Work Text:
Hi Anthony,
Firstly, thank you for sending over the latest draft. I've spent the past week working through the manuscript and wanted to say how much I've enjoyed it. Your passion for the subject shines through on every page, and there are several sections—particularly the chapter on stellar evolution—that are genuinely fascinating and among the strongest science writing we've seen from you to date.
That said, after discussing the manuscript with the wider editorial and marketing teams, I think we need to have a conversation about audience accessibility.
One of the challenges we encountered with Astrophysics For Everyone was that, despite receiving positive feedback from readers with a strong interest in science, it struggled to find traction with more casual readers. The consensus internally is that the current manuscript risks facing a similar hurdle.
At present, much of the material assumes a level of familiarity with astrophysics that many readers simply won't possess. While the explanations are accurate and thorough, they can occasionally feel overwhelming for someone approaching these concepts for the first time.
As an example, the section on gravitational lensing is scientifically excellent, but introduces several complex ideas in rapid succession before the reader has had an opportunity to fully absorb the foundations. Likewise, some of the terminology appears before it has been adequately contextualised for a general audience.
We would therefore like to explore ways of broadening the book's appeal without compromising its scientific integrity. Specifically, we'd encourage:
- Simpler explanations of core concepts before introducing more advanced material.
- More real-world comparisons and analogies.
- Shorter explanatory passages in places where the detail becomes particularly dense.
- Greater emphasis on the sense of wonder and discovery that makes the subject so engaging.
To be absolutely clear, we are not asking you to remove the science. The strength of your writing has always been your enthusiasm and expertise, and we certainly don't want to lose that. Our goal is simply to ensure that readers who are curious about astronomy, but perhaps don't have a scientific background, feel welcomed rather than intimidated.
I appreciate that this may require substantial revision, but I genuinely believe there is an excellent book here, and I'd be happy to discuss any of these points in more detail if it would be helpful.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Best wishes,
Sarah Bennett
Senior Commissioning Editor
Anthony read the email three times.
Not because he had misunderstood it, nor because Sarah had concealed some secret meaning between the lines that might reveal itself upon closer inspection, but because his brain had immediately become fixated on a handful of specific phrases and refused to move beyond them, circling them with the same relentless determination of a dog worrying at a bone long after all the meat had gone.
Struggled to find traction with more casual readers.
Risks facing a similar hurdle.
Overwhelming.
Intimidated.
The cursor blinked patiently in the corner of his monitor as though waiting for him to do something productive with the information. Anthony stared back at it.
Silver moonlight filtered weakly through the bay window of his study, illuminating the familiar clutter that occupied almost every available surface. Bookshelves bowed beneath the weight of astronomy texts and dog-eared science fiction paperbacks, stacks of notebooks sat in precarious towers around the room, and pinned above his desk were photographs of nebulae, galaxies, and distant star clusters captured by telescopes so powerful they could peer billions of years into the past. He had spent years in this room.
Long before Asa, long before the cottage in the South Downs, this had been where Anthony had taught himself to live with his own mind, where he had marked essays at three in the morning, written lectures with coffee cooling beside his elbow, lost entire weekends to research papers, and eventually written Astrophysics for Everyone at the very same desk now buried beneath the scattered remains of his latest manuscript.
When he and Asa had moved south, there had been no real reason to keep the London house. Financially, it would've made considerably more sense to sell it, and Anthony had known that; he'd even opened the estate-agent's website on one particularly practical afternoon and spent nearly twenty minutes looking at property valuations before closing the tab and deciding he couldn't do it. Besides, the house had already become so thoroughly entangled with his work that selling it had felt less like moving and more like amputating something. So, they'd kept it.
The cottage was home now, unmistakably and irrevocably theirs, but the London house remained Anthony's old refuge, his library, his occasional workspace, and the place they returned to. Most of his newer work happened in the study he'd made at the cottage, but whenever he became particularly stuck, particularly restless, or particularly convinced that the answer to whatever problem plagued him was hiding somewhere inside the accumulated debris of his previous life, he invariably found himself returning here.
Normally the room soothed him. Today it felt oppressively small.
His knee had begun bouncing several minutes ago without him consciously noticing, the heel of his foot drumming an irregular rhythm against the hardwood floor whilst one thumb worried relentlessly at the edge of his index fingernail. The repetitive motions were familiar, comforting in their own way, yet even they seemed incapable of burning off the agitated energy gathering beneath his skin.
He looked back at the email and immediately regretted it, even as he looked back again.
The current manuscript risks facing a similar hurdle.
A sharp laugh escaped him—nothing was funny, but it was either laugh or launch his laptop directly through the nearest window. ‘Similar hurdle’ was a charmingly diplomatic way of saying ‘your first book sold poorly and we'd rather not repeat the experience.’
Objectively, he knew that was not what Sarah had written. Sarah had been kind, enthusiastic, even. She had praised the manuscript repeatedly throughout the email and specifically stated that they did not want him to remove the science. She had gone out of her way to reassure him. Unfortunately, Anthony's brain appeared determined to gather every reassuring sentence into a neat little pile before promptly setting fire to it.
His gaze drifted towards the manuscript resting beside his keyboard. Four hundred and twelve pages. Nearly a year's worth of work. Research, planning, obsessive fact-checking. Entire weekends sacrificed to ensure that a particular explanation of stellar nucleosynthesis was not merely accurate but elegant. And now, apparently, it was too much.
