Star Gazer

Day 26 of StoryADay September

The Prompt:

The Secret.  Your character has one, or knows about one. Will it be kept, or disclosed?

“Tell me something no one else knows.”

Tyler turned his head to look at Karen, then down at their fingers threaded together. Why did girls always ask this? Every girl he let get even a little bit close wanted more, wanted to crawl inside his brain and investigate everything hidden inside. “You see that star, right there? The really bright one? It’s not actually a star. It’s a planet. Venus.”

Karen turned her head from the sky back to Tyler’s face and glared. “Yeah, I know. I wanted something no one knows.”

“No one bothers to look at the sky anymore,” Tyler responded. He was surprised that she knew that already.

“I do. My dad used to take me out all the time to look at the stars. We would pitch a tent in the middle of nowhere and stay up until dawn looking up at the sky.” Karen turned her head back to the stars and pointed. “That bright one, just underneath Venus. That’s Regulus. It’s part of Leo.”

“The lion Hercules slayed.”

“Or the lion that scared off the girl.”

“What?” Tyler’s eyes dropped from the sky again, his body turning on the car hood to face Karen.

“There’s a competing myth. Supposedly the story that inspired Romeo and Juliet. Two young lovers were planning to meet under a tree. The girl got there first, was scared off by a lion and dropped her scarf. The boy saw the scarf and the lion, thought the girl had been eaten, and killed himself.”

“I have never heard that story.” Tyler looked at Karen. Really looked at her. He had never met a girl that paid attention to the stars, let alone knew something about them he didn’t. She might be able to handle his secret.

He turned back onto his back, looking up at the stars and remembering the two he told before. Lynn, the girl he thought he loved. She thought he was crazy and refused to ever speak to him again. Rachael, who thought it was awesome and told her friends. She wanted to go with him. He moved to new town to get away from her.

Karen was different. He could feel it. He wanted to tell her. “What are you thinking?” Karen’s voice brought him back to her.

“I want to tell you something. Something real. That almost no one else knows.”

She smiled, rolling her body to face him. “Okay.”

Tyler reached over, turning her face up to the sky and pointing, “You see that smaller star, slightly yellow, right by Regulus?”

Karen looked for a moment, then nodded, “Yeah.”

“That’s Mars.”

“And?”

“That’s where I’m from.”

Karen laughed. “Right. Women are from Venus, men are from Mars.”

Tyler turned her face back to him. “Really. I am.” He stared at her, willing her to believe him and somehow be okay with it. She stared back.

“So, what now?” Karen tightened her grip on his fingers.

“That’s kind of up to you.”

Karen closed her eyes, as if she could see the future unfolding on her closed lids. He thought maybe she could.

She opened her eyes, the clear blue sparkling like the galaxies splashed in the sky above them, then leaned close, resting her lips on his. “We’ll figure it out,” she grinned and kissed him again.