For three nights, she stayed with him, and the moon, unable to catch the sun’s rays, remained dark. People feared the dark moon. They said it brought death and freed evil forces to roam the black night. Zeus, king of the gods, was angered by the darkness and punished Selene by giving Endymion eternal sleep. Selene returned to the moon and drove it across the night sky, but her love was too strong. She hid Endymion in a cave, and now, for three nights each lunar month, she leaves the moon to visit her sleeping lover and cover him with silver kisses. In his sleep, Endymion dreams he holds the moon.”
July 2007
I fell in love when I was just eleven years old. All it took was one glance, three unsteady breaths, and five measly seconds to turn me to putty. There was a foreign swarm of butterflies so powerful it made me nauseous. My heartbeats were irregular, and since then, nothing in my life has been the same.
The first time I laid eyes on Endymion Black, I fell irrevocably in love with him. He was an enigma in our town—the stranger everyone wanted a piece of. On his fifteenth birthday, he moved to Dunsmuir, a small town in California, and he turned the quiet, familiar place upside down.
I remember that first day like it was yesterday. The moment has ingrained itself in the deepest depths of my mind, playing on a constant loop. Even now, just thinking about it lights a fire in my soul.
My dad and I were at the grocery store picking out a dessert for my birthday. Each year, my dad would drive me to the local Grab-N-Go, and I’d head to the bakery section to find the best-looking cake. And each year, it was always the same. A triple chocolate cake with my name written in pink icing. That was another thing I’d later realize would connect me to Endymion. Among a handful of other things, we shared the same birthday—July twenty-second.
As always, Mom and Dad were fighting, so when he took me to the grocery store, it was really just an excuse to get away from my mother. I don’t remember a time in my life when my parents weren’t at each other’s throats. They pretty much hated each other’s guts. They were always shouting, always arguing about bills and money, and to make matters worse, they didn’t even sleep in the same room at night. Surprisingly, they never laid a hand on each other, but sometimes, when I went to bed, I wondered what would happen if I wasn’t there. Would they even be together anymore?
Did I even want them to be together anymore?
I think there’s a point in every child’s life when they want their parents to stay together forever, even if the discussion of separation or divorce is on the table. I was past that point. I just wanted the fighting to stop and wanted them to be happy, even if that meant separately. I wanted a normal childhood instead of this farce of one I’d been given. Just one peaceful night when I didn’t have to listen to my iPod on full blast to block out their arguing. I didn’t want to take sides. I didn’t want any part of it.
Dad split up with me at the grocery store, opting to get a pack of beer and letting me head toward the bakery. The glass display cases were in sight when I spotted him. With broad shoulders and muscles in his back that my dad didn’t even have anymore, I paused in the middle of the aisle and stared at the stranger in an odd state of shock. It rolled through my body in waves, paralyzing me. I was positive he was the most handsome boy I’d ever seen, just from what I saw looking at the back of him.
He had light brown hair, long and messy at the top. It was styled in the I-just-showered-and-I’m-too-cool-for-school look. He was dressed casually in a plain white T-shirt and jeans. With a mind of their own, my feet inched closer and closer until I was standing in front of the packaged danishes. Using the shelf and packaged goods display as a hiding spot, I peered around, stealing glances at him. He was browsing the cakes inside the glass.
Just like I was supposed to be doing.
Even Mrs. Cahill, as she pushed through the doors from the back kitchen, stopped short at the handsome teen before