July 32nd

The heat. God, the heat. It's like being wrapped in wet towels, except the towels are made of air and you can't take them off. The asphalt's doing that shimmer thing again—no, wait, that's not right. It's night. Why would asphalt shimmer at night? Unless the streetlamps are hot enough, which they probably are. Everything’s hot here, even the moon looks like it's sweating.

The moon looks tired. Like it couldn't be bothered to show up fully tonight.

Del pushes through the back door and immediately regrets the wine. She doesn't really regret it. She needs it. The notebook though, that's different. It feels like it weighs more than paper should. Like it knows things.

She's being stupid. Paper doesn't know things.

Her feet hit the porch and it's still warm from the day, which is ridiculous because the sun went down hours ago. Hours? Was it hours? Time gets weird in July. Especially this part of July.

The chair. Right. The chair has to be in the exact same spot as last time, because—well, because it does. She's not superstitious, she's really not, but some things just work better when you don't mess with them. It needs to be dead center between the hydrangea and that ridiculous garden gnome. The gnome isn't even hers, it came with the house. She keeps meaning to move it but never does.

Maybe the gnome's part of it too.

No, that's insane.

The telescope's already set up because she did that earlier, triple-checked everything, then checked again because what if she got it wrong? What if this is the year she misses it because she was sloppy? Northwest by north. Or north by northwest. One of those. It's right, she knows it's right, she's done this enough times.

How many times has she done this?

Inside the house, the fan's going whup-whup-whup like it's trying to slice the air into manageable pieces. It’s not working. The air just keeps being thick and impossible. Her knees are already sweaty. Gross.

She checks her watch: 11:46.

Still early. Too early. But also not early enough because what if she's wrong about the time? What if it's earlier this year, or later, or what if—

Stop. She forces herself to stop.

The neighborhood's especially quiet, which is good, or maybe it's bad? Last year there was that party down the street and she worried the noise would interfere, but it didn't. Nothing seems to interfere. The signal—if it's a signal—gets through anyway.

Signal. Listen to her. Like she's picking up radio from Mars.

Maybe she is?

A dog barks somewhere. Fireworks pop in the distance, probably left over from the Fourth. A moth bumps against the telescope and she almost swats it, then doesn't. The moth was here last year too. Different moth, same spot. Probably.

Do moths live that long? She should know that, shouldn’t she?

Del closes her eyes, not to sleep, but to listen. The hour crawls forward like it's walking through mud. She wonders if this is the year nothing happens. Part of her hopes it is. Part of her would die if it was.

That doesn't make sense, but nothing about this makes sense.

She's losing her mind. She’s probably been losing it for years, sitting in her backyard talking to herself while pretending it's something else bigger.

But it is bigger. It feels bigger.

The cicadas stop.

Just like that. 12:17, and they cut out like someone pulled a plug. The silence rings in her ears, actual ringing, like tinnitus but musical.

This is it. This is when it starts.

Her hand moves to the telescope before she realizes she's moving. Not to adjust it, it's already perfect, but just to touch it. To anchor herself to something real.

12:44. The stars above Lyra start to... shift isn't the right word. The stars are in their fixed points but the sky behind them seems to move. Breathe. Thin, like fabric wearing through. She's given up trying to explain it to herself. You can't explain some things, you can only wait for them.

The focus knob turns under her fingers. Her breath catches because there it is, the halo around Vega, too perfect to be natural, too soft to be a mistake.

"Come on," she whispers, and realizes she's always talking to it like it's shy. Like it needs encouragement.

Maybe it does.

1:03. The air shivers, just slightly, and there's that sound in her left ear—crackling, like radio static but underwater, or like thunder that's lost its way.

She reaches out with her voice, the way she always does, the way that feels both crazy and necessary.

"Are you there?"

The static pauses. Listens. Then—

"...Is this real?"

And Del's heart does this thing, this awful wonderful thing where it recognizes itself.

"I think so," Del says, but she's lying. She doesn't think, she knows, except she doesn't know anything, does she? This could be elaborate self-delusion. Probably is. "Though that may not matter."

God, why did she say that? She sounds like a fortune cookie.

But the voice comes back—young, uncertain, absolutely familiar—and Del remembers being that uncertain. Being that young. When did she stop being uncertain? When did she start pretending she had answers?

"It's me, isn't it? I mean... you're me."

The words hit her chest like stones. Heavy and true and impossible.

"Yes. It's me. It's us."

The connection wavers. It always does this, flickers like bad reception, and Del wants to grab it, hold it steady, but you can't grab radio waves. You can't fix time with your hands.

"I remembered this," the girl says. "Like déjà vu. Like I dreamed it before it happened."

Del nods even though no one can see her. "I know. It's always like that."

"Always?"

Right. The girl wouldn't know, wouldn’t remember. Del remembers being seventeen and having this conversation, but only barely, like remembering a dream from inside another dream.

"This isn't the first time."

