On a *Starry* Night {Morgie}
Jan 14, 2012 11:26:45 GMT -5
Post by Lydie on Jan 14, 2012 11:26:45 GMT -5
Luna Grey
I wish you were here.
My eyes flew open, my heart raced, pounded in my chest. Remnants of a nightmare still clinging to my mind. My covers were tangled around me and I tried to get free, my hands shaky. When I stumbled out of bed and onto the floor I tried to catch my breath, to get the nightmare out of my mind, the feel of terror and hopelessness. “It’s okay Moon, I’m right here.” Jason’s voice echoed in my head. The feeling of security I usually felt at this memory fell through, it wasn’t comforting anymore. Because Jason was gone. Gone. Because of me. “Good night Moon, I’ll keep the bad dreams away from you.” His words cut into me. Jason was gone. I looked at my hand, the one he always held, the one with the white scar across it. I didn’t feel a lingering warmth there, just the cold.
It’s been four months since Jason left, I didn’t know why I was even trying to sleep. I knew I couldn’t. I got up from the floor, feeling around in the dark for my dresser. I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and wrapped a shawl around my shoulders, covering the tank top I wore to bed. I opened my door without a sound and tiptoed down the hall. I paused at Jason’s door. It had been kept closed since he left but every once in a while I went inside. Tonight was one of those times. I opened the door, imagining Jason that night when he left, wondering what he could have been thinking at that moment. The room was dark, only a beam from the moon shone through his window falling over his bed and along the floor, right in the path of the door.
I looked at the made bed, the desk in order. His clothes picked up off the floor by Ma. It was almost as though this had never been his room, that this was just another empty room. I don’t know why I tortured myself like this. Maybe it was to remind myself that it was my fault he was gone, that this family wasn’t the same anymore. Not that I could have forgotten. Jason’s absence was like an elephant in the room, no one could ignore it or not feel it’s existence. It was like the sun had been blocked and we were all left in the darkness, trying to find our way back to the light.
I closed the door and continued down the hall, down the stairs and out the back door. The smell of the ocean came to me in a light breeze that tickled my cheeks. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed it in. In my room my chest felt constricted, like I couldn’t breathe right, when I was in the house I felt weighted down by Jason’s absence. But out here I felt the closest to free as I could get, without Jason here. I started walking towards the beach, I saw the tide roll in and out, it immediately calmed me, set my heart to a normal pace. The moon light glittered off the water, creating a path straight to the beach almost as if it were calling to me, showing me where I needed to go, where I could be free of all my pain.
I almost followed it, almost let myself submerge into the water, but I didn’t. Because I couldn’t give up on Jason, on the idea that he might come back, that he might still be alive. And I couldn’t let myself take the easy way out. This pain was meant to be felt. The conversation that had changed everything rang in my ears, Jason’s words hitting me and causing my knees to shake.
"Luna I've been in love with you for a long time now but I've been afraid to tell you."
“I was never your brother Luna.”
“…after a while I started realizing that I was in love with you.”
“There’s never been anyone else I cared about as much as I care about you.”
“That’s fine,”
I fell to the sand, the tide only a few feet away, the sound filling my ears and overwhelming my senses. But I could still see Jason’s face, his dirty blond hair falling in his eyes. The smile on his face that wasn’t quite as brilliant as it used to be. The serious look that fell across his face after I had broken his heart. The last time I spoke to him replays inside my mind:
I was walking down the hall to my room and could here Jason following behind to his own room. What he had told me on the beach was still replaying inside my mind, I had to say something to him. When I got to my doorway I turned around, “Jason?”
Jason looked up from his door, “Yeah?”
I swallowed, “Everything is still going to be the same right? We’re still friends, just like before?”
He looked at me and again I got the feeling that I didn’t know Jason at all, “Sure Luna, just like before.”
I watched him, trying to decide if he really meant it or if he was just trying to make me feel better, “Good night Jason.”
“Good night Moon.” He said with a smile, though the smile didn’t quite make it to his eyes. Then he opened his door and left me standing in the hall.
That night I couldn’t fall asleep, the scar on my hand hurt. At the time I had thought it was because of what had happened that afternoon, but really it was because that would be the last time I’d see Jason.
I let myself fall backwards, laying in the slightly damp sand, overcome by the guilt that haunted me every day but came to life in the night. I should have just told him that I loved him too, that I felt the same way. Maybe than he’d still be here and I wouldn’t be wandering out on the beach in the middle of the night.
I stretched my legs out and realized that I had forgotten to put on a pair of shoes. The salt water lapped at my toes, dragging at the cuffs of my jeans. I rubbed my hands across my face trying to wipe away the nightmare that my life had become. I hadn’t cried in a long time but tonight I felt like I might. Like maybe this had all just become too much for me to handle.
I looked up at the dark night, at the stars that shone there. They were never ending, just going on and on above me. Too late I realized that I had done this once before.
“Do you see that little star right there?” Jason asked me, pointing up above us. It was about two months before his fifteenth birthday and we had snuck out to look at the stars.
I squinted, trying to follow his finger. “You mean the one that’s all by itself?”
Jason shook his head and I looked over at him, laying beside me, his left hand wrapped around my right one. He was still looking up at the stars. “It’s not alone Moon, don’t you see the circle of stars surrounding it?”
I turned my attention back to the stars, finding the small one again that looked like it was all alone. I widened my gaze and looked around it, he was right there was a circle of stars around it, almost as if they were protecting the little one. “Yeah, what about it?”
“From now on that’s your star Luna, whenever you feel alone just look up at that star and remember that even though it feels like your alone, there are people watching out for you.” Jason said, looking over at me, his eyes twinkling in the starlight.
For a moment I was mesmerized by the light in his eyes, and the words that he spoke. I looked back up at the star, trying to memorize it’s position. Than I looked tat the stars around it thinking about Jason, Ma, and Dad and how much they all meant to me. I looked back at Jason and found that he was still looking at me, “I don’t need a star to remind me of what I have Jason, not when I have you beside me.”
Jason kept staring at me, almost as if he had something he wanted to say. “When you look up at the stars your right eye looks almost like the same color as your left one.” He said.
“It does?” I asked, covering it with my hand. I always forgot about my eyes, how I was blind in the left one and because of it the iris was silver instead of gray.
Jason took my hand away from my eye and continued, “But when you’re looking at the moon this really light ring of silver appears in the left one and it looks different again.”
“Well, I’m not called Luna because of my gray eye.” I said, unsure of how to reply.
“No,” He said, “you’re not.” Then he cleared his throat and looked back up at the stars.
I felt a tear escape my right eye and let it fall. I blinked and looked up at the stars, trying to find the little star Jason had shown me half a year ago. When I found it I looked at the circle of stars around it, but through my tears I couldn’t see them all, I couldn’t see the one that went into the circle slightly, the one closest to my star. I couldn’t see the star that I thought of as Jason. He was gone from the circle around me. A few more tears escaped and I tried to brush the dampness away. But I knew now that there was no hope of Jason coming back, of things going back to the way the had been before. When everything was just the way it should be.
I wish you were here.