The phrase ‘more casual readers’ continued to grate against him. He hated it. The wording implied a divide he had spent years trying to bridge; astrophysics belonged to everyone. It belonged to curious twelve-year-olds and retired accountants and exhausted office workers and anyone who had ever looked up at the night sky and wondered what exactly they were looking at. That was the entire point, the whole reason he'd written the bloody thing.
His fingers found the hem of his sleeve and began twisting the fabric between thumb and forefinger. A familiar pressure had started building behind his ribs, uncomfortable and difficult to define, like a balloon slowly inflating somewhere beneath his sternum.
The frustrating part was that he couldn't even identify what he was angry at. The publisher? The readers? Himself? Some combination of all three? The intimidating fact was that Sarah wasn't entirely wrong?
A few years earlier, during a signing event for Astrophysics For Everyone, a woman had approached him carrying a heavily annotated copy of the book and confessed, with considerable embarrassment, that she had become lost halfway through the chapter on dark matter and spent several evenings rereading it before finally giving up. At the time, Anthony had smiled and reassured her that astrophysics was complicated and she shouldn't feel bad about it. Now, however, the recollection landed differently, because perhaps she hadn't been the problem.
Perhaps he had.
His knee bounced harder. The sleeve of his jumper was now thoroughly stretched from where he'd been twisting it. Without consciously deciding to, he stood from his chair and began pacing. Three strides carried him to the bookshelf. Three more brought him back to the desk. Then around again—the movement helped, a little. At least it gave the excess energy somewhere to go.
Outside, a bus rumbled past the house and some drunk laughed on the pavement below. The ordinary sounds of the city filtered faintly through the glass, grounding him just enough to stop his thoughts spiralling entirely out of control. For several minutes he simply paced, replaying individual lines from the email until they lost all coherent meaning.
Greater emphasis on wonder and discovery.
More real-world comparisons.
Shorter explanatory passages.
What did that even mean? Astrophysics wasn't short, the universe wasn't simple. How exactly was he supposed to explain the birth and death of stars without explaining the birth and death of stars? The entire thing felt absurd, like being asked to describe an ocean whilst omitting all mention of water.
Eventually he stopped beside the window and folded his arms tightly across his chest. The early nighttime sky stretched above the rooftops in a wash of indigo blue and drifting cloud, and despite everything, despite the frustration and self-doubt and growing sense of failure coiling uncomfortably around his thoughts, his gaze lingered automatically on the sliver of sky visible between the buildings. The stars were still there, invisible in the smog of London, but there all the same. Waiting. Magnificent beyond comprehension. Ancient beyond language. And Anthony loved them with a devotion so profound that sometimes it felt less like an interest and more like a fundamental component of his anatomy—which was perhaps why the email hurt as much as it did.
Sarah thought she was just critiquing a manuscript. Anthony knew she was just critiquing a manuscript. Yet some stubborn, irrational part of his brain insisted on translating every sentence into something far more personal.
You explained it badly.
People didn't understand.
You failed.
He closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his palms briefly against them, exhaling. Somewhere amidst the frustration and disappointment and steadily mounting panic, Anthony found himself reaching for his phone. Asa would know what to say. Asa almost always knew what to say. Whether that fact would ultimately prove helpful, however, remained to be seen.
Over the following week, Anthony's life shrank until it consisted almost entirely of the manuscript.
At first, this didn’t strike him as especially unusual. He had always possessed a tendency towards obsession, particularly where astrophysics was concerned, and writing a book about the subject naturally required a certain degree of immersion. One could hardly be expected to explain the lifecycle of stars to the general public whilst simultaneously maintaining a healthy relationship with concepts such as moderation, work-life balance, or remembering what day of the week it was. Unfortunately, there came a point where immersion ceased to be a useful description and began resembling something closer to entrapment.
The manuscript occupied every available corner of his mind from the moment he woke until the moment he fell asleep, and frequently continued occupying it long afterwards. Entire conversations vanished beneath a constant stream of revisions and rewrites, his thoughts perpetually circling the same troublesome chapters with increasing desperation as he searched for a solution that stubbornly refused to materialise.
The publisher's email had become a sort of haunting presence in the background of his consciousness. Every paragraph he revised seemed to raise the same impossible question: would a casual reader understand this? And, perhaps more importantly: If they didn't, whose fault was that?
The manuscript itself had long since ceased to resemble a cohesive project. Printed chapters littered nearly every flat surface of the house, covered in annotations and arrows and hastily scribbled observations that often contradicted one another. His dining table had disappeared beneath a small mountain range of editorial notes, several notebooks lay open across the living room, even upon Bentley’s tank, each containing fragments of explanations that had seemed brilliant at three o'clock in the morning and completely incomprehensible by breakfast. Not that Anthony had been eating much breakfast lately.
Or lunch.
Or, occasionally, dinner.
Meals had begun slipping through the cracks in his concentration with alarming regularity, vanishing into the same nebulous void that had recently consumed several appointments, a birthday reminder, and an entire afternoon he could have sworn had only lasted forty-five minutes. The only person to notice, naturally, was Asa.
