The Half-Life of Planets (21 page)

The light shifts from late afternoon
to early evening, and I slide out of my flip-flops to feel the cold sand on my feet. Music swells around the stages, the revelers, everyone outfitted in candy-colored tank tops and faded jeans. Some drink electric-blue frozen drinks from eco-friendly cups that read “Life's a Beachfest.” One of many. I pull my wallet from my pocket, thinking I might purchase something, but find myself frozen, stuck staring at the note that has taken up residence. The four letters are faded, sure, but still there. I think about finding the note amid the detritus in my locker, how it fluttered to the ground shooting-star-like, how I picked it up and kept it all summer. I take it in my fingers now, amazed at how such a small thing, a lightweight slip, could have altered me so much. How the photograph of Jenny, which is only a bit larger, rocked my parents' world.

Rather than hanging it up, though, I take the note and half consider dropping it into the ocean as some ritualistic ode to my past. But I don't. I just slide it back into my wallet until it eventually finds its way into a box in the basement. I don't need to throw it out to know where it belongs.

I bypass the large stage, where Fortress of Smallitude belts out their one and only hit, mill around for a minute by the blue iced drink stand, but then find myself following a trail of people toward the side stage. I have no intention of listening to the music—I just want the view. But the beach is crowded, the throngs of concert-goers swaying as they walk, then clumping together, swaying and nodding to the sounds of some cover band. “Hey, these guys don't suck,” someone says, and gestures to the stage with his blue drink. It sloshes onto my toes and I pause, wondering what to do next, but find I don't care about the cold sticky mess when I focus on the stage. It's not that the band sucks or doesn't. It's who is in it. I don't even mouth Hank's name when I see him, spandex-enrobed, playing for a larger audience than just Espresso Love. Bigger than just for me. I stand with my sticky foot and watch them finish their set, wishing not so much that I could flip back time and correct what I did or didn't do, but that I could linger here for a minute longer.

KISS filters out through the speakers, and I can't help but smile—at the songs, at the way people cheer for him, at his stunningly ridiculous makeup. The set ends, and I expect Hank to run off stage, free from the gaze of many, but he stays there, speaks into the microphone, and when he says “Planet of Love,” I think I'm about to explode. Every bit of my body unfurls, and I am pulled to the words, the chords, to him.

Space helmets have three visors to adjust to changing light conditions. That's what I need now to contend not with the mellowing sunshine over the water, but the way the song ripples through my body. The way that Hank changed enough to write it—not just play a cover of someone else's song—and I changed enough to hear it and stay grounded in the sand.

The song ends, and Hank comes off the stage, wipes his face on a towel, and makes his way toward me. I don't move. I don't run to him or away from him. I just plant myself in the sand. He's closer now, close enough that I can see the white goop on his hairline, close enough that my heart pummels in my chest. It takes only ninety minutes to orbit through an entire day in space. That's how this summer feels—so fast, but just as expansive as space. That's the thing: space isn't empty. We use the word like that, but the truth is, space is cluttered with quarks and stars and dust and planets, just like our pasts are littered with loss or chords or hospitals or guitars or kisses or a lack of being able to say what we need to say.

So when Hank appears in front of me, sweat and stage makeup on him, his cheeks flushed with performance and revelations, I say, “I missed you.”

“But I'm here,” he says, and looks down. “You have a blue foot.”

I swallow and reach for his hand. “The song…” I take a breath. “Yeah, you are here.”

He grins. “And you're here.”

I nod. “Still.”

And because I'm not going anywhere, and neither is he, I lean into him. Our chests touch, and when his mouth is poised to meet mine, I don't back away. I put his hand on my tattoo, not to cover it, but so he can see it. With his thumb pressed into it, my skin feels new almost. Hank doesn't interrupt the moment to tell me that Ace was an art student and designed the KISS logo, or that Brian May, Queen's legendary guitarist, is an astrophysicist, even though he could.

Instead, Hank puts his hands on my face and pulls me into him. We kiss once and then kiss more. We kiss as though we are stitched together, seamed by days and talks and wantings and getting it. His palms find their way to my waist, to my hair, and I can feel him smile as we kiss and as the music and night and ocean wash over us.

Everything ends: songs, summer, even kisses. But the best ones, the ones we mark with doodled lyrics or remembered chords, photographs and portraits, keep going, like the ocean here; rushing and easing, backing away and then returning. Like the song you need to hear at least one more time.