Page 18 of Falling Like Stars

“A collection of poems by Emily Dickinson.”

“Hmmm, dark. What’s it called, the poem you’re reading now?”

“It was not Death, for I stood up.” His pointed look makes me laugh. “Okay, so she’s dark, but I love her.”

“Read me some.”

I blink. “Sorry?”

“I’ve never heard that poem,” he says. “I’d like to hear it.”

“Are you being serious?”

Zachary takes a sip of our wine. “Hard to believe I want to hear poetry because I’m a guy?”

There’s a lot about you that’s hard to believe.

I bite the thought back before I blurt it out. By the light of the ground lamps, I read a stanza from the poem.

“The Figures I have seen

Set orderly, for Burial,

Reminded me, of mine—

As if my life were shaven,

And fitted to a frame,

And could not breathe without a key…”

My throat grows tight. I shut the book and put it away. “Anyway.”

“Sounds sad,” Zach says. “Almost unbearable.”

I shrug one shoulder. “Sometimes that’s what it feels like.”

“What does?”

Life, I nearly say. Living after someone has stopped. I look up to see Zach watching me with soft eyes.

“That concludes Poetry Hour. And speaking of dark,” I say, taking the wine and changing the subject with an epic hairpin turn. “I’ve never felt sorrier for blood squibs in my life.”

“Hey, they knew what they were getting into when they took the gig,” he says lightly, letting me off the hook.

“That…makes no sense.”

“True, but here we are.”

Here we are…

We share a smile and silence falls.

Finally, I say, “So this is weird, right? A megastar and a nobody, hanging out in a hot tub.”

“Yeah, it’s a little weird,” Zach says. “But there’s no ‘nobody’ here. And if we can pretend for a second there’s no movie star either, that’d be great.”

“Just two regular joes…?”

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