Anthony suspected it was impossible to spend any meaningful amount of time around him without developing a heightened awareness of his various peculiarities, and Asa, who already possessed an unnervingly accurate understanding of his habits, seemed particularly adept at recognising the early warning signs of an impending spiral, though they never drew attention to it directly.
A cup of coffee would materialise beside his elbow. A sandwich would arrive on his desk without explanation. One evening, whilst Anthony was attempting to determine whether a particular paragraph contained too many references to Einstein, Asa silently removed his laptop charger from the wall, informed him that it was half-past midnight, and refused to return it until he agreed to go to bed.
He found their acts of caretaking profoundly comforting, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that comfort, much like food and sleep, had become increasingly difficult to absorb; the manuscript always found a way of intruding.
One evening, several days after receiving the publisher's email, Asa arrived home carrying takeaway and found him sitting cross-legged on the living room floor amidst a sea of scattered pages, staring with visible hostility at a single paragraph.
They stood in the doorway for a moment, though Anthony remained oblivious. Eventually Asa cleared their throat. When Anthony didn't register the sound not once but twice, they walked across the room, crouched beside him, and gently pressed a takeaway carton into his line of sight.
Anthony blinked, looked at the carton, looked at Asa, then looked back at the carton. "What day is it?"
Asa sighed. "Wednesday."
"That can't be right."
"It is."
Anthony frowned. "I'm fairly certain it was Monday this morning."
"It wasn't." Asa regarded him carefully. "Have you eaten today?"
Anthony opened his mouth, then frowned harder. "I genuinely don't know."
The look that crossed Asa's face suggested this answer was not especially reassuring. They handed him a plastic fork. "Eat."
Anthony accepted the fork. "You've become very authoritarian recently."
"I've become very concerned recently."
"I am perfectly capable of looking after myself."
Asa raised a single eyebrow in judgement.
Anthony considered this. "Yeah, alright."
Asa's expression softened. They sat beside him on the floor and nudged his shoulder gently with their own. Ordinarily the gesture would have eased some of the tension coiled beneath his ribs. Instead, he found his attention drifting immediately back towards the manuscript.
Eventually, after several more days of watching him wage war against increasingly insignificant details, Asa made the mistake of offering precisely the sort of help Anthony had asked for. It happened on a rainy Saturday afternoon, with grey clouds pressed low against the windows and the house carrying the scent of coffee and spiced incense. Anthony had printed another revised chapter and placed it in Asa's hands with a mixture of hope and dread that felt alarmingly similar to awaiting exam results.
"Be honest," he said.
Asa looked up from the first page. "I always am."
"Right."
So Asa read. Their concentration settled over them like a physical thing. They tucked one leg beneath them on the sofa, pushed their little round reading glasses higher up their nose, and began working through the chapter with meticulous attention. Every underline made Anthony nervous. Every circled sentence made him more nervous. By the time Asa reached the final page, his stomach felt as though it had been filled with wet cement.
"Well?" he asked.
Asa considered the question carefully. "The science is fascinating."
Anthony nodded.
"The issue isn't the science." Asa glanced back down at the pages resting in their lap. "I think your editor may have been right about some sections."
The room seemed to become slightly smaller. Asa was echoing thoughts Anthony had been trying unsuccessfully to escape for the better part of a week.
Asa tapped one of the pages. "Here, for example. You introduce several new concepts very quickly."
"They're related." Anthony croaked as he glanced at the section. "They need to be explained together."
"I'm not saying they don't." Their voice remained patient, measured, and entirely devoid of criticism as they explained further, which should have helped. Instead, Anthony found himself becoming increasingly irritated by the simple fact that Asa appeared determined to approach the problem logically.
Frustration gnawed at the centre of his chest; it felt as though they were discussing entirely different manuscripts. As though Asa had identified a practical problem requiring a practical solution, whilst Anthony remained hopelessly trapped inside an emotional problem he lacked both the language and self-awareness to articulate.
"The science doesn't change if you explain it differently," Asa said gently.
Anthony stared at the manuscript, numbness setting into his fingertips. "No."
"The information is still there. The reader just needs more help getting to it."
The statement was entirely reasonable. Painfully reasonable. And for reasons he couldn't yet explain, hearing it only made him feel worse. He stared down at the marked-up pages resting in Asa's lap, at the neat underlines and margin notes written in their careful handwriting, and found himself suddenly, irrationally irritated by the sight of them. Not because the comments were cruel, nor because they were inaccurate, but because every single one of them was thoughtful and sensible in exactly the same way the publisher's email had been thoughtful and sensible.
Nobody was actually saying he'd done a bad job, but it would have been easier if they had. At least then he could have disagreed, he could have defended himself. Instead, he was trapped in that uniquely uncomfortable space where everyone remained relentlessly lovely whilst he grew increasingly miserable.
Asa shifted slightly on the sofa, rustling the manuscript, and Anthony's gaze snagged on one particular annotation: could this concept be introduced earlier?
Entirely harmless. Entirely logical. Entirely capable of making him want to throw himself through the nearest window. He could feel anger gathering beneath his skin with the slow inevitability of an approaching storm, not directed at Asa specifically but at everything; the manuscript, the publisher, himself, the impossible task of translating something he loved so profoundly into language that would satisfy everyone.
"Asa.” Anthony murmured, and they looked up expectantly. “Uh. Did you actually, ngh…what did you think of it?”
