suitcase heart;

               he’s reading to kill a mockingbird. at least, he’s trying to convince himself that he is. but to be honest with you, he’s been lingering on this page for the last half hour or so. the words are words he’s seen before. back in his days of war, he read this novel religiously; it’s one of the only things he brought with him, and it’s still the same copy to this day. the pages are burnt yellow and the print inked in a heavy, somewhat smudged black from old dampness. no matter how dilapidated and decrepit this book gets, he’ll always know the words like they’re etched in the back of his mind. so why the hell is he stuck? 

            he knows luna. she’s the ring he wears on his right hand, god dammit. and they’ve been together for, god knows how long, and her hair is burnt yellow and sometimes he sees smudged black around her eyes from old tears. but hers is a book he can’t read. not tonight. no, because tonight, he feels so far away. and it’s his fault, mostly. he comes home, blood red eyes, begging to sleep but never quite finding his way into bed. he has new wounds he won’t tell her about. it’s a miracle she hasn’t left him, but they’ve still got the same love to this day. at least, he prays nightly that she does, when they’re both back to back in bed and pretending to sleep.  

             tired, calm ocean eyes look up from the same word to fall into her own. he licks his lips, and the cigarette he’s forgotten that’s been wedged between two digits is singed into the ashtray. it’s mostly eroded, anyway. he shakes his head and sighs heavy, like he’s moving a mountain. 

            She doesn’t know when it got to be this way. When it became so forced. There’s so much love in her heart for him, in her mind, in her body, but he feels so far away. So out of reach. Even now as he sits a measly seven feet away from her, she feels like she can’t go to him. She feels like he doesn’t even want her near anymore. For the longest time, she was understanding and gave him more space than she liked. She didn’t ask questions, but held him close and let him feel safe in her arms. For the longest time, she was just there for him and wished more than anything he’d give just a little. Give her an insight on what to do, on how to help, on what is wrong. But instead he fades. He fades until she can’t see him anymore.

            With those words, she couldn’t help but to slowly lean against the counter, sliding down until she touched the floor. She just sat there, staring at all the things she could clean to distract herself. She could mop the floor, scrub the counters. But it was clean from the night before, along with everything else in the house. The place was spotless, but her mind was far from clean. She rested her arms on her knees and breathed in. Didn’t even bother to exhale for the longest time.

                                      “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

I’d like to think that I was normally good company. Back home when I worked as a volunteer nurse, I was the one who always managed to put a smile on even the grumpiest of old people. But now under the circumstances, I wasn’t sure how to be myself. I wasn’t sure how to carry a conversation with a smile on my lips, because now it was so much harder to force. Not that I had any reason to believe that he was bad company, but my head was somewhere else, stuck in the place I left it back home. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was all kinds of messed up. “That’s nice,” I tell him with a smile, “Did you have fun?” I rubbed my lips together and buried my hands deeper into my pockets. What could I even say? “Uh, yeah. I was.. coming up to see my aunt. Surprising her, actually. But turns out she’s not home, which is why I’m staying at some random motel in the middle of nowhere. I guess you can say I don’t have the greatest luck.”

I put my hands in my pocket and start walking until I hear her voice. i look over my shoulder and it occurs to me that we’re walking different ways. I stop and turn on my heel, chuckling. “Uh, sorry to seem like kind of a know it all, but the outskirts of town is… this way,” I bite my bottom lip. “If you’re going that way, you’re going farther into the city.” She catches up to me and I answer her question from before. “I’m from Indiana. Yeah, just down South. How about you?”

Of course it was the wrong way. I tucked in my bottom lip and simply changed my direction by doing a turn on my heel to follow him. I had a terrible sense of direction, or at least I did when it came to this place. “My bad,” I mumble embarrassingly before sticking my hands in my pockets. I’m not entirely sure what it is about him, but it was surprising to hear that he wasn’t from here. He seemed like a local, a natural form of a New Yorker, but I guess I could sense that look of lost in his eyes that reflected the one in my own. “Indiana? That’s cool. I’m, uh, from Oregon, actually.” It was a considerably longer distance. And when I say longer, I mean clearly on the other side of the country. I decided to change the subject back to him. “What brought you to The Big Apple?”

