She told me to look at the darkened sky, to see the stars and the clouds and how they inched up upon one another as if they were trying to conceal the other. She’d say, they’re trying to be alone and in plain sight at the same time. I used to admire this habit of hers, her ability to stare at the sky in all its perfect naturalism and adore it.

She tried to show me the constellations and teach me something, but I never had an eye for stars. She’d tell me to look at this one, watch how it connected to a centerpiece to form belts. I’d nod and pretend I could see what she saw. And I realized my life was often full of moments like that, pretending to see what a stranger saw or believed even if it was a lie. Maybe I did it to comfort, to ensure the stranger that they were sane. They were stable.

 Of course I see what you see. I’m normal. I’m just like you.

She wanted to become a botanist and I’d often giggle and ask her why she wouldn’t rather be a pilot or perhaps an astronaut.

Why would you want to dig around in the dirt, I’d ask, when your eyes have been staring up so long that they’ve changed to the color of the sky?

Then she would smoke and her eyes would fog over and I couldn’t see the sky in them anymore. In them, the avoidance of light. Clouds trying to mask the brightness, pushing to be visible.

I told her, I never loved you, but I think she thought I might grow to try. I’ve read about some women, about their obsessions with positive or negative attention. They grow this hatred when ignored by a boy. Some even annoyed their lovers intentionally to start a fight, just to gain a little eye contact.

There was never a good time for a phone call with her. People continued to call, her phone always busy. Beep, Beep, Beep. She never answered. She still never answers. I hope those callers didn’t expect to hear her voice after the fifth missed call. She told me once that she was afraid she’d be caught on the phone for too long that she’d have to lie — tell them that her phone was dying or that she had to feed her fish. I suggested new lies, but she refused to use them. She refused to gamble, lie, and lose a friend. But she did love to look at those clouds. Probably still does.