11:56 P.M., December 31, 2017

Alcohol tastes sweet in my mouth, and blue lights create pockets of ocean between my shoes. I feel like I’m living in a long-exposure photograph, a snapshot bleeding memory onto paper. 

Your eyes meet mine, dark brown irises that refuse to waver. I used to admire that about you, how you looked at people like they were another test for you to pass. I don’t know whether I would be considered a failure. You don’t say anything, but we both remember. What lives in between our silence and follows us in the dark. Something that took root when we weren’t looking, love that left something in its wake. 

Too soon, I turn away. Too fast to pretend it didn’t hurt. Too slow to be a coincidence. You don’t come towards me, don’t even look at me again (I’m ashamed that I notice). I drown between clusters of people, too proud to grasp a life raft. Soon, cheers ring around the sparse apartment. People declaring freedom in the coming year, others mourning the novelty of time. Midnight. That moment, our island, a refuge. When the world stopped and allowed us to sprawl on the grass. Now all I have are stars in my pocket. 

We’ve always been like a broken clock, only aligning at midnight.

11:57 P.M., December 31, 2013

The stars keep blinking at me, waiting for what I don’t know. Your head on my chest, breathing slowed to a rest because you aren’t used to sleeping past midnight. I’m staring at the stars because you keep having nightmares. I’m staring at the stars because I can’t stop thinking about the time when we were kids. When we snuck in tamarind candy when your parents weren’t looking. My mouth puckered easily, like a fish, and you laughed and we got caught. 

There was no tamarind candy after that. Only your crackling voice and cold metal shocking my skin. Only letters bleeding of your pain. Only an ocean between us and your messy handwriting. When all I owned of you were shards of stories and broken promises. 

11:58 P.M., December 31, 2008

Everything smells like cheap beer and fresh-cut grass. You’re watching me out of the corner of your eye, I can tell. Your attention has a certain taste. Your words are cutting scars into my palm. You never wrote. I know the absence of mine were worse. I pretend not to notice you padding in my direction, fingers lingering on yours as you leave. 

Coincidences are funny, aren’t they? I just nod, knowing my words would stumble over years of silence. You press something into my palm. The stars? I joke, not breathing for longer than a second. 

It’s hard to decipher your expression. It used to be a puzzle I could solve in mere seconds. Now the pieces have changed, morphed into something I don’t – can’t recognize. 

I look down. 

11:59 P.M., December 31, 2002

Crimson is running down your skin, pieces of the sky embedded in it. I hear your mom yell as pots clang to the floor. We stare at each other, your mouth twitching as if either to cry or laugh. The touch of maternal love like a warm blanket, relaxing your limbs. I watch her leathery hands patching up your skin. 

Then she turns to me, and it feels like an eclipse. 

Suddenly,

the twilight heat is stifling, and the cicadas have stopped chirping.

Suddenly, 

the world narrows to the tiles beneath my feet and your gaze.

I remember your mother giving us sliced mango that day, the hardened lines of her face spelling out something dark, something tired.

Later, under cotton blankets in the dark, you’ll cry more than me. Apologizing in a rush, then me saying there’s nothing to forgive. Promises spill from your mouth, pieces of your heart you’ll regret giving to me. Eventually, our eyes grow heavy watching the stars fall.

12:00 A.M, January 1, 1999

I’m staring at the stars because I’m not ready to go to sleep. Your hand is warm on mine, pollen falling from my hair. I think maybe if I keep my eyes open just a second longer, dawn will refuse to break. Your curls tickle my cheek and I can’t stop laughing. 

For a second, the ocean of time stops. It settles into a languid flow, tossing us gently along a wave like how my parents rock me to sleep. The tide refuses to change along with the moon, the trees cling stubbornly to their leaves. And we stay like this, our limbs entangled, exchanging words like charms. You whisper: One day we’ll hold the stars in our hands. 

Sometimes I still look up at the sky.