We’ve been playing this game for millennia now, the Sun and I. It’s all we’ve—I’ve—ever known. We dance around one another, teasing each other. Coming together briefly only to have cruel fate swing us out of the other’s grasp at the last moment and hold us apart. 

        We fall in love over and over and over again, because what else is there for us to do?

        This dance, this routine, is nothing new to me. It is the reality I have found comfort in. Spending every day of every year of every century since my creation orbiting, watching, reveling in my Sun’s warmth. 

        Our dance is a cautious one, a flight of pirouettes and tours en l’air mere centimeters away from the precipice of something more. Sometimes I find myself flirting with the Universe, begging it’s cold depths to let me come closer to my Sun with each twirl.

        The languid movements of our dance demand a spot, and there is nothing I’d rather spend my existence searching for than my Sun. As my eyes gaze over my shoulder, I see him: his arms spread wide shining light onto any and every thing in his reach, the golden rays dripping from his equally golden gaze, the warm tilt of his lips in the ghost of a smile. It’s this love and joy that my Sun shares with the universe that I search for with each and every twist and turn. Even from afar, I can feel the warmth he projects.

        And when we get to come together? Oh, when we get to come together… That’s when everything falls into place, when the very whims of the universe make sense to me. 

        In those fleeting moments I understand. I understand in the way that my Sun looks at me, in the way that he shines his undivided attention upon my being. I understand as I revel in closeness, the heat in his eyes, the fire in his fingertips as they roam unbidden. It’s never long enough for the touch to linger, but the marks they leave burn into my soul and keep me company until we meet again.

        It’s these moments that keep me moving, keep me dancing for every moment of my existence. It’s what I was created for, what I’ve been subsisting off. I have carved a home for myself in the gaze of my Sun.

        But lately, something has changed.

        I can see it in his eyes. When their gaze falls on me they are no longer full of joy and hope, but sorrow. Yearning. A silent plead to the universe.

        Their brilliant warm gold has darkened to a deep burnished haze, they no longer impart light onto me like they used to. 

        The nights are growing longer, the days are growing colder. His warmth is wavering and as I spot I see him stumble. 

        It’s nothing too severe, nothing that would cause concern to anyone in the reach of his light. But I see it. I know out routing, I know that he’s supposed to land in third position but that he instead falls into fourth. His feet are just barely too far apart. 

        My eyes flicker up to find him already looking at me. For a moment I can see raw unfiltered grief on his face, but what would he have to grieve? I think to ask, but he wouldn’t hear me. Not from this far away. I will have to tuck the question in the back of my mind for when we are together once again.

        Until then I dance. I dance and I worry and I dance some more, even as I watch my Sun falter and again and again and again. 

        I don’t know what to do, don’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it. I can tell that the universe is beginning to notice. That complaints are being made, questions are being raised. 

        “Why have we been forsaken?” they ask. “How are we to sustain ourselves without warmth? Without light?”

        I wish I could answer them, if only to ease the burden from my Sun. He pretends he can’t hear them, pretends that everything is okay even as I see him cracking under the pressure.

        If only I were with him, I think. A subtle plead to the universe to let me get closer. These pleas have never worked before, but something is different this time. I can feel it deep in my soul as my trajectory changes and I adjust my dance to match. 

        Each step I take towards my Sun should bring me warmth, but all I feel is the pressing chill of his unrelenting gaze on me. His eyes have not left me since the first stumble. But now it’s cold.

        The dim light grows weaker as I draw near until it’s gone. A whisper and then nothing. Darkness. Unspoken grievances thicken the space around us:

        Why weren’t you here?

        Why come now? 

        Who are you to make me feel this way? 

        Why can’t you stay with me?

        Do you even love me?

        I reach out, desperately searching for him in the sea of nothing. Sparks fly—little motes of golden light—as I graze his arm, only to have that golden light circle my wrist and hold it away. 

        Am I not wanted?

        The thought hurts. To be unwanted when I’ve spent so much of my existence devoted to the very being that shuns me… 

        I shove the thought to the back of my mind. That is of no importance at present, not when something is so very clearly wrong with my Sun.

        After all, it is his warmth and light that sustains life. I can only reflect what he gives me, and right now he’s giving nothing.

        I gently coax my wrist out of his ring of golden light before reaching out once more. This time my fingers graze his shoulder and I’m able to use the light from the sparks to trace my way up to his face. The palms of my hands fit perfectly against his cheeks as I pull his face down to mine.

        Not a word is spoken, yet I understand.

        We’ve been playing this game for millennia now, the Sun and I. It’s all we’ve ever known. Normally we dance around one another, teasing each other. But today, just for one moment, we stand still in each other’s arms as we fall in love over and over and over again despite knowing that it will be ripped from us not a moment later. 

        But what else are we to do?