"I've been telling you what I think of it.” Asa gestured towards their annotations.
“No,” Anthony shook his head. “Not like that. I mean…what did you think?”
The gesture was familiar enough that Anthony could picture half a dozen other occasions upon which they'd worn that exact expression, usually when confronted by an ambiguous question, an unclear instruction, or somebody else's baffling insistence that they infer information which had never actually been provided. Ordinarily he found it endearing. Tonight it merely reminded him how spectacularly ill-equipped he was proving to explain himself. "What do you mean?”
Anthony opened his mouth, only to discover that he possessed absolutely nothing to say. Because what did he mean? He knew there was a difference, he could feel it. The distinction sat somewhere inside him, pressing insistently against the back of his thoughts like a word on the tip of his tongue, obvious enough to be sensed but not quite grasped. The problem was that every attempt to translate that feeling into language immediately collapsed beneath its own weight.
He didn't want more editorial feedback. He didn't want another discussion about structure or pacing or accessibility. He didn't want to hear about audience demographics or reader engagement or whether an explanation ought to be moved three pages earlier. Eventually, after several seconds had stretched long enough to become awkward, Anthony gestured vaguely towards the manuscript resting between them.
"I mean..." He paused, rubbing the heel of his palm against one eye. "Do you like it?"
The words sounded embarrassingly childish the moment they left his mouth.
Across from him, Asa's expression softened. “Of course I like it.”
A particularly uncharitable part of Anthony's brain immediately seized upon the hesitation before their response and began dissecting it, already deciding that it meant something terrible. Emotional regulation was sliding away from him like water through open fingers, leaving behind only panic and anxiety and paranoia on its wake.
Liking a manuscript wasn't the same as believing in it. Enjoying it wasn't the same as understanding it.
"The science stays exactly the same," Asa said, their voice carrying the same patience it had carried for the better part of an hour now, the sort of tone they adopted whenever they were trying particularly hard to be understood, "nobody is asking you to change the science."
Anthony huffed out a breath, his gaze fixed stubbornly upon the manuscript pages spread across the coffee table between them, because looking directly at Asa suddenly felt impossible.
"No," he replied, rubbing a hand across his mouth before dragging it back through his hair, leaving the already unruly peaks standing at even stranger angles, "they're only asking me to carve bits off it until it's palatable.”
A sigh escaped Asa. "They are not asking you to carve bits off it."
"It certainly feels that way."
"But feelings aren't facts.”
The moment the words left their mouth, Anthony felt something unpleasant twist inside him. They were making a perfectly reasonable observation, one he himself had probably offered to other people dozens of times throughout his life, yet hearing it now, hearing it in the midst of a conversation already coloured by over a week's worth of anxiety and self-doubt and sleepless nights, it felt like a dismissal.
Across from him, Asa had begun absently fiddling with their engagement ring, beginning to rotate it around their finger, the gold glinting intermittently as they gathered their thoughts. Anthony knew that habit immediately. Whenever they were anxious, or frustrated, or attempting to navigate a particularly delicate conversation, their fingers inevitably found the ring. It was a small unconscious reminder that they belonged to one another, that they had chosen one another, that a future existed waiting for them beyond the chaos of everyday life.
At that moment, however, Anthony found himself unable to appreciate it. His chest felt tight. Too tight. As though every observation Asa made, no matter how gently delivered, was another hand wrapping itself around his ribs.
"I believe…well, I think you're hearing something different to what's actually being said.” Asa offered quietly.
And yet all Anthony could hear was evidence. Evidence that the manuscript wasn't working. Evidence that Sarah had been right. Evidence that perhaps the disappointing sales figures from his first book hadn't been unfortunate circumstances after all.
Before he could stop himself, he heard himself say, "I know exactly what’s being said. I know a whole lot more than you.”
The room fell silent, but for the rain still pattering steadily against the windows, the old radiator beside the bookshelf emitting its occasional metallic groan, and the constant hum of Bentley’s heat lamp.
"What does that mean?" Asa asked eventually.
Anthony gave a defensive, childish shrug. “The publisher said it's inaccessible. You said it's inaccessible.”
"No." Their fingers tightened briefly around the ring before beginning to twist it again. "Anthony, I said some sections might be difficult for readers encountering these concepts for the first time.”
"That's the same thing!” The words emerged louder than intended. Immediately, he saw something shift behind Asa's eyes—patience splintering. Anthony sighed and lowered his voice. “I've spent over a year on this.”
"I know." Asa said, kindly.
"No, I don't think you do.” The response arrived before he'd properly considered it, and the instant it left his mouth, he regretted it.
Asa looked away, their fingers stilling against the ring.
"I know exactly how much work you've put into it.” They took a deep breath. “While you've been forgetting to eat and sleep, I've been here. When you've barely noticed me, I've been here.”
“Asa—”
"I think," they interrupted, leaning forward with their elbows on their knees and an expression of exhaustion, "that if your goal is to share this subject with as many people as possible, then perhaps it's worth considering that your editor isn't asking you to make it smaller. They're asking you to make it easier for people to fall in love with it.”
Something inside Anthony finally gave way.
