Page 15 of You've Found Oliver

Someone pulls the fire alarm in the library again.

It’s the second time that’s happened since I started working there.

Rami and I have to wait outside until the fire department arrives.

Why couldn’t they have the decency to do this during the school week, instead of on a Saturday afternoon when I’m supposed to meet Ben in an hour.

I send him a message, letting him know I’m running late.

No rush. I’ll see you soon

Save me some popcorn

Extra butter

Something to drink?

Diet soda please. And nachos if they have it

I’ll sneak it in if they don’t

We were supposed to grab some food before the movie, but I’m going to have to meet him at the theater.

I run home to change into the outfit I picked out last night.

Then I race to the bus station. It’s a smooth ride until we hit some traffic on the 405.

Thankfully, we’re only twenty minutes behind schedule. I run all the way to the theater.

The trailers have already started when I finally arrive.

Ben texted me a moment ago, letting me know he’s sitting inside.

I buy a ticket and find the auditorium. I head through the door and glance up at the seats.

Surprisingly, the place is almost full. I can’t seem to spot Ben, so I send him another text.

Where are you sitting again?

Middle section on the right

I take another look around. But I still can’t find him.

I don’t see you

I’ll wave at you

I scan the theater again. No waving hands. Did I walk into the wrong auditorium? I head out and try the next one. But it’s not the right movie.

I get another text from Ben.

It’s auditorium 3

Wasn’t that the first one I tried? I probably just didn’t see him through the dark.

I return to where I started, but something is different this time.

There are only about ten people in here.

I could have sworn the room was almost full a minute ago.

But I don’t think about it for long, because I spot Ben right away this time.

He’s sitting in the middle, waving at me.

How did I miss him before? I take the seat next to him.

“You made it,” he whispers.

“Got confused for a second.”

Ben smiles. “Don’t worry. You didn’t miss much.”

Up on the screen, a woman is waiting outside a restaurant in Paris. She’s putting on lipstick when a man in a suit approaches her, carrying flowers. “Est-ce qu’elles sont pour moi?”

Ben hands me the popcorn and whispers, “That’s her fiancé, by the way, but I think he’s about to break up with her.”

“At least he brought her flowers.”

“Carnations though?”

“You’re right. She should be breaking up with him .”

We must be talking too loudly, because someone shushes us from behind.

Ben and I lean back and try not to laugh.

At least the movie has subtitles, but I don’t need a translation to know this is not something I would ever watch on my own.

Ben keeps looking over to check if I’m enjoying it.

I smile to let him know I’m not bored. It doesn’t really matter what I’m watching with him. Because I’m with him.

At one point in the film, my hand accidently touches his.

Neither of us pulls away. For a second, I think about lacing my fingers through his.

Maybe that’s too much too soon. But then he leans his shoulder against mine.

I can’t tell if he’s doing this intentionally.

Regardless, I don’t move away. We sit this way—hands touching, shoulders pressed together, my heart pounding—for the rest of the movie.

There’s too much light out to look at the stars right now, so Ben takes me to his favorite pizza place.

It’s only a few blocks away and he gives me a tour of the neighborhood on the walk over.

The streets are crowded with college students drinking outside of dive bars.

Ben grabs us two slices of cheese pizza and a side of ranch, which I consider a green flag.

Now that we’re outside, I can get a better look at him.

His hair looks freshly cut and his cheeks are slightly rosy from the cold air.

He looks at me and says, “Sorry about the movie.”

“What do you mean? I loved it.”

He raises a brow. “You fell asleep at the end.”

“Me, asleep ?” I scoff. “No, no. I closed my eyes to better hear the dialogue.”

“I didn’t realize you were fluent in French.”

“Oui,” I say, and then I take a bite of pizza. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. But I get to pick the next movie.”

Ben smirks. “That’s only fair.”

“Why are you taking this class again? Thought you were an astronomy major.”

“I thought it would fun,” he says. “You only get so many electives. Don’t want to spend every second of my life in a lab, you know? My brain would probably explode. Besides, I’m on track to graduate a year early anyway.”