I sigh deeply, but it’s a fast sigh, as I look around for a moment and then back at her. I guess I’ve been standing at this station for so long that I completely forgot where I was. Or why I was here. I guess you could say I wanted to go home, but I spent so long standing here that I didn’t even buy myself a ticket? What was my excuse? I didn’t even know if I had a home still waiting for me back in Indiana. I look over at her and thin my lips. “Yeah, I was, uh. I was on my way home, then I missed the train, so I’ve just been kind of exploring my options here. Not the same train as you did, but a train. Yeah.” I chuckle, reaching my hand up to rub the back of my neck. There’s a moment of silence before I point towards the staircase leading up to the lobby of the station. “Well, do you, uh, wanna take the lead?”

I gave him a small nod of understanding, though I knew there had to be more to the story. People always said I had a gift for reading people, and right then and there I knew I was reading more than he told me. Of course I wasn’t going to dig deeper or even ask him. We were strangers, and the world held much larger things of importance right now. Maybe I was just looking for a distraction, looking for something to remind me that I’m human again.

Because right now, it doesn’t feel like I am.

“Sure,” I finally say before walking out of the station, absentmindedly pulling down on my beanie in the process. I rubbed my hands together for warmth and looked at both ends of the street. Finally, I turned left and said to him, “This way… I think.” Once he was by my side, I glanced over at him and gave a small smile. “So, where are you from?”

“Kirk Tiberius James,” I say, and I already feel this dopey smile appear on my lips. “Trust me, I - I wish I could say it without saying my whole name, but it’s become this really weird habit. It kind of makes me, uh, a douchebag - but trust me. I’m far from it. What’s your name?”

Would it be rude to say that him being slightly disoriented felt like a relief? Not that I condone anyone to live this way, but at least I knew I wasn’t alone. I watched as he scrambled to pick up- what was that? A candy wrapper? Who knows, but it made me smile. None of that bullshit polite smiles either. I finally smiled warmly at him and began to remember that even though my life seemed to only spiral down, at least there were people kind like him left in this world. I give his hand a shake.

“And the captain of the Enterprise, I guess,” I tease, cracking a smile before finally letting go of his hand and sticking it back into the pocket of my jacket. “I’m Luna. Luna Marie Young. See, now we can both be douche bags.” I bite down on my lip before rocking back and forth on my heels. “What brings you out at this time? Did you miss your train, too? Or were you just waiting for the perfect moment to be someone’s super hero?”

“Well, it’s not like, I’m, you know. Paying for your whole damn ride there,” I say, scratching the back of my head for a moment. We’re still a ways away from each other, so I try and take a couple steps from her, my hands stuffing themselves into my jacket pockets and I bite my bottom lip back. I offer her a shrug. “We can split the fare. Which probably doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but… you can pay me next time, right? I’ll cover it now and you just pay me half next time. And… if your motel’s on the other side of town, I’m on my way over there anyway, ‘cause I’m trying to leave too. New York altogether, actually. So I’ll just drop you off on the way.” I offer her a shrug.

“And anyway, you’re not asking me - I’m offering. I took Lit Theory, I know there’s a difference between that, so.” I try to be funny again, even though I know none of my jokes have been hits with her so far. Maybe just that one. I didn’t know what strung into me to make me so generous all of a sudden, but she had that expression of hopelessness I knew all too well. And I guess it’s just my way of saying thank you to her, for not letting me jump and die when I could’ve. That deserved way more than taxi fare.

“I hate to break it to you, and I’m sure this is the last thing you wanna hear, but, uh…” I inhale sharply. “No cabs are gonna take you all the way across town with just your word for a taxi fare.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being playful or just a smart ass. Either way, he did have a point. I cracked a smile and a small laugh before shaking my head slightly. My fingers pressed the bridge of my nose as I went over possible outcomes of taking his offer. It could work, and I could be sleeping in a bed safe and sound tonight, or he could be luring me into some sort of trap before murdering me. Honestly, at this point, either option felt like the right one against walking around alone in the cold of the night. “I’d have to mail you the money later,” I tell him, “Since.. ya know. Wallet is gone.”

I look over at him but I don’t say anything. I just needed to take a moment to be human again and see who was standing before me offering a helping hand. It didn’t make sense why he wanted to help, because I’ve come to realize that most days people don’t seem to care for strangers. People seem to never be the hero you’d hope for them to be. Narrowing my eyes, I inhaled and said, “I don’t even know your name.”

