Beyond The Texas Stars

Phoebe

The air in Austin didn’t breathe; it vibrated. It was a humid, frantic hum of bus engines, construction cranes, and the footsteps of fifty thousand students all convinced they were the center of the universe.

I stood at the edge of the Speedway, clutching the straps of my backpack so hard the nylon bit into my palms. My orientation map was a crumpled mess in my pocket, but I refused to pull it out. Back in Oak Creek, everyone knew where they were going. Here, looking lost felt like a death sentence.

I reached into my denim jacket pocket, finding the smooth, cool wood of the “Fort” token Ryker had carved for me. The tree is still standing.

Taking a deep breath of exhaust and expensive coffee—a poor trade for cedar and dust—I stepped into the flow.

The lecture hall for Introductory Biology 311C was a cavernous, windowless stadium of tiered wooden desks and glowing laptop screens. I sat in the fourth row, flanked by two guys in Greek-lettered t-shirts already comparing summer internships at firms I couldn’t spell.

I felt like a specimen under a microscope. I was wearing a simple sundress with my hair in its usual messy knot, but compared to the girls in polished athleisure and blowout hair, I might as well have had “FARM GIRL” stamped across my forehead.

I pulled out my laptop, the screen illuminating the sticker Ryker had slapped on the corner: a small, stylized silhouette of a Harley. I traced it with my thumb, a quiet act of rebellion against the high-pressure chill of the room.

“Welcome to the beginning of the end for your social lives,” a silver-haired professor announced, his voice booming through the PA system. He surveyed the crowd with the eyes of a man who had watched a thousand freshmen crash and burn. “Look to your left. Now look to your right. By December, one of you will have dropped this course. There are no participation points here. There is only the curve.”

The room went dead silent, save for the frantic clicking of five hundred keyboards. I opened my leather-bound notebook—the one Ryker had made me—and gripped my pen. Anatomy of a cell. My hand shook.

By noon, my brain felt like it had been put through a wood chipper. In Oak Creek, I was the girl who knew everything. Here, I was the girl who didn’t even know where the nearest bathroom was.

I found a small, shaded stone bench near the Turtle Pond, a tiny oasis of green in the concrete desert, and pulled out my phone. My heart did a strange little flip at the notification.

[11:15 AM] Ryker: Just finished the morning shift at the shop. The barn feels like a tomb without you tripping over my tools. Tell me the city hasn’t eaten you yet, Miller.

A hot prickle of tears hit behind my eyes. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and the distance already felt physical.

[12:05 PM] Phoebe: The city tried, but I’m too stubborn to digest. My Bio professor told us to look at the person next to us because one of us won’t make it. I’m currently glaring at a guy named Brad who spent the whole hour talking about his dad’s yacht.

[12:06 PM] Ryker: Tell Brad if he touches your notes, I’ll drive down there and show him what a real wreck looks like. You’re the smartest person in that room, Pheebs. Don’t let the bow-tie guy get in your head. I’m looking at the Anchors box on my workbench right now. Counting the minutes until Friday.

[12:07 PM] Phoebe: I’m holding the Fort token in my pocket. It helps. How’s Nate? Is he actually being nice to you?

[12:08 PM] Ryker: He gave me a beer and didn’t mention my criminal record once. I think he’s grieving, too. He just does it by hitting things with a sledgehammer. The farm is too quiet, Phoebe. I went to the creek this morning just to see if the water was still there. It’s not the same without you on the rock.

I bit my lip, the longing tightening my chest. I wanted to tell him how terrified I was of failing, but if I showed too much weakness, he’d be on that bike by nightfall. He had a shop to run, too.

[12:10 PM] Phoebe: We’re going to make it, Blackwood. Only four more days until Friday. I have to go to Chem lab now. Apparently, I’m supposed to know how to titrate something without blowing up the building.

[12:11 PM] Ryker: If you blow it up, make sure it’s spectacular. I love you, Miller. Don’t let ’em see you blink.

[12:12 PM] Phoebe: I love you more. See you in my dreams tonight.

