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There are no idle lights in Pelican Town. There are no humming street lights or buzzing neon signs advertising ice-cold Joja Cola. Headlights from passing cars do not streak across his walls. There’s no fluttering yellow fan of light under the crack of his door when he hears the dragging steps of his father’s work boots and his mother’s voice whispers dangerously, “Where have you been?”
Darkness in Pelican Town swallows sight and sound and everything else. Sometimes, Alex forgets how to breathe, is smothered by the stale air of his bedroom.
It’s so hot that even the cicadas have stopped buzzing, and counting his breaths isn’t helping him fall asleep. The springs of his mattress screech when he slips off the bed, and the rustling of his jeans is too loud as he wrestles them on in the dark. He holds his breath as he creeps down the hallway, which is a minefield of creaky floorboards, until the front door clicks shut behind him.
He walks the town by moonlight, cataloguing the differences in the sounds of his footsteps in grass and dirt and stone until they’re muted by soft sand that still clings to the sun. Warmth seeps in through the soles of his shoes as he steps on the shifting ground. The windows of Elliot’s cabin are as dark as the rest of the town. Even the dock lanterns are unlit.
A million stars are doubled on the rippling surface of the water, inky black ocean blending into inky black sky. The salty summer air hasn’t managed to scrub away the smell of bonfire and fireworks yet. Sweat trickles in slow trails down the small of his back, where his shirt doesn’t quite stick to him to sop it up. It all mingles in the thick July air, turning each breath heavy and dense in Alex’s lungs. There’s no breeze tonight. The tide is low and the ocean is almost quiet. Waves don’t crash and tumble over one another so much as they just lap at the wet sand rhythmically.
Nym stands ankle-deep in seawater, bathed in moonlight, in nothing but his underwear. His head is tilted skywards, and only his shoulders move as he takes deep, cleansing breaths. Something lights up in Alex, and his cheeks hum and tingle in a way not wholly unpleasant. If he squints his eyes right, there is no ocean at all; Nym floats among stars, and Alex stands on the edge of the earth as twinkling voices beckon him forward.
And Alex gives in. He kicks off his sneakers, drops his clothes in a pile next to Nym’s, and steps into the cold, liquid sky. Nym doesn’t look away from the stars, not immediately. One, two, three beats in his chest, and Nym finally moves. He turns his back on the stars and reaches out his hands to Alex, who takes them without hesitation.
It doesn’t occur to Alex to glance back at the shore, just to make sure he can see it. The universe is calling to him in a voice that’s low and soft and laced with jokes only he understands. It grips his hands tightly and says follow me until he’s up to his knees, his thighs, his hips in dancing stars. And he still doesn’t think to look back because, here, the stars welcome him as one of their own. He’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.
“Do you know any constellations?” Nym asks, tilting his head up to drink in the sky. He looks at the stars like they’re old friends, settled in comfortable silence. He puts his wet hands on Alex’s shoulders, thumbs resting on the line of his collarbone. Drops of cold water streak down his bare chest like falling stars, and Alex makes a wish because his mom told him wishes made on falling stars come true.
Alex looks up and tries to make sense of the twinkling lights. Emily talks about the stars she dreams of in far off galaxies when Haley offers to read their horoscopes. He’s caught Maru setting up her telescope enough times to know of the Dippers, the Belt, and the Teapot, but he can’t find them without help. In Zuzu City, there were too few stars to bridge together. Out here, there are so many that Alex doesn’t know where to even begin.
“Not a single one,” he admits.
“I don’t know any of the real ones,” Nym agrees. “But me and my sister made up a bunch when we were kids.”
“That’s impressive.”
“It would be if I knew where they were,” Nym laughs. It’s breathy and quiet, nothing like the nervous sound that usually stutters out from behind his hand when he wants to laugh. It says I like this, and Alex’s smile says I like you.
They’ve circled each other in a looping spiral for almost a year. From strangers, to friends, to whatever it is that strips boys bare and sends them into the ocean when they should be sleeping. He doesn’t understand why Nym ducks his head to smile and covers his face to laugh. He doesn’t understand why Nym chose to live in a town with no street lights just to look at the stars. He doesn’t understand why his tongue ties up in knots and retreats down his throat when he wants to ask Nym to pay attention to him and only him, for just a moment if that’s all he can spare, because the stars are light years away but Alex is right here, right now.
His heart makes a fist around his lungs, squeezes out the dense summer air and replaces it with something thinner and even harder to breathe. Nym’s fingers twitch against his pulse, and then his hands slide up and his pointer fingers rub against the short hair on the nape of his neck. He keeps his eyes on the sky. Alex wonders what Nym sees in the spaces between the stars.
Maybe he’s looking for lost constellations.
Maybe he feels small and insignificant.
Maybe he just looks at the stars because they’re beautiful and endless and you don’t need to understand something to love it.
Finally, Nym looks at him with the moon in his eyes. Alex feels his knees wobble as the tide moves in. Nym’s hands are dry now, and they move to hold Alex’s face. They fit so perfectly around his jaw, like they were made to be there, right at this moment. Alex’s heart pounds against his ribs.
I like you.
I more than like you.
I don’t understand, but I like you a lot.
The universe won’t look exactly like this ever again. Nobody knows what happens when stars collide, and this is his only chance to find out. It’s terrifying and thrilling and the stars are whispering do it. Do it now. Alex falls forward and makes a wish, and Nym catches him. They collide with eyes squeezed shut and held breaths and mouths that taste like sea salt. The sky is threatening to swallow them whole, but Alex just kisses Nym harder, pours everything he has into this one kiss, just in case it never happens again, just in case it goes supernova and burns out and leaves behind something hungrier than darkness.
When they part, Nym touches the tips of his fingers to his bottom lip and whispers, “Wow.” Alex wants to kiss him again. And he does, after they wade back to the shore. Nym pins him down in sand that isn’t warm anymore, backdropped with a million stars that blink away as the sun climbs over the horizon.