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My heart is a chasm of everything I know and love, and it will always be filled with you.
My chin trembles, realizing he quoted my story, and I didn’t know until now. I clutch the papers tighter, treasuring them a thousand times more. Memories are threads sewn into a magnificent tapestry of life, and following this one teeny string led me back to him.
They all keep leading me back to him.
Donnelly loves me. This me. The Luna of Today. The Luna of Yesterday. And I hope he’ll continue to love the Luna of Tomorrow and each version of me thereafter.
Silently, I read more.
“In time, everything could be destroyed, and your knowledge and love could be strewn elsewhere,” Jocoby feared.
“You will be with me for eternity.” She squeezed harder.
He held her cheek, stared into her depth, feeling her chasm of everything. “Eternity is not long enough.”
I wipe the last of my tears. Those lines mean more to me after losing love and time, but Original Luna couldn’t have known she’d have amnesia. “I wish I knew what you were telling me,” I say to myself. “I have so many questions still.”
Was he your first love?
Was it love at first sight?
Do you think you were star-crossed to end tragically?
Were you hopeful that you’d be together for eternity?
Did you feel like eternity was not long enough?
If I don’t ever get my memories back, I’ll never really know, and the weight of despair tries to bear on me again. I blow out a long, long breath and try to concentrate on what I can control now. Clean my room. Fresh start. Original Luna decorated this space, and though it’s still full of everything I love, I figured it might be good to have my own touches too.
So I declutter my desk, chucking dried out markers, and I feed Moondragon fish flakes. I unspool a string of multicolored fairy lights, and using a rinky-dink ladder, I carefully staplegun them to the molding of my walls. When I reach the Sagittarius tapestry, I hop onto the ground, and I thumb the sketches Donnelly drew for OG Luna that are still tacked up.
I’ll leave those.
The tapestry can go. Maybe I’ll draw on the walls instead. I unfasten the tapestry, and as soon as the fabric cascades to a pool at my feet and I see what it was hiding, my heart begins to race.
“Luna,” I say to myself. “What is this…?”
It looks an awful lot like a vault. A steel safe. Nothing wildly large, just a small nook in the wall. The weirdest thing of all, there is no code. No lock. Just a button.
It’s as though I intended for this to be found.
Goosebumps pimple my skin, and I press the green circle, hearing the spring mechanism before the vault easily swings open.
The cubby is small, and only one thing is shelved. Stepping forward, I seize the nicest bound manuscript among all my printed stories. The pages aren’t stapled together or in a three-ring binder. I must’ve glued the edges in the spine of a hardcase book, but it has no title. Still, I can tell this is my handiwork. Shimmery silver, green, pink, and purple glitter decorate the hardcover.
My heartbeat hasn’t slowed, and with a deep breath, I flip the cover and see the title page, more like a preface.
“Dear Unearthly Reader…” I begin to read the typed font. “One day, possibly millenniums from now when you discover this planet, I imagine you’ll find this story entombed beneath centuries of rubble and heartache.” My voice starts to shake a little. “If it’s buried with my fragile bones, likely you’ll think I’m the strangest creature you’ve ever seen. With my human arms and legs and feet. This story is not just so you’ll understand how often I’ve thought of you—that I’ve wondered what you’d be like…” Tears prick my eyes. “…and if your planet is far better than the one I’ve lived on.”
I choke up, but I push myself to keep reading out loud. “I want you to know who I am. Even if I’m gone.” Silent waterworks stream, but I read more strongly, “This is my story that I hope you’ll find and be able to read. And it’s his.”
I cover my mouth, my hand trembling.
“I couldn’t exclude him,” I read. “You’ll find out why soon enough. The story does not begin with my first breath on Earth. I’ve started at the part that matters the most to me. May you discover something of worth in this text; I hope it finds you well.” I rub at my wet cheeks, my voice cracking. “Somewhere far, far away…Luna Hale.” I squeak out my name.
I turn the next page, but I already know what this is.
I wrote a diary.
Staggering back into my globe chair, I sit and try not to sob on the pages. I wrote a diary. My body heaves in tearful, overcome waves. Before I even devour it whole, I hug the hardcase binding against my chest. It feels like I’m hugging her.
