Page 72 of It Should Have Been Me

Now, I have a routine. At least once a month, I take a drive up toward Corral Canyon and sit out there all night watching the stars. I enjoy the quietness and the solitude. It’s just a way to escape the pressures of life and unwind. This month, I had planned to go there tonight because there’s going to be a comet sighting at 20:23. I was going to do this by myself, so at 18:30, I subtly suggested to Cat that I was going out and she needed to leave.

I admit that this was a mistake on my part because then she asked where I was going and by the end of it; I caved and agreed to take her along with me. This is yet another insert into yet another personal space in my life, and I allowed it to happen.

She doesn’t realize she’s doing it, but she’s slowly creeping back into my life, tainting it with pieces of her. The smell of her shampoo on my pillows. Her hair on my brush. Her running gear in my laundry basket. These little things are beginning to bug me because it’s the same things that are going to drive me crazy when she leaves. She’s already contaminated my entire apartment, including my rooftop, which was supposed to be a sanctuary of sorts. And now it’s spilling over into other parts that I deem sacred and I can’t seem to stop it. So, when I say frustrated, it is one hundred percent directed atme.

After we load up pillows, a comforter, our food, and everything we need for Rocky into the trunk, we take a slow drive up to Corral Canyon. Cat is oblivious to my self-inflicted torture. She’s too preoccupied with Rocky to notice. She’s holding him up, rubbing her nose against his as she sings him weird cheerleading chants.

“Who’s the cutest? Who. Is. The. Cutest? You are. You are. You are the cutest.” She pouts as she looks over at me. “I think I love him.”

I smile. “I think he knows.”

When we get to my usual spot on the top of the hill where the road ends, I turn onto the gravel path and reverse closer to the edge. The salty ocean air is crisp as I jump out and walk to the back of my SUV to pop the trunk. I drop the two backseats and lay the thick comforter to cover the entire tailboard. I rearrange the pillows and shift Rocky’s new bed to the corner at the back.

“That is so cute,” Cat says, coming to stand behind me. “It looks like a little couch.” She looks down at Rocky. “And just in case you didn’t know it was your bed, it has your name embroidered on it. You are one spoiled little pup.” She turns to me. “A personalized bed? You don’t think it’s a bit much?”

“He needs to live the bougie life, too.”

We still have another hour to kill before the comet, but between talking, eating pizza, and playing with Rocky, the time goes by quite quickly. Rocky falls asleep, and after nestling him into his new bed, Cat and I move our pillows to the open end of the trunk, lying on our stomachs so we have a clear view. Stars are sprinkled across the navy night sky and the moon is big and bright, illuminating everything around us in a warm, white glow. A light breeze rustles the leaves, and the hum of crickets can be heard in the background.

“Look, Scott!” She grabs my arm excitedly and points to my left. “There it is!”

We watch in awe as it trail-blazes across the sky in all its majestic glory, leaving a powdery white streak in its wake. It gets smaller and smaller until it disappears into the distance. The remnants of the white streak stay a little longer before it also dissipates into nothingness, and then it’s like the moment never happened. Everything goes back to normal. It sort of reminds me of my relationship with Cat. Like I told her, when we were together, we burned bright, but then we burned out.

I look over at her. “That was amazing...while it lasted.”

She nods. “When something is that extraordinary, it imprints on your memories, and in that way, I guess it lasts forever.”

“That’s one way to look at it. And even if we can’t see it anymore, it’s still burning somewhere in outer space, so maybe in another world, it still exists.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes light up. “Hey, did you know many things in outer space are in the ratio of phi? I can’t remember the specific details, but I think it’s the ratio of the earth in relation to the moon and Saturn to its rings or something like that. I think it even exists to some extent in black holes. I don’t know if that helps with your research, but I thought I’d just throw it out there.”

“Uh...it doesn’t help at all, but thanks for the suggestion,” I respond with a laugh.

“I figured. I was just sort of hoping that I could con you into telling me more about the paper you’re writing.”

I contemplate whether I should just tell her. It’s not some big secret. I just didn’t want to share certain parts of my life with her because it makes me feel...exposed. Like I’ve left myself wide open with no protection. I want boundaries. It’s very clear that Ineedboundaries, but seeing that I’ve done a shitty job of maintaining any form of limits anyway, I suppose it doesn’t make much of a difference.

I let out a sigh of defeat. “So, you know phi is 1.618, and?”

“But why is it 1.618?” She crosses her arms and rests her chin on them as if she’s getting comfortable, priming herself to listen to a really long story. “Tell me all the background. Explain it to me like you used to explain math to me in school.”

“Well, I don’t have a pen and paper, so I’m gonna use my phone.”

Her eyes light up with excitement. “Yeah! Bring out the big guns.”

“So, it starts with the Fibonacci sequence.” I type the sequence on my phone:0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233.“The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, and it continues into perpetuity. So, zero plus one is one. One plus one is two. One plus two is three. Two plus three is five. Three plus five is eight. You get the picture. Now, if you divide any number in the sequence by the number before it, you get one point six-ish, but once you get to the fourteenth number, which is 233, the ratio is 1.618, the golden ratio, and it remains unchanged into infinity.” I scroll through the pictures on my phone that show how the ratio is used to construct the logarithmic golden spiral. “So, if you use the Fibonacci sequence and start drawing rectangles that are in the ratio of 1 to 1.618 like in this picture here, and then if you draw a straight line that runs from one corner through the opposite corner of each rectangle, you’ll get this spiral which is the shape of the Nautilus shell.”

“Oh, wait. Stop right there. Let me show you something quickly, so you can see where my head is at.” She pulls out her phone and shows me a picture of a rose. “I sculpted this based on the golden spiral. When a rose blossoms, the petals spread out in that spiral shape, which is why it’s so beautiful. I’m struggling to see how you could debunk the beauty of something that is so prevalent in nature. And it’s not just in nature. Even if you take business logos like Twitter or Google, they all use the ratio of 1.618. The human brain interprets those to be aesthetically appealing because the design and the spacing are based on phi. Same with a human face – people are seen as more attractive if their features are in the correct proportions of phi. Kim Kardashian's face is 91% accurate to the golden ratio because it’s so symmetrical, and that is why so many people see her as beautiful. Based on phi, she is. I don’t think you can debunk something that has so much proof behind it. Society wouldn’t have beauty standards in the first place if there wasn’t already a perception of what is aesthetically appealing.”

Seeing her passion for this subject brings an instant smile to my face. “The other professor is going to delve into society’s perceptions and standards. I’m just trying to statistically debunk the concept that phi is basically akin to perfection.”

She flips over onto her back and looks up at me. “And how do you plan to do that when all the odds are stacked against you?”

“Well, when we do this sort of thing, the starting point has to be the perfect system or situation, then you start changing variables and see if perfection is maintained within that system. Phi is all about symmetry, so we could start moving things around in different dimensions, change the ratios of certain features of a human face, and then look at the final result. Let’s take you, for instance?”

“Why me?”

“Well, firstly, phi can’t be written as a simple fraction, which makes it irrational...just like you.”

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