Silence. Del can feel the girl thinking, processing. She can feel her own seventeen-year-old brain trying to make sense of the impossible.

"Then why don't I remember more?"

And there it is. The question Del asks herself every year and never answers.

"Because memory is porous," she says, which sounds wise but means nothing. "Or maybe time is. Or maybe we're just terrible at paying attention."

The girl laughs—sudden, bright, shocked—and Del feels it in her ribs like an echo. When did she stop laughing like that?

"You sound tired," the girl says, and it's not an accusation, just an observation, but it stings anyway.

"I am." More tired than she realized until just now.

"I thought I'd be different by now."

Oh, sweetheart. "You are. Just not in the ways you expected."

This is always the hard part. The girl wants answers and Del wants to give them, but how do you explain a life to someone who hasn't lived it yet? How do you explain the ways you've changed and stayed the same, the things you've gained and lost and never quite figured out?

"What should I do?" The girl's voice gets tight, scared. "I mean... with all of it?"

And Del almost asks it then, the question that's been sitting in her throat for years: Why did you choose what you chose? Why did you leave? Why didn't you stay?

But she swallows it. She always swallows it.

Instead: "What are you afraid of right now?"

The girl takes forever to answer. Del can hear her breathing, uncertain.

"Losing people. Or maybe... becoming someone I wouldn't like."

That's new. That's—Del blinks hard. The girl never said that before. Different fears, different words, but never that one.

Del wants to tell her: You will lose people. You will become someone you don't recognize, then someone you do, then someone else entirely. You will like yourself and hate yourself and forgive yourself in cycles. You will be okay.

But the stars are flickering. The connection's thinning.

"Time's almost up."

"I know."

"Same time next year?"

"Always."

The rift closes. The sky behind the stars settles back into stillness. The night becomes just a night.

Del sits there afterwards, hands loose in her lap, telescope forgotten. The sky looks completely normal now, like it never opened, like time never bent.

But something's different this year. The girl asked for guidance. Usually it's Del calling out, Del trying to warn or comfort or understand. But this time—

This time felt like the girl was reaching toward her instead of away.

Del puts her face in her hands. The grass is cooling against her ankles. Dawn is coming, somewhere below the horizon, turning the air thin and soft.

She whispers it out loud for the first time: "What would've happened if I'd stayed?"

The question she never asks. The one that sits behind her ribs like a stone she can't cough up.

She opens her notebook—blank pages, same as always—and flips to where last year's entry should be. But there's something new there. Her handwriting, but looser, more hurried.

Ask next time. Don't be afraid of the answer.

Del touches the page. She didn't write that. She's sure she didn't write that.

The sky's lightening now, purple to blue, stars fading. July 32nd ending the way it always does.

But the page is still there. Still real.

She checks the message twice. Three times. Still there, still in her handwriting but not her handwriting, like someone else borrowed her hand.

Ask next time. Don't be afraid of the answer.

But she almost did ask this time, didn't she? Almost. The words were right there.

She looks up at the sky one more time, scanning for—what? The Hinge constellation's already gone, folded back into daylight. But as her eyes sweep the horizon, her stomach drops.

There. Just for a second.

Herself. Standing in the grass, seventeen, barefoot, wearing that old T-shirt she used to sleep in. Not looking at the stars. Looking back at her.

Del jumps to her feet.

Gone.

Just the lawn, empty except for her own footprints.

Her breath comes fast, shaky. That never happened before. Never. The voice, yes. The shimmer, yes. But seeing herself? Actually seeing—

She grips the notebook, holds it against her chest like armor.

There's a second line now.

Ask next time. Don't be afraid of the answer. We're not the only ones watching.

Del stares at the words. Her knees give out and she sits back down hard.

We. We're not the only ones.

She doesn't know what that means. Doesn't want to know, except she does, desperately.

For the first time in years, she feels something shifting. Not just in the sky, not just in time. In her.

Something's changed. Something's watching.

And next year, she's going to find out what.

The sun comes up while she sits there, wrapped in her old cardigan, the notebook open in her lap like a prayer book.

The neighborhood wakes up around her - sprinklers, screen doors, coffee cups clinking. Normal sounds. Normal life.

But Del feels separate from it all, like she's sitting in a bubble that might pop if she moves too fast.

We're not the only ones watching.

It sounds like something from a bad movie, but it doesn't feel silly. It feels true in a way that makes her bones ache.

If there are others... who? What? And what have they been watching all these years while she thought she was alone?

The thought should scare her. Maybe it does. But underneath the fear is something else—anticipation? Relief?

She's not crazy. Or if she is, she's not the only one.

Del stands, folds the chair, tucks the notebook under her arm. Tomorrow she'll water plants and go to the bookstore and pretend to be normal. She's good at pretending to be normal.

But next year. Next year she'll come back to this spot, this impossible night.

And this time, she'll ask the question.

Whatever the answer is, she's done being afraid.

She's ready to know.