Perhaps it was marrow-deep tiredness. Perhaps it was the fact that he had spent the last week surviving on coffee, spite, and whatever meals Asa had physically placed into his hands. Perhaps it was the mounting pressure of deadlines and disappointing sales figures and a manuscript he no longer recognised every time he opened it. Or perhaps it was simply that there was only so much doubt a person could carry before it began to leak into every corner of their life.
Whatever the cause, the fragile thing holding him together at the seams suddenly split apart. The words that arrived in Anthony's head were warped by anxiety until they scarcely resembled the sentence that had actually left Asa's mouth. All he heard was that the manuscript wasn't enough. All he heard was that he wasn't enough. All he heard was that the thing he loved most in the world would only ever be worthy of affection if he sanded away all the parts that made it what it was.
"For the stars' sake!"
The shout tore from him with such force that it scraped his throat raw, and before he fully realised what he was doing he was on his feet, the movement so abrupt that several loose manuscript pages were launched from his lap and sent skittering across the living room like startled birds, scattering themselves beneath the coffee table and against the legs of the sofa.
"Do you honestly think I don't know that?" he demanded. "Do you think I haven't spent every waking hour thinking about that? Every bloody paragraph, every sentence, every note they've sent me, every review of the first book—”
He broke off abruptly, chest heaving. In the terrible span of a few seconds, whilst his pulse hammered violently against his ribs and adrenaline flooded through his veins, he suddenly realised he was no longer merely frustrated. He was yelling.
Asa's fingers had found their engagement ring again, only this time they weren't twisting it absentmindedly. They were gripping it. Holding it so tightly that the knuckles of their left hand had gone pale. The expression on their face was unlike anything Anthony had ever seen directed at him before—shock. The unmistakable shock of somebody who had never expected to be shouted at by the person they loved.
Immediately, the adrenaline began draining from his system, leaving behind something cold and heavy and deeply unpleasant. "Asa…”
Their name emerged sounding small. Pathetic, almost. The beginning of an apology he hadn't quite figured out how to make. In nearly two years together, through missed trains and stressful holidays and tiffs over furniture assembly and every other minor irritation that inevitably accompanied the act of building a life with another human being, he had never shouted at Asa. Not once.
There had been disagreements, certainly. They were both far too opinionated, far too stubborn, and far too convinced of their own logic for that to have been avoidable. Yet those disagreements had always ended the same way; one of them would eventually recognise they were speaking different languages, the misunderstanding would be carefully unpicked thread by thread, and within the hour they would be curled up together on the sofa wondering why the issue had seemed so catastrophic in the first place. This felt different.
Asa closed their eyes briefly, then inhaled slowly through their nose and pushed themself to their feet. For one terrible moment, Anthony thought they might cry, and the possibility alone made his stomach drop. Instead, Asa merely removed their glasses in order to scrub at their eyes, glanced down at the scattered manuscript pages littering the floor between them, and let out a weary exhale. "I don't think we're talking about the manuscript anymore.”
And they were right; at some point the manuscript had simply become a vessel into which he'd poured every insecurity he'd accumulated since receiving Sarah’s email, every disappointment connected to the first book, every fear that perhaps the publishers had overestimated him, every lingering doubt that whispered he was brilliant at astrophysics but fundamentally incapable of communicating that brilliance to anyone else. Asa had merely wandered into the path of it.
"Asa, I—"
"No. I know you're upset. I know this isn't really about me,” they sniffed, looking everywhere but at Anthony, “but I don't think either of us is going to say anything useful if we keep going.”
Their eyes flickered to Anthony’s briefly, accompanied by a tight smile. “Goodnight.”
And Anthony could do nothing except stand there and watch helplessly as his fiancé—his wonderfully sensible, endlessly patient fiancé—removed themself from the conversation before either of them managed to make it worse. It wasn't a permanent removal; they didn't tear the engagement ring from their finger or throw it at him, didn't slam the front door hard enough to rattle the windows or announce that they were leaving, yet the panic bubbling in Anthony’s throat was acidic and choking all the same. “Asa.”
They paused and turned, offering him a tired smile filled with so much affection it almost hurt to accept. “I love you, Anthony.”
They said those words even after being shouted at, after spending the evening trying to help him, after watching him unravel in real time, and the simple fact that they still sounded true made guilt flood through Anthony so suddenly that he had to grip the back of the sofa to steady himself.
Then they were turning away and disappearing up the stairs, leaving him alone in the living room with scattered manuscript pages at his feet and a frantic, impossible question clawing at the inside of his skull.
Should he go after them?
Every instinct urged him to move. To follow Asa upstairs, apologise immediately, explain that he hadn't meant to shout, explain that none of this was really about them, explain that he was scared and exhausted and ashamed and that somehow all of those feelings had burst out in the worst possible direction. Yet another part of him remained stubbornly rooted to the carpet, paralysed by the fear that following them now would only force Asa to comfort him for hurting them.
Eventually, with a weary exhale that seemed to drain what little energy remained in him, Anthony allowed himself to collapse backwards onto the sofa, landing heavily amongst the cushions. The manuscript still lay scattered across the living room, and loose pages protruded from beneath the coffee table. Several had drifted all the way to the hearth. The sight would ordinarily have irritated him, prompting an immediate and somewhat obsessive effort to gather everything back into the correct order before disaster struck, yet tonight he merely stared at the mess for a few moments before reaching down and retrieving the nearest handful.
