What do the stars feel when they look at Us?

Chapter 8: The constant heartache Pt. 2

When Pedro came back in the second week of the holidays, it was constantly raining. It felt like the rain would never stop. It was there when I left the house in the morning and there when I walked home at night.

Pedro minded the rain.

He complained a lot while I dragged him from every spot I had found the week before to the next.

We spent the whole first, reunited afternoon going through every experience I had while he was gone.

He knew that he was the reason for me wanting to talk about the things that I feel.

So with every second passing, he complained less about the rain.

Maybe he even enjoyed it a little bit.

-

Eventually, we ended up on the roof of the parking garage.

And I told him about the call. The voice mail. And how I hadn't gotten a response yet.

"How are the caterpillars?", he asked.

"I feel them. On my back. But they don't act. As if they are lurking for the next best opportunity to strike."

"And all of this – the walking, the thinking, the feeling – does it help?"

"I think so."

He shook his head slightly. And grinned.

"Can I tell you what I think?"

"Sure?"

"I think that there is a purpose for human beings."

He quickly checked if I was still listening.

I was.

"I think, for some people, their purpose is to become a certain person.

For others, it's to meet a certain person.

And I always thought that you were one of them. How your purpose was to meet Linda.

But lately, all you do is prove me wrong. Again and again each and every day."

I had a lot of thoughts after hearing what he said. They felt like the raindrops, falling through my hair and my head, directly onto my brain cells. Cleaning up.

I moved my head around. I felt the drops twirling.

And saw every detail of this place in front of me. This place that made me risk calling her.

My eyes followed the invisible paths I walked while I had been searching for the proper words to tell her.

The giant supermarket's roof's surface was shiny and glossy and muddy and stained.

I touched the rough ground we were sitting on. Felt every crack and tear.

"Ben?"

"Yeah."

"Was that inappropriate of me to say?"

"I don't think so. It's nice how you phrase things."

"Thanks?"

"But I think you're wrong."

In exaggerated outrage, he softly punched me against the shoulder.

"I think you're wrong because..., I think everyone's born into this world with the same purpose. The purpose to meet someone. And then become someone. It was just that, at first, someone had to become anything by themselves so they could be met by other people. Afterwards, the wish of being spread like wildfire."

The air smelled like the clouds surrounding us were burning down entirely.

"So you mean because some fish, who crawled onto land millions of years ago, became something, every single one of us can be anything now?"

Ben looked at me.

We were officially fighting out a duel of theories.

I had to laugh. We both had to.

"Yeah, I think so", I stated after a while.

Ben still wiped tears of laughter from the corner of his eyes.

"That's fair then."

-

And as it got darker, we walked home, as far as the bikeway allowed us to go. And the same stars that I had seen yesterday showed up without a single one of them missing.

What do the stars feel when they look at us?

"Pedro?"

"Yeah."

"I never noticed how pretty starry nights could be."

"It's great you can notice these kinds of things now."

"Is it?"

"It is."

He left me at a junction close to his home.

He even hugged me goodbye.

But I still kept staring upwards. To undermine the constant heartache.