Lily tugged on the unraveling edge of her scarf, wool on wet hands. College spring festival boomed around her: crackle of grill and scent of food carts, string of fairy lights between the halls like scattered stars. Her heart beat louder than the rowdy chaos of a local's rendition of a number-one hit on the whim stage. She stood frozen on the fringe of the crowd, her gaze fixed on Ethan, nineteen and infuriatingly beautiful, resting against the stall of his hockey team. Black hair falling into his eyes, his laughter ringing in a rowdy laugh that suited him with the players of the opposing team, his lips too rough as they vanished from sight. Lily had observed him for a year.
At intermission, when he'd write silly cartoons in margins of notebooks. On the ice, where he owned the rights to the pavement. In the cafeteria, where he'd steal fries off Jake's tray and dodge the coming swat. She'd memorized the slant of his laugh lines around the eyes, the way he tilts his neck when he's anxious. A year of hiding it, of sketching his profile in her notebook, of hoping he'd notice her. Tonight, she'd promised herself, she'd stop playing secret games. "You're staring again," Mia said, popping up beside her with a caramel apple in hand. Her best friend's curls bounced as she grinned, her energy a stark contrast to Lily's knotted nerves. "Go talk to him, Lil. You've been mooning over Ethan forever." Lily's stomach lurched. "I can't. He's… Ethan. And I'm—"
"Amazing? Talented? The best artist on campus?" Mia nudged her shoulder. "Come on, you've got this. What's the worst that could happen?"
He could laugh. Or worse, not care. Lily swallowed the thought, her fingers tightening around her scarf. Mia's optimism was infectious, though, and the festival's buzz made her feel briefly brave. Maybe this was her moment. Maybe he'd see her, really see her, and everything would change.
"Okay," she whispered, more to herself than Mia. "Okay, I'll do it."
Mia screamed, shoving her ahead. "That's my girl! Go get your hockey prince!"
Lily pushed into the crowd, jostling past students carrying glow sticks and stacks of paper plates loaded with tacos. The hockey booth loomed above, its neon sign flashing in giant red letters, "Go Wildcats!" Ethan was standing there, flipping a mini puck around in the air with his fingers, joking with his foul-mouthed teammate Jake. Her throat closed up, but she forced herself to creep one foot forward, then the next, which was more difficult to do than either of the previous ones.
"Ethan?" She'd spoken it so quietly, nearly as quietly as the crowd. She tried again, clearing her throat, speaking louder. "Ethan, can I talk to you for a minute?"
He turned back, his green eyes catching the fairy lights. She thought for a split second that he smiled, and her heart soared. "Hey, Lily, yeah?" he said, making the pass to Jake. "What's going on?"
She stumbled over her own feet. He had recalled her name. Good, then. Her written words trailed behind her like a specter, but she pushed it along with the assistance of her scarf. "I, uh. I liked you a year ago. Like, seriously liked you." The words stumbled over their tongues in jerky and awkward sentences. "I just thought I should tell you."
Silence. The carnival noise receded, or perhaps her heart only heard that. Ethan's eyebrows arched, his expression unchanging. Jake snorted over his shoulder and turned to address another player, and Lily blushed.
"Wow, uh." Ethan rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the stall. "That's. nice to hear. But I'm kinda hockey-brained today, you know? Big game this week. Sorry."
Sorry. The word had been a slap. He wasn't grinning, and the rejection hurt worse. Lily's eyes battled a pinched face of rage, her chest constricting. "Right," she exhaled on a voice barely above a whisper. "Sorry, I shouldn't have—"
"Nah, it's fine," Ethan said already turning to Jake. "See you around, yeah?"
She nodded, though he didn't turn to her.
Jake's smile lingered with her as she fell back, the crowd closing above her.
Her scarf tightened like a noose around her neck now, and she pulled it off, coiling it in her tight fist. Mia shouted her name, but Lily would not surrender. She elbowed her way through the carnival, through the cotton candy, through the wailing children spending money on stuffed animals, until she reached the college garden—a peaceful bubble of benches and flowers spilling lilac purple, a ways removed from the din. She fell on to a bench, weeping hard and hot. "Stupid," she whispered, smudging her face. "So stupid." She'd fantasized about him in her head, built a fantasy on him being in love with her, and he'd treated her like dirt. The ache in her heart spread out, heavy and sharp. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. A text from Nora, her crazy aunt who always knew when she was losing it: Something big is going to happen tonight, kid. Look at the stars. Lily looked up in the hopes of getting some kind of alien message. A burst of light flashed across the horizon—a comet, burning and brief, was snuffed out before she could even blink. She laughed, putting down her phone. "Yeah, right. Stars don't solve this."
The music of the festival faded away now, the stillness of the garden coming crashing down. She remembered Ethan's eyes, the careless "sorry," and the ring of Jake's laughter sinking the knife in further. Mia would be arriving to pick her up any minute now, holding her close and telling her it was his loss, but Lily didn't care. She just wanted to go to bed and put all of this out of her mind about the way her heart had lain open for nothing.
She made her way back to her dorm, carnival lights illuminating college walkways otherwise empty at this time of night. Her room was sanctuary—scrapes on walls, incomplete on an easel what would be her rink-of-glories. She removed shoes and skirted what would have confronted her from the mirror: red-ring eyes. In bed, she wrapped blankets around her, scarf still rumpled in hand.
I want to know you," she gasped, the words spilling out on a prayer. Ethan's face remained etched into her mind—his smile, his reserve. Why wouldn't he look at her? Why couldn't she fill the emptiness in him?
Fatigue fell on her from below, tears drying on her face. Unseen outside, the comet's light pulsed faintly, as night dissolved into something else. Lily slept in ignorance of the thread of cosmology surrounding her, to be unwoven what she had uncovered.