The pages felt strangely heavy in his hands. Or perhaps he was simply tired. Stars, he was tired.
He adjusted his glasses and attempted to read. His eyelids felt heavy and the rain murmuring against the windows was soothingly rhythmic—without ever consciously deciding to stop reading, Anthony drifted asleep, his glasses askew on the cushion beside him and a half-finished chapter crumpled loosely in one hand, whilst upstairs the first fight of his relationship lingered unresolved behind a closed bedroom door.
Anthony woke slowly, emerging from sleep by reluctant degrees, his consciousness drifting upwards through layers of exhaustion so profound that, for several blissfully ignorant moments, he existed in a pleasant state of half-awareness where the world consisted solely of warmth, softness, and the distant rhythmic sound of rainwater still dripping from somewhere outside. Limbs heavy and body satiated, he smiled lazily for all of three seconds before reality and memory came rushing back in.
The manuscript. The argument. Asa. The memory of their face after he'd shouted.
The recollections arrived one after another until the comfortable haze of sleep had been thoroughly replaced by the familiar knot of guilt that settled heavily beneath his sternum, and Anthony found himself staring up at the ceiling as he recalled how much he had behaved like an absolute arse the night before.
"Marvellous," he muttered towards the room at large. His voice was as rough as sandpaper, scraping along his throat until he coughed.
A glance towards the clock on the mantelpiece revealed that it was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning. Ordinarily, waking so late into the day would've been enough to trigger at least a minor crisis regarding squandered productivity, neglected responsibilities, and irritation that half the day had escaped him whilst he was unconscious. Yet, as he shifted beneath the weight of something warm draped over his body and stretched with a groan that travelled the entire length of his spine, he found himself confronted by the rather more startling realisation that he actually felt better.
He was genuinely rested, all thanks to his body finally overruling his brain and demanding repayment for every skipped meal, every late night, every anxious hour spent staring at the same paragraph whilst convincing himself that productivity and self-destruction were one and the same.
Anthony shifted and clutched at the blanket covering his body. The throw wrapped around him was dark green, hand-knitted, and possessed a slightly scratchy texture. Asa's favourite. And one that lived in their bedroom, folded at the end of their bed, where it had been before he'd fallen asleep on the sofa. The implication of how it had ended up draped over him sat tight in his throat.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze towards the coffee table where a glass of water sat waiting for him. Beside it rested a banana, and next to both was a bright yellow Post-it note. Already knowing precisely who had left it, Anthony reached forwards and peeled it from the tabletop. In the neat handwriting of his beloved fiancé read two simple instructions: Eat. Hydrate.
Not passive aggressive, no mention of the argument, just the same consideration they always showed him. Anthony let out a slow breath. Of course they had done this. Of course, despite everything that had happened the previous evening, despite being hurt enough to remove themself from the conversation entirely, despite having every right to be furious with him, Asa had still come downstairs at some point during the night or early morning, found him asleep on the sofa, covered him with a blanket, left him food and water, and ensured that he wouldn't wake up feeling even worse than he already did. The thought was simultaneously comforting and excruciating. He'd said it before and he would say it again—Asa was an angel.
Stacked neatly beside the sofa sat the manuscript; every loose sheet he'd sent flying across the room in a spectacular display of emotional immaturity had been fathered, organised, and reordered into a near pile.
The guilt that had already been gnawing at him all morning promptly sharpened its teeth. “Stars.”
For a moment he simply sat there, clutching the Post-it note and staring at the manuscript, struck by the overwhelming sensation that he did not remotely deserve the level of care he was receiving. Then, because Asa had left very specific instructions and ignoring them seemed likely to earn him a lecture later, Anthony obediently picked up the glass and drained nearly the entire thing in one go. Only halfway through did he realise how thirsty he actually was.
The banana followed shortly afterwards. Whilst peeling it, his gaze drifted repeatedly towards the staircase, every glance accompanied by the same uncomfortable mixture of hope and apprehension, even knowing that at this hour Asa would already be at the bookshop.
By the time the banana had disappeared, he was feeling marginally more human. With another stretch he finally hauled himself upright, every joint protesting the experience of spending an entire night folded awkwardly across a sofa at the age of fifty-one. His first destination was Bentley's tank. The snake lay comfortably coiled beneath his heat lamp, looking deeply content, and Anthony immediately noticed the distinct bulge situated roughly halfway down his body—evidence of breakfast.
Of course Asa had also fed the snake.
“I'm an idiot, aren't I?” He asked Bentley. Bentley merely flickered a lazy tongue and gave no useful indication one way or the other. Anthony sighed and shrugged. “Yep. Big, ridiculous idiot.”
With a weary exhale, Anthony headed upstairs and towards the bathroom, shedding yesterday's clothes along the way and stepping beneath the shower a few minutes later, where hot water immediately cascaded over his shoulders and carried away some of the lingering exhaustion, working into muscles that had been wound painfully tight for days. The guilt remained stubbornly intact, and as steam filled the room and tension gradually loosened its grip on his muscles, Anthony found himself unable to stop thinking about the blanket, the water, the banana, the neatly stacked manuscript, and the simple Post-it note sitting downstairs. The suggestion that Asa didn't love him any less than they had the day before.
By the time Anthony emerged from the shower twenty minutes later, wrapped a towel around his waist, and began towelling the water from his hair, one conclusion had become unavoidable.
