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"Waiting for Luna." Her eyes darken at this, clearly displeased with my answer. "What're you doing here?" I ask after a minute when her stare becomes too much.
She nods toward the beach. "I'm meeting Lori down at the beach. Do you want to come hang out with us? We're just going for a little while, then maybe go down to Mickey's Diner afterward."
Didn't I just tell her I'm waiting for Luna?
"Uh, I'm waiting for Luna." My tone comes out less friendly this time. My eyes narrow as I watch her.
She lets out an unsure smirk, pulling at the ends of her hair while she lets out a breathless giggle. "Yeah, but, she's not here right now, is she? Didn't you, like, grow up with the kid? Isn't she like a baby sister to you or something?"
I'm shaking my head before she can even finish her sentence. "I'll pass, and she's not a baby sister." Not in the slightest. Furthest thing from it, actually. I've been watching her straight, lanky body pop with small curves this last year. I've been watching her chest grow, to her embarrassment. Her mom and sister had to go with her to buy some training bras. I pretend that they don't exist, because if I do, I'm going to want to cross a boundary we've never even treaded on.
Trust me, I've wanted to cross that line since I hit seventh grade. When I knew what girls and boys really are. What my parents do when my dad isn't on tour. How babies are made. The thrumming between my legs turned torturous as Luna has gotten older. She's fucking beautiful. She always has been.
"Well…" she digs in her purse and pulls out a scrap of paper and a pencil. Scribbling on it, she sticks it in my palm. Her fingers are tiny and warm as they wrap around mine. She closes my hand, and the paper crumples in my fist. "Here's my number. Call me if you change your mind." She starts to walk away, then pauses, turning around to stare at me. "I don't want to be mean, but what do you see in her? She looks kind of weird, doesn't she? Her dark hair and her gray eyes. Some people think she's a witch."
Disgust and rage light in my chest as I turn away from her. I bet it's the girls that say that, since I've been threatening the guys ever since Duncan in second grade. They all think she's pretty, so I bet if someone has a problem with her, it's one of Cindy’s immature friends.
A flash of color catches my eyes. I look up, seeing Luna walking this way. She's in a blue leotard with pink leggings underneath. Her hair that she's kept long, even after all these years, has been taken out of her tight bun. It falls down her shoulders in a messy heap, with the slightest wave on the top of her head where the ponytail made a kink.
And she's barefoot.
Since the moment she moved here, she prefers to be barefoot. I think at this point, her feet are stronger than mine. I remember back to when we just met, I was always barefoot, and she thought it was the oddest thing. She started copying me, and within a few days she had blisters and bruises and cuts and scrapes worse than mine have ever been, but she's never looked back.
She has her headphones on over her head and her cassette tape. Her head bobs back and forth and it's like she's floating, more than walking, down the sidewalk.
Hippy.
She's followed in her parents’ footsteps in that regard. Where I'd rather listen to Black Sabbath and AC/DC, she'd rather be listening to John Lennon or The Beatles.
"She's everything," I mumble, barely paying any attention to Cindy as I walk away from her and toward Luna. It's like the sun directly shines on her. No matter where she is, no matter what kind of day it is, she has a brightness around her, making her black hair shine and her gray eyes glow. She's unlike anyone I've ever seen, ever met. She drew me in the first moment I met her, and I've never wanted to walk away. I don't think I'd ever be able to, if given the chance.
She notices me as I cross the street. Lowering her headphones, she asks,“Hey, what’re you doing here?”
“I was going to see if you wanted to hang out?” I ask, suddenly unsure.Why do I feel unsure?
She looks at me a moment, then shrugs. “Sure, why not? What did you want to do?”
I shrug. I never got to that point in my plans. I just wanted to be around her. “Whatever.”
She laughs, and we start walking home. I've thankfully sprouted in height over the last couple of years, and now I'm almost at six feet, finally towering over Luna. It took years, and she kept growing, but one morning I woke up and I was suddenly too long for my clothes.
Now instead of looking up at Luna, I get to look down at her.
"What's wrong?" I ask her once we make it to our street. Her ballet slippers dangle in her fingers, the ribbons wrapped around her wrists, so they don't drag on the ground.
"I don't want school to start." She pouts.
I don't want school to start either, because I don't want to go to school without her.
"Why? It'll be just another school year for you. For me it'll be totally different. I'll be the small fish in the big pond."
She scoffs. "You'll be fine. I'm the one that has to go through a whole year without you." Her voice rings with a sadness I didn't expect. We're in a different grade, so we never have any classes together anyway, and barely see each other unless it's in passing or at lunch. But I’m realizing her sadness runs deep.
She's sad.
I can feel that she's sad all the way to her bones.
I stop us in the middle of the street, the hot wind blowing at my back as I wrap my arms around her. Her arms fold in front of me, her slippers squishing against my chest and her face burrows deep into my neck. I can feel her inhale me, breathe me in. I do the same, burrowing my face in her hair, inhaling her floral scent. She smells like vanilla and flowers with a hint of marijuana that her parents are always smoking in their house.