“And here I am, wondering if I’m even going to graduate.”

Ben laughs. “You just haven’t figured out what you like yet. Who knows, maybe tonight will give you some inspiration.”

“As in, be an astronomy major?”

“It’s a possibility,” he says, winking at me. “I’ll do my best to convince you.”

“You did convince me to sit through a two-hour French movie.”

“I thought you said you liked it.”

“Not liked,” I correct him. “Loved.”

We laugh and finish the rest of our pizza. Then Ben takes me to a famous bakery in town. The place is extra crowded tonight, but the pastry selection makes everything worth it. I can’t decide what to get.

“Best cannoli in the world,” Ben says.

“I would normally argue with that, but my favorite bakery in Ellensburg just closed down. I’m still grieving, actually.”

Ben places his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll order some in its memory. And a cinnamon roll while we’re here.”

We pay at the register and head outside again. The temperature has suddenly dropped, making me shiver a little. That’s when I realize I forgot something. “Wait. My jacket.”

“Did you lose it?”

“Yeah!” I think back to the places we’ve been. I don’t remember bringing it to the movie. “I must have left it on the bus.” I let out a long breath. Now I’ll have to call lost and found in the morning.

“Here, you can wear mine.” He removes his jacket for me.

“Then you’ll be cold.”

“I’ll be fine, I’m wearing a thick sweater.”

He places his jacket around my shoulders. It carries the warmth of him, feeling like an embrace. I take in the scent of his cologne. Hopefully, I’m not blushing too hard when I say, “That’s really nice of you.”

Ben just smiles at me. He leads us toward the center of campus, and the university clock tower rises into view. The quad is more than twice the size of CWU. I would probably get lost in the maze of trees if I walked through here alone. Thankfully, I have Ben to show me around.

Apparently, he doesn’t have access to the observatory this weekend. “Don’t worry, I have a plan B,” he says. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter where we’re heading. We could sit on the sidewalk and I would enjoy it all the same.

Eventually, we reach the entrance of an old brick building as he takes out his key card. “This is the astronomy department,” he says, unlocking the door. “We’re not really supposed to be here this late, but my TA let me borrow his key.”

“So we’re sneaking in?”

“Let’s not use that word,” he whispers.

Since it’s a Saturday night, the place is vacant of students.

At first, I think he’s going to show me something in his lab.

But we take the elevator to the top floor.

There’s a stairwell at the end of the hallway.

We climb to the top and Ben pushes open a metal door.

A breeze rolls through as he leads me onto the rooftop.

I glance over the ledge, taking in the view of the city.

There’s a blanket laid out in the middle of the roof. Next to it is a telescope that’s angled toward the night sky. Ben walks over to it and says, “I set this up earlier for us. Just have to adjust a few things.”

“Did you borrow it from the department?”

“It’s actually mine,” he says, running a proud hand over it. “It was my graduation present. My parents said it was this or a trip to Greece.”

“You turned down a trip to Greece?”

“I like to use the word postponed . It’s all about how you frame things, you know?”

I nod thoughtfully. “Well, in that sense, I’ve also postponed a trip to Greece.”

“Maybe we’ll end up going together.” He smiles at me again. Then he bends down, twisting a metal knob beneath the lens. A moment later, he lifts back up and says, “Alright, it’s ready for you.”

Ben explains the right technique. Apparently, you have to keep both eyes open when you’re looking. And you can’t stand too close or you won’t see things clearly.

It takes a second for the image to focus. Small pinpricks of light shine through a dark sky. “So what am I looking at?”

“See the white speck in the center? That’s the Orion Nebula.”

“That small smudge of light?”

“Exactly. It’s one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth,” he explains. “You can see it with the naked eye in the wintertime, but it’s not as clear without a telescope. And see the three bright stars on the right? That’s Orion’s Belt.”

It looks like a string of pearls in a dark sky. “How far away is it?”