He was going to the bookshop. And if necessary, he was going to stand there apologising until Asa had to physically throw him back out onto Berwick Street.
When Anthony arrived on Berwick Street, the nervous energy that had been simmering beneath his skin ever since waking had intensified into something considerably more uncomfortable, manifesting itself as a persistent fluttering sensation somewhere between his ribs and stomach that no amount of rational thought seemed capable of settling.
The entire journey had been spent rehearsing apologies, discarding apologies, and constructing entirely new apologies. At one point he'd become so distracted by mentally restructuring a sentence that he'd nearly walked directly into a lamppost. The fact remained that there simply wasn't a perfect way to apologise for shouting at the person you loved for no good reason, particularly when that person had responded by making sure you'd eaten breakfast. Consequently, Anthony had settled for looking as presentable as humanly possible. If he was going to make a fool of himself, he could at least do so whilst well-dressed.
His favourite midnight-blue Oxford shirt sat neatly beneath a fitted black waistcoat, the rich colour making his pale skin and coppery hair appear all the more striking beneath the grey London sky, whilst a long black coat draped elegantly around his frame and a pair of tight black jeans disappeared into faux-snakeskin boots. He'd even spent an unreasonable amount of time wrestling his curls into something resembling intentional styling rather than their usual state of rebellion, and the glossy black varnish he'd painted onto his fingernails caught the light whenever he flexed his hands. It was, he reflected grimly, probably the most effort he'd ever invested into preparing for a conversation that might end with him being told off.
The familiar façade of the bookshop appeared ahead. No more rehearsing, no more imaginary conversations conducted in the privacy of his own head. Soon, there would be an actual Asa involved.
Anthony stopped outside the door. For a moment he simply stood there, staring through the front window whilst rain-speckled glass reflected fragments of the street around him, in a twisted reflection of the very first time he'd had to steel himself for entering this shop in order to speak with the cute bookseller he'd been sneaking glances at for weeks. How times changed.
He ran a hand through his hair, cursed at his idiocy, attempted to restyle it, took a deep breath, and then stepped inside.
The scene awaiting him near the back of the shop brought him to an immediate halt. There, seated in an oversized armchair positioned beside the children's section, was Asa, and they were reading. Not merely reading—performing. Their dulcet voice drifted through the shop, warm and animated and filled with theatrical flair. Around them sat perhaps a dozen children, ranging from roughly four to seven years old, sprawled across brightly coloured cushions and miniature chairs with varying degrees of attentiveness. Some sat cross-legged and completely enthralled. Others leaned against bookshelves. One little girl appeared to have become distracted by her own shoelaces. None of them, however, took their eyes off Asa for long, because they had them utterly captivated. Anthony found himself captivated too.
The enormous illustrated book resting open across their lap depicted some sort of dragon, judging by the glimpse he caught of colourful scales and enormous wings.
"...and that," Asa announced in a gravelly voice, causing several children to dissolve into delighted giggles, "is why we never attempt to outsmart dragons before breakfast."
A chorus of laughter followed. Anthony couldn't stop staring, because Asa looked beautiful. They always looked beautiful, obviously, but right then there was something particularly devastating about seeing them like this. Their reading glasses had slipped slightly down their nose, their cardigan sleeves were pushed carelessly to their elbows, and they seemed to radiate a kind of effortless warmth that had transformed the entire corner of the bookshop into something magical. More importantly, every child in that room was completely enthralled.
Even the ones who were clearly too young to fully grasp every word of the story sat transfixed, their eyes fixed upon Asa as though nothing else in the world existed beyond the dragon-filled pages spread across their lap, and Anthony found himself watching not the children themselves but the ease with which Asa guided them through the narrative, instinctively knowing when to lower their voice, when to heighten the tension, when to pause for dramatic effect, and when to simplify a concept without stripping away the wonder that made it worth understanding in the first place.
A realisation washed over Anthony. Less than twelve hours earlier he'd been stressing about astrophysics and publishing contracts and whether ordinary readers could understand stellar formation, whilst Asa had spent their morning sitting amongst a pile of tiny humans successfully holding the attention of an audience whose average age was approximately six. They weren't simplifying the story because children were incapable of understanding it. They were simplifying it because that was how curiosity began. Because wonder came first.
And suddenly, having watched those children hang onto every word they spoke, a strange thought began to form somewhere in the back of Anthony's mind. Not fully formed—merely the faintest spark. The beginning of an idea. One that, rather expectantly, had something to do with stars.
As though sensing his gaze, Asa looked up from the book. Their eyes met across the shop. The smile on their face faltered slightly as something complicated flickered across their expression; surprise, affection, and perhaps a little uncertainty.
Anthony remained rooted to the same spot for the remainder of the story, only half listening to the tale itself and entirely incapable of looking anywhere except at Asa, who guided their audience gorgeously towards the final page, eliciting gasps in all the right places and triumphant cheers when the dragon was finally outwitted by means considerably cleverer than violence.
When they eventually closed the book, a small wave of applause erupted from the children, several of whom immediately began speaking over one another in their eagerness to discuss their favourite parts, whilst a handful of waiting parents emerged from between the shelves to begin collecting offspring and belongings alike. Throughout it all, Anthony lingered awkwardly beside a display of children's classics, unsure whether appearing in the middle of Asa's workday to apologise for being a complete nightmare the previous evening was romantic or not.