But then it makes sense. She looks like the type of girl who has everything together, a collected organization that I envy every time I see it in someone. Still, it’s no good that she got her purse stolen from her and has no way home. I sigh, looking down and kicking my feet before I look back up and swipe the sleeve of my shirt along my nose a little. It’s winter; I’ve got a runny nose. I sniffle. “How far into the outskirts?” I ask. I have this idea to maybe help her. I don’t know why, but I felt for some reason like I wouldn’t have been okay with myself if I just walked away and let that be that. I always want to help. “I’m just sayin’, cause, uh. I’m goin’…. I’m on my way home too, and it’s late, and I wouldn’t want you walkin’ out on the streets alone, you know. We could be going the same direction. I could at least help you get a cab or something.”

“Not your fault,” I reply simply with the hint of a smile. I guess I was feeling pretty apathetic, which is something I try to never feel but under the circumstances it was pretty hard to ignore. I was getting ready to walk away and go off into the night to contemplate my heinous life choices until he spoke again. I had to admit that I was a little confused as to why he was so eager to help me. Of course a female my age would be quick to assume that the stranger was being nothing more than creepy, but I saw a kindness in his eyes. Or maybe I’m just really gulliable.

I bite down on my bottom lip and look back at the way I was planning on walking – was it the right way, even? I had no clue. I was so turned around, tired, and feeling more and more hopeless by the second. I looked back at him. “To be honest, I’m not too sure. I told the front desk person over the phone where I was and he said they were on the other side of the city. It’s just a cheap motel, it’s all I could afford.” Too much information, Luna. “I really appreciate your help but I’m sure my destination is much farther than yours. Plus, I have no money for a cab and I don’t want to ask you for that. I’m not going to ask you for that.”

“Well,” I started, “I’ve been here for just a day and I can already see that this city has it out to get me.” I pulled on my beanie as I made it further up the steps and I couldn’t help but to wonder if he would follow. My eyes scanned the area as if the night was going to give me some sort of answer my brain couldn’t. What was I going to do? My hotel was on the outskirts of the city, I had no money for cab fare. I was stuck in the middle of it all, and I was beginning to regret ever running away to this retread city.

“I mean, uh…” I trail off for a moment, looking out at the tunnel for the trains before glancing over at her again. I smile a little softly, almost gawky. “Was that train your only way home or somethin’? How far away are you?”

I bite down on my bottom lip out of nervous habit, and I had to admit it was pretty hard keeping it all together. Normally I was good in times of chaos, but now I was alone in a strange city five times larger than my small home town back in Oregon. I was petrified. “Yeah. I had reservations for this hotel.. it’s nearly on the outskirts of the city, practically somewhere else because all the other hotels were booked or out of my price range.” I couldn’t help but to drop down on one of the steps, taking off my beanie once again and twisting it in my hands. “No money, no purse, no train.”

Oh, she’s all the way over there. I sigh, deciding I should probably just make my way…. somewhere. I couldn’t say home. I’d already been taking up too much of Joey’s time, and God knows he needs that more than anything, being busy with his architecture stuff and all. I start to head upstairs when I hear her speaking to herself. She’s in closer range now. I turn on my heels again and pretend like I’ve just been pacing up and down the stairs. How I think that’s going to make me look cool, I don’t know, but it’s my only save. 

I lick my lips and look over at her. “It’s not all that bad, you know. There’s just pollution and bad hot dogs, and…. Times Square is so dirty, too. But it’s not all that bad.” Hopefully she could sense my tone. 

“Well,” I started, “I’ve been here for just a day and I can already see that this city has it out to get me.” I pulled on my beanie as I made it further up the steps and I couldn’t help but to wonder if he would follow. My eyes scanned the area as if the night was going to give me some sort of answer my brain couldn’t. What was I going to do? My hotel was on the outskirts of the city, I had no money for cab fare. I was stuck in the middle of it all, and I was beginning to regret ever running away to this retread city.

