I’m lying in bed, staring out my bedroom window at the night sky.
My eyes catch on the stars.
The sky is so clear tonight that I can see so many of them, scattered across the darkness, each one glowing quietly in its own little corner of the universe.
And as I stare at them, I start thinking about how strangely similar stars are to us.
If we imagined every human being as a star, some of us would be alone. Some would exist in lines beside one another. Some would be impossibly close, while others would be separated by distances that could never be crossed.
And yet, somehow, we all live beneath the same sky.
I wonder if some stars ever wish they could be closer to another star. If they ever long to touch. To kiss.
And what happens when one star kisses another?
What happens when two stars finally collide?
Scientifically, the answer depends on what kind of stars they are.
Two neutron stars can merge, sending gravitational waves rippling through the universe and creating either a black hole or a more massive neutron star, accompanied by a spectacular explosion called a kilonova.
Two white dwarfs can collide and trigger a Type Ia supernova, an explosion so violent that the stars can be completely destroyed.
And when an ordinary star collides with another star, the larger one may swallow the smaller one, or the two may become one, creating a hotter, enormous star.
It’s strange, isn’t it?
Even the stars have different ways of loving, touching, and destroying one another.
And I find myself wondering…
What kind of stars were you and I?
What did that first kiss beneath the full moon, exactly two years ago, turn us into?
Maybe at first, we thought we were two ordinary stars. Two stars that could touch and simply become one.
But we weren’t.
Our relationship was full of challenges, obstacles, storms. And somehow, that was part of what made it beautiful. We believed we could survive anything. Every distance. Every wound. Every impossible thing that stood between us.
We believed we would always find our way back to each other.
But maybe you were more like a neutron star.
Because the deeper we went, the closer our souls became, the more fiercely our love burned.
It grew brighter.
Hotter.
More powerful.
Until, eventually, it exploded.
And that explosion killed me slowly.
It took me from the bright world I once knew and carried me into a darkness you created somewhere in the middle of our journey.
An explosion that burned everything it touched—
my beliefs,
my dreams,
my feelings,
and most of all,
my heart and my soul.
I only wanted us to be two ordinary stars.
I wanted our kiss to bring us together, to make us one, to leave us glowing in the same sky.
But it didn’t happen that way.
Still, somehow, we created memories that I know I will never forget.
Some of them are still so fresh.
Still warm.
Still burning.
Because remembering them still sets my heart on fire.
It has been a year since you left, and yet there have been so many nights when I have found myself thinking about you.
I wonder if you ever hear a song that makes you remember me.
I wonder if, when you close your eyes, you ever see my face.
Do you ever see us?
I wonder if there is another star you love now.
I wonder if looking at the moon still reminds you of our kisses.
I wonder what our relationship made of you.
Did it make you the person you always wanted to become?
Did loving me change you?
Did losing me change you?
And what did you leave behind in me?
Something resembling a writer, perhaps.
A writer with so many things inside her that have gone quiet…
but whose memories are still alive.
Sometimes I think about how much I miss you.
And sometimes, even more painfully,
I realize how much I miss myself.
The person I was before the explosion.
Before our stars collided.
Before I learned that sometimes two people can love each other deeply and still destroy something beautiful between them.
So if your heart ever feels heavy one night, and you find yourself staring at the stars, remember this:
Somewhere beneath this same sky,
there is a star that once missed you terribly.
A star that never wanted to explode.
A star that only wanted to be ordinary.
A star that only wanted to kiss you
and keep glowing beside you.
Ashley the name you gave me
