There are eighty-eight constellations in the sky, and I know every one of them by heart. I used to whisper them to myself when I was hiding under the bed, or in the closet, or on the roof. Usually, I hid on the roof. It was my favorite place to escape because I could view the vast expanse of the cosmos and imagine myself somewhere else entirely, some place at home among the stars.

Constellations are used to illustrate the fixed stars, which aren’t even really fixed—they’re careening through space just like we are—dying very long deaths above our heads. Their corpses will burn in the heavens for a million years. Maybe forever.

Some people can’t handle thinking about forever. Some people don’t like looking up because it makes them feel small.

I’m the opposite. I love being in situations that remind me of the minuscule role I play in the world. I like wide-open expanses and huge constructs that help me remember my place in the chaos of the Universe. I just want something to make me feel small.

I’ve never really felt that way. I’ve been tall my whole life—tall and skinny. My mom once said my height was from all that reaching to the stars. No matter how high I was, I always wanted to go higher. I told her maybe she shouldn’t keep me on the ground, and I wouldn’t need to reach so far. She would smile, her eyes crinkling at the edges, and I would kiss the top of her head where her hair was going grey at the roots. The grey patches in her hair grew bigger and wider as she aged, fanning out from her middle part. The white flecks didn’t show up until Luna died.  

My admiration for the stars came naturally. I started reciting the names of constellations like a magic incantation, to ward off the bad shit that happened when my dad would drink. The bad got worse when we moved to Houston, after we lost everything in Mexico due to the virus. The constellations and their names felt safe. When I whispered their names, I imagined myself in the stars. Floating. Weightless. Soundless. Peaceful. I didn’t have to fight back. Not if I could run away to the stars.

The stars made me a coward.

No, that’s not right. I was already a coward.

The stars amplified my cowardice, shining their light on it, exposing me for the person I really was deep down. Not a good person. Not the favorite son.

I was a monster.

And everything I touched was doomed to fail.

The thing is, I can’t blame the stars anymore. Here at the end, I can finally say it. Here we go, here’s the real truth: I’m a coward and I let her die.

This was the moment everything changed. I was on the way home from track practice. I could have taken the bus but I had another bruised cheek and I’d already been fending off nosey-ass well-intentioned questions all day. It was track and field season so I couldn’t brush the bruises off as basketball injuries anymore. Coach even pulled me aside before practice started and said if I didn’t stop getting into fights, I was going to tank my scholarship.

Coach cared, but not enough to speak up on behalf of a skinny Mexican kid. Not when there were plenty of rich white boys to coddle. I was there on scholarships, just to get my secondary education. I was smart but that’s not what they wanted. They wanted me to pose for photos to diversify their brochures. They wanted me to be their shining MVP three-sport athlete. They wanted me to reach for the stars.

I was primed and positioned to be my family’s meteoric rise out of poverty, so I never could quite figure out why I was my father’s favorite target. I took his beatings because it kept him away from Luna and the others, for the most part. At fifteen I was getting bigger, though. The days where I was scared of the alcohol on his breath and the sharp points of his fists were numbered. I was dwarfing him in size and the taller I got, the angrier he became.

He never did like looking up.

I was early coming home from practice that day. That’s why I was on the street outside the house when she died. I wouldn’t have been there otherwise. I would have missed it entirely if I’d been at practice.

I think about that a lot. How things might have been.

I was early, because instead of bowing my head as Coach berated me for missing my jump mark, I’d glared and told him to fuck off. It was hot and I was tired. I hadn’t slept well the night before because I was cramming for a physics test. I wasn’t thinking, just reacting.

Coach raised his fist, probably on instinct, which told me something else about why he never seemed too upset about the cuts and bruises. I might have backed down then, but everyone was watching. All my teammates—people I liked, cared about, and respected—were watching. They were on my team. They were supposed to be on my team.

I was supposed to be safe here.

That’s a bullshit lie. Nobody is safe anywhere.

