We were alone on the rooftop.
The city slept around us. There were no people on the streets and even the passing cars were few and far apart. The sizzle of a voltage converter nearby was the only sound to be heard. Ceres and I sat side-by-side on a wooden bench. She handed me a mug of coffee, she was a self-proclaimed coffee addict. I was never much fond of the stuff, myself, but I drank it then, because it was Ceres who gave it to me.
“It’s been so long since I last did this,” she told me. “Staying up late to watch the sunrise. Brings back memories.”
“What memories?” I asked her. I had been dying for a chance to ask her more about her past.
Ceres turned and looked at me.
“Do you mind waiting some more?” she asked. “It’s still a bit hard for me to talk about some things. I promise I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
“Okay,” I told her.
She smiled. There was something about her smile that made my heart beat faster, even more so now that she was sitting so close to me.
“Zoe doesn’t like this sort of thing,” she told me, while looking away at the distance. “She says it’s a waste of sleep.”
“She’s right,” I joked. “It is a waste of sleep.”
Ceres laughed.
“Well, at least I’m glad that you’re wasting your sleep here with me. It’s lonely to stay up this late by yourself.”
I was glad to be with her, too. Once morning came, I’d be forced to go back to my routine of work, school and home. I’d have to face my mother, she would probably be angry that I disappeared without telling her anything about it. And there were the classes I skipped, I’d have to catch up on those, as well. I wasn’t looking forward to any of it. If I could stretch my night with Ceres, even if for a few more hours, that was totally worth the lack of sleep. I told her that.
“Your mom seems like the angry type,” she remarked.
“She’s… normal, I think. Wouldn’t you be angry if your daughter suddenly disappeared for a day without telling you where she went?”
“I think I’d be worried, mostly. Although…” Ceres stared down at the concrete floor. For a moment then I thought she looked miserable. “I guess I’d never know.”
I was intrigued. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head and gazed at the distance again, looking more like her usual self. “It’s nothing, really. I can see a star over there.”
I gazed at the direction Ceres had pointed. There was a single bright star in the distance.
“That’s Venus,” she said. “It’s the brightest light in the night sky, after the moon, of course. You can know it’s a planet, not a star, because it doesn’t twinkle like stars usually do.”
“Is Ceres a star too?” I asked her. She giggled.
“Well, it’s definitely up there, somewhere. But I don’t know if we’d be able to see it, even without the light pollution. It’s a dwarf planet, you know, those are very hard to see.”
“Pluto’s a dwarf planet too, isn’t it? Can’t we see Pluto?”
“No, we can’t, actually. It’s too small and too far away to see with the naked eye. I think astronomers from the past discovered Pluto only because its gravity had an effect on the orbit of Uranus. They knew it was there before they were even able to see it.”
“That’s impressive,” I told Ceres. “How do you know all of this?”
“Well, I was named after a celestial body, after all,” she smiled again. I loved that smile.
We chatted some more about planets, stars, and anything else that came to mind. The sky near the horizon began to turn cerulean blue: a harbinger of the inevitable coming of morning. The coffee grew cold, forgotten in the mugs next to us. It was so much fun to talk to her. And every time she laughed, I couldn’t help but grin as well. Every time she smiled, I felt my heart press against my chest.
“I swear I’m never letting Zo buy our groceries anymore. I mean, celery? Does she think I’m a rabbit?”
“I like celery,” I said. “It’s healthy.”
“It’s green,” she retorted. “I can eat anything but green.”
I chuckled. In a way, Ceres was a bit like a child sometimes.
“You’re completely different from what I imagined at first,” I told her.
“I hope that’s a good thing, then,” she said.
It was. Ceres was fun and smart and everything about her made me want to be close to her. She started talking about other stuff — like lettuce and cilantro —, but I wasn't entirely paying attention to what she said then. I found myself staring at her face, illuminated by the streetlamps and the early morning light. She really was beautiful. Her eyes glistened and her disheveled hair swung playfully on her forehead. Every once in a while, she had to blow it off her eyes or try and tuck it behind her ears. That hardly ever worked, so she was constantly trying to fix her hair while we talked. It was lovely.
The street lamps highlighted the contour of her face. There was beauty in every detail: her forehead, her nose, her chin, and her lips… Oh, her lips…
Ceres stopped talking and turned to me, staring intensely into my eyes. I had brought my face so close to hers I could feel the warmth of her breath on my cheeks. For a moment it all felt very dreamlike. But seeing her eyes from so close brought me back to reality, as I realized what was going on. I turned away.
What was I doing?
Did I just try to kiss her?
Seriously?
“Janis…” Ceres called me.
“Yes, sorry.” I looked back at her, keeping my distance from her face this time around. “It’s nothing. I guess I’m just a bit dizzy from the lack of sleep.”
It was an obvious lie. I really didn’t expect Ceres to believe it, but she did (or pretended to, anyway).
“It… must be horrible for you to have those nightmares…”
“What nightmares?” I asked her, absentmindedly. “Oh, right! Yes, that’s probably it.”
We remained there in silence, in what was probably one of the most awkward moments of my life. My mind was a mess. What’s up with me, trying to kiss a girl? I mean, I’ve kissed boys before and I even kissed my friends as a sort of joke, but… Ceres? That was a completely different thing.
That couldn’t be what it looked like, could it?
“Janis,” Ceres called my name once more. She took my hand in hers. The warmth of her touch made my chest tighten again, it was not a feeling I knew how to get used to. And after what had just happened, it was frightening. I wanted to run away. “Janis, I’m sorry for making you do this. It was a silly idea.”
No! Please don’t apologize!
“You should go back and sleep some more, while we have time.”
God, why was everything turning into this awkward mess? Ceres had done nothing wrong! I loved every moment we’d spent together. I lost count of how many times I had secretly wished for that night to never end. It wasn’t her fault things turned out like this. I didn’t even know what was happening in the first place.
Ceres let go of my hand (no!), got up and picked up the coffee mugs and bottle to take inside.
This was wrong. That’s not how things are supposed to go. In the stories, the handsome guy would kiss the beautiful lady just as the sun began to rise and they would fall madly in love with each other. There was a happy ending and everything. That’s how it should have happened.
But life isn’t a story, I was no handsome guy, and I couldn’t kiss the lady.
The sun rose up slowly over the mountains.
My night with Ceres was over. §
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