Chapter 33

It is kind of creepy. There's too much silence and there's too much sound. It makes me uncomfortable. I look up and get closer to Savannah, she's one step ahead of me.

I see her smirk. Of course she does. Her hand reaches for mine, but she doesn't say anything.

We walk up a mountain. As in, a real mountain. Not all of it, of course.

When we finally get to the top, the trees disappear. It's kind of like a rounded meadow.

She drags me to the center of it, then turns around to face me. The tips of our feet are touching again, she keeps eye contact and it's fire. Everything feels static, like a photograph, except the energy around us is the farthest thing from stillness. I see it running in circles around us, I feel it move between our bodies in waves, I notice it dancing in her eyes. She leans in.

"Look up." She whispers in my ear. What?

She takes a step back and bends her head, so she's facing the sky. I do the same.

Jesus. Christ. The city lights are far, we're in almost complete darkness. The only light coming from the ground is Los Angeles in it's full beauty at a distance. But goddamn, it is nothing compare to the light show on top of our heads. There are stars everywhere, the Milky Way looks like fairy dust, cutting its way through space. It feels magical, it feels surreal. Why on Earth do we have lights when we can have this show? It's so sad that we're ruining it, in the future everything will be so distant from everything that the sky will be pitch black, so why not enjoy it now?

"It's the first time I get to see the Milky Way in real life." I say. My voice cracks, I don't know whether it's for the amazement or the angle my head's at. Probably both.

"I know, I heard you while you were talking to Tyler." She answers.

"You eavesdrop too much."

She chuckles. "Worth it if I get to see you like this."

She grabs my head and spins it around, my body following.

"Is that Ursa Minor?" She asks. I nod.

"Yeah, there at the tip, you see the bright star? That's Polaris, commonly known as the North Star. Or, as you'd call it, Stella Polare. If you look slightly up, you can see Ursa Major." I trace the outline of the constellation. "Legend says that once Zeus, looking down at Earth, fell in love with a young woman, as usual, and had a baby boy with her, but when Hera found out, he had to transform the woman into a bear so she wouldn't kill him. His wife didn't know about the child though, who grew up to be a hunter. One day, the boy was hunting with his friends, and stumbled upon his mother, but didn't recognize her because, well, she was a bear, so Zeus transformed him into a bear too, so he wouldn't kill her. Hera found out about the boy and about the transformation, so she decided to look for them and kill them. Zeus, who still loved both of them, grabbed them by the tail, swinged them, and threw them into the sky, so they could be eternally hidden from the rage of the goddess. That's why those two bears have long tails instead of short ones, like normal bears."

"For the swinging?"

"Yup. You see those stars next to Ursa Major? That's the Lynx constellation." Again, I trace it with my fingers. "I don't know the story behind it, but lynxes are one of my favorite animals."

"You know the Milky Way is called Milky Way because the Ancient Greeks thought that Hera got some milk and threw it in the sky?"

I giggle and nod. "Yeah, in China it's called the Silver River. The legend of Altair And Vega. I'll make it short. According to the Chinese, there once were two lovers, it was a forbidden love between an immortal goddess of the skies, Vega, and a mortal human, Altair. She promises Altair that she would bring him up to the skies, and when her father finds out he gets mad, so he throws them into the sky, two opposite parts of it, dividing them with a river, the Silver River, so they can't meet. Once a year, though, the magpies, out of compassion, create a bridge, so that Vega can visit her lover, but some years, the trip is too difficult so she doesn't manage. But at least the promise lives, they are still both in the skies, just not together."

"Oh. Why does mythology always involve throwing people into the sky?"

"Well, it's astrology who always involves throwing people into the sky."

"Isn't astrology zodiac signs and stuff?"

"It's everything mythological that involves space. Zodiac signs are still constellations."

"How do you even know that many legends anyway?"

"I literally just told you two. Anyways, the first from an astrology presentation in Milan I went to two years ago, and the second one from The Big Bang Theory."

She laughs. Her laughter makes me shiver.

"You are beautiful. I hope no one throws you into the sky and separates you from me."

She gets closer, grabbing me by the waist. She makes my legs weak.

We are really close, I want to fill the gap, but let her do it if she wants to. Instead, she grabs my chin and runs her thumb on my lower lip. She looks up into my eyes, then down to my mouth. She fills the gap. Not even a black hole coming to its death could be as strong as the explosions in my chest.

At the center of the Milky Way, there's a gas structure made by ethyl formate. It's a liquid you can find in raspberries, but it's also known for smelling like rum. In the gas structure, of course, it's in a gaseous form, which means there's a very very big structure which smells like rum and tastes like raspberries, since ethyl formate is what partially gives the berry its taste. Gas structures are beautiful, exotic, they come in every form, they are magnificent. The one at the center of the Milky Way will forever remind me of Savannah and the taste of her kisses.