Don't Fear The Reaper

{xvi. shades of night}

❝Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.❞

-The Princess Bride by William Goldman

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As night fell upon Western Vermont, I sat on my back porch's roof and waited for the sky to come alive. These evenings were perfect for stargazing, but tonight was special. The Perseids meteor shower was reaching its zenith, an event anybody this far out into the boondocks could see perfectly if they only looked.

In August in Ashdown, days were hot and humid, but they always faded away to cool, comfortable nights. Most of my friends could care less about my interest in the night sky, but luckily, Will was always as fascinated by the Perseids as I was. Ever since we were 11, we had been going up to one of our roofs with snacks and blankets to watch the tears of spacetime fall to the Earth, and this year was no different.

Around dusk, my boyfriend appeared in my backyard, one hand stuffed in his AHS Jackals hoodie and the other holding a picnic basket. The moonlight made his skin glow like silver, and even from here, I could smell his scent of maple syrup and pine - or maybe that was just the countryside.

"You ever think about how reminiscent this is of the treehouse scene in High School Musical 3?" Will called up to me by way of greeting. "Next thing you know, I'm going to start playing basketball and you'll become a mathlete."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "All right, Troy. Should I start calling you 'Wildcat' from now on?"

"Being a Jackal is good enough for me, thanks." With a grin, he asked, "Can I come up?"

When I gave him the answer - which was, of course, yes - he made his way across the dew-soaked grass to my back door, eventually winding up in my bedroom. The way my house was built, there was a roof jutting out from the second floor on either side, and the back's proximity to my picture window made it easy to get a good view of the Perseids.

Usually, the Nyquists' ranch was the setting for our August adventure through the galaxy, but as Will crawled out of the window to the slope and settled down beside me, he said, "Sorry we couldn't do this at my house. My parents were just going off on each other. Sometimes I think they forget I'm even there."

I frowned, and said, "Are you okay? Do you think-"

"I'm fine, baby, trust me," Will interrupted, his hazel eyes filling with hope. "Besides, at least when they're fighting, Mom doesn't helicopter. Usually she gives me a 20 minute lecture on not falling off the roof and breaking my neck, but I left today with no issue."

That was Will, always seeing the silver linings, even when there was no sun to create the light. He slung his left arm around me and started to open the picnic basket with his right. Quickly, I leaned forward to help him, pulling out the same food we had every year. It was like tradition, our rooftop picnic, and I could recall the menu easily - maple sugar candies, honey Chex mix, and fresh watermelon. It wasn't anything special, but we'd chosen it in middle school, and we didn't have the heart to change it now.

"Astronomers say that this year, the Perseids are supercharged," I told Will, one hand reaching for the stash of sweets. "Which means that skywatchers may be able to see 150 to 200 meteors per hour, instead of the usual 80."

Will and I looked up at the sky, but the meteors were nowhere to be seen - yet. Stars speckled the indigo sky, and the rim of the Milky Way galaxy glowed faintly around us. The moon was in its first quarter, half lit up and hanging like a beacon on a cloudless horizon. Somewhere below us, crickets and the occasional sound of a car passing created the soundtrack of the summer, a symphony to my ears.