may shatter on impact (tronnor)

62. A Field With Weeds Like Flowers & Wishes Upon Stars

Around 5:00, I find Connor. He's in Phil's dorm, passing time by arguing with Alfie about the answer to a math problem.

"Hey, Con," I say, hesitating at the door.

He looks, up, relieved at the sound of my voice. He stands, and seeing the look in my eyes, envelops me in his arms. "Hey. I couldn't find you earlier. I'm sorry I wasn't there during lunch."

"It's okay," I whisper, letting go of him, and avoiding Alfie's stare. "Can - let's go somewhere else."

Connor nods, grabbing his phone and car keys from the floor and following me outside. "Let's go to the cliffs."

"What - what are the cliffs?"

He smiles. "You'll see."

We get out of the car at the beach, and Connor moves a few branches aside and pulls me past the plants blocking a well worn path. The wind whistles through trees, carrying the smell of salt water, the sunlight barely flickering through the thick branches and leaves.

Our feet pad softly along the grass, our hands intertwined like the branches of the trees that we pass by. The sky turns dark as we walk, the sun sinking along the water, the light reflected in our eyes as we left the trees behind and the path turned narrow, the top of a cliff. To my right the rocks growing out of the sand, the waves crashing below us. To my left is a field, white flowers dotting the green, the forest we came out of stretching for miles with a thin break for the road leading away from the city and ending at the beach.

"This place is beautiful," I tell him as he pulls me onto a flat rock surrounded by flowers. We sit together, the warmth of the quickly fading sun keeping a glow in Connor's cheeks and a touch of excitement in his eyes.

Connor laughs, leaning his head on my shoulders, watching the sky. "Most people just see the fact that we're two hundred feet up and that we're technically surrounded by weeds."

"Pretty weeds," I corrected.

"Still," he laughed, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Look, the stars are coming out." I tilted my head up, looking at the deep blues and blacks of the sky, breathing in the cool air and forgetting that I'm as cold as ice and so are Connor's fingers. "Do you know any of the constellations?"

I shook my head, leaning on Connor's chest after he had settled on his back, watching the stars and the shifting clouds. "Do you?"

He pointed upwards with one hand, the other still wrapped around my hand. "That's the Big Dipper, with the sort of square of stars and the line connecting to it." I squinted at the sky, looking for the square and line of stars that Connor has picked out of the sky of little lights glimmering from the heavens above us.

"Hmm, yeah, not seeing it."

He chuckled, and I could feel him turn to look at me, watching the way that I watched the sky. "Well, there are a lot of stars out tonight. I don't blame you." I smiled, turning to face him, missing his eyes by a second. "Are you going to tell me what happened during lunch?"

"You don't already know?" I asked, turning back to the stars.

"Adam did something, but I'm not sure what. Zoe looked like she was about to kill someone, so I didn't ask. She's very defensive of her friends."

I laughed. "Zoe's great like that." He laughed with me, not pressing the subject.

"Did you see that?" Connor exclaimed suddenly. "There was a shooting star!"

I smiled at him. "Make a wish, right? Oh! There's another one - "

I wish...

That I can get better. That I can be okay.

For him.

As Connor laughs, and points out another one, pressing a kiss to my lips for each bright light falling from the sky, I know that I made the right wish.