"Leave a Light On" • Belinda Carlisle (by Jennifer Lai)

Throughout high school I used to climb onto my grandpa’s rooftop to watch the world unfold. My grandpa lived near the freeway, and the rush of cars below made me feel alive. I wasn’t stuck on pause, waiting for someone to press play. There, my life was moving forward on a track full of destinations. Gina would join me most nights—nights when her mom pulled a double at Denny’s. She, too, understood how loud silence could be. Under the dark denim sky, we'd gaze at the glitter of pinpricks and take turns naming all the stars who might live out there.

“Rob Lowe,” one of us would say, or “Scott Baio”, “Ralph Macchio”, or “Rick Astley.”

The list was always changing, but Rick Astley was a constant. Whenever his name came up, we’d make fun of his cringy dance moves; it was sooo cringe. But gawd, he had wicked hair. They all did. We’d fantasize about going home with these beautiful men and their wicked hair, feathered and swept back to Aqua Net perfection.

It was absurd, those thoughts, we knew, but during those quiet years, that was how Gina and I lived, how we found light in the darkness.

For graduation, my grandpa bought me a Walkman, and Gina and I would spend hours making mixed tapes off the radio. I still laugh when I think of how she’d get whenever the DJ wouldn’t stop talking over the song she wanted to record.

“Shut. Up. Already,” she’d yell at her mom’s boombox.

It was the only time I’d hear her angry. Even after her boyfriend cheated on her while away at college, and later, when she received the diagnosis, she’d meet me at the rooftop, pockets full of Gobstoppers and Lemonheads, Bonkers and cigarette bubble gum. Life wasn’t perfect, she realized, but every imperfect moment held the promise of something better, and those were the things worth living for.

That, and the epic amount of candy she bought from Woolworth’s.

We’d listen to the mixtapes with our knees pulled to our chests, tearing at the Velcro straps on our matching Reebok Hi-Tops over and over again, like we used to do back in grade school to annoy our teachers, who’d often mistake us for sisters. I had this y-splitter thingy so we could jam along to my Walkman at the same time, both of us wearing those crappy foam headphones that always made my ears itch.

“Where do you think everyone’s going?” I once asked on a busy night, and she furrowed her brows as if in deep thought.

“Blockbuster,” she finally said after a long pause. “Definitely Blockbuster. Did you know they’re open till midnight?”

I groaned and jabbed at her lightly. She cradled her arm and rolled onto her side, crying, “My pancreas! You broke my pancreas!”

Near the end, Gina stopped coming over. She could barely walk, let alone navigate the twelve ladder rungs to the platform of loose asphalt shingles. I started visiting her instead, and we’d lie in bed, staring at the decade-old poster pinups from Tiger Beat or BOP magazine, glow-in-the-dark stars pasted next to each of our celebrity crushes from when we were teenagers. On weekends, we’d listen to Casey Kasem on the radio, his smooth baritone voice sending out long-distance dedications, and wonder what type of love it took to make those relationships work, and does that kind of love even exist? We listened to the music until she fell asleep. Until the light in her eyes faded away for good.

Every now and then, I sit on the rooftop of my grandpa’s house, which I’ve since inherited, half expecting Gina to come bounding up in her stone-washed jeans jacket, crimped raven hair gathered high in a side ponytail. I bring along my Walkman and play that Belinda Carlisle song on repeat, the one she loved so much. I plug in her foam-padded headphones and set them down beside me so that wherever she is, she can sing along to the lyrics: ‘cause when the world takes me away, you are still the air that I breathe.

On those evenings, I stretch my shirt over my knees like a tight hug and stare into the big empty sky, waiting for the first star to blink hello. And when it finally does, I imagine it’s a porch light that Gina has switched on for me for the day I come knocking.

Jennifer Lai lives in Washington state. She has work published in Vast Chasm, Gordon Square Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Centaur, and elsewhere.