I stepped into him. I told him with the tension in my jaw and my fists curled at my sides, “hit me motherfucker, I dare you.” He dropped his fist and told me to get the fuck off his track.

I was usually late getting back from practice, as late as I could be. Anything to avoid the sinking desperation of being at home. I would idle around the Randolph Space Center to catch a glimpse of the spacecraft taking off. The explosions around the base of the spacecraft made my eyes burn, but I could never look away. It made me feel brave and powerful watching the rockets fire on and accelerate into the atmosphere.

I always changed out of my clothes right after practice and took the long way home past the Space Center. And then I would clock in to wash dishes and clean toilets at the hotel near the freeway. A short shift—maybe two hours, maybe three. I used the money to supplement the scholarships and buy athletic shoes, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough to fill the gaps in the money and the holes in our bellies.

Back in Mexico, my mom was an ER nurse. Not the kind that changes bed-pans or draws blood. The kind that patches you up after a car accident or cleans out your bullet wound. She worked part-time because there were so damn many of us, but she was good at her job. She loved that job, and it made her happy. It broke her heart to leave.

My dad owned his own tech repair shop. He had to sell it before we moved. He loved that shop. It broke his heart to leave. And that’s when things went from bad to worse.

When the NV exploded everywhere, we fled Mexico because of the fighting and used the desert tunnels to escape. My mom was pregnant with Daniel at the time and Gloria was only two. She could barely walk so we all took turns carrying her. I can still feel the weight of Gloria’s chubby arms around my neck.

I know what it’s like to carry the weight of the world.

I had my headphones in the afternoon Luna died so the sirens and the pops didn’t ring in my ears at first. The music blasting through the speakers was so loud I lost the boom of the bass in my ears—the intensity drowning out the pain twisting in my stomach.

Coach knew I needed the track and field scholarship to stay at Randolph Academy. If he kicked me off the team, I would lose everything. That’s where I was—I was teetering on the vast, scary edge of failure. And maybe I deserved it.

The thing is—the real truth is, I wasn’t as early as I could have been that day. I had stopped by Dante’s on the way home. Maybe if I’d been earlier, I could have stopped her. If I hadn’t gone to Dante’s, maybe I could have stopped everything.

I think about that a lot, too.

One of the kids from the neighborhood had introduced me and Dante a few weeks prior. Dante was interested in my connections to rich kids at Randolph Academy. I was interested in the stack of cash he flashed in front of me. Dealing drugs paid a lot more than scrubbing toilets and pimping out my body for an education.

Dealing drugs seemed like the answer to a lot of my questions and the resolution to a lot of my problems. I wouldn’t have to jump for the Academy or reach for the stars anymore if I could earn my own money. And anyway, I wasn’t sure if Coach was going to permanently ban me from the team after I disrespected him.

Part of me wanted him to ban me and lift the pressure off my shoulders. Losing everything would take the weight of my family and the world from around my neck. Another part of me felt like I’d already lost my place on the team when no one spoke up and no one followed me as I left. Teammates, but not friends. I was never really one of them, not in the way that mattered. So, I joined Dante’s team.

That’s why I had a twenty-sack of Salt in the pocket of my hoodie when Luna died.

I met an older girl there, at Dante’s. Her name was Skye, and she had crazy green eyes like tropical water. She told me her real name was Alma. I told her I also had two names. She kissed me on the lips and pushed the Salt into my open palm. She was the first girl I’d ever kissed. And then, she was the only one I ever wanted to kiss, no matter what foul shit she did to me. My head spun. I’d smoked a Salt cigarette with Dante, and everything was spinning. I wanted to get home and lay down. I just wanted to lay my head down.  

Things felt out of control and I was standing on the edge of a collision. I wanted to do the right thing but I wasn’t sure what the right thing was anymore.

