I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I knew I was right—didn’t want to be right, but knew I was. She was gone. She was gone, and it was my fault. All my fault.
I’d gotten in the habit of repeating things for emphasis when I talked to people.
“It’s really cold outside,” I’d say to my mother. “Really cold.”
My mother, usually so alert for signs that I might be losing my mind or growing a third eye, hadn’t noticed. It must have had something to do with the alcohol I kept finding around the house.
My parents weren’t mean, they were just normal. Yeah sure my mother was a recovering alcoholic and the “recovery” part wasn’t working out so well, but who hasn’t heard that one before? My grandfather used to tell me all the time to think of myself as the star of the movie of my own life. But there were hundreds of other movies just like mine—no one, not even me, would pay a nickel to see my life story. I was boring.
Luna, on the other hand. Phew. Even her name was a moneymaker. All that bullshit about “everybody being different” only seemed to apply to her. She was different than anybody else I had ever known, and somehow when I was around her, I felt the same way about myself. I didn’t feel like a loser anymore, I felt like Oliver, Oliver Martin, rather than ‘a boy.’
Luna was really smart. You wouldn’t know it if you saw her; people always assume she’s a ditz. She’s blonde and never looks like she’s “all there.” But that’s just because she’s Luna.
In preschool, she was the only one who could count higher than 20. She could count all the way up to infinity. She told me, back when we were four years old, she told me that she could count the grains of sand on a beach, or the blades of grass on a lawn, or the stars in the sky.
“Ollie,” she would say. “Bring me that leaf over there.”
And when I’d brought it to her, she’d tell me all sorts of things about that one little leaf. About how old it was and why it was green and what kind of tree it was from. And then she’d ask me where I’d gotten the leaf.
“From that tree,” I’d tell her.
And her face would grow white and her eyes, though already as big as quarters would grow so wide that I could see the moon in them.
“You picked it off a tree?”
I’d nod. Her eyes would start to sparkle like the dew I saw on the grass when I looked out my window every morning.
“How would you like it if I ripped off your finger?” She’d demand. “Or tore out your hair? Huh?”
And I’d sit there, watching her tears cascade down her cheeks and land on her jeans. And I wouldn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. There was no way to comfort a girl like Luna, the same way there was no way to attach a leaf back on a tree after you’d torn it off.
And after she’d calmed down a little, she’d look up at me, her eyes two clean, white pearls in the middle of dirty tearstains. “Ollie,” she’d say. “O, don’t hurt trees anymore.”
And I’d nod, my eyes as wide as saucers. And then a week later, the whole episode would be repeated.
As we got older, we got closer.
It’s impossible, my mother used to say to my father, for them to spend any more time with each other than they already do.
Usually she slept at my house, her warm body snuggled against mine, her silky hair brushing my cheek. My parents thought it odd but they never protested. I got grumpy if I went too long without seeing her. She knew me inside and out, she understood me better than I understood myself. When she wasn’t around, I wasn’t entirely sure exactly who I was.
People at school were used to us coming in together, holding hands. They all pretended to believe us when we told them we weren’t dating, that we never had and never would, but I knew they all secretly thought so.
She was so beautiful. Her hair was long and silvery blonde, all the way down to the top of her waist. Her eyes were green and turned purple in the right light. She was porcelain-skinned, which no one could understand because she spent so much time in the sun. She was tall and slender and had a ballerina’s posture because she used to dance 20 hours a week up until last year when she quit.
“Oliver,” she’d said to me one night as we lay out in my 7 acre backyard. My head was in her lap and she’d been dipping her feet in the stream as she gently stroked my hair. I had a horrible cold. “Oliver,” she said again.
“Yes?” I blinked up at her.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
I rolled my eyes. “Loo, you’re ugly. Please get over it.”
She smiled, a little sadly, and looked out over the fields. “Kurt Jenson wants to date me,” she said, looking back down at me.
I snorted. “Kurt Jenson wants to fuck you, is what he wants to do.”
“Do you really think so?”
Luna often used phrases that most people only used when they were being sarcastic. But Luna was never sarcastic. She felt like she was lying to people, saying one thing and meaning another.
“Yes, beautiful. I know so.”
She slapped my cheek playfully. I sat up and pecked her cheek. We looked at each other for a long time, the wind lifting strands of her hair and dancing around with them until they parachuted back down to her shoulders and new ones took their place. She put her hand lightly on my cheek, her eyes welling up with tears that I had ignored.
And before I even thought about what I was doing, I was on top of her, our lips pressing together hungrily. She wrapped her leg around my waist and moaned softly and my breathing got quicker and quicker and my heart pounded faster and faster.
She was so beautiful, this girl. My best friend. My only true friend, really. The one who knew me better than I knew myself and the girl I’d spent a majority of my life with. Of course I loved her, I’d known that for a long time. But I hadn’t realized I loved her like this.
I knew she wanted me to stop. You couldn’t tell physically, no sir. But I knew Luna and I knew that she was scared of feeling like this.
When it was over and I rolled off her, breathing hoarsely, she slid back into her dress and stood up quickly.
“Loo…” I said, exhausted. “Loo, please. Stay.”
She just looked at me, wiping her eyes stubbornly, then turned abruptly on her heel and left me lying there alone in the grass.
That was three days ago. The next time I saw her she was in the paper. They showed her junior year school picture along with the story.
It was big news in my small town, a girl hanging herself. No one could figure out why. She was beautiful, smart, had a family that adored her, and the best kind of best friend. Except the last part wasn't true. It was my fault she’d hung herself from the stairwell outside her room. The stairwell where we first held hands, where I first told her that I had a crush on our chemistry teacher. Luna was gone, and it was ripping my heart into shreds.
