The Star Breaks

Nicki’s gone now. I sat on a hill in the grass, just sitting there in the dark for a while, and then I saw this thing—a star, or something like a star, dark and bright at once, cracking open toward the sky. It lit up the whole horizon for a moment and then it was gone again, fading back into nothing. We’re sitting here together now, him and me, both in the dark, both alone. Waiting to see if it comes back. Waiting to see if he comes back. I don’t know. He had this way of seeing things that made everything look different—not like he was trying to be wise about it, just like he actually saw something the rest of us were missing. Now there’s just the dark and the memory of that light, and the strange stupid hope that maybe you appear again if you just sit still long enough and don’t look away.