The music was loud in my ears that day, but it was hard to miss the roar of the car engine and the sonic boom as it careened into the ugly, twisted-up tree outside our house. The driver—his body broke open all through the windshield and across the hood of the car. The woman in the passenger seat exploded against one of the limbs. I guess it was a woman. There was a lot of curling black hair, but the rest of her was…unrecognizable. I tried not to look.

I ripped the headphones off my ears and the harsh sound of sirens and gunfire exploded all around me. The peace officer vehicle whipped by me fast. I was still a block away when the accident happened. Everything unfolded in front of me, and I was too far away to stop it or intervene.

Luna stood on the front lawn just outside the door, her eyes wide.

She was thirteen—two years younger than me. The rest of the kids were like that—two years apart down to the baby, Lo, who was three and my mom was growing too much grey to worry about having any more kids.

Luna wore a flower dress, and her hair was up in a loose bun, with stray pieces framing her face. Her feet were bare. She held something and even from my vantage point, it was impossible to tell what it was. I watched our front door and silently prayed for everyone to stay inside.

But Luna would never stay inside. She was always rescuing stray animals from the street and putting them in boxes and stealing food for them, until my dad found them. They disappeared after that and nobody talked about where they went. But I knew Dad would take them to work and dump them on the streets or…something else.

I think he killed them.

I told Luna to stop picking up the animals, that she should leave them on the street because they’d be better off there than if Dad found them. She didn’t listen. I was her stupid older brother.

She was smart though. Not Academy smart, but smart enough to get top scores at the public secondary school and she wanted to be a nurse or a veterinarian. No one had the heart to tell her she would most likely end up working at the hotel with my mom forever, which she did at nights after school. All three of us rode together in the rickety pickup truck that my dad had rescued from the technician shop.

Luna had her animals, and I had my stars, and Dad had his cars, and Mom had her crosses. The little kids—Tony, Martha, Gloria, Daniel, and Carlos—they had each other, and we took care of them. Tony was just getting old enough to start pulling his weight. Dad took Tony to the shop with him. Tony liked cars too. That kept him safe.

Nobody was ever really safe.

Luna held something as the cop car squealed to a stop at the wreckage. Doors popped open on both cars, the wrecked one and the officer’s car. There was shouting on both sides. Luna stopped walking towards the wreck, and I shouted her name. She couldn’t hear me over the sirens and the other shouts. She stood there frozen, gripping the mystery item.

I ran as fast as I could.

The pops started up again. Loud. There was crossfire between the officers and the other people in the cars. I could vaguely see the outlines and shapes of their guns and the crack of the bullets firing from them. Luna dropped her hands and turned. The object she carried fell down at her feet. She ran back towards the house. She didn’t hit the ground like we’d talked about maybe a thousand times before.

The officers saw movement and fired.

It wasn’t one bullet like they said. Luna wasn’t fleeing from the car or the scene like they also said. The bullets hit her in the back. Twelve bullets in her back and lucky number thirteen hit her in the neck and should have killed her instantly but she lived for a little while—long enough to know she was dying. Long enough for the pain of thirteen bullets to consume her, although the doctor and the officers said she was in too much shock to really feel anything.

I mean, how the fuck would they know?

The lying fucks.

The Contras didn’t kill her. The officers killed her.

I couldn’t get there fast enough. I wasn’t fast enough.

I could have been faster.

But I was high from Dante’s and my brain was still circling around Skye’s lips and there was that weight in my pocket dragging me down. The drugs in my pocket.

The officers didn’t stop shooting when Luna was hit. They didn’t stop firing until the two other Contras were dead on the ground.

I don’t remember making any noise when the bullets hit her, when she fell. I just remember the ache of my jaw the next day; my head thumping hard at all the too-bright lights and the sharp sounds of the little kids; the bruises on my knees from hitting the ground so hard next to her. I just remember how much I hurt when it was all over.

And somehow, even after all my visible wounds healed—the hurting never really stopped.

Gloria had pushed open the broken screen door, her head poking up over the front porch stair, and her eyes were huge and round with fear. I slammed the screen closed against her face, shoving her backwards.

