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## a falling star fell from your heart

|| The Spirit and Larry go to space.

“This doesn’t mean I’m not mad at you anymore.”

The ultimate truth of the matter is this: Larry was supposed to go to outer space. He was supposed to float among the stars, to reach out boundless and grasp firmly that which he had always been chasing: the freedom to run. The final destination of the unknown, running as far away from familiarity as possible. Freedom, up here among the bodies of space, celestial bodies around him running through his veins and into his veins.

He can have that freedom, here. It’s a little bit too late for it. Sixty years too late, in fact. Hidden deep within Larry Trainor: the knowledge that it was always supposed to end that way, with Larry taken away and hidden like this realization, with Larry extracted from the inevitable horrorstruck decision. If the Spirit had never found him, he would’ve been forced to choose.

It is a blessing in some ways — in others it is a curse, and both rest on Larry’s shoulders and worm into his chest hungry. He thinks, maybe it’s tired. Maybe this will satisfy it. Renew it. Maybe space is like rebirth.

So Flit takes them to Niles’ ship, and off they go. Space. Space, in the right way this time, in a way that does not cause pain in a physical sense (a lack of fire, burns over burns over burns to suffocate), but rather sets alight Larry’s inner world, burns down every barrier, decimates every lobe. Everything here, as he watches their ship rise out of the Earth’s atmosphere, is painful. There is so much pain in every aspect of existence; Valentina would have called this beautiful, Larry thinks of it more like a hole punched in a glass wall, each fragmented piece of bloodied glass carrying its own suffering branching off from the big picture and its flaw, each fragmented piece of glass with its own burden and yet still carrying the burdens that belong to those around it.

Like — a frail thought invades his mind like needling static — the Spirit. Like the Spirit, with its own burdens, still carrying his burdens on its shoulders and inside of its chest mythological. Burdens and burdens and planets folding into each other, endlessly mirroring, rivers that eventually flow into oceans. There is so much pain between the two of them that pain has become like God in their lives — always present, always something looking down on them in judgement. The pain coiling around their necks. The pain like bands of electricity. The pain wrapping around their bodies like a second skin. The pain.

Larry looks out of his window. Up here, everything seems so small, in every sense of the word; Paul is down there, somewhere, boiling in the extent of his hatred towards his father, but as Larry watches the clouds and light dance over the planet’s surface, it feels insignificant to the larger world. It seemed like one of the biggest problems he’s ever had to face, another ring on the fingers of strangling hands, when he was back on Earth. Now, above it, looking down at the truth, at the vastness of the planet and of humankind, Larry almost feels—-

No. He deserves this pain.

The Spirit, despite everything, doesn’t.

“Negative Spirit, release.”

The Spirit exits his body calmly, turns to him. Up close, it’s almost— it almost looks—

“Do you ever miss it?” Larry asks. It rests on the floor — so close that he can feel the warmth it radiates — and gazes out of the window, their eyes separated yet focused on the same surroundings, the same symbolism. Space as rebirth.

In the corner of Larry’s eye, the Spirit nods. Slow. Yes. Sometimes.

“I guess that makes sense,” Larry says. “I bet you had a family, too. I took you away from everything you knew. I’m sorry. No one deserves that.”

He watches the Spirit study him, watches its eyes move across his body — a primal assessment, a cautious move—

And it holds out his hand. Like: it’s okay. I forgive you.

Larry takes the Spirit’s hand. His eyes are blurring, his mind floats through the universe’s darkness; before he loses consciousness, a thought flickers in his mind like resurrection: abandonment.

He can abandon this pain.