“About fifteen hundred light-years.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Let me show you something else—”

I step back and Ben adjusts the telescope again. He seems more excited for me to see this one. As I lean forward to look, he places a hand on my back, which makes me go still. For a second, I forget what I’m supposed to be doing.

“That’s Coma Berenices constellation,” he says. “It probably looks like a bunch of stars at first. But each one is actually an entire galaxy.”

“Those are galaxies ?”

“Thousands of them, actually.”

“But they’re so small…”

“They’re millions of light-years from here. The interesting thing is we’re actually seeing them from the future,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“It takes time for light to travel to us. So what we’re seeing now is light being emitted from millions of light-years away,” he explains.

“Which means we’re looking at these objects as they were millions of years ago.

There’s a chance they might not even exist anymore.

Or other galaxies could have been born. A telescope is sort of like a time machine that way.

You don’t really see things as they are now. ”

I take this in for a second. “So what you’re saying is, I’m actually looking into the past?”

“Exactly.”

I take another look through the telescope. “What’s this one called again?”

“The Coma Berenices. Or more affectionately, Berenice’s Hair.”

“How did they come up with that?”

“It’s named after Queen Berenice II of Egypt,” he says. “After her husband went off to fight in the war, she sacrificed her hair to Aphrodite for his safe return.”

“Her hair must have been beautiful.”

“They did name a constellation after it.”

Our faces are close to each other. His skin is soft in the pale light. Somehow, I find the confidence to brush his hair to the side and say, “You know, I’d name one after you, too.”

Ben’s lips curve into a smile. “Is that so?”

“And what about me?”

He takes me in. “I’d name one after your eyes.”

I look at him, then at his lips again. For a second, I think about kissing him. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing. Maybe I let too much time pass, because Ben turns back to adjust the telescope. I love seeing how passionate he is about all this. It reminds me of Julie and her writing.

“How often do you come up here?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” he says.

“What’s your favorite part about it?”

“My favorite part?” Ben thinks about it for a moment.

“Probably the slim chance that I could discover something new. It’s why I started taking astronomy classes.

There’s so much of the universe we haven’t explored yet, you know?

And the more we find out, the more we realize how little we actually know about it.

We’re always open to being proven wrong.

Think about a cup of water compared to the ocean.

That’s as much of the universe as we’ve actually explored.

Which is really nothing at all.” He looks up at the sky and adds, “Maybe I’ll never discover anything.

But I enjoy the possibility that I might. ”

I follow his gaze, trying to see what he’s looking at. It makes me want to find something I’m this passionate about, too. “If we know nothing about the universe, then the chance of you discovering something isn’t really slim at all,” I figure. “If anything, it means it’s even more likely.”

Ben tilts his head a little. “That’s a nice way of looking at it.”

“It’s all about how we frame things, right?”

“Exactly.”

We both smile at this. Then Ben shows me more planets and his favorite constellations. He shows me the moons of Saturn, which I never realized were made of ice. He also shows me Jupiter and the Great Red Spot that’s shrinking.

Afterward, we sit on the blanket he set up earlier.

Ben puts on some music from his phone, and we try the pastries.

The cannoli are almost as good as the ones back home.

I wish we could stay here and watch the sun come up together.

But I have to make it on the last bus home. Eventually, we have to call it a night.

I help Ben pack his telescope and carry it outside. I offer to help him bring it back, even though his apartment is in the other direction. “It’s alright,” he assures me. “I don’t want you missing the bus.”

“Your jacket—” I’m about to take it off, but he holds up a hand.

“You can give it back later,” he says.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Ben nods. “It gives us an excuse to hang out again.”

“You know we don’t need an excuse for that.” I offer another smile. Then I look at the time and say, “I should probably get going.”

“Text me when you get back, alright?”

“For sure.”

As we’re hugging each other goodbye, I keep my arms around him longer this time.

It’s nice to feel him so close to me, his cheek warm against mine.

But eventually we have to pull apart. Ben promises to make the trip to me next time.

It would be nice to show him around Ellensburg.

I spend the whole ride home thinking about all the places I’ll take him.