Chemistry lab was a nightmare of glass beakers and the sharp, nose-stinging scent of ammonia. I was assigned to a back station next to a guy who looked like he’d stepped off the cover of a collegiate magazine—sharp eyes, easy posture, and a smile a little too practiced.

“I’m Xavier,” he said, extending a hand. “I saw you in Bio. You were the only one actually writing in a leather journal instead of a MacBook. It was... refreshing.”

“Phoebe,” I said, shaking his hand briefly before turning back to my equipment.

“You look like you’re ready for a fight, Phoebe,” Xavier teased, his voice smooth as silk. “Relax. It’s just Gen Chem. If we follow the manual, the building stays standing.”

“I like to be prepared,” I said, my tone clipped.

“Me too,” he replied, leaning back against the counter. “Where are you from? You don’t have the Austin I’m-too-cool-to-be-here vibe.”

“Oak Creek. Small town about three hours north.”

“A farm girl,” he mused, a spark of genuine interest in his eyes. “Interesting. Well, Oak Creek, let’s see if we can make this acid-base reaction behave, shall we?”

He was fast, efficient, and clearly brilliant. He moved with a casual confidence I lacked, and as the lab progressed, I found myself watching the way he handled the pipettes. But every time he leaned a little too close to explain a step, a stubborn wave of loyalty pulled me right back to the boy on the farm.

Ryker was grease, grit, and raw, honest emotion. Xavier was polished glass and sharp wit.

As I walked out of the lab three hours later, my lab coat smelling of chemicals and my head spinning with molarities, I pulled out my phone again. I didn’t text Ryker this time. I just opened our last photo—the one of us at the lake, our skin wet and our smiles real.

I pressed the phone to my chest, the campus stretching out around me like a cage.

One day down. Four to go.

Ryker

The shop was too loud, and the barn was too quiet.

I stood at my workbench, the fluorescent light humming a low, irritating B-flat that seemed to vibrate right through my skull. My hands were black with oil up to the wrists, and the smell of diesel—usually the scent that grounded me—felt heavy in my chest.

I’d been staring at the same fuel injector for twenty minutes. Usually, I could strip one of these down and rebuild it with my eyes shut, but today, my brain kept drifting south. Three hours south, to be exact.

Wiping my hands on a rag, I reached for my phone sitting right next to the Anchors box. The sight of that walnut box, still holding twenty of the tokens I’d carved, felt like a punch to the gut. The clock wasn’t just ticking; it was dragging.

[11:15 AM] Ryker: Just finished the morning shift at the shop. The barn feels like a tomb without you tripping over my tools. Tell me the city hasn’t eaten you yet, Miller.

I hit send and stared at the screen. I knew she was in class, supposed to be focusing on becoming the best damn doctor Texas had ever seen. But the silence on the other end felt like a physical weight.

Nate walked in ten minutes later carrying a couple of foil-wrapped sandwiches. He didn’t say a word, just hopped up on the edge of the workbench, kicked a stray wrench out of the way, and tossed a sandwich at my chest.

“Eat,” he muttered. “You look like hell, Blackwood.”

“Good to see you too, Nate,” I rasped, unwrapping the foil. Turkey and Swiss. Phoebe’s favorite. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry.

Nate took a massive bite of his own sandwich, his eyes scanning the barn before stopping on the empty space where Phoebe’s bike usually sat. “My mom cried at breakfast today because the orange juice was too pulp-heavy. She says it’s not how Phoebe likes it.”

“It’s quiet, Nate. That’s the problem,” I said, leaning back against the bench. “I can hear the wind in the rafters. I never noticed how much noise she made just by existing until she wasn’t here.”

Nate nodded slowly. “She’s a Miller. We take up space. But she’s doing it, Ryker. She texted me earlier. Said her Bio professor is an ass, but she’s holding her own.”

“She told me about the ass,” I muttered, a small, genuine smirk finally cracking my face. “And some guy named Brad who’s a walking trust fund.”

“Brad?” Nate’s eyes narrowed, the protector instinct flaring instantly. “Who the hell is Brad?”

“Just some kid in her lecture,” I said, though saying it out loud didn’t make me feel any better. “She’s glaring at him. That’s a good sign.”