I chuckle. “Uh, yeah. That’s fine. I can do that. The conductor’s my buddy. I got him on speed dial.” I pull out my phone, raising it to show her, but to my own shitty luck, it’s dead. “Ah. Crap. Uhh… sorry,” I duck my head, stuffing my phone back in my pocket. “Bad attempt at an equally bad joke.”

I crack a smile, nonetheless, but it wasn’t long till I let it fall as I stared off in the direction my train was headed. “Across town… I think,” I sigh, “I’m not from here.” Holding up my finger to properly excuse myself, I picked up my beanie before walking over to a man who appeared to work here. I asked if there were any other trains, any other stations, any other possibility of getting where I needed to be and I was yet greeted with ideas that didn’t work for me. I turned back to the stranger who lurked in the station, which brought me to the question of why he was there. He said it himself that my train was the last one, so what was his purpose? I decided not to ask. “Great,” I say dryly and spoke more to myself than anyone, “No purse, no way of getting to my hotel… You know, I’m starting to think New York is overrated.”

Well, kid, you had a good run.

I don’t wanna say it was your best, because then, I’d be kind of lying to you, and you’d know it, because you feel like shit. Don’t you? 

But you had a good run. Tried pretty hard. There were days you could’ve tried harder, really, but better, bigger things were on your mind, like what ramen’d taste like if you put a cheese packet on it from some Kraft, or what sort of dinosaur you’d be if you lived in that time. Or, you know, a time where that was important. 

Looking back at it, you did everything you could have done, but life made it so that none of that even mattered at the end. And that’s a shitty fucking thing to do of life, isn’t it? Matter of fact, you should probably just step away from that platform and go over to life and kick it’s ass. Everyone knows you could. 

But you don’t think so. And that’s why you’re standing there now, is it? Because, even before you even said a word to life, it went ahead and kicked your ass anyway. You didn’t even provoke it. 

So that leads to you being here. Well, me being here. 

Talking that way gives me a headache. Or, should I say thinking? There’s no one around; the last train’s left and all and the next one is just about to pull up. Grand Central Station is empty, nothing but ghosts, and it’s just me, so I could be talking out loud, but… 

Some of this stuff’s just hard to say. 

Like, I can’t believe I’ve given up on myself. I left Indiana on some weird spirit journey after I got fired from my job, dropped out of college - and ended up here, where I am now, in New York, searching for a purpose. It’s so stupid how I thought it was all going to pull together for me, like a movie. But most movies don’t end with a guy standing on a platform, about to step off, contemplating suicide and the taste of cheesy ramen. 

But this is what life is. And there’s no turning back now. 

I take one step - no, I don’t even take a step, I just lift my damn foot - before I hear a rather infuriated woman barking at the train that’s just pulled away. Swiftly, surprisingly, I turn on my heel to face her and step away from the platform as much as possible. The next train’s just starting to appear, only passing by. 

“Uhh…” I approach her, rubbing the back of my neck. Did she see me? How’d she even get there? The fuck? “Can I help you?”

Of course, I can’t say I enjoyed it. I can’t say I enjoy anything, but I guess that to be expected. If anything, I felt disoriented, dizzy, and overall numb. I was always two steps ahead in my thoughts, always one to plan out my moves before I make them. Now here I was wandering the streets of New York City in search of refuge after getting my purse stolen. I thought I was lucky enough to have made hotel arrangements beforehand, but as I watched my train pull out of the station without me on it… it was then I was certain the world was against me.

“Stop,” I yell, though I don’t really know why. I run after it for a moment before finally coming to my senses and stopping. “God dammit!” I pulled my beanie off and threw it on the ground in angry defeat. I hated this feeling inside of me, this feeling of hopelessness. A voice called out to me, and it was then I realized I wasn’t alone. I turned to look at a man a little ways down on the platform. I rubbed my lips while inhaling deeply as I felt a little embarrassed he had to see me like that. I was never like this.

Pointing towards the train, I dropped my hands to the side with a sigh. “If you can get it to come back, that’d be awesome.” But of course he can’t, so I let out a halfhearted chuckle and it’s almost too obvious that I’m forcing it.

I reach my hand out for her to shake, smiling. “Nice to meet you, I’m Robbie. Robbie Hart,” I say with a nod. I feel too much like a businessman. Who says their last name, nowadays? I pull back with a chuckle, licking my lips before looking around, searching for wherever she might have been originally. When I don’t see a dog or a boyfriend or anything like that, I look over and ask her a question, “You enjoying the day?” 

