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17 year old noted genius Sophie Foster walked out of her front door and breathed properly for the first time in 2 hours. She had told her parents she was taking a walk, so she supposed she had to now. She was in her last year of getting her bachelor's in Astronomy at Yale. Starting college at 14 years old was rough, and maybe a mistake, but she loved learning. That was one thing, at least.
It had all started from a simple decision. Her parents were going to send her to straight to K2 instead of K1. This was because she could already speak clearly and intelligently and her favourite book was a thousand page encyclopedia. So, she was just 1 year younger. 4 instead of 5. She'd graduate at 17, not 18. No big deal. By the time she was in 3rd grade, it was obvious she was much more intelligent than her classmates, and even her teachers sometimes. So, at the age of 7, she skipped 4th grade and joined 5th grade. Her parents were reluctant, but they agreed only if this was the last grade she skipped. She started middle school at 9. When her teacher caught her solving the physics questions meant for seniors at the back of her textbooks, the school pleaded with her parents to let her join the 8th grade instead of the 7th. They suggested that keeping her at such low levels would actually harm her intellect and pull focus from other students. Eventually, her parents agreed. By the time she joined high school at the age of 11, she was holding her breath, begging the universe to let this be the grade she fit in with. Unable to fail a single class and completing every single piece of extra credit work, the school didn't just want her to skip a grade, they wanted her to skip 2. Once again sitting in the principal's office with her parents, she said nothing as her parents argued and finally relented and tried to put a positive face on as her 13 year old self entered senior year of high school.
Through all of this, she had said nothing. Not a singular word. It was out of her hands. When someone asked her if she wanted to skip a grade, she just shyly nodded and her parents sighed and agreed. If they hadn't, she wouldn't have cared anyways. But she put her foot down when her Yale acceptance letter arrived in the mail and her parents wanted her to go to state school. She amassed as many scholarships as humanly possible and moved across the country at 14 years old.
Obviously, being 14 in university had many drawbacks. She didn't have any friends, or, at least, she didn't think so. All the people that hung out with her either pitied her, treated her like a pet, or thought it was hilarious to invite her to parties to try and get the 14 year old drunk. But it was better than high school. No one bullied her or beat her up to do their assignments or anything. They just didn't care. It was like living in a vacuum with no one who really cared. Her only 'friend' was Whylie Endal, a family friend who she studied with at the library. Other than that, she just worked like a maniac day and night to achieve something, she didn't even know what.
By the time she had been walking for 5 minutes, she finally looked around at realised she had no idea where she was going. She walked for a couple more blocks until she came to a playground. It was dark already, the cool night air against her skin as she walked into the ghostly silence place and sat on a swing.
Halfheartedly kicking her feet to gain some momentum on the swing, she looked up at the sky, through the swirling smoke and dust and clouds, to try and find the stars. She couldn't see any of them. She knew they were there, of course. All of them. She just couldn't see them from here.
Maybe that's what people meant when they called her a star.
She thought about her family. Her parents awkwardly asking her how she was, if she's made any friends yet, asking her if she was sure she wanted to stay in New Haven for her PhD. Them saying how hard it is for them to only see her once a year. Her suggesting the groundbreaking idea that they move for her for once. Her sister saying that's not fair, what about her, her friends, her school, just because she's a genius doesn't mean the world revolves around her. Leaving the house again. Two whole weeks here.
Amy was 14 years old, and a perfectly average high school freshman. No work ethic, no plans, just floating. But not in the same way Sophie was. No, Sophie was floating through space, trying to become one with the stars. Amy was floating through the halls, effortlessly, parting the crowd like the Red Sea, surrounded and admired. Every single time Sophie came back, she had this stupid hope that she would confide in her sister, that they'd be something close to friends. But there was always a fight and then she left, and they didn't talk until the next Christmas. Rinse off the wounds and repeat.
Friends. She'll spend her life trying to understand the universe, but the only thing she will never understand are friends. She could count the ones she's had on one hand. Two fingers, really. And she'll never see any of them again.
She tried not to think about him, but how could she not in this playground? When she was 6, in 2nd grade, sitting alone in the playground, ignoring her parent's plea to play with the others, she met this boy. He was the same age as her, and he wasn't in her class, but he was in her year, because he'd skipped 1st grade. He was blonde and his eyes looked like frozen water. He said she looked sad and she replied that she was, and he asked if he could try to cheer her up. When she didn't reply, he started doing cartwheels around her. He wasn't even good at them, he kept falling down. And watching this boy fall on his face trying to impress her made her laugh. When she did, he smirked and shouted, "I made her laugh! I made her laugh! The great Keefe Sencen strikes again!" She started to roll her eyes when a shadow loomed over them. "Keefe. Stop making a fool out of yourself. This is not how I raised you to behave." A tall, scary man was staring down at them, and the boy immediately seemed to shrink and followed this dad without even looking at her.
He met her the next day in the schoolyard, tugging on her sleeve to get her attention. "I found a bug," he whispered, leading her to a wall near them, which indeed did had a daddy long legs crawling on it. "Cool," she said. "A Pholcus phalangioides." "… Bless you?" Keefe had replied, confused. "That's its Latin name," Sophie explained. "Cool. I wish I could take her home. My dad would kill her though." "Him," Sophie corrected. "Its body is too short to be a female. I read about this in my encyclopedia."
