As he spun into the void of space, Jason wondered what had gone wrong with Rachel. He wasn’t one to contemplate breakups too much but considering that it was his co-pilot and girlfriend that kicked him out and that he had time, it seemed a worthy exercise. Something had to distract him from imminent death.

In his spacesuit, he felt the sweat of his body pressing against the lining, especially in his hands and feet. His helmet had a tinted visor that was pulled down to mute the visual motion of the stars swirling in front of him. Over the last hour, his breathing was controlled but his thundering heart continued to pound. 

Even if he did figure out what he did wrong, so what? Anything could end him. Radiation could cook him. The speeding particle of an asteroid could puncture his suit and the pressure could crush him. Worse still, none of those things would happen and he could die of dehydration after a few days of perpetual tumbling. The closest human that could rescue him was Rachel and her feelings were clear. While trying to figure what went wrong was futile, he focused his thoughts back to that morning. It was better than thinking about dying.

Intimacy between pilots on long-term missions was officially against company policy. The reason to discourage it was plain: if they fought, the mission could be compromised, leading to a loss of millions for the company. The reason to look the other way was also plain: if they fired someone for every infraction, no one would be left to work.

Jason felt something would begin between them from when they first met. She smiled, her eyes wide, and she gently shook his hand. During the briefing, Jason’s thoughts wandered to the thought of Rachel naked, her full lips, her short-trimmed regulation hair. He hoped she was thinking the same of him.

Once the mission started, he didn’t wait too long to find out. For a blissful eighteen months, they were happy. Or so he thought. It was all that he could want.

That morning, he woke to the sound of the alarm of the airlock depressurizing. He opened his eyes to find Rachel, wearing a suit and helmet. Her eyes were as wide as when they first met but now they were filled with tears and frightful determination. She kicked Jason square on his chest. He flew backwards towards the portal. He reached out in hopes of grabbing the threshold. He slid easily through, looking at his ship and Rachel one last time before careening into space.  He called out but he was out of range.

What was it? Was it something that he said or did? That he didn’t say or do? Jason thought everything was fine. If it was something, he wasn’t aware of it and since he didn’t have Rachel to ask what he had done wrong, there was no way for him to reason what it might be. Maybe he should let it go.

The long voyage could have made her snap. There were numerous tests, mental and physical required for pilot certification. It couldn’t predict something like this. Maybe he had the awful luck of Rachel getting space cabin fever. He felt a small bit of relief.  There was nothing that he could have done to prevent it from happening.  Sometimes people are just crazy.

Maybe she never loved him. Maybe she lied the whole time and just wanted someone to sleep with through the next several hundred nights. That didn’t seem like her but what else could it be? He knew how he felt about her, how she delighted him, and he thought he delighted her. Jason loved her. The weight of everything bore down to full effect. He choked back tears. Crying would make him consume more oxygen more quickly. His throat ached and tears welled. He couldn’t hold back any more. He bawled, he screamed, he whimpered. There was nothing else to do at this point. All he had were his thoughts and the air that he breathed.

He was still breathing. He had an oxygen tank. She gave it to him. Putting him in the suit made sense because without it, the pressure would have caused his body to explode and she would have to clean up that mess. The suit would prevent that. But why give him the oxygen?

He took a breath. The air was still crisp, not yet stale which would indicate he was nearing the end of the tank. Maybe she thought that he would be rescued and wanted him to have a chance. Small chance but it was worth believing. It was more pleasant than the thought of dying alone in space.

Jason lifted the tinted visor to better see the stars. Even in their constant motion, he recognized constellations, the same ones that he pointed out to Rachel when they laid together. It hurt to think about those quiet moments. He didn’t want to think about what the stars were then, only what they are now and what they could be.

Stars were a constant hydrogen explosion that would go on until they simply couldn’t. Old songs often made reference to the fact that people and stars were, in essence, the same. Jason finally understood this.

The tears that landed back onto his cheeks and dried. His eyes had been closed for so long that he began to drift to sleep as he drifted deeper into space. In the unclear thoughts that lead him to sleep, he saw Rachel’s face, smiling as when they first met. It made him happy. His heart relaxed for the first time in several hours. Jason became one with the stars.