I was already looking up at the stars, but I look closer. At all the bright spots peeking out from the darkness. At the giant pines stretching toward them. “Are there really?” I ask, wondering why I’ve never come across that fact.

“Yeah, there’s something like three trillion trees on the planet. But scientists estimate there are somewhere between one hundred and four hundred billion stars in the galaxy.”

“Word? I never would’ve guessed that. Especially since fifteen billion trees are chopped down every year. Did you know that almost fifty percent of the trees on the planet have either been cut down or died some kind of way since humans have been around?” I ask, offering up my own facts.

“Really? I knew all the Amazon boxes had to come from somewhere, but fifteen billion? Dang, at this rate, our stars are going to start catching up to our trees.”

“I know, right?” I say, feeling my insides grin because I’m sitting in my favorite place talking to my favorite person about one of my favorite things. I didn’t even think Carli was into trees like that. She acted like she barely cared about the magnolia dying outside of her dad’s house. “Who knew you were into trees?”

“I’m not,” she says, bursting my little bubble.

“So, you’re into stars then?”

“Well, kinda. But I’m more into random facts. I like collecting ones I find interesting and putting them up on my walls.”

“Yeah, I saw all the stuff in your room. It’s dope. You must not let Cole take pictures in there because I’ve never seen your walls on his feed.”

“Cole and his Instagram,” she says, like she’s rolling her eyes. “Yeah, no pictures of my walls allowed.”

“Why not?”

“Magic?”

“Yeah, I’ve always found magic in small, random things . . . in thinking about them . . . in piecing them together . . . in seeing what they may have to say about big, important things.”

“What do they say?”

“A lot. But nothing, really. I don’t know. I mean, my walls still have a lot to tell me. And I can’t have them out there speaking to everyone else before they even let me know what’s up,” she says, and laughs a little.

I love talking to Carli like this. It’s like I’m inside her mind, hearing how it works. “So what are you waiting on them to tell you?” I ask.

“Everything,” she says.

“Everything like what?” I ask, remembering her necklace. It looked magical. I sit up on my elbow and reach for it. Rub my thumb along the curved left edge, where the raised crescent moon sits cradling a sun in the form of a cut-out circle. From the circle I slide my thumb along the engraved rays that reach toward tiny raised stars on the other side. It’s like she has the whole universe dangling from her neck.