Page 23 of Brighter Shades of Light
“I can’t be certain, of course, but I believe the universe loops back in on itself. Eventually. The farther out it goes, the older everything appears for the speed of light takes that much time to reach us. A galaxy 2.5 million light years away, appears to us as it did 2.5 million years ago. So, it can be concluded that the farther you go, the closer you get to the beginning. And there you’ll find the point when light was first emitted.”
Leon studied me with a smile curving the corner of his mouth. “So, what if the universe isn’t infinite, yet it continuously grows larger? It’s been expanding since the Big Bang. Maybe we’ll never reach the end because the end travels farther and farther away from us. Always out of reach.”
“That still does not make it infinite.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed, his blue eyes flashing to my lips before lifting again. “What about black holes?”
I laughed and rifled through the various scattered pages of chemistry equations on the table. “Focus, Leon, or we’ll never finish.”
“Ever the studious one, you are.” His smile remained in place.
“One of us has to be. We can’t both slide by on luck alone.”
“You’re not wrong.” Leon chuckled and ran a hand through his wavy blond hair.
His laugh was quickly becoming my favorite sound in the universe—infinite or not.
As the memory faded, I blinked, and several tears trickled from my eyes. I took off my glasses and put my face in my hands. More tears followed, falling quietly down my cheeks as I attempted to pull myself together.
Leon.
I tried not to think of him, but his memory was seared into me. His touch was a ghostly caress across my skin in the dead of night; not there in actuality but ingrained in my very being. Others had touched me since him, yet his touch was the one I remembered. The one no one else had ever compared to. His voice, a whisper from the past, found me in that moment just before I fell asleep, traveling to the end of the universe and coming back around to tell me things I’d long since put from my mind.
A memory. It was all he’d ever be now.
The memories were too painful. When they started to poke at my mind, I threw myself even more into my work as a distraction. And I’d been distracting my mind for years. Ever since…
No. Stop thinking about it.
I wiped my eyes and put my glasses back on. My chemistry class started soon, and I couldn’t show up with tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes. I grabbed my lecture notes and placed them in my messenger bag before standing from my desk.
Cody was still under the tree, absorbed in his book.
Maybe in a different life, I would’ve approached him and asked what book it was that had his face scrunching up, that had him gripping the binding and tensing, as if he was on the edge of his seat. Perhaps we’d go for coffee and get to know each other in the confines of a café decorated with a Tuscan flare and coffeehouse jazz playing overhead.
He’d laugh at something. Or maybe it’d be me that laughed. And we’d exchange a look that said we wanted to see where it went between us. One date would turn to two. Three. The sparks of something new and exciting would grow into something bigger.
However…that reality wasn’t this one. Another time. In another place. Cody was my student. He also probably had a girlfriend. Even if he was single, it was unlikely that he liked men.
Like the end of the universe, he was unreachable.
***
September arrived, and as the heat of summer began to fade, welcoming in a new season, I stayed the same. Always the same.
I threw myself into my work. Staying distracted was easier once I started assigning more homework for my classes. When I wasn’t grading papers or coursework, I read journals and furthered my research. The challenge was remembering to eat and sleep.
Cody had tried talking to me several times over the past three weeks. When it was school related, I answered his questions. I explained concepts he found confusing and helped him to the best of my ability, all while trying to ignore the way his blue-gray eyes appeared lighter when he wore certain colors. Ignoring the way he chewed his bottom lip in class when he was taking notes.
And his smile…so full of the warmth I lacked within myself.
I thought ignoring my feelings would make them go away.
I was wrong.
The curiosity to know more about him nagged at me almost constantly. The feeling was nothing more than initial attraction, of course. I supposed people called it a crush.My crush would have to be snuffed out like a flame, though, for nothing could ever come of it.
I wasn’t sure Iwantedanything to come of it, anyway.
