“Sage…” he pleaded. “You can’t do this to me.”

My eyes wandered from his lips back to the night sky.

“Sage. Please.”

He grabbed my arm before I could pull back. His hand was warm, soft, firm.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed how many stars you can see from here.” I mumbled, looking up.

“What?”

“There are millions of them. Probably way more than that actually. Was it you that used to try to count the stars?”

He let go of my arm and stepped back.

“Yeah.”

“I remember. You’d get to maybe one fifty or so then you would toss your hair back into place and give up. You’d tell me the sky was too complex for a guy like you. Then I’d make fun of you for trying to be so goddamn poetic all the time.

I counted one hundred forty nine tonight.”

I looked at him. He looked away, as if making eye contact could make this any harder for either of us.

“Danny.” I whispered. “Danny, I don’t think I love you anymore.”

“What the f*** Sage. You didn’t have to say it...”

“I’m not going to cover up that tattoo though.” I mentioned.

“The knife?”

“Yeah, I’m going to keep it. I might not love you but I don’t wanna forget you. Ya know?”

He grit his teeth and took a deep breath, stuffing his fists into his pockets.

“F*** you Sage! F*** you.”

“What? You can’t really blame me can you? We had fun. Didn’t we?”

“Hah. Yeah. We had fun.”

“Okay good.” I hopped off the tailgate of his truck and began to leave. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around?”
He shook his head and mumbled something under his breath.

“Yeah, sure. See you around.”

He was surprisingly calm. His temper had always gotten the best of him, I couldn’t tell why now was any different. But he held himself together; at least until I got to my car.

As I started my car and began to drive away I could hear him from up the hill cussing me out and pounding on the door of his rusted red Ford. I knew he loved me, I knew he needed me. But I reached for the radio and turned up the music, letting Jack and Diane drown out the ruined cries of the boy that I had just broken.