We never needed a telescope to find the stars.
You and I would lie on blankets in the grass, or on the hood of your old car, or sometimes just on the floor of my tiny apartment with the lights off, and we’d trace them ourselves. Not the official ones—the ones in books with Latin names and ancient myths—but ours. Private patterns made from the small, bright moments we collected together.
There was the night you drove three hours just to bring me soup when I was sick—that became the first star, warm and steady in the lower corner of our sky. Then the afternoon we got lost on purpose in that little coastal town, laughing until our sides hurt—that one burned brighter, a little higher up. The quiet morning you whispered “stay” when I tried to leave early, the concert where we danced like no one was watching, the thunderstorm we watched from your porch with our hands intertwined—each memory a pinprick of light we connected with invisible lines.
I named them out loud sometimes, just to hear you smile in the dark.
“That’s the Soup Star,” I’d say, pointing at nothing and everything. “And over there—that’s the Lost Highway Cluster.” You’d squeeze my hand and add your own. “Don’t forget the Thunderstorm Duo,” you’d murmur, “the two that always lean toward each other.”
We built an entire sky that way. A secret constellation map no one else could see. Some nights it felt like the whole universe had shrunk to fit inside the space between us.
Time, of course, has its own gravity.
Slowly, quietly, some of the stars began to fade. Distance stretched between visits. Conversations grew shorter. The lines we’d drawn started to blur. One by one, certain lights dimmed—not dramatically, not with anger, but gently, the way embers cool when the fire isn’t tended.
I thought the whole sky would go dark.
But on the clearest nights, when the world is quiet and my heart feels brave enough to look up, I still see it. Not as bright as it once was, not as sharp—but there. The pattern we made together lingers, soft and silver, like a faint outline against the deeper dark.
The Soup Star still glows when I’m under the weather and need comfort. The Lost Highway Cluster twinkles whenever a song we loved comes on the radio. The Thunderstorm Duo leans close on rainy evenings, reminding me how safe it felt to be held.
Some stars have drifted out of reach. Some have burned out completely. But the shape we created—the one only we know—still lights up my sky on quiet nights.
And sometimes, when the wind is just right and the moon is kind, I swear I feel you looking too. Tracing the same lines. Smiling at the same old names.
Our constellation hasn’t disappeared. It’s just become one of those ancient ones—visible only to those who remember where to look.