Most of their talks went like that. Sophie telling him strange information and him making jokes. Whenever she saw him out of school, he was with his father and didn't even look at her. The next year, though, they were in the same class. They sat next to each other and Keefe doodled on her notebook when she was trying to make the most detailed notes as possible. They were partnered together for a group project about the solar system, so he came over to her house to work on it. Sophie, knowing a lot for the average 6 year old about planets, had already made a long detailed presentation with citations from academic papers. Keefe helped add jokes and "de-weirdify it" so that their classmates would stay focused. It was during a heat wave, but he was still in a sweater. He spilled paint all over it while painting their diorama and her mom took the sweater away to wash it. He had bruises all over his arms. Sophie saw her mom's eyes widen, but she said nothing. Sophie, however, didn't. "How'd that happen?" she asked. Keefe mumbled some excuse about falling over and she let it go.
Sitting on the swings now, it was so obvious. His dad's death grips. Keefe's terrified face when he was with his father. But no matter how advanced Sophie was at 6, she wasn't able to understand the atrocities some parents commit to their own children.
They weren't in the same class again next year, but Keefe still visited her on the schoolyard. The other kids were convinced he "like-liked" her. They'd chant about the two of them sitting in a tree. Keefe always blushed at the accusations, which really wasn't like his usual boisterous responses. Looking back, Sophie had no idea if he liked her, or if she liked him. All she knew is it didn't matter, and that was the most important thing.
He was the only thing running through her mind as her teachers asked her to skip a year. But as much as she loved her best friend, she wanted to fit in with the rest of the world. She convinced herself that in 5th grade, she'll have tons of friends and it wouldn't matter that she didn't have him.
Of course, that wasn't true. They didn't even have the same break time anymore, and she only saw him on the streets with his dad, or in events playing the drums in the marching band. In her senior year, she asked someone about him and learnt he had moved away. She didn't even register the last time she had seen him. And she never would see him again.
She had met the second friend in her 1st year of high school. At the back of the school, getting beaten up by this jock getting her to do her homework. Suddenly, this girl just seemed to drop out of the sky. She walked straight up and slapped him in the face, yelling at him to get away from Sophie. Any other girl he would have beaten up, but not Linh Song. No one laid a finger on her. He walked away and she turned to Sophie, asking her if she was okay. Dumbfounded, she nodded, confused at why the prettiest girl in school was talking to her.
She was even more confused when she kept talking to her, every day. Sitting with her at lunch, defending her from her bullies, all in the most genuine manner. Not like she was a pet or a baby. Like she was a friend. Unlike with Keefe, where Sophie had done all the talking, years of bullies had turned Sophie silent. So Linh talked. About shows, about cute girls and boys in her various classes, bitching about her parents who were once again on a business trip leaving her and her brother alone. She asked Sophie questions, but not the normal kind she was used to being asked, like the complicated maths problems they all found it so funny to ask her, but questions like does she think people are born good or bad, or if stars get lonely, or what's it like to be so ahead of everyone around her all the time.
She went round to Linh's house whenever her parents weren't there. Her brother, Tam, was nonverbal. Linh had just explained that he never learnt how to speak but that doesn't make him any less of a person while glaring daggers at Sophie. She knew that look. It was the look she gave kids at school when they messed with Sophie. So she just nodded and said hi to Tam.
Tam went to a special needs school in the other side of town. Linh had to beg for that with everything she had, because her parents wanted to pretend Tam didn't exist. Wanted her to be the perfect daughter to make up for their "screw-up" of a son. They didn't understand why he couldn't just talk and only agreed to send him there when the principal told him their school couldn't support him. They said they're not spending any more money on him, even though they're filthy rich. Linh was saving up her measly allowance to get him an AAC device for home. He has one at school, but he can't take it home with him.
Siblings were complicated, Linh always said. It's not like her and Tam never fought. It's just that they loved each other. Sophie talked to Linh about Amy. She was worried Amy hated her for being such a prodigy. This was the only time Sophie could remember Linh not knowing the perfect thing to say.
When her parents relented on moving her up two years, she told Linh. She never expected her to cry. She though that she was just a one-sided friend, a favour Linh was doing her. Being nice to the 11 year old freshman. She didn't know she cared so much about her. Linh hugged her tightly and cried and tried to say how happy she was for her when it wasn't true and they could both tell but couldn't bear to say it.
Linh tried, she really did. But the pressure of being a senior with no one to defend her got to Sophie. She started standing Linh up, not meeting her at lunch, because it was hard to convince herself she was completely alone in the world if Linh irrevocably cared about her. And when she saw Linh with a group of new girls, she felt like breaking. She never talked to her again.
It was maybe the worst thing she had ever done in her life. Her genius mind had rendered her cruel and shattered and she made this girl who cared about her so much hate her forever. The strongest girl she knew who had been through so much. She wanted to go to her house and scream "I'm sorry" until they were both crying. But maybe she'd left. She would be 20 by now. In college, maybe. That was her big dream. Leaving this place behind.But she'd only do that if she knew Tam could come with her, away from their parents. For Linh's sake, she hoped she'd never see her on her yearly visits again.
Sophie sat staring at the missing stars thinking about her two missing stars and sending out silent pleas to the universe that wherever they were, they hadn't forgotten her and they were doing okay.