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“Are you staying for dinner?” Luna asks, hopeful.
It’s her fledgling, baby bird sort of hope that makes me wish I could say yes. A thousand of ‘em. I try to give her a smile. “Not tonight.”
“I can go with you. Back to the penthouse.”
“No, you should have dinner with your family.” I want her to be here. I can’t take her from them. “I’ll see you later.” I hand her the sketch.
With one pen stroke, I drew her and me intertwined and making out. One line that never ends. Stars and planets circle the sketch of us.
While Luna is gingerly clutching the sketch with two hands like she’s been given a treasure, I stand and hop onto a lower part of the roof, then I slide down the drainpipe.
I walk backwards towards the darkened yard, staring up at Luna Hale on the roof.
“Why’d you give this to me?!” she calls down, almost leaning forward.
“‘Cause that’s what I imagine in the end,” I grin, pulling out a cigarette. “You and me and our galaxy. And maybe I don’t want you to forget it.”
“I never will,” she says so mightily—you’d think she was born of superheroes.
My grin reverberates inside me, and as I walk further away from the Hale House, I fit my cigarette between my lips and take one last glance back at Luna.
She stays on the roof, still clung to the image of me. Not the sketch. This me. The one standing on the grass, looking back at her. Her eyes squint, fighting to see me in the dark. Her shoulders arch and neck extends.
Searching for me. Afraid of me disappearing. I almost call back out. I almost tell her that she shouldn’t be scared. Because that’s the thing about Donnellys.
We’re impossible to get rid of.
