Chapter 87. Rooftop

Chapter 87. Rooftop
This part of the city after dark always feels like two cities layered on top of each other: the steady glow of streetlamps and pizza-joint neon below; a colder, velvet world of stars above. Lara’s brownstone sat near the river, its brick warmed by the day’s leftover heat. When I rang the bell at 7:58, she buzzed me in at once, her voice a low crackle on the intercom—“Top floor, fire-door’s propped.”
The stairwell smelled of floor wax and someone’s simmering marinara. I climbed four flights, hoodie tied around my waist, pulse as jittery as if I were sneaking out after curfew. At the top landing a metal door stood open on a wedge of concrete. Beyond it, a short ladder led to the roof. A folded wool blanket waited on the lowest rung with a sticky note: For the chill.
I smiled despite myself, slung the blanket over my shoulder, and pushed up. The rooftop was bigger than I’d guessed—tarred surface bordered by a low safety wall, strings of battery fairy-lights tacked along old antenna poles. At the far corner, draped in another blanket, Lara knelt beside a telescope that looked as fancy as the one in our school planetarium. She rose when she heard the hatch clang shut behind me.
“You came,” she said simply. Her breath fogged in the crisp air; mine joined it a beat later.
“Couldn’t resist the invitation.” I lifted the blanket like a flag of truce.
She motioned to a pair of folding camp chairs already angled skyward. “Sit. I’ll dial in Jupiter before it slips.”
I settled into one chair, blanket cocooning my legs, and let my eyes adjust. The skyline shimmered: city center’s jagged glitter across the river, the bridge over the river lit like a jeweled spine. Above, the first bright points stabbed through urban haze—Vega, Deneb, Altair tracing the Summer Triangle that Alice had shown me on a phone app last July.
Lara finished calibrating and stepped back. “Take a look.”
I pressed my eye to the eyepiece. Jupiter leapt into view: pale peach bands, two tiny moons strung like pearls. I exhaled a sound half-way between a gasp and a laugh. “Wow.”
“Those dots are Io and Europa tonight,” Lara murmured, notebook in hand. “Ganymede’s hiding behind.”
I straightened, cheeks tingling from the cold metal. She handed me a travel mug. “Ginger tea, half honey. Your voice sounded worn today.”
“Do you write all this down?” I asked but sipped gratefully. The tea bloomed warmth down my throat.
“Only what matters,” she answered with a quick half-smile. She tipped her face toward the dark: “Big Dipper there, handle pointing to Arcturus—orange one. If we wait an hour, you’ll catch Orion climbing over that chimney.”
I followed her finger, directions clicking into memory from childhood planetarium trips. The city rumbled below—sirens, distant bass, an occasional shout—but the rooftop felt miles from it, insulated by height and sky.
Lara pulled a small Bluetooth speaker from her pocket and let soft instrumental play—piano, maybe Satie. “Too cliché?” she asked.
“It’s nice,” I replied, amazed how the gentleness fit her precise exterior.
We spent twenty minutes toggling between constellations and easy conversation: Ms. Kline’s obsession with micro-quizzes, how Lara’s dad once faked nightmares so teenage Lara could sneak to rooftops for meteor showers, the bean tray’s latest centimeter. When the wind knifed colder, Lara unfurled the second blanket across both our laps, the fringe brushing my knees.
“It’s like the sky forgot it’s autumn,” I murmured.
“She remembers,” Lara said. “Just favors us tonight.”
I laughed quietly, still peering upward. Silence settled again—comfortable, spacious. For the first time in weeks my pulse steadied to something resembling peace. Yet the peace made space for guilt, too: Irene’s earnest eyes at lunch, her gentle thumb on my wrist. I shifted, blanket rustling.
Lara noticed; she always did. “Heavy thoughts?”
“Complicated ones.” I traced the seam of the blanket with a fingernail. “You’d think after fever nightmares, real life would feel simpler.”
“Real life is never simple,” Lara said. “But sometimes stepping back gives better resolution.”
I turned my head. Her face was inches away—sharp line of cheekbone, lashes catching starlight, a softer curve to her mouth than at school. She wasn’t leaning in, just waiting, observing me the way she observed mold growth—careful, open.
“Do you ever wish things were less… intense?” I asked.
Her lips twitched. “Intensity can be data. But yes. Calm is underrated.” She paused. “You deserve calm, Emma.”
The words nudged something tender inside me. “Calm feels guilty sometimes,” I admitted. “Like I’m cheating on my own emotions.”
“Maybe emotions cheat on you first.” She offered a wry smile. “They run off chasing storms and leave you paying rent on chaos.”
A nervous laugh bubbled out of me. Then I sobered. “It’s just—someone apologized to me. Someone who matters. I don’t know how to weigh that against—” I gestured at the telescope, at her, at the city itself. “Everything else.”
Lara studied me, no judgment—just steady attention. “You don’t have to weigh tonight against anything. Tonight is its own data point.”
I nodded, grateful, breath fogging the cold between us. Beyond the chimney, the belt of Orion emerged, three crisp diamonds. “There he is.”
“Hunter with borrowed starlight,” Lara whispered. “Want to see him up close?”
She guided me to the eyepiece again, her hand light at my elbow. Through glass, Betelgeuse burned deep red, Rigel icy blue. I felt her presence behind me, pressing with warmth against me, steadily. Safe.
When I straightened, I found her gaze on my face, serious. “Emma,” she said softly, “I like spending time with you. However you need that to look. Friends, lab partners, more—your call. But I need to say it: I like you.”
A comet flared through my chest—thrill, panic, warmth. Night wind whipped a curl across my cheek; Lara tucked it behind my ear with featherlight fingers, then dropped her hand.
I swallowed. “I… like being with you, too. You make things feel—”
“Less like storms,” she finished for me, no spite in her tone, only fact. “That doesn’t have to be either/or. You can still hold thunder in one hand and quiet in the other. Just don’t let either hand burn numb.”
I let the words settle. She wasn’t asking for decisions, just honesty. The truth flickered like stars: I wasn’t ready to choose. But I didn’t want to lose this moment either.
“I’d like to keep learning the sky with you,” I said finally. “If that’s okay.”
Her smile was small and earnest. “The sky isn’t going anywhere.”
We packed up near ten, fingers stiff with cold, but something warm pulsed between our shoulders when they brushed. At the hatch she pressed the plywood door for me to descend first, but not before slipping a little star sticker onto my sleeve pocket—silver, twinkling in rooftop light.
“Sample from tonight’s data,” she joked.
I clutched it all the way home—sticker, warmth, the sense of being gently seen instead of chased. But behind every quiet heartbeat, thunder still rumbled on a far horizon, reminding me morning and Irene would come, and choices could only be put off for so long.