Luna stared up at me, her head laying almost peacefully on the grass, the color drained from her cheeks and forehead. Blood pooled underneath her body. Her hand weakly searched the dusty grass and I clutched it, pressing my other hand against the blood seeping from her neck. She tried to say words but when her mouth opened, blood exploded from her lips instead.

Those were her last moments. That’s what I get to remember about my sister.

An officer grabbed me from behind and wrestled me to the ground beside her. My chest was pressed into the grass, my head turned to meet her fading stare. Her eyelids closed and as I reached out for her, a second officer stomped on my wrist.

I didn’t get to touch her.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

The weight of the officer lifted from my back and then they were hauling me away and shouting orders at me. Luna lay on the grass. Still and silent. None of the officers approached to take her pulse or administer any medical aid. Before they cuffed me and shoved me into the back of the cop car, I caught a glimpse of the object Luna was holding.

It was a medical kit. A tin kit where she kept all her medical supplies, the real and the fake ones.

It took them two hours to close down the crime scene and three hours to come pick up my sister. I observed everything from the backseat of a cop car, blood running down my chin from my busted nose. My hands were twisted behind my back and cuffed, so I couldn’t wipe it away. It splattered down into my lap and stained my track shoes.

That’s okay. I never wore those shoes again.

The officers dropped the charges against me for resisting arrest. The cops that killed Luna were never prosecuted. They blamed the Contras. My mom’s hair started turning white. Gloria didn’t speak to anyone for a whole year.

I dropped out of the Randolph Academy and started selling drugs at the Space Center. Dante got me a job there in the laundry room, then as a server in the restaurant, and finally as a lifeguard for the Olympic-sized heated outdoor pool. I met Clinton Fuller and Edmund Fuller one day when I saved this stupid-ass rich kid from drowning.

I started fucking Skye and she told me she loved me. It turned out she loved a lot of other people too—all at the same time. Our love was a bad love but I thought it filled the hole in my life. I believed her love because I was young and she was older and more beautiful than I deserved. Maybe it should have mattered more that she was still fucking Dante and anyone else she wanted. Whenever she wanted. Sometimes where I could watch and listen. Sometimes she would ask me to join in. Sometimes I would join and it would feel really good in the moment, but then the life hole grew bigger and I needed more to fill it.

More Skye. More drugs. More bad shit. Sometimes I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry in the shower. Or take a hit of whatever was around and start a fight. Or drink a fifth of mescal and pass out on the front lawn. Eventually, my entire life was the hole and there was nothing left to fill it anymore.

I moved into Dante’s. I got stabbed in the heart. Clinton Fuller killed a kid. I took the fall for Clinton in exchange for a National Service term and a ticket off this fucking planet.

My mom always said I was reaching for the stars, grabbing for anything I could pull myself up with. She always said it like she thought it was the most admirable trait. Like it meant somehow things were going to be different for me and for us. Better.

And then, slowly, by pitting Fuller and the Contras against one another…things did start to get better. I finished my prison sentence. I made it into the National Service Academy and I just had one more hurdle to jump before landing at SAI and then blasting off this rock and into outer space. Where I’d always wanted to be.

In a few short months, I would have been among the stars.

And then I touched Eleni Garza’s hand. I shook it for the first time and she met my bold stare like it was a challenge—like she was daring me to say something stupid or obvious.

Her grip was strong. She was small and thin and muscled and her hair was shoulder length and wavy and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She was dressed in non-descript clothes and she wore a silver necklace with a coin looped around her neck. She had scars and wires on her face that were hard to miss. She wanted me to point them out, I swear she had some clever retort lined up, some biting comment prepared to put me in my place.

She wanted to write me off. She wanted a good reason to dislike me. I could tell because of the way her stance shifted right before we touched, by the way her lips pursed, and one end curled as she bit the inside of her cheek.

