The Weight of the Stars - K. Ancrum Page 0,69

every day when I’m trying so hard to patch myself closed?

“It was going to be easy, I was just going to grow up alone and leave. But then you kicked your way into my life and threw your fragile friends in front of me and now I am tearing out pieces of myself to try to figure out how to get back to where I started.

“I spent months trying to unlearn loving you, trying to forget the strength of your hands and the worlds in your eyes. But there is no part of me left that you have not touched. We just spent forever finding out what it meant to have one foot out in the heliosphere and the other here on Earth, testing just how far a heart can stretch. I heard it in her voice, how much it hurts, and I am terrified that same thing will kill me.

“Why are you rebuilding the tragedy that built me?” It was a question, and a threat.

Ryann squeezed her eyes tight and said the thing that had hidden behind her teeth for months. “Because I had to. Because I’m selfish. Because I want you more than I care about whether it hurts us or not.”

Alexandria laughed. “I never—You never stop surprising me—”

Ryann stole the rest of whatever Alexandria was going to say beneath the press of her lips. Alexandria pushed Ryann back against her bike, scrambling her hands beneath Ryann’s jacket and shirt so she could feel her skin.

“You’re an asshole, Ryann Bird,” Alexandria said between gasps. “You made me wait until the last fucking minute for this.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Ryann laughed into Alexandria’s slender neck, biting it sweetly. “You’re scary. I … I didn’t know. I didn’t want to—” She recaptured Alexandria’s lips, framing her face with trembling hands. Alexandria leaned in close, peeling Ryann’s jacket off her shoulders as she leaned in.

Ryann’s bike jerked under their weight and then turned on its side, dumping them unceremoniously onto the gravel.

Alexandria turned on her back, spread out on the filthy rocks, and laughed loudly. Ryann’s eyes tingled with tears and she buried her face in the crook of Alexandria’s shoulder.

“Okay. Fuck. Well. It’s way too late to sneak in the front door, so let’s climb the trellis and go in through the roof,” Alexandria said, curling an arm around Ryann’s neck. “All we ever do is break into places.”

Ryann snorted and kissed Alexandria gently on the cheek.

8 MINUTES

Alexandria closed the skylight and climbed down to the floor. She walked across the room and turned off the light, then she came and stood in front of Ryann, gazing up at her.

“Four light-years from the second largest pulsar, past the black dust and the white. In a small circle of golden light, made by a careful teenage star, I found you,” Alexandria said seriously. “No matter what I did or said, there you stood. Like a fixed point, and the Earth moved around you.”

“Everything you say is like poetry,” Ryann whispered.

“Is that what made you love me?”

“No,” Ryann said hoarsely. “On the first day … Even on the first day, you were so angry and luminous and demanding. You looked like … the whole world was built just so that you could walk on it. Who could look away from that? Who would want to?”

Alexandria held Ryann’s face in her hands and Ryann exhaled softly, swaying forward.

“Four months ago … when I saw you waiting at the top of that hill,” Alexandria said, “I learned what it meant to be hungry for you. I learned what it meant to make peace with starving. You want to see space? I’ve been staring at it in your eyes for months. You want to leave? I’ve spent all year learning what it means to endure. I know the weight of this and I know the price.”

Alexandria grazed her lips over Ryann’s forehead, nose, and cheeks, then kissed her so softly it was barely a taste of breath. “This is the most human thing I know,” she said. “I need you to take it with you.” She squeezed Ryann’s neck and then led her backward to her bed.

Ryann gasped as Alexandria lay her down. “How is this real? It doesn’t feel real.”

“I’m here. Let me show you.”

9 HOURS AND 15 SECONDS

The next morning, Ryann woke up in Alexandria’s bed.

Alexandria’s bed was harder than Ryann remembered, but she was warm from the sunlit window and Alexandria lying next to her. She curled up on her side and