in high school, Holly and Endymion dated and often couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It’s obvious that hasn’t changed.
A piercing ache settles in my chest, making it hard to breathe. It feels as if someone is taking an ice pick to all my vital organs and jabbing, tearing open my flesh and letting me bleed out.
I can’t believe I actually thought one stupid conversation between us tonight would turn into something more, something I’ve always dreamed of, but of course, that didn’t happen. This isn’t like the grand scenes in the books I read or the swoony moments in my favorite movies. This is real life, and it fucking sucks.
Grappling for the moon chain around my neck, I tighten my fist around the crescent shape and slam my lips together, holding in the sob that threatens to escape. I let my gaze linger for a few seconds longer before I turn on my heels, nursing my broken heart.
The entire walk back home on my fifteenth birthday is spent with hot trails of tears carving their way down my cheeks as I feel sorry for myself. I tell myself it doesn’t change things. I tell myself it just isn’t our time, but the little voice inside my head knows better.
Endymion and I were ill-fated and doomed from the start. I should’ve figured it out sooner, what with all the mythology I read, but I get it now. We are star-crossed lovers, never meant to be. He is the sun, and I am the moon. I’ll always chase him, and he’ll always run.
I wonder if there will ever be a day when he’ll chase the moon?
July 2014—Past
It’s my eighteenth birthday, and I’m off to college in just a few days. As far away a college I can get in order to escape my parents and their bickering. Pasadena is almost a whopping ten hours away, and I couldn’t be more relieved. I got into Caltech and had a grant and a scholarship. It wasn’t a full ride, like my parents had hoped, but they promised they’d figure it out financially. I, of course, planned on finding a part-time job out there, once I was settled, to help with the costs.
I’ve spent years listening, years pretending everything is okay in our home, but it’s not. Couples who love each other don’t act like my parents do. I don’t even know what love looks like. I don’t have anything to go off of, but I know with utmost certainty, their marriage isn’t it. Don’t get me wrong, they have their good days, the days when they’re cordial and they seem to get along well enough. But that’s all it really is. It’s a façade. It’s the surface of their relationship. It’s what they want everyone else in town to see and believe. I’m the only one who truly knows what their relationship is like. I know that Mom, at least five times a day, when my dad isn’t around, tells me to never, ever get married. She always says, offhandedly, that she wishes she wasn’t married. And my dad, well, he’s not really any better. I think a part of him is lonely, and I don’t really blame him, but I do wish I hadn’t heard some of the stuff I did. A few years back, I heard him speaking in hushed tones on the phone one night.
I only know this because I was sneaking back inside from Julia’s house after curfew. It was obvious he was speaking to a woman who wasn’t my mother. I was angry at first, but then the next morning, when my parents’ argument cycle started all over, it definitely made sense. I still don’t know why they don’t just get a divorce. They can’t stand to be in a room together for longer than ten minutes at a time, and I refuse to believe I am the reason they are still pretending to be a happily married couple.
I’m relieved to be headed off to college, and that, I am sure of. I don’t know how my parents will survive with just the two of them once I’m gone, but I hope to God they’ll somehow figure it out.
Without having to worry about impressing anyone in high school, since Endymion graduated years prior, I’ve focused all my attention and energy on academics. My crush on him never wavered, and no other boy my age ever came close. I had a few boyfriends here and there, obviously at