Stars in the Night Sky

Stars, twinkling in through the night. The dark night sky becomes the backdrop for the stars to shine… but would the stars shine without the night sky? 

The cold breeze blows my hair as I stare at the shining stars wondering about what the future will unfold. The sky looks lovely tonight…

“Phoebe?” A sweet voice could be heard in the background, I turned around to see Rita smiling. Her long, blue-tinted hair blew beautifully with the wind along with her flowy dress.

“You ready?” She asked. I smiled back at her and nodded. She reached out her hand and I gladly accepted, standing up I brushed the dirt off my outfit and followed her to the car.

“Took you long enough.” Vanessa chuckled as I took a seat near her by the window while Rita sat on the driver’s seat.

“What were you doing out there Phoebe?” Prudence’s husky voice asked me, getting the attention of Rita, Vanessa and Bonnie who took her eyes off her phone.

“Yeah Phebes, you and Rita were taking a while, I started to think you didn’t want to go.” Bonnie said in a monotone voice.

“I was just star-gazing…” I replied as I took out my earphones and plugged them to my ears and started listening to Claire De Lune while Rita started the car and we drove off into a new city. All five of us were moving away for college and we decided to hangout at the park before we left town.

While we were on the road, I stared at my best friends, Rita focused on driving, Vanessa sleeping peacefully and Prudence and Bonnie having a discussion, it was sweet being together ever since middle school… As I sat near the window, I was able to see the night sky once more. The sky was littered with twinkling stars. While gazing upon the beautiful sky, I remembered the memories we had together.

“I’m Bonnie Snider. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Prudence Brown. Glad to be acquainted with you all.”

“Hi! Nice to meet you! I’m Vanessa Cohen” 

“I am Rita Harmon, I hope we can get along!”

“Hello, my name is Phoebe Delgado.”

Five girls introduced themselves along with the rest of the class, it was the first day of middle school, the class was filled with new faces and familiar faces. Everyone was getting along together, especially the five girls.

“So, what do you guys want to be when you grow up?” Vanessa asked the others.

“Well I’d like to be a lawyer someday, my parents told me about it and I’m intrigued.” Prudence replied with a smile.

“I want to be a singer when I grow up!” Rita replied cheerfully.

“Well I’d love to be an actor! I have loved acting ever since I was still a child.” Vanessa giggled.

“Since you asked, I’d want to be a doctor.” Bonnie answered nonchalantly.

“How about you Phoebe?”

“Oh… I’d like to be a writer someday!” I replied smiling sweetly.

Us five girls had stars in our eyes, dreaming for our future and we were going to work hard for it, even if it meant we had to climb our way to it.

Reaching our goals was not easy… Obstacles were around trying to stop us from reaching our dreams.

People were saying that our dreams were so far away, telling us to change it before it’s too late… Even the closest people in our lives wanted us to back away…

Prudence’s parents kept bringing her down, by setting high expectations, and if she didn’t reach them, they would call her a disappointment, bringing shame to their family name.

“What is this Prudence?” Her mother said in a stern tone

“A B+? Really? Was this the best that you can do?” Her father said. Prudence had tears rimming in her eyes.

“ After all the things we did for you, this is how you repay us?!”

“I’m sorry… I’ll work harder next ti-”

“Save it young miss… We don’t want to hear your excuses anymore.”

“You’re just a disappointment to us, and to our family’s legacy.”

With that, Prudence’s parents left, leaving her to break down in tears, thinking she wasn’t enough...

Rita’s sister said that she wasn’t talented enough to be a singer.

“COULD YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?!” Her sister’s voice could be heard from across the street.

“But I was just practicing-” Rita was cut off by her sister.

“Face it. You aren’t meant for singing. Your voice sucks. Why don’t you shut up so that the world wouldn’t have to deal with your disgusting vocals.

Vanessa getting bullied, saying she wasn’t fit for acting.

“Oh look it’s the ugly theater kid.” One of our classmates said

“She looks dead whenever she acts, I wonder why she wanted to be an actress.”

“She should stick with being in the crew instead.”

“She’s just going to be a disappointment to the entertainment industry.”

Bonnie’s family telling her that she was too stupid to be a doctor.

“You can’t even understand something as simple as this!” Her mother scolded.

“God don’t you have common sense?!”

“You’re too stupid to be a doctor. Give up.”

And my family telling me my stories suck, not fitting to be published.

“What is this garbage?”

“Dad it isn’t garbage! It’s a story I’m working on-”

“It isn’t even grammatically correct. You have a ton of misspells and the plot doesn’t make sense.”

“Why did you want to be a writer in the first place?!” My father stood grabbing all of the stories I was working on.

“ Dad? Where are you taking those? Dad- WAIT NO! DAD STOP!” It was too late. My dad threw all of the stories I wrote into the fireplace. Burning my hard work into a crisp. Tears were spilling from my eyes.

“Why don’t you stop making garbage stories, they aren’t worthy to be published anyways.”

Their words and actions were bringing us down, making us lose our spark… We lost the people who were our support, our night sky… Without them, we won’t shine like the stars we imagined being…

No star can shine alone without a backdrop… We started to lose more hope.

We started to fear for our future, our dreams were slowly turning into dust.

But then, our sparks started to come back. Passing this long hallway reaching the stage we so desired… We were graduating highschool with Prudence getting the highest grades and becoming the valedictorian of our batch, Rita being the best singer in our class, Vanessa garnering awards for her acting, Bonnie coming in second in her ranks and with my stories being noticed by the entire town.

From being covered in darkness, being in a point of despair… We were still able to shine in the darkness, because we became each other’s night sky.

All we really needed… was us…. For us to reach the future we desired the most, our dreams were breaking out… Our sparks are never gonna die as we’ll be the stars…

I smiled at the thought, our hardships, all the things we’ve been through, we were able to conquer it together and we’ll continue to do so…

I looked back, Rita still focused on the road, while the others were asleep...

 I stare back at the twinkling stars, grinning.

“The stars do look lovely tonight.” I thought as I drifted off to sleep.