The Parallax of You

At a remote astronomy camp in the Alberta badlands, a slip on a crumbling hoodoo forces two very different boys together under a sky streaked with meteors, where they discover the cosmic distances between stars are nothing compared to the ones between their lives.

"Got you," a voice grunted from above. "Stop wriggling before you take us both down."

Pavel froze, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He pressed himself against the rough, sedimentary rock, feeling the grit press into his cheek. He could feel the tension in the fabric of his jacket where Konstantin was holding him. Konstantin. The boy from the Calgary suburbs with the perpetually unimpressed expression and headphones that seemed surgically attached to his ears.

"I'm stable," Pavel managed to say, his voice thin.

The grip on his collar loosened but didn't disappear. "Good. Because my dad would kill me if I came home from 'character-building camp' having dropped the nerdy kid off a cliff."

Despite the situation, Pavel felt a flare of irritation. "I'm not nerdy. I'm an enthusiast. And this isn't a cliff, it's a hoodoo."

"Whatever, Galileo. Just don't move." Konstantin shifted his weight, and a shower of small pebbles skittered down past Pavel's head, vanishing into the darkness below. They were alone. The rest of the group from the astronomy camp were on the main ridge, their excited voices carrying faintly on the cool breeze.

Pavel had wanted a better vantage point, away from the chatter and the glow of the camp's main tent. He'd wanted the meteor shower all to himself. It had seemed like a brilliant idea ten minutes ago.

Slowly, carefully, he found a more secure footing. "Okay. I'm good now. You can let go."

Konstantin released him and settled onto a narrow ledge just above. Pavel cautiously pulled himself up to sit beside him. The ledge was barely wide enough for the two of them. Their knees brushed. In the immense, silent dark of the badlands, the small point of contact was like an anchor.

"Thanks," Pavel said, the word feeling inadequate. He stared at his hands, which were shaking slightly.

"No problem," Konstantin said, pulling his headphones down around his neck. "Just try not to plummet to your death. The paperwork would be a nightmare." He was trying for sarcasm, but his voice was a little shaky, too.

For a while, they didn't speak. They just watched the sky. And what a sky it was. Far from any city, the Milky Way was a thick, luminous smear, and the stars were so bright they seemed close enough to touch. As their eyes adjusted, the first meteor of the Perseids streaked across the darkness, a brilliant green-white slash that was gone in an instant.

"Whoa," Konstantin breathed, the sound soft.

Pavel felt a familiar thrill. "That was a big one. Probably the size of a fist before it hit the atmosphere. See the trail? The greenish tint comes from the oxygen atoms getting superheated."

Konstantin glanced at him. "You really know this stuff, don't you?"

"It's what I do," Pavel said, shrugging. He pointed. "That's Andromeda. Our closest major galactic neighbour. Two and a half million light-years away. The light we're seeing from it tonight started its journey when humanity was still in the Stone Age."

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### A Brief Constellation

They watched the cosmic fireworks in a comfortable silence, punctuated by Pavel’s quiet explanations and Konstantin's occasional, impressed sounds. Another meteor, brighter than the last, split the sky in two.

"It's weird," Konstantin said, his voice thoughtful. "You look at all that, and it makes everything down here seem… stupid."

"What's stupid?" Pavel asked, genuinely curious.

"Everything. School. My dad wanting me to get into engineering. My mom pretending she doesn't know he's cheating on her. All of it. Who cares when you've got… that." He gestured up at the infinite, silent spectacle.

Pavel had never heard Konstantin say more than three words at a time. He'd seemed like a storm cloud of teenage angst, wrapped in a designer hoodie. But hearing him now, his voice raw in the darkness, Pavel saw something else. A profound loneliness that echoed his own.

"I think that's why I like it," Pavel confessed, his gaze fixed on the constellation Cygnus. "It's so big and so old, it makes my own problems feel manageable. Like, my parents are getting divorced, and it feels like the end of the world. But the universe doesn't care. It'll just keep expanding. It's… comforting, in a way."

He hadn't meant to say that. The words just came out, drawn from him by the darkness and the strange intimacy of the ledge. He risked a look at Konstantin. The other boy was already looking at him, his usual mask of indifference gone. In the faint starlight, his expression was open and vulnerable.

"My parents split up two years ago," Konstantin said quietly. "It's not the end of the world. It's just… quieter."

They fell silent again, but the space between them had changed. It was no longer just two bodies sharing a small space. It was two solitudes, briefly, tentatively, overlapping. Another meteor blazed, and this time, Pavel felt Konstantin's hand find his, a hesitant, questioning touch.

Pavel didn't pull away. He threaded his fingers through Konstantin's. Their hands were cold. The gesture wasn't about anything more than a simple, human need not to be alone while watching the universe burn.

"You know," Pavel said, his voice barely a whisper, "the stars in a constellation aren't actually close to each other. From our perspective on Earth, they form a picture. But in reality, they can be thousands of light-years apart. It's just an illusion."

Konstantin squeezed his hand gently. "Yeah," he said, his voice thick. "I get that."

They stayed like that, hands clasped, watching the sky fall apart, piece by piece. The camp, their parents, their separate, complicated lives—it all felt a million light-years away. There was only the cold rock beneath them, the vastness above them, and the fragile, temporary connection between them. An illusion, maybe. But for tonight, it was enough.