Raising the stellar dead. The phrase had been plastered on posters and emails in the weeks leading up to the astronomer's lecture, intriguing even the least scientifically-inclined of our student body. The astronomer surveyed the lecture hall with satisfaction and shared a smile with me.

 

A boy slipped into the seat beside me, the only open one in the vicinity. Amidst the chatter of the room, we stared straight ahead, unblinking, unmoved. I saw him around campus occasionally, both of us just missing each other. He wanted to be a doctor. He wore blue often. He wrote in proper sentences in our dorm's group chat. He and his girlfriend had matching bracelets.

 

The room fell into a hush as the astronomer began lecturing about how the stellar alive becomes the stellar dead. A star is in a continual process of nuclear fusion, its only defense against collapsing under the force of gravity. When it runs out of nuclear fuel, it loses its outer layers until all that remains is hotly intense core: the white dwarf.

 

The words should have captured my full interest, and yet, my mind and eyes drifted to the boy next to me. His hands laid on the table, rough, larger than mine, and steady whenever they wrapped around my waist. I inhaled his cologne, which once enveloped me as I hugged him, which clung to the clothes I borrowed from him and only recently dissipated. In my periphery, his face was blank, his gaze hardened, his jaw tense. To anyone else, we'd look like strangers. But I remembered the pressure of his kiss, the way his face split into a grin when he saw me and only me, the way he looked at me like I held all the good in the world.

 

"Let's raise the stellar dead!" the astronomer shrieked. There is a way. It's rare, the conditions need to be just right, and it takes longer than we can imagine, but there is a way. A white dwarf and a black hole just need to encounter each other.

 

==

Back then, he kept to himself, his face unreadable and calculating. He held this intensity unique to places untouched by the sun–the bottom of the ocean, the core of a black hole, the roots buried beneath a forest floor. People were drawn to his mystery, but they hated me. I was all sharp edges and fire, hurt and angry at the world and took it out on anyone who let me. He never let me. The first real conversation we had, I was tearing into a member of our group project for their incompetence. He stepped in, put me in my place, and humiliated me in front of his silent supporters. He made his feelings toward me clear that night–I was too cold, too harsh, too willing to prioritize my ambitions over other people's well-being–and once things were out in the open, we argued much more frequently and bluntly.

 

At first, the arguments were selective, legitimate, intense. Our friends hesitated to bring us together, knowing we would inevitably fight and ruin the mood. Over time, however, as we grew used to each other's company, our arguments were mostly bickering, and sometimes, we even sought each other out to blow off steam. I did hate him, how he always questioned me and humiliated me, how we were so similar and yet he was loved while I wasn't. But part of me loved the thrill of the fights. I needed to lash out, to make someone feel all the pain I had been hiding, and I relished being as cruel as possible to him and not needing to hide it.

 

==

The boy shifted in the seat next to me, settling his hands in his lap, away from my eyes. Whenever we saw each other nowadays, I wondered if he thought about our history or if I was just another stranger to him, but in that moment, he knew I was there, what this meant.

The astronomer continued. As the white dwarf draws closer, the black hole's tidal forces restart its nuclear burning, effectively reviving the dead star.

 

==

One night, we were arguing over text, my fingers tapping furiously and eyebrows knitted together, so I didn't even notice when the man stepped in front of me. He leered at me, scanning my body, and took a step forward, whispering dirty compliments and propositions. He kept stepping forward while I kept stepping backward, and he would have continued until I was trapped if a nearby commotion hadn't scared him off. I stood frozen on the spot, and I called him without thinking. He was pissed, until he realized I wasn't arguing, and then I asked him to come here, repeatedly, to the point that I cried and begged for him to hurry while he sped over to meet me.

 

The next few days, we both pretended that nothing had happened, but I'd cling to him, starting trivial arguments and drawing them out, just to have his presence and time. One night, I went to him crying, and he held me, rubbing my back and stroking my hair, while I slowly told him why this incident bothered me so much, how it reminded me of a time when someone didn't stop.

 

From then on, he was careful with me, even as the arguments continued. He checked in on how I was doing. He held back when he noticed I couldn't handle an argument. He stayed close to me at parties filled with drunk men. We had an unspoken agreement: we could yell at each other as much as we wanted, but if I needed him, he was there.

 

But over time, it stopped being just about comfort. If you asked either of us, we'd deny anything was going on. But one night, I got particularly drunk and went to him, smiling and giggling and blushing. He'd never seen me so open, so relaxed. He teased me, trying to get me to smile more. I laughed it off, but even while drunk, I saw the way he was staring at me, like he was seeing me in a new light and he liked what he saw and he was no longer afraid to show it. I didn't want to be afraid either. I had lived so much of my life in fear, but in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to give myself to him and trust him to treat me gently, to melt away my icy exterior and finally let him in. And I loved him for that.

 

==

The astronomer paused, smiling faintly at the idea of guided revival, but then she sobered. The black hole will revive the dead star but only momentarily. After that glimmer of hope, the black hole will rip it apart, destroying it even more than during its initial death.

 

==

That night with him was the happiest I'd been in so long. But when the morning came and the alcohol left my system, I felt that familiar creeping feeling. I got it whenever I wasn't in control, like when a party was too overstimulating, or when a group project wasn't working out, or when I caught myself falling in love with a boy with the power to hurt me, after years of avoiding intimacy.

 

I liked him. Of course, I liked him. But I couldn't let myself love him. Not when he knew so much about me already. Not when it was in our nature to argue. Not when I knew we would have something amazing and real and life-changing, and losing that would kill me. If I opened my heart to him, it would destroy me. So I grew cold again. And he became cold, too. And then he showed up with that girl on his arm. And anyone who saw us now would think we were strangers. I lost him to protect myself from death, but it killed me all the same.