You've Found Oliver (You've Reached Sam, #2)(27)

I take this in for a second. “So what you’re saying is, I’m actually looking into the past?”

“Exactly.”

I take another look through the telescope. “What’s this one called again?”

“The Coma Berenices. Or more affectionately, Berenice’s Hair.”

“How did they come up with that?”

“It’s named after Queen Berenice II of Egypt,” he says. “After her husband went off to fight in the war, she sacrificed her hair to Aphrodite for his safe return.”

“Her hair must have been beautiful.”

“They did name a constellation after it.”

Our faces are close to each other. His skin is soft in the pale light. Somehow, I find the confidence to brush his hair to the side and say, “You know, I’d name one after you, too.”

Ben’s lips curve into a smile. “Is that so?”

“And what about me?”

He takes me in. “I’d name one after your eyes.”

I look at him, then at his lips again. For a second, I think about kissing him. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing. Maybe I let too much time pass, because Ben turns back to adjust the telescope. I love seeing how passionate he is about all this. It reminds me of Julie and her writing.

“How often do you come up here?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” he says.

“What’s your favorite part about it?”

“My favorite part?” Ben thinks about it for a moment. “Probably the slim chance that I could discover something new. It’s why I started taking astronomy classes. There’s so much of the universe we haven’t explored yet, you know? And the more we find out, the more we realize how little we actually know about it. We’re always open to being proven wrong. Think about a cup of water compared to the ocean. That’s as much of the universe as we’ve actually explored. Which is really nothing at all.” He looks up at the sky and adds, “Maybe I’ll never discover anything. But I enjoy the possibility that I might.”

I follow his gaze, trying to see what he’s looking at. It makes me want to find something I’m this passionate about, too. “If we know nothing about the universe, then the chance of you discovering something isn’t really slim at all,” I figure. “If anything, it means it’s even more likely.”

Ben tilts his head a little. “That’s a nice way of looking at it.”

“It’s all about how we frame things, right?”

“Exactly.”

We both smile at this. Then Ben shows me more planets and his favorite constellations. He shows me the moons of Saturn, which I never realized were made of ice. He also shows me Jupiter and the Great Red Spot that’s shrinking.

Afterward, we sit on the blanket he set up earlier. Ben puts on some music from his phone, and we try the pastries. The cannoli are almost as good as the ones back home. I wish we could stay here and watch the sun come up together. But I have to make it on the last bus home. Eventually, we have to call it a night.

I help Ben pack his telescope and carry it outside. I offer to help him bring it back, even though his apartment is in the other direction. “It’s alright,” he assures me. “I don’t want you missing the bus.”

“Your jacket—” I’m about to take it off, but he holds up a hand.

“You can give it back later,” he says.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Ben nods. “It gives us an excuse to hang out again.”

“You know we don’t need an excuse for that.” I offer another smile. Then I look at the time and say, “I should probably get going.”

“Text me when you get back, alright?”

“For sure.”

As we’re hugging each other goodbye, I keep my arms around him longer this time. It’s nice to feel him so close to me, his cheek warm against mine. But eventually we have to pull apart. Ben promises to make the trip to me next time. It would be nice to show him around Ellensburg. I spend the whole ride home thinking about all the places I’ll take him.





Chapter

Nine



“For our house is our corner of the world. As has often been said, it is our first universe.” —Gaston Bachelard Those words are written on the board when I come into class. It’s Friday afternoon, which means there’s only a few hours before the weekend starts. Professor Clarke is standing at the front, drinking from a Christmas mug. She waits for all of us to be seated before she says, “Good afternoon, everyone. This week has truly flown by, hasn’t it? I’m sure many of you have exciting plans for the weekend, but hopefully you haven’t checked out just yet. Please ignore the mug I’m drinking from today. Everything else is in the dishwasher.” She takes a sip from it and sets it down on the table. “I promise there’s no deeper meaning behind it, in case you were wondering.

“Now on to today’s class,” she continues. “I’ve had the chance to read the assignments you turned in this week. From what I can tell, most of you are enjoying the text we’ve been reading together. While each of you started somewhere different, it seems we have begun to encounter this image of a house, which Bachelard describes as our first universe.” She pauses to let the words sink in. “What do you suppose he means by this?”