A/N: Tyra is one of my favorite characters. So, this happened.
500 words exactly.
"You know," you say one day, sitting on Tim's doorstep, "If you're at the bottom of a well, you can see stars in the daytime."
Tim finishes his beer, runs the back of his hand over his lips, and stares at you. "Why would you want to?"
For Tim, stars are at night. To every hour its allotted space, or something like that. Football on the field, drunk oblivion off it. He asks for very little out of life, because he's learned better than to dare to.
Tim Riggins doesn't ask for stars in the daytime.
"This is why we're never gonna go anywhere," you tell him, angry and fierce, and he looks hurt at your tone for half a second so you kiss him until he forgets about it. You didn't mean it, and if you did, it isn't really his fault. So beautiful, that boy. Every time you kiss him, it reminds you how much you wish he knew how to love better.
"Forget it," you tell him, even though you can't.
Thing is, you don't know why you care so much about it. You heard it in Mr. Allen's science class, and it fascinated you. Something that broke the rules, pulled back the curtain. There's so much sky in Texas, and for the first time, you felt like you might be able to discover some of its secrets.
Next time you think about it, you're alone, hands wrapped around your ankles, folded up with your back resting on the western wall of the house. Mama's inside crying again. It's the anniversary of something sad.
You've given up asking.
You wonder if an old oil drilling shaft would work like a well, and if you could get down one without breaking your neck or getting arrested. You think about it for fifteen minutes and then you shake your hair over your shoulders. This is silly. A fool's hope, like people write on bucket lists. It's just—bringing two pretty things together, sunlight and starlight, seems like a rite of passage. Seems like if you could do that, you could do anything. Get out of here, if you wanted to. Come back if you needed to. Be something more than what you are.
Time goes by. Jason falls and so Tim falls. Lyla falls and you don't feel sorry for her because she took the last part of Tim away from you.
Mama falls for Buddy Garrity.
They all fall down.
You will never be more than what you are, and it makes you want to hit something until you split your knuckles. The sky is so wide, wider over Dillon than anywhere, and it's like you're only ever out at night.
Stars are the same as always, and you remember, and it hurts.
Because standing at the bottom of the well isn't going to put the world where you want it. It's a cheap trick, after all.
You can only see the stars when everything else is dark.