...starry starry night...

Rachel leaned back casually, putting the weight of her upper body on her two outstretched arms, and giving her legs freedom to move about in front of her. She let a soft night breeze touch her cheeks, as she closed her eyes and raised her head into the sky above. The moon shone like a bright beacon high up in the cloudless, star-filled night. She opened her eyes to the hope that a falling star would dash across the sky towards the horizon for her, because in her heart she was harboring a wish she so dearly wanted – no, needed, to be fulfilled.

Rachel felt the metal of the roof beneath her start to send its chill up her arms. The soft wind was also licking her bare shoulders. Her strapped dress was no help in covering herself from the cold that was slowly creeping inside her. But it wasn’t the wind or the roof that felt the coldest. It was the sense of uncertainty that she was facing.

Towards the east Rachel could identify the constellation Orion. She remembered it well, because Chris taught her how to make an imaginary line across the heavens so she could find her zodiac, Aries. She could imagine his finger pointing to the stars that guide her from one point to another, and she could still hear his voice as he patiently directed her to Aries, the Ram. They would spend countless hours together, including those on that roof just being lost in each other’s thoughts and arms and lips. Tonight she was tracing the stars alone.

Rachel closed her eyes again, but this time to stop a tear from falling. And in the utter darkness that followed, she saw Chris. His face, his eyes, his smile… Rachel never wanted to open her eyes again because she knew that he wasn’t sitting next to him anymore.

Two weeks ago was the eighth of the month, the day both of them had dreaded for the last three months and never wanted to come. It was the day they knew would be hardest, because it was the day Chris would leave for another country and stay there for good. He had accepted a position with the company and he was taking his wife and kids with him.

Rachel loves Chris, despite everything – him being married, she being in a relationship herself. And now that he is gone, she was longing for him even more. She felt, as the cliché-ic line went, more than a woman when she was with him. He knew all the things that Rachel wanted, and he gave them without reservations. Theirs was the materialization of a love that could have been, given the right circumstances. But fate wasn’t on their side, and now she was left alone to watch the night sky like they used to do together.

Rachel lit a cigarette, and the burst of light from the match stick momentarily blinded her. The tear that was swelling in her eyes had dried. She let go one heavy heave of smoke into the air, and formed like thin clouds blurring the moon. She knew she will always have the night sky with Chris. She could never share this moment with anyone else, not even her fiancé.

Rachel gave up in her search of that one shooting star. Her wish stayed unwished, and she closed her eyes for that one last cry. No tear fell, but her heart was breaking. Around her the world is starting to stir up, and the sky was slowly turning deep blue, telling her that a new morning was at hand. The moon was fading. She whispered her last wish to the moon, that someday, somewhere, and somehow, her life and Chris’s will be one again. But for now, she decided, she will leave the stars alone.

Her phone rang; it’s Mark. She knew it won’t be easy, but this phone call would be the start.