𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣'𝙨 𝙨𝙪𝙣

𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏

Saturn
• • •

After Calvin left, it rained for 9 days straight. Usually, I enjoyed the rain. Right now, it was causing me pain. I thought that perhaps when the rain ceased, Calvin would return. Each day, I gazed out the windows of my bedroom, the shop, or the lecture hall, and prayed for a break in the clouds. It did not come.

One day, the voice in my head even stopped narrating my every move. I called her Beth. I supposed Beth had left with Calvin.

"Do you want to come to a cafe with me this afternoon, Saturn?"

I snapped out of my trance. Beth's absence was disorienting. Lianna looked at me expectantly from across the lunch table. "Alright," I agreed. Perhaps a distraction was what I needed.

"Good," Lianna said, "I've invited Alice as well. We both want to help cheer you up."

"I don't need to be cheered up," I said sheepishly.

"Oh yes you do, girlfriend," Zaire said, "I've seen you sulking around the shop. You can't even bear to read the notes he left behind for us to follow."

It was true. I had not read the notes Calvin had left for us, as it would only serve as a reminder that he had yet to send me a single letter, another abandoned promise.

"Are you two coming to the village?" I asked Henri and Zaire, changing the subject.

"No, I'm afraid I need to finish a Psych paper," Henri replied, "and Zaire has a shift."

"Of course he does," I nodded. Neither Alice nor I worked tonight, so that meant Zaire was on his own.

"Calvin scheduled you two together so much this week," Zaire said spitefully, "when do I get to spend time with my girls? I can only wander the bookshelves so many times before I get tired of it and close early."

"You close the shop early?" I asked, "Calvin wouldn't like that." Saying his name sent a stab of pain through my body.

"I don't care if pretty boy wouldn't approve," Zaire replied, "I have a life to live. You do too, Saturn. With or without Cal."

He was right. I had a life to live, and that was exactly what I was going to do.

⋆ ˚｡⋆˚ ⭒ ˚⋆｡˚ ⋆

"Professor Brown looks like Mr. Potato Head," Alice said out of nowhere, making both Lianna and I laugh. Laughter felt abnormal on my tongue.

By the time we had walked from the bus stop to the cafe, we all looked as though we had just stepped out of a swimming pool. I wrung out my hair and allowed the droplets on my jacket to trickle down onto the welcome mat.

The cafe was directly across from the bookshop. I had watched customers walk in and out of it from the window for numerous hours, counting them in my head. I had always wondered what it looked like on the inside, and now I knew. It was beautiful.

Classical music faintly played as Lianna, Alice and I selected a table in the corner of the room. I admired the cafe in all its quaint glory. It had a grandmotherly atmosphere, with kind-looking staff and the smell of fresh bread in the air. There were fresh flowers on the countertop too, although it was nearly December. Old walls, like every building at Kenton. A round window above the door. Wooden cabinetry.

Consider my mood brightened.

A waitress came over and took our orders. The girls scolded me for not getting anything. Eating was hard without Calvin. Everything was hard without Calvin. Sleeping, breathing, existing.

"What are you reading, Saturn?" Lianna asked, staring at the cover of my book.

"The Stars Weep With Us," I replied, "it's my favourite novel." It was an older romance novel, set in the late 1800s. I only read it when I was at my worst. My grandmother bought it for me shortly after my mother's passing. Ever since then, it had been my comfort novel.

"The cover is pretty," Alice said. It really was. A girl, reaching on her tiptoes for the brightest star in the sky. Reach for the stars, my Saturn. That was what Nan had always told me.

I had already finished the novel once through since Calvin had left. I began where I'd left off, midway through the characters' first kiss scene.

"Oh, Everett, how sweet your lips are," Lillian murmured, her lips still grazing his as she spoke.

"Not as sweet as yours, Mistress," the young man replied. She made his heart race like no other girl he'd ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Everett's hand fell upon the face of his lover. "Kiss me once more, my love, before I must leave you."

I wished Calvin had been so generous. I scarcely saw him in the few days before his departure, let alone had he kissed me goodbye. It was like he was slowly pulling himself away from me, to somehow make the inevitable distance less painful.

"Get your nose out of that book, Saturn," Lianna said, tearing me from my misery. She was right. I needed to distract myself from Calvin, not attract any more thoughts of him.

"Let her read," Alice said, "she doesn't like to be interrupted." Alice knew this better than anyone, having had me ask her to help several customers at the shop so that I could finish reading my chapter.

I closed my book and stowed it in my bag. "I'm back," I said, smiling with false joy, "what are you talking about?"

Lianna and Alice sipped their tea as they described to me how in primary school, Henri had once become locked in the boys' washroom for the entire school day. I had no idea that the three of them knew each other previously, apart from Lianna and Henri. Alice had been in Lianna's year, but the two hadn't become close until I came along and brought them together.

Having friends was a miraculous thing. They were my darkness in the night; my orbiting stars.

When we departed the bus at our residence stop, the driver watched me as I stood to leave.

"Are you Miss Saturn Grey?" the old man asked gruffly.

"Um, yes," I said, feeling flustered.

The bus driver picked up a letter from his bag. "This is for you."

Calvin had finally written to me. "Thank you," I said, "have a nice evening."

"You as well, Miss Grey."

I hurried from the bus stop to my room.

Even after all my years of being an avid reader, I had never been so eager to read anything in my life.