Asa, meanwhile, seemed in no particular hurry. They spent several minutes chatting to parents, recommending books, retrieving a forgotten backpack, and reassuring one particularly earnest little boy that no, dragons were not currently living in Soho, though they agreed it would be ‘cool’ if they were. Only once the final family had departed did they finally turn their attention fully towards Anthony.
And all Anthony could think to say as their fiancé approached was, “Hello.”
"Hello." Asa's smile widened as he responded in kind.
Anthony rubbed the back of his neck, then shoved both hands into his coat pockets before he could fidget further.
"Asa, I am so sorry." The words escaped him in a rush. "I've been rehearsing this all morning and somehow none of it sounds right now that you're actually standing in front of me, but I am. Sorry, I mean. Really, genuinely sorry. I don't even know why I was such an arse."
A humourless laugh escaped him.
"Actually, no, that's not true. I know why. I was stressed and tired and catastrophising and behaving as though Sarah had personally arrived at the house to tell me I was a failure, but none of that changes the fact that you were just trying to help me and I shouted at you. I hated myself for it the second it happened.”
Asa's gaze dropped briefly towards the floor before returning to his face. "I know."
Two simple words, yet somehow they managed to steal the breath from his lungs; there was no accusation in them, no lingering anger.
Anthony’s eyebrows pinched. "You know?”
"I know," they began, leaning one shoulder against the nearest bookshelf, "that you received an email which you translated as the thing you love most in the world is wrong and nobody liked it the first time, and then spent a week trying to wrestle that feeling into submission."
Anthony winced. When phrased like that, it sounded absurd. “Angel—”
"No, hear me out." They lifted both hands. "You adore astrophysics, though not in a casual way. You love it with your entire being, Anthony. It occupies every spare corner of your brain and half the occupied ones as well."
Despite himself, Anthony huffed a laugh.
"As such," Asa continued, "when somebody tells you that your explanation of it isn't working, your brain doesn't hear this manuscript needs adjusting. It hears you've failed. And yes, I was angry last night," they admitted quietly. "Mostly because you shouted at me."
The guilt immediately resurfaced. "I’m so sorry, fuck, Asa—"
"But I wasn't angry because you were struggling.” They cut him off. "I know how your brain works, darling. I know what happens when you start pulling on one thread and suddenly convince yourself the entire jumper is falling apart."
To Anthony's immense embarrassment, he felt his eyes sting. "Asa…”
They stepped closer, close enough that Anthony could smell their familiar cologne, that he could see the tiny crease at the corner of their eyes. “I forgive you, and besides…” they pursed their lips. “You can start making it up to me tonight.”
Anthony blinked. "Tonight?"
"Mm." Their expression became suspiciously pleased. "As you know, I finish at six.”
Anthony narrowed his eyes playfully. "You're extorting me, aren't you."
"I prefer to think of it as restorative justice.”
"And what exactly does this restorative justice involve?"
"Oh, I don't know." Asa pretended to consider it. "A fancy restaurant."
"Expensive?"
"Very."
"Dessert?"
"Obviously."
Anthony shook his head. "In that case, I accept my punishment."
"You don't really have a choice.” Then, before he could formulate a response, Asa reached up, curled a hand around the front of his waistcoat, and drew him down into a kiss. Anthony melted into it immediately.
And as he stood there amongst the bookshelves, surrounded by stories and sunlight and the faint lingering echoes of children's laughter, he found himself thinking that perhaps the universe had given him two extraordinarily important gifts. The first was astrophysics. The second was Asa.
And if he was very lucky indeed, he might just spend the rest of his life learning how to deserve them both.
Hi Anthony,
I have just finished reading Stardust for Beginners and wanted to write immediately rather than waiting until our scheduled meeting next week. In short, I absolutely adore it.
What you've managed to achieve here is remarkably difficult, and I think it's important that you understand exactly why. Many writers can explain complex subjects. Many writers can simplify complex subjects. Very few can simplify them without losing the wonder that made them fascinating in the first place. This manuscript does exactly that.
The science is accurate, engaging, and beautifully communicated, but what impressed me most was the sense of curiosity running through every chapter. Rather than speaking at children, you've invited them into the conversation, trusting them to ask questions and explore alongside you, and the result is a book that feels warm, playful, and genuinely inspiring.
I was particularly charmed by the section comparing stars to cosmic bakeries, as well as the recurring "Questions for the Night Sky" prompts throughout the manuscript. Both are precisely the sort of thing that will linger in a child's imagination long after they've finished reading.
For what it's worth, I also think you've discovered something rather special here. Educational publishing often treats young readers as though information and excitement exist in opposition to one another. This manuscript understands that excitement is the reason children learn in the first place.
There will, of course, be a handful of editorial notes, but they are overwhelmingly minor and concern clarity, illustration placement, and age-range consistency rather than any substantive changes to the content itself.
I genuinely believe we have something wonderful on our hands. Thank you for trusting me with it.
Best wishes,
Sarah Bennett
Senior Commissioning Editor
P.S. Please tell me there are plans for a sequel. The chapter on black holes made me laugh out loud, and I am now deeply invested in the tiny cartoon proton who appears to be having an existential crisis.