A Little Blurry

"See? And that's Mars! Oh, and there's Saturn."

"Yeah. Awesome. Can we please go inside now."

I tried my best not to sound sarcastic and like I wouldn't mind staring up at the sky for another gazillion hours while my ass froze off - but it didn't work.

Wilfred withdrew from the telescope. He was pathetically adorable: the scrawny arms, hunched shoulders, slight lisp, lopsided glasses, even his bedhead and his weird tendency to rub his eyes vigorously, like some sort of furry creature you find at National Parks, was cute. I swallowed. Dammit.

Wilfred sighed and wouldn't meet my eyes, one hand still clamped over the telescope handle. He looked at me with that look people give you on Christmas when you unpack the gift they bought you - the one they thought you would love more than anything - but really, you don't like the Star Trek and you never have, so you try to feign absolute adoration as you hold up the DVD and try to go "wowwwww!" in the most convincing way possible, but they can see right through you...

...And then they give you that look, all crestfallen and disappointed, and you immediately feel the guilt rise up your chest like bile, because they're doing that thing with the dog-eyes and pouted lips. You know what I mean. That thing.

Just like Wilfred was doing now. A heartbeat passed. I bit my lip.

"You hate it, don't you?" he mumbled.

"No!" I protested, "no! That's not it! At all! I love...Mercury!"

His face fell.

"We were looking at Saturn!"

Dammit. Wilfred let out a frustrated huff.

"Forget it," he said under his breath, snapped the lenses of his telescope shut and grabbed the case off the grass, "forget it."

"Hey..." I began half-heartedly. Maybe I should help him pack up...but he seemed too focused on putting all the knobs in the right molds and folding in the tripod correctly. Besides, I was too busy hopping from one foot to another to avoid turning into an McFlurry. It was way too cold for November, and the windchill was really getting to me in my stockings, figure-hugging cardigan and miniskirt.

Granted, I thought Wilfred and I were going to sit in a heated restaurant and talk about something other than black holes and space matter and molecules. Candlelight, red wine, flirtation...

I was torn from my thoughts as Wilfred snapped the case shut and stomped past me over the grass. I chased after him.

"Hey! Come on, I'm sorry, Wilfred!"

Wilfred whipped around, the case almost slapping me in the side with its momentum. He stood there for a second, in his baggy jeans, the breeze ruffling his hair, left eye twitching.

"I thought this was gonna be romantic! Like Eowyn and Faramir - or...Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan!"

I didn't know who these people were.

It wasn't my fault I liked dating nerds.

"It's really cold!" I said. It was meant to come out a reasonable observation, instead, it sounded whiny, and a little desperate.

Wildred shook his head and compulsively rubbed his eyes.

"I thought you'd like this, Daisy, girls like stars."

"Yeah, when they're part of the Paramount Movie Logo and we're sharing an XL bag of maple-syrup popcorn."

My joke didn't land. It flew over his head completely, sailing off into the icy Pennsylvanian night. We were on college campus, and apparently, tonight was some sort of special space night, where you could see particular interstellar activity and galaxies really well - I know, I didn't hear about this either.

But Wilfred did.

He'd been planning on observing the heavens all month on this night, and of course he thought this was the perfect First-Date activity.

He sighed again. Nobody was on the lawn except us. It was dark. We stood there alone in the night, and I could feel this whole thing already joining my growing list of awkward First Date Flops.

"Wilfred. I'm sorry," I pleaded, "I thought this was fun, I really did..."

He raised his eyebrows and switched hands carrying the telescope-kit. I caved.

"Fine. I had no idea what you were talking about. I admit it."

Humiliating.

Wilfred rubbed his eyes slowly.

"Let's just go inside, Daisy."

He didn't give me a choice to protest, and honestly, I didn't want to. We trudged back to the dorms in silence, the winds picking up around us and tugging at my skirt. I shivered in my thin cardigan. I was so stupid for wearing it - he couldn't even see me in the dark! Besides, he was too focused on the rings of Saturn to notice the golden ones in my ears, or acknowledge the fact that I was freezing my legs off for him. His eye had been glued to the telescope the whole freaking evening. And it hadn't even been worth it.

Now, the gentlemanly thing to do would have been to take off his sweater and wrap it around me - but he was wearing a windbreaker-jacket, and beneath it a T-Shirt that said I LOVE SCIENCE, which, frankly, isn't first date material.

Luckily, I didn't have to stress any longer, because we reached the first building. I embraced the warmth as we slipped inside.

"So...see you tomorrow?" I said hesitantly as the doors slammed shut behind us.

Wilfred pursed his lips.

"I guess."

That lisp again. His hair looked almost copper in the electric light. We were still alone, the room was empty.

"Okay."

Wilfred was the first to leave, he spun around like a robot and then lumbered off down another corridor, still swinging the telescope-case in his right hand. I stood there half a second, just until I could remember what having toes felt like. An unexpected sigh unfurled out of my mouth.

I made my way to my dorm.

I felt stupid - not just because I couldn't tell the difference between Mars and Saturn, but because I was wearing a tight skirt and boots and a flimsy cardigan, and all I'd done was make a fool out of myself.

Shannon, my roommate, wasn't in, she was probably with her girlfriend, so I had enough privacy to plop down on the be ,wriggle out of my way-too-tight-boots and then bury my face into my pillows to muffle screams of frustration.

It just felt...pointless. But I had to compose myself.

I grabbed a comfy sweater, pulled on my fluffy socks that reminded me of home, then sat down on the windowsill, hugging my knees with my arms. I could see the moon from here. The stars.

Like little pinpricks of white, scattered all over a black canvas.

If you stare at something for a long time, it kind of hovers around and gets blurry, that's when your eyes water. I reached up to rub them. Maybe that's Wilfred always rubbed them, because he stared at things for so long.

Another thing about staring at things for too long is that they suddenly get double-meanings.

Like the sky, or the stars.

I hugged my knees tighter and propped my chin up.

The more I stared at them, the stars, I mean, the less I thought about anything really, just about how they seemed to rotate and swirl and blink, almost like it was choreographed or something.

They were pretty enough on their own, actually.

Just fine, on their own.

Even without Wilfred.