“Were you nervous?” I look up at my boyfriend, Josh, his eyebrows raised with question.

“A little,” I admitted. I had just met his parents, one of the nicest families I have ever known. “I was scared they wouldn't like me.” Thinking of that now was silly, but every human over thinks. Josh chuckles.

We were laying on a blanket, looking up into the sky. Our hands were clasped in a lock of love. We were inseparable, and I loved it.

I look over at his face, his eyes now closed with contentment. The pale light from the moon outlined his nose and the shape of his lips. His eyelashes curled upward, like a frozen wave not yet ready to crash back down. His straight but unruly hair covered his eyebrows and stuck out in random places.

I looked back into the sky. The sun had just set, taking her pink and rosy red blanket with her as she snuggled in. Now, the moon had arisen, bringing his black-blue suit sparkled with a starry pattern.

Josh always took me here, to the middle of a small field close to a pond. I never could figure out how he found it.

In the distance, frogs and cicadas began to hum and croak and buzz their midnight melodies.

I got lost in the sparkling of the stars overhead, counting and re-counting constellations over and over.

“Grace?” Josh asked me.

“Whaa?” I looked over at him, a smile spread across my face. “Sorry, it's just so beautiful out here. I feel like I could just sit here for hours and hours, exploring the seas of the moon and the fire of the stars.”

“I know,” Josh laughed. “You just get so into it.”

“How couldn't you? I love astrology.”

“And you don't think that's nerdy?”

I looked at his face to see of he was joking. His eyes told me he wasn't. “No, I don't think so...” I was confused. I wasn't a nerd, was I? “Do you think I'm one? A nerd?”

“Well...” Josh sighed.

Suddenly, my perfect world full of rainbows and sunshine got a scratch on it, making the record player stutter with an ugly noise.

“Why didn't you ever bring this up before?” I choked, trying to hold back my tears.

“I thought you'd change.”

And finally, it clicked. It all made sense. That's why he never showed me to his friends. That's why he talked me out of joining the chess club. I was speechless. And that's why he had never kissed me or held my hand in public. Our clasped hands felt like a joke.

“I think I'll go get some uh... stuff from the car.” He averted his eyes and quickly got up.

I watched him go. Waited until his footsteps disappeared. I looked back up into my true love, the stars, looking for answers. All that came to me was warm tears, rolling down my cheeks. The stars glistened in them, but in an ugly and distorted way. I knew the car ride home would be an awkward one. That when I got home, he wouldn't text me. That two days from now, we would be strangers in the hall with a tear filled past.

My perfect dates under these stars would come to an end. One by one they would fall out of the sky, touching my delicate skin. They would leave scars of this moment. Under the stars, they say, that's were love is formed. But never once did they stop to consider that that's where love is destroyed.