She crosses her arms. “I’m…alive.”
I blink between them. “Am I missing something?”
Before Hayden can respond, Paula makes a vague, dismissive gesture toward a basket of sandwiches at the far end of the stall. “He knows what he did.”
Hayden pinches the bridge of his nose. “For the last time, I did not hit that bird.”
I nearly choke on my own breath.
“Wait,theinfamous pigeon fight?” I gasp.
Hayden nods, lips pulled in a tight line.
Paula scoffs, looking wholly unamused. “The poor thing was just hungry, and you swatted at it.”
“I defended my meal,” Hayden corrects. “That bird was a nuisance.”
“Let me get this straight,” I say, trying, and failing, not to grin. “Thisis where you waged war with a pigeon over your favorite sandwich?”
“In my defense, it was an excellent sandwich,” he mutters.
Paula huffs. “You traumatized the poor thing.”
“Did you apologize?” I ask, delighted by how all of this is unfolding. “To the bird, I mean.”
“You’re not helping,” he snaps between clenched teeth.
I have tears in my eyes. Actual tears. Paula hands me a croissant in solidarity. “On me, sweetheart. For putting up withhim.”
“Public service is underpaid,” I declare, taking a dramatic bite while Hayden glares like he’s considering legal action.
“I’ll just take two dozen scones, Paula. Assorted is fine and we’ll be out of your way,” Hayden says, his shoulders slumped.
Paula packs up his order with a smirk. As we step away, I bump Hayden’s shoulder. “Favorite story about you, hands down.”
“I will walk into traffic and you’ll be to blame,” he says, straight-faced.
I grin, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow. Despite his scowl, he lets me.
• • •
The air iscrisp and the town’s golden light glows in the darkness. A breeze lifts the edges of the blanket we’re lying on, rustling the fabric of my coat, which I tug tighter around my shoulders.
Hayden lies beside me, long legs stretched out, his arms behind his head as he takes in the sky. The moon shines silver against the velvet dark, stars sharp and endless. The kind of night that feels bigger than everything else. Like the world has cracked open, offering a glimpse of something infinite.
He hasn’t spoken, but I see it in the restless shift of his shadows, the tension in his fingers against the blanket.
“You ever wonder why humans search for meaning in the sky?” he whispers.
I shift toward him so that I’m resting on one elbow, watching as he studies the constellations above us.
“They looked up,” he continues, gaze unchanged, “and saw their own stories reflected at them. Orion, sword raised, forever hunting the heavens. Andromeda, chained to the rocks, waiting to be saved. Perseus, riding through the cosmos with Medusa’s head in hand. They weren’t just stars, they were love letters carved into the sky. Proof people mattered enough to be remembered.”
Something about the way he says it tugs at a place in me I didn’t know was still tender.
I follow the familiar dots overhead. Shapes I’ve known my whole life but never reallyseen. Light and distance. That’s all they were to me.
But to Hayden, they’re echoes.
