The girl climbed up the hill as the stars started to come out. She knew it was dangerous to be out alone at night, but she decided that a small escape was worth the risk. When she reached the top, she threw down her jacket and layed on it, watching the sky grow darker and darker.

     A minute or an hour could have passed, she did not know. She did not care. Time had always seemed insignificant when looking at the cosmos.

     “Where am I supposed to be?” She whispered to the stars, “This planet feels wrong to me. It doesn’t feel like home.”

      The half moon shone down upon her, but could not give her a response. 

     “I have lived my life on Earth. I have laughed and cried, but I have always felt like an outsider. The closest I get to feeling like I belong is when I’m watching the stars; so tell me, where is my home?

     “The people here don’t make sense to me. They all find some reason to hate one another. They find ways to divide themselves and it’s all so trivial. They’re mean to the ones they love and cruel to the planet beneath them. I do not understand them. I’m scared that I never will.”

     She sighed, “There’s this feeling in my gut that pulls me away. It calls me to the sky, to something beyond. It’s like I’m homesick for a place I have never been.”

     The trees rustled as a gust of wind washed over. Crickets began to sing and fireflies started to light up around her, but her gaze remained fixated above. 

     “Please,” her eyes teared up, “I just want to feel at home. I’m tired of never being able to connect. I’m so so tired.”

     A shooting star flew overhead and the girl watched it disappear. Her guts twisted at the sight. A sign of hope, but unreachable; like a promise that could never be fulfilled. 

     “I wish I could find the place I belong.”

     The stars heard her wish, and felt the emotion behind her words. They felt just how lost the girl was. Yet, it was not the duty of the stars to help her, they couldn’t even if they wanted to. The only thing they could offer her was their ability to listen, to remember. 

     So long after she left, the stars remembered. They held her wish, like so many before, and kept it close. They remembered long after she had passed and turned to dust because it was the duty of the stars to remember.