I spent the afternoon working on a custom exhaust for a client, trying to lose myself in the blue flame of the welder. But every time my phone buzzed, I nearly dropped the torch.

Around 4:00 PM, I finally sat down on the tailgate of my truck, pulling off my gloves, and opened Instagram—a habit I’d picked up just to see if she’d posted anything.

There it was. A story post from Chloe, Phoebe’s roommate.

A shot of a chemistry lab: beakers, white coats, and the sterile glow of overhead lights. And right in the center, Phoebe. She was laughing. Actually laughing, leaning over a titration setup. Right next to her—too close, in my opinion—was a guy.

He didn’t look like Brad. He looked like the kind of guy who had never had grease under his fingernails in his life. Tall, perfectly styled dark hair, and a smile that looked like it cost more than my Harley. His hand was hovering near hers, pointing at something in a textbook.

The caption read: Phoebe and Xavier killing the first lab! 🧪🔥 #UTAustin #PreMedLife

A hot, jagged surge of jealousy ripped through me. It wasn’t just that he was handsome. It was that he was there. In her world, breathing the same air, talking about the same equations, and seeing her laugh at a joke I didn’t get to hear.

I gripped the phone so hard the screen creaked.

“Ryker?”

I looked up. Nate was standing by the door, watching me. He saw the old villain scowl I’d tried so hard to bury.

“What is it?” he asked, walking over.

I didn’t answer. I just turned the phone around.

Nate looked at the screen for a long beat. He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t tell me I was being crazy. He just sighed. “It’s a lab partner, Ryker. She’s in a city of fifty thousand people. She’s going to talk to men.”

“I know that,” I snapped, standing up and shoving the phone into my pocket. “I’m not an idiot. But look at him, Nate. He fits. He looks like he belongs in that room with her. I look like I belong in a scrap yard.”

“You belong with her,” Nate said firmly, cutting through my spiral. “And if you start doubting that on Day Two, you’re going to be a wreck by October. She chose you. Remember?”

I didn’t answer. I walked back to the Harley, pulling the cover off the seat. I needed to ride. I needed the roar of the engine to drown out the voice telling me Austin was going to change her until I was just a memory from a small town she outgrew.

I rode until the sun went down and the Texas stars took over the sky, stopping at the Quarry. The bike idled beneath me as I looked out at the dark water where we’d stood when I promised her I wouldn’t be an anchor.

I pulled out my phone. 9:58 PM. Two minutes until our call.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I hit FaceTime. The screen blurred for a second, and then her face appeared.

She was sitting on her dorm bed, the Anchors box open beside her. She looked exhausted, her eyes a little red-rimmed, but when she saw me, she beamed.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” I said, the tension in my shoulders finally starting to melt. “How was the lab?”

“It was okay,” she said, leaning back against her pillow. “My partner, Xavier, is actually really smart. He helped me with the calculations. I think I might actually pass this class, Ryker.”

There it was. Xavier. The name felt like a burr under a saddle. I wanted to ask how “smart” he was, why he was leaning so close in Chloe’s story. But then I saw it—she was holding the small oak carving I’d given her that morning, rubbing her thumb over the wood in that nervous habit she only had when she missed home.

“Good,” I forced my voice to be steady. “You deserve the best, Miller. Even if ‘the best’ is a guy who probably uses more hair product than you do.”

Phoebe let out a bright, clear laugh that filled the quiet of the Quarry. “He does! It smells like expensive lemons. It’s weird. I miss the way you smell like old leather and cedar.”

“I miss you too,” I said, looking up at the stars. “Count the days, Pheebs. Only three more until Friday.”

“I’m counting.”

We talked for an hour about nothing and everything until her eyes started to droop. When I finally hung up, the jealousy was still a dull background ache, but it was buried under the sheer, desperate love I felt for the girl on the screen.

I kicked the Harley into gear and headed back toward the farm. I had a shop to run, a fence to fix, and a week to survive. But I knew one thing for sure—Xavier might have the hair and the lemons, but I had the girl.

And on Friday, I was going to remind the city of Austin exactly who she belonged to.