I made her nervous. Damn. She made me nervous, too. Those hard edges with that anxiety buried in her body. That vulnerability mixed with defiance. I felt a little spark pass between us and I thought, I won’t be able to look away from you.

What I said was, “I know you.”

I meant—I recognize you from all the media coverage after your parents died. I meant—I know you from the Contra dossier the Matador handed me before I left for Fort Columbia. But that’s not what I said. Because I also meant—I know you. And you are like me. We are the same animal. Cut out in the night sky from the same star stuff.

I hadn’t meant to say it at all. At least, not like that.

“I mean—what I mean—”

Her mouth twitched, brows furrowing, and her lips parted to respond. Clint interrupted by shoving my shoulder from behind. I pitched forward and almost stumbled into her. Thankfully, I have a pretty strong core and a solid sense of balance.

“Eleni Garza,” Clint said, breathing his nasty breath against my face. “This is Rabbit Santiago. But don’t let the name fool you, he only has one cuddly bone, and it’s not that soft.”

Clinton Fuller, the ultimate cock block.

“Jesus, Clint, what the hell?” I snarled through clenched teeth.

Eleni, much to her credit, was able to achieve that same level of graceful ignorance towards Clint that I loved about Alma. Alma who would never fuck Clint except that one time. That one disastrous time.

That’s all it takes, you know.

One time.

One moment.

One little thing and your entire life turns.

“Rabbit?” she asked, amusement and curiosity flickering across her features. “Your name is Rabbit?”

“That’s me.” I tried to elbow Clint out of the way but his head still hovered above my shoulder. She continued not to pay him attention, though. She looked at me, still amused, intrigued, and surprised enough not to completely write me off. Not yet, anyway. “I’m Rabbit.”

“Rabbit Santiago,” she murmured, the corner of her eyes crinkling as her smile tilted up. “I don’t know you. But you are shaking my hand for a very long time.”

I felt a flush of embarrassment. Eleni—she wasn’t the first attractive girl I’d met since the prison camp, or even on the Academy campus. I mean, I hadn’t really cared about anyone since Skye and didn’t think I would. Yet, here was this half-robot girl with scars and electronic implants running across her temple. She was electric and touching her fired all my senses.

Neither of us had broken eye contact by that point, and dizziness passed over me as her penetrating stare eclipsed the rest of the world around us. She seemed to consume the space surrounding us until there was nothing else in my line of sight. And then finally, she turned away.

“I’m sorry—about the handshake. I mean, sort of,” I finally said, giving her a quick grin.

She arched a brow and gave me another half-smile in return. My heart stuttered for a second and then hammered inside my chest. Her grip slowly came loose from mine, though I tried to keep our fingers intertwined as long as possible. She didn’t seem to mind really, that I was holding on. I think she was holding on a little, too.

“Sort of,” she said, with a quiet chuckle. “You’re second in our unit, right? I’ve seen your stats. I don’t know you, but I’ve heard about you. You’re good.”

I swallowed hard and started to speak, but Clint got there first—

“Rabbit’s not better than you. He’s pretty pissed about getting beaten by a girl.” Clint dug his jaw into my shoulder as if to punctuate his statement. I resisted a sudden urge to sucker punch him and instead concentrated that energy into repeatedly clenching and unclenching my fists.

“Is that right?” Eleni’s gaze flickered over to him, then back to me. “You’ve got a problem with that?”

“No, I don’t, because that would be weird and sexist. Look, Garza, you earned that spot. Just don’t get comfortable there.” I gave her a twitchy grin. “I might surprise you.”

“I hate surprises,” she said. “But as long as we keep the competition friendly, I don’t mind.” She shrugged and tilted her chin up. “You seem friendly enough. Now you just have to prove you’re actually competition.”

“You want me to prove myself?” I asked.

“Yeah, Rabbit Santiago. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Her lips quirked up. “They have open flight SIMs on Saturdays. Meet me there and you can prove just how good you really are.”

