Page 48 of Seeking Stars
"There are entertainment apps that let you do that?"
"I don't know, actually, but it's fun to wind you up."
She flicked his arm; he chuckled.
"Anyway," she insisted, "answer my question."
He sipped his drink.
"I know of this place because I came here a few times during my undergrad. I still came during my Masters, and at least once when I began my PhD courses. I was on my way to becoming an astronomer."
He stole glances at her, tracking her reaction. She studied him in silence and squinted, sipping Scotch, before giving up whatever she was doing and looking up to the stars again.
"I don't think you're winding me up right now."
"No, I'm not. Acting was my artsy hobby. Then, one day, we're doing a play with Logan and our group and I didn't know it, but Julia Hunter, the actress? She was there, I'm not even sure why. Anyway, she saw me and called a friend, who called Coulton. A month later, I was signing with TCA and putting my PhD on hold."
She chuckled, shaking her head. After inspecting him for a minute, she looked up again, her neck long, open, and vulnerable as she did so. It was like she couldn't decide what she wanted to stare at the most— him or the skies.
"All I ever cared about was the artsy thing," she said. "I was very lucky that my parents didn't cause too much of a fuss about it."
"I liked it fine and I did well, but when Coulton's offer came along, I thought, well, I can always go back to school. I won't get an offer with TCA like that twice."
"That does make sense."
"I thought I would get to really give acting a go, see how it went, how good I could be and how far I could take it."
"I think you've done amazing," she said, gazing at him now. "I do think you're a good actor."
"Thank you."
"Teach me something about the stars," she sighed.
***
They'd ended up laying side by side, Liam telling her random things about space, about his Master's degree research, and pointing at some of the things they could see from their place on the hilltop. Ana liked the wistfulness in his voice when he talked about space.
"One of my favorite things to do when looking up like this, with the naked eye, is to simply lay down and let myself fall into space."
"What do you mean?" She did her best not to think too hard about how close she knew his hand rested, next to hers.
"In space there's no up or down. To us it feels like we're looking up, but we could very well be looking down. The only thing keeping our back to the ground is gravity. Without it, we'd be floating away and falling into space. Do you want to try?"
"Tell me what to do."
"Okay," he said, setting the tone by deepening his voice. He spoke slowly. "Look at the sky, at all the stars above us. Notice the space between them, and understand that there's thousands of lightyears of room between them. An infinity between one bright spot and the next. So much space between us and the stars, a vast open nothing below us."
She did as he instructed, silence around them, butterflies in her stomach.
He continued, "realize that we're really looking down and we could sink into space forever, not a single thing blocking our way. Feel yourself start to float… and let your eyes unfocus a bit. See the infinity of the universe in front of you. Let yourself fall into it."
It was easy to do as he whispered, his voice so soft she could imagine she heard it in her mind. Hypnotic. His words guided her right to the place where gravity didn't exist, her stomach dropping as if she were jumping off a cliff.
"Woah."
He sighed. "I love it."
They were quiet for a while. Ana put both her hands on her stomach, still feeling some ungroundedness there, like she could fly away if the wind picked up around them. She took a few slow, deep breaths, before dropping her hands and placing them palm down on the blanket underneath.
