You're not sure when it starts. When you start seeing him wherever you go, on the street, in the little coffee shop by your dorm, in your dreams. It's a coincidence, you tell yourself, there's no such thing as cosmic interference. (Oh but of course there is).
When you first speak to him, he doesn't remember you. Why should he? You never talked to him at your school, only rolled your eyes and tried to ignore them, him and his friends. But as soon as you say that you went to the same school, his eyes light up.
"Oh Lily! Of course! Sorry, I have the memory of someone at least three times my age."
His voice lilts, twisting and curling around letters and syllables, turning words into magic.
You talk for an hour, right there in the coffee shop. You find out he's back home to take care of his mum, who is not doing so well. You tell him about your classes, about the class you should be at right now. His laugh is even more wondrous than his voice, it seems to float through the air, coating everything it touches in happy. He laughs a lot. You like that, like that he's not afraid to laugh, that he knows the power of what a laugh can do.
By now, you really have to be heading to class, and so you tell him you have to go. You give him your new phone number, but you're sure he'll never call you. Maybe now the cosmos will stop messing with your life. (Not so fast).
You don't see him for the rest of the week. You take that as a sign. Good or bad, you're not sure. You spend the week trying to forget about the glint in his eyes when he laughed, or the smirk on his lips when he talks about his friends. You try to forget about the way he makes every word seem like it's made of stardust. (It is not as easy as it looks).
You see him again at a party your roommate forces you to go to, a drink in his hand, talking to some guy you do not know. He catches your eye as soon as you walk in, and comes over to you. Your roommate has mysteriously disappeared.
You find out that he knows the guys who live here, that one of them is the son of his mum's best friend or something. you are about to ask him out to dinner (because screw it you have given in to the cosmos) when your roommate appears out of nowhere and drags you away to dance. You don't see him again. (Seriously cosmos, make up your mind).
You run into each other at the coffee shop a week later, and he asks you out before you can even utter a 'hello'. You say yes, of course. (The cosmos seem to know what they're doing). He smiles, and it's like the fucking sun explodes. Two words bubble and pop in the back of your throat, the only coherent thought in your head. You're beautiful.
You don't see him again until your date three days later, and you spend the time in-between fantasizing about the way he says your name. He makes it sounds like a prayer, like something bright and wonderful, stretching the two syllables into infinity. The sound of it races through your ears, echoing in your fingertips. You think about his name, about the way it seems to coat the roof of your mouth in delight when you say it, a smile wrapped up in a word. You hope you never have to stop saying it. (You hope that the cosmos know they're making you crazy, spinning your brain into cotton candy, turning your every thought sickly sweet).
Your date is as awkward as any first date should be, and yet it is so much better. You make fun of his hair that seems to have a life of it's own and he laughs as you try on his glasses. At the end of the night you kiss him on the cheek, and there are stars bursting in your fingertips. The cosmos have taken up residence in your skin, filling your blood with stars and replacing your ribcage with the Milky Way. You make plans to go out with him again, and you smile the whole way back to your dorm. (Thank you, cosmos. Thank you, thank you thank you).
You go on more dates. You smile when you see him, and your stomach feels like it will just fly away when he kisses you. He meets your roommate and she scares the hell out of him, threatening death if he hurt you. You tell him that's a good thing, that you were expecting her to not even speak to him.
It's like all of the sudden, your world has been flipped, changing and sparking into this magnificent thing. You live for his smiles and his easy laughter, you dream about the way he kisses your temple when you're studying and the way he spun you around after your Biology final.
You're not really sure what love is supposed to feel like, but you're pretty sure this is it. This feeling of flowers sprouting in your heart, of easy smiles and his hand on your back. You're pretty sure it's the feeling you get in the tips of your toes when you see him, the part of you that aches for him when he's not around. You're pretty sure nothing could be better than this.
And then, one day, he's gone. You don't see him at the coffee shop in the morning, or at the store with one of his crazy friends. He doesn't pick up the phone when you call, doesn't answer your text, doesn't show up to the date you had planned.
You assume that something came up, that he'll call you tomorrow and apologize and everything will go back to normal. But he doesn't. He doesn't call the day after that or the day after that. The flowers in your chest start to wilt.
You don't understand what happened. How could he leave you here, to crumble into nothing without an explanation? How could he just disappear, as if this had meant nothing at all? You hope that the cosmos can fix this, but you know, just as you always have, that the cosmos don't want anything, they can't do anything. (It was always just you, you alone alone alonealonealone).
After two weeks, you see him again. He is sitting alone at the back of the coffee shop, and you are so mad that you almost slap him. But then you see the red circles around his eyes, the way his hands shake as he grips his coffee cup, and you know that something is very very wrong.
You sit down beside him. Touch his shoulder. Ask him what happened. His eyes look like they're going to crack into a million pieces, and when he says your name, it is no longer lilting, it is desperate, yearning and reaching for something that is just a little too far away.
You find out that his mother died. You gasp. You had known she was sick, but not that sick, not sick enough to suddenly not be a person anymore. But she was. And now he is here motherless and crying in a coffee shop and you feel so damn selfish for thinking this was about you.
He tells you it happened quickly, that one night she was alive, and the next morning she wasn't. You think that's so unfair, that something can be and then not be and that's that. It shouldn't be that easy, that simple for someone to just be gone.
He tells you he wanted to call you, but he threw his phone when he found out and it smashed. You tell him it's alright. Tell him you're sorry. Tell him every meaningless thing he needs to hear and more.
You wrap your arms around him, and he seems to melt into you. You kiss his temple like he does to you and he laughs lightly against your neck, and it sounds like magic.
You're not sure if the cosmos want anything, if they interfere with people, or if this was purely you and your stubborn attitude. But you do know that when he grabs your hand, your fingers feel like stardust. You know that when he winks your heart sprouts wings and threatens to fly away. You know that you can't help but smile when he looks at you, that he looks at you the way the tiny people of earth look at the cosmos: Like something impossible, something that is also everything.
You know that this feels a lot like love.
(If the cosmos do want anything, you are sure they would want this).