Part Seven

The Girl Who Loved The Moon
Part Seven

I sat on the stoop of my house. It was Monday. Mom and Dad didn't punish me too much, they just grounded me for a few days. I was more disappointed than I normally would. Brian went away to sleep away camp, Mom and Dad worked, and Jenni had pre-school. I was alone at home in the summer. I didn't want to go to camp. But now I wished I had.

"Hey Caroline." I heard. I jumped. It was Joanna. She had sat down beside me. With my preoccupied mind, I hadn't noticed her.

"Oh, hi Joanna." I said. She smiled at me. She was holding a pen. I realized that it was my pen, the pen I had taken with me when I decided to try to go out of my home, and travel. I looked at it curiously. "Where did you find that?"

"It was on the side of the street." Joanna said innocently. I had a feeling she knew more than she was telling. Well, two could play that game.

"Oh, okay. What are you doing over the summer?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"What can I do?"

"Oh, right. But, don't you work?"

"Yea, but I'm off for today."

"Oh."

"So, where were you yesterday? I didn't see you?" There she went, off where I didn't want her to go. Oh well. I told her where I had gone, what I had done.

"Oh." She said. "But why? You have a place to live."

"Yea, I realized that, thats why I came back."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, go ahead." I said, bracing myself for whatever it might be.

"What do you have to live for?" I had not been expecting that.

"Well, my family, I guess. My mother and father, my brother and sister. They
would be so sad without me." I answered as honestly as I could.

"Would they die if you did? Like my parents?" She asked. Her face was turned towards mine. Her expression was flawless. I could not tell what she was feeling right now.

"No. They would keep living for my siblings, and each other. They would know that I am gone, and even if they would want to join me, they would wait until it was their turn." I didn't know how I knew that, but I did. I told her exactly what I thought.

"Have you ever loved someone enough to die for them?" She asked.

"Well, I don't think so. My life has been pretty simple. No one I know has died, and if they did, I would be pretty sad, but I wouldn't die just because of that."

"The only thing I love enough to die for is the moon. I do not know much about the moon. I don't know if it can die, even if it is really alive. I don't know if it can disappear. I only know that it has been there every night I have been alive. Every night, I was able to see it. But if it died, I would die too." Joanna spoke with such sincerity, it almost made me cry. I knew more about the moon than her, but I didn't think she would want to hear that. But what would happen in two days?