𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣'𝙨 𝙨𝙪𝙣

𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒚 𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕

Saturn
• • •

On the fifth day after Calvin's departure, I learned that purple hair dye stained sinks. Well, it stained Lianna's sink at least.

All week, the girls had been trying to ease my misery. Today, Lianna had come up with the genius idea to dye our hair together. First, we visited the local drugstore and picked up boxed hair dye, then we went to her room to begin the process. Was this a good distraction? Sure. But was I still worried that my boyfriend was never going to come home? Of course. Calvin never left my mind, no matter how distracted I was.

"Jesus, Alice," Lianna groaned, "my perfect sink is ruined."

"It's a fucking sink, Li," Alice rolled her eyes, flipping through a magazine she'd found at the drugstore. The purple hair dye in question had just been rinsed out of her hair. It was time for a change, or so she thought. I had liked her blonde hair, but purple suited her much better.

Lianna scrubbed the sink with a sponge, to no avail. She sighed, then tossed it in the garbage. "Anything for our Saturn," she muttered, a statement Alice had begun to use frequently. It was sweet, how much they cared about my happiness.

"That's right, Lianna, stop being so bitter," Alice said. I grinned. Alice peaked up at me over her magazine. "There's a smile," She said with pride.

"How are you doing, Saturn?" Lianna asked, fiddling with the foils in her hair. Her question caught me off guard.

"I'm okay," I said, a default answer. I was anything but okay, and they both knew it.

"Don't lie to us," Alice said, "I saw how you reacted to him leaving. That doesn't exactly prove your case."

I grimaced internally. Alice was my friend, yes, but she didn't understand the extent of my situation. Neither of them did. They didn't understand why I'd lost it when Calvin left, or why I was so distraught without him. Perhaps it was time for them to know.

"He's in a military program," I said plainly, "that's why I was so upset when he left. Because I can't handle losing him too."

Both Alice and Lianna were quiet. They knew about my parents. They even knew about my dispute with Jupiter. Perhaps it made more sense to them now, why Calvin meant so much to me.

"Wow," Alice said after a long pause, "is he in danger?"

"He tells me he isn't," I said, "it's just training, really. But some of them get recruited for missions. I can't help but imagine if that happened to him."

Lianna came and rested her hand on my shoulder. "He'll come back to you, Saturn," She said, "he's strong. You're even stronger. You will both get through this."

I could only hope she was right.

⋆ ˚｡⋆˚ ⭒ ˚⋆｡˚ ⋆

"So, it's your birthday next week?" Zaire asked me one afternoon at the shop.

"Mhm," I replied absentmindedly. Birthdays had never meant much to me.

"We're going to throw you a party," Zaire decided, dumping his dustpan of dirt into the garbage.

"No, seriously," I shook my head, "it's on a Monday. You can't have a party on a school night."

Zaire chuckled, tossing himself down onto one of the couches. "You're precious, Saturn," he smirked, "there's no way any of us are going to allow you to sulk about Calvin on your birthday." Oh. That was what this was about.

Calvin was going to miss my birthday.

Was that why his face had gone pale after our discussion about my birthday plans? Was that why he had been so regretful in leaving me this time? It all made sense to me now.

"I think I'm going to close us down early," I said, ignoring the past two minutes, "there's no one in town. We might as well go home." I grabbed the keys from the desk, and practically dragged Zaire off the couch, where he had been deeply invested in an adventure novel all day.

"Are you sure you aren't just looking to check the mail?" Zaire mused as I locked up the shop. I rolled my eyes, although he was very much correct. I hoped that Eric had a letter for me.

"A letter would certainly make today better," I replied, "but I've come to expect nothing from Calvin at this point. So I don't have any hopes."

"Yeah, you really can't rely on men for much," Zaire said, jogging slightly to keep up with my determined stride toward the bus stop. "Henri decided to take a page out of Calvin's book on Valentine's day and write me a letter of his own. Unfortunately, he spelled my name wrong three different ways and wrote about how my eyes resembled sandpaper. He did it to piss me off, of course."

Zaire's story put a much-needed grin on my face. "Calvin's eyes look like the ocean floor," I said softly.

"How mystifying," Zaire mused, climbing the stairs of the bus. To both of our delight, Eric the driver stopped me just as I boarded.

"Here, Miss Saturn," He said, handing me an envelope. I hurried to my seat and tore open the seal.

"I want to read it next," Zaire said, practically giddy at the thought of reading Calvin's letter of adoration. I'd let him, Henri, Lianna, and Alice all read the previous ones. It was sweet how invested they were in our relationship.

I unfolded the paper, and my vision blurred the moment I read the first line.

Dear Saturn, I can't come home.