Our Constellations

Wade was a lonely grocery store clerk in a small town, a young man stuck in a world of numbered aisles and checkout lanes, parking lot wastelands and movies repeating in a theater below his apartment. Then, a stranger appeared in the cereal aisle, his eyes the color of the night sky, changing everything.“Turn around,” he said. “Please.” When I turned to look at him, his eyes were the color of the night sky again and full of constellations. “I have come back for you.”“I live here, now,” I told him.He smiled, his eyes deepening into black holes in his face, an inescapable force. I felt myself pulled toward him, stumbling forward.“No one lives here,” he whispered, “Come here,” and I took a step toward him, and then another, until finally I was pressed against him, our body heat combining, a single radioactive mass. Somewhere, in the theater, credits were beginning to roll. His breath was warm against my neck, and my eyes spilled over, wet and hot and lonely. Somewhere inside me, something dark and cold thawed and beat again for the first time in years, a single, burning thump inside my chest. I remembered every star, every constellation inside him, because they were our constellations.