a soft groan, reaching around for your phone.

He moved, arms constricting you as he brought you back into his chest.

“Where’re you going,” he murmured.

“Just checking the time,” you replied, taking up your phone. You pressed the side button and squinted. It was barely nine.

“Is it early?”

“Yeah,” you agreed, letting your hand fall. “Nine.”

He snorted. “That’s not early at all.”

“It is to me,” you sighed. You closed your eyes and prepared to settle yourself back in for another few hours of sleep, only to freeze as Caleb’s hips shifted up into yours. Incredulous, you elbowed him, “You’re not done?”

“Mmh, no,” he said, rolling you over onto your stomach. He caged you in, pressing kisses into your neck and shoulders as his hands skated down your body, parting your thighs. “Never gonna be done now.”

“What do they feed you at the DAA?” You tried to inch away from him but his palms locked tight around your hips like they fit there and he pulled you back. You winced as he ground his cock into you. “Caleb…”

“So whiny,” he laughed. “Come on, honey. You have a couple more in you.”

“N-No,” you said, shaking your head. “‘M sore…”

“I’ll be gentle,” he promised, kissing your temple. He reached down and slipped his fingers inside. “Look, you’re wet already.”

You buried your face into the pillow to escape the embarrassment of your betraying body. A muffled moan left your throat when he hiked his thumb up toward your ass.

“Don’t worry about it, honey,” he said, kissing up your spine. “Just relax…”

Suddenly, your phone began going off, loud and harsh enough to shatter the mood in an instant. Caleb froze above you and you used the opportunity to kick him away and roll the blankets around you in makeshift armor. You then reached for your phone and laughed. Swiping, you put the phone to your ear and greeted:

“Good morning, my love.”

Caleb looked at you irritably.

“What the fuck,” Amelia screamed at you on the other side. You could tell by her voice that she was hysterically crying again. “You bitch! What is this?!”

You brightened and sat up, sliding off the bed and taking the blanket with you in your excitement, “Oh! Did you open it?”

“I did! What the fuck,” Amelia sobbed. In the background, you could hear Xiao Tu’s concerned voice as she told him to be quiet. She sniffed loudly.

“Do you like it,” you asked. “I hope you do. I thought it’d be a nice thing to hang up in your house or something—”

“I love it,” Amelia cried, breaths choppy and uneven. “I love it so much. I love you, I hate you, what the hell?”

You smiled softly and looked out the window to the hotel courtyard below. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Yeah, I really love it,” she whispered, sniffing again. “Where are you? Are you in your room? Xiao Tu and I were gonna have breakfast before we checked out, do you wanna come?”

“Oh, uhm,” you hesitated, pointedly avoiding the pout Caleb was directing at you.

A beat passed and then Amelia scoffed, “You wench. You’re with Caleb, aren’t you?”

“Maybe?”

“Whore! Tu-Ah, come over here and call her a whore!”

“I-I don’t think I can do that…?”

“Fine. Whore! Slut! I can’t believe you used my wedding night as an excuse to get—”

“Ok, I’m hanging up goodbye I love you,” you said in a rush, shutting your phone off and tossing it onto a chair. You couldn’t help but laugh and sigh.

Caleb came up behind you, hugging you to him with one arm while the other tugged the curtains closed.

“What was that about,” he asked.

“Amelia opened her wedding present,” you said. You tilted your head back to look at him with a smile. “I got the star chart for last night engraved into a plaque so they can hang it up in their apartment.”

Caleb blinked down, “Oh. Wow. That’s actually really sweet of you.”

“I thought she’d like it,” you hummed. “Astrophysicist, you know?”

“Yeah,” he hummed, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. He began a lingering trail until he reached your mouth, drawing you in completely.

You leaned into it, tilting your head to allow him more room. He cupped the back of your neck and pulled you close. Slowly, you felt the blanket on your body shifting, growing heavy as if being tugged away from you.

“Are you seriously using your Evol to undress me right now?”

He hummed, “No.”

“You lying liar,” you accused.

He laughed and pulled away to smile mischievously, a twinkle gleaming in his eyes. “Do you even know what it is? I don’t think I ever told you.”

“Didn’t need to, I’m an astrophysicist, remember,” you said. You lifted an eyebrow. “It’s gravity, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he said, drawing you into another kiss.

“I thought Evols were supposed to be used righteously,” you said.

“I think this is pretty righteous,” he countered, pulling you back toward the bed.

“You’re such a tool…”

“So use me,” Caleb said, taking your hand to kiss at your knuckles. “I’m yours, right? Use me up. I’ll do whatever you want, take you wherever you want to go.”

You softened, sliding your palm up to his cheek. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, kissing the flutter of your pulse inside your wrist.

“Then, Pilot Xia,” you uttered with your breath, drawing him down on top of you. “To the stars.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather go with you,” he whispered, sealing his mouth to yours.

A thrum of excitement filled you as his fingers skated across your body. It filled you with anticipation, like you were about to take off. Like you were Belka and Strelka all over again, about to see the universe.