“Robbie Hart,” I repeated with a small smile, “Young. Luna Young.” I wanted to join in on the last name party. “Nice to meet you.” I decided not to comment about his name and my random infatuation with it. Instead, I smiled and put my thumb through one of my belt loops. He probably thought I was so strange for sticking around, especially when he seemed genuinely embarrassed for hitting me with a paper airplane. “It’s going alright,” I spoke truthfully without the details. I smiled warmly and asked, “How about you? Guess you’re pretty bored if you’re throwing paper airplanes at the beach.”

I haven’t met anyone significant over the past couple of weeks in New York. Those I’ve tried to befriend have been less than kind to me - probably something about that ‘locals being really mean to tourists’ thing, but I’m not a tourist. Am I? God. Either way, the last thing I want is to scare away someone who might actually be nice to me - but I’m afraid I already did. Other than the couple friends I made on my way to the train station, I’m as lonely as I’ve ever been. “Are you okay, by the way?” I ask, after having forgotten to earlier.

This was my cue to part, go on with my day and let him enjoy throwing the plane at another bystander. But I didn’t. Instead, I lingered.. and I’m not too sure why. Maybe I was tired of being alone with nothing but my thoughts that mixed in with the sound of waves crashing and drawing back to sea. “I might have a concussion, paper cut or two… but I’ll think I’ll make it,” I joked once more and laughed to myself. “I’m Luna, by the way.” Why did I introduce myself? It’s not like he needed my name for insurance reasons or something. It just sort of slipped.

I have no idea what I was thinking when I decided to come out here. Left my job and everything. Left my girlfriend, which is one of the few things I’m glad about lately - but still. It feels like everything I’ve ever worked for in the past twenty-something years have completely vanished just because I took one step out of that damn small town. 

When I came out here, I was expecting my dream to sort of… just fall into my lap all at once. I didn’t think much of it when I left; I knew that I had bigger things waiting for me. My becoming into the person I’ve always wanted to be has been long overdue, and I knew, somehow, in my gut, that I was finally going to be that person once I arrived in New York. 

But things have been quiet. I’ve already been here for a couple of weeks, and I rented out some small apartment by the subway (no, not the sandwich chain, the actual subway) so I could have easy access into exploration while I searched for… well, me. And one of the very first things that I did was march into Life Magazine and demand an application - or, realistically speaking, I politely asked the receptionist for an application, but there’s no heroism in that. I demanded an application then came home and immediately started to fill it out. 

And I thought I knew. I thought I would have enough determination, enough juice, enough adrenaline in my body that I could finish it and send it in and be done with it. But when the questions came to be far more complex than previous work experience, I had nothing to offer. 

It’s been two weeks and I still don’t have anything to offer. 

I decide to take the application with me on my walk around the beach, hoping that exploring the more unexpected parts of the city will spark my memory and I would finally have some accomplishments to write down. I sprawl out my lawn chair before taking a seat, looking out at the shore. It’s gorgeous, but I don’t see any of my achievements in it. 

Out of boredom, and at this point possibly seeking a distraction from the burden of writing my answers, I fold one of my blank pieces of paper into an airplane and fly it out into the sand. I didn’t expect for it to hit someone - I sort of just expected it to make its sad little journey and crash and burn somewhere - but when it did, I was quick to put on my shades and act like it wasn’t me. 

It made me think back to the fishing trips I took with my father and brother as a kid. It was the only time we all lived in harmony, and that’s probably because of the ocean. There’s something about it for everyone to enjoy, for everyone to admire. It’s hard to feel anything but happiness around it. So, I guess that’s why I wasn’t feeling so blue. Just a certain kind of warmth that the sun couldn’t give me.

I brought my old camera with a new thing of film inside and settled on sitting in the sand while taking random shots of the view. I figured I could develop them and make something out of the simple pictures- maybe put them in my scrap book or make something creative for Jay. She loved the beach more than I did. But my thoughts were suddenly elsewhere when I felt a somewhat sharp object ram right into my head. “What the..” I mumbled, reaching over to pick up a perfectly folded paper airplane. Even though it was paper, that sucker had a point. I looked all around me considering all the children on the