I wrinkled my nose and prepared a flirty response because holy shit, she was flirting with me. She was. She did. I mean, she really did flirt with me at first and I wonder… you know, what’s the use in wondering? Whatever I wanted to happen didn’t happen. Nothing turned out like it was supposed to.

Clint interrupted me. He always interrupted me.

“We’ll see you there,” Clint piped up from my shoulder. “And how about we make the competition more than friendly.”

Eleni leveled a shriveling look at Clint and then me, in turn. My heart sank when our eyes met. I thought maybe, maybe she would be able to see that I was different, that I wasn’t like Clint.

“How about fuck off?” she asked, her mouth slimming into a disapproving line.

When I turned to shove Clint off me, that’s when I saw it. My already sinking heart dropped into the basement of my stomach. Clinton stared past me—at her—with a look I’ve seen before. A look that last time got someone killed. So, I stepped between them, blocking his line of sight.

“Oh, I like her. She’s feisty,” Clint said, peering around me.

“Aaand we’re done here. Time to go,” I said, pushing his shoulders. With my back turned to Eleni I said, “I’m sorry. I don’t—” I sighed with gritted teeth. “I don’t think Saturday is gonna work out. We’ll just have to, you know, compete in class.”

“Right.” Her voice was small and hurt, roughed on the edges by feigned indifference. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I can kick your ass anywhere.”

“Yeah,” I said and my heart, already as low as it could possibly get, splintered. I hoped she couldn’t hear it in my voice. “Sorry, Garza.”

“Sorry for what?” she asked. The hairs on the nape of my neck prickled. I swear it’s like she was reading my mind. “You apologize a lot. What exactly did you do?”

I glanced back at her. Her hand was laid delicately over the scars and wires on her neck and temple and she was turned slightly, almost as if to hide them from view. I closed my eyes and swallowed, my heart cracking even further. It’s not that. God damn, it’s not the scars and wires. But I’m sure that’s what she thought, because I could see the pain in her eyes.

“I’m sorry for a lot of things,” I said, and I was trying to flirt again, but my tone was all wrong. The words were all wrong. Why did I feel like this? How did this get so serious and heavy so quickly? How were my feelings already so big?

One little moment.

One little thing and your whole life turns.

Meanwhile, Clint still stared at her like a greedy kid preparing to hoard all the candy in sight. The future was painted across his face in bright, bold colors—that look like a drowning man who’s found a way to finally keep themselves afloat, like a thirsty man who’s being handed a tall glass of ice-cold water. It’s an expression special to Clint and involves him getting into a metric fuckton of trouble which I will inevitably need to clean up.

Not her. Not this one.  

His look wasn’t desire—exactly. It was hunger. It was unwrapping a shiny new toy and desperately wanting to open the packaging to play with it. It was that special form of using Clint saw in people. He’d seen it in me. He’d seen it in Alma. He could always spot someone with a gift or a talent or a charm that he could use and manipulate and then squash and discard. He only liked me because I hadn’t stopped being useful. And here was someone else who could help him achieve his goals. Someone else he could abuse and manipulate.

Clint’s expression also meant, through the unspoken code of tragedy-tied best friends and through the fucked-up power dynamics that comprised our friendship—it also meant Eleni was off-limits to me. The best thing I could do here, the best way to keep them separated was to disengage with her. There was nothing I could do besides stuff my legitimate desire and that spark of caring deep down in the recesses of my brain and body.

But I couldn’t convey that in any way that wouldn’t freak Eleni out and cause Clint to do the opposite of what I wanted. It was better just to turn my back, place myself in the middle, and keep him distracted.

“Come on Clint, let’s go. We need to save Luis from himself,” I urged. Clint finally relented, shrugging away. With my back to Eleni, I said, “You know how it is, somebody’s gotta keep these assholes in line.”

“Sure. I guess that somebody is you,” she said. “And I see you’ve got your work cut out for you. Take care of yourself, Santiago. I’m going to need a good co-pilot.”

“Yeah, or maybe I’ll need you. I mean, as my co-pilot. Because we’re squadmates. I—” I fought the urge to turn back around to her, but, I didn’t. I kept my back to her this time. I didn’t want to see any more of the hurt I was causing. “I’ll see you in class, Garza.”

We moved over to Luis, who was trying desperately to hit on Corazon. Anyone else could tell you that was a losing proposition. Didn’t seem to matter to Luis.

I did peer back over my shoulder as we walked away, just once. I couldn’t help it. Eleni still watched us, her eyes glittering. She’d thrown the hood up over her head, the scars and wires vanished beneath the cloth. I gave her a small smile, not charming, but friendly enough. I like you. I just can’t get close to you. She bit her lip in contemplation, then frowned, and turned her back on us. On me. I didn’t blame her. I don’t blame her for any of it.

The thing about desire is that it’s always a spark igniting a fuse. The fuse is variable. The spark can be too. There’s a lifespan to desire and it can be long or short but it will end in combustion or…nothing at all. This spark had a particularly long fuse, a few months long anyway, that wound from the tips of my fingers down into my stomach.

It burned and grew hotter and faster over time.

So, I let it burn. I took a lot of laps. I took a lot of cold showers. I thought if I ignored her that would keep her safe. Ignoring her would keep her hidden, and off the Fullers’ radar. Except that was never going to happen. I could maybe control myself. Maybe. But I could never control anything else.

The forces of nature are beyond our control. And Eleni Garza was a quiet, crackling ball of lightning. She did not make my time desperately squashing the flame of desire any easier.

She observed me when she thought I wasn’t looking. She followed me on base sometimes and I pretended not to notice. She would smoke cigarettes with her hood up near the outdoor basketball courts, sketching on a tablet. She’d hunker down in the bleachers lining the indoor court and pretend to read her tin box of letters. She’d scribble furious little lines with her pen and glower over at me in between hook shots.

I thought she hated me at first, especially after the whole scene with Clint. Like, who is this short weirdo following me around glaring at me and writing in her diary?

She was always kicking my ass in the SIMs. Bringing that extra attention to herself that made Clinton’s slimy ears perk up. It was impossible to get in front of her all the time. Or any of the time. She was always just a little further out of my academic sphere and just a little bit out of my physical reach.

The spark morphed over time and sometimes I hated her. Resented her. Fought with her and fought against her. All of those efforts were futile because no matter how vehemently I denied the thing—it was there every day. Running into me on campus. Running drone simulations.

Running through my head.

I just wanted her to stop shining so bright. I just wanted to turn her down a bit so I—so I could look away. So Clint would look away and I could breathe a little easier. What I wanted was to do my time in the Academy like I’d done my time in the prison camp. With my head down. Not looking up. Not reaching up. Erasing myself from the scenery and fading into the background so I would become invisible.

Eleni had that problem too.

Sometimes the desire to become invisible backfires and morphs you into the most obvious target in the room. And no matter how much both of us wanted to slink back into the shadows and hide behind our drones, in tanks, off to the side, behind the ranks—we couldn’t. We were always going to be exposed. And sooner or later, one of us was going to explode. I thought it would be me. I thought I would crack under the pressure of my feelings. But I was wrong.

It was Eleni.

In the SIM where she saw and heard the ghosts.  

She cracked in there and a light poured out of her, a delicate vulnerability that was impossible to ignore any longer. That’s when the fuse wrapped up its months of tangled work and I felt that flip in my organs and I knew that with the deploying of one stupid fake bomb I had undone weeks of carefully guarded wall building between us.  

One stupid little thing.

She revealed the crack in her meticulously constructed armor and what pulsed beneath it was a different kind of force. I thought she was light. I thought she was life.

But I was wrong.

The energy she radiated was death and I started dying the night she did. I spent my whole life reaching for the stars and then I held one in my hands and watched her die.

And then she killed me.

Now, I am finally among the stars, dying a slow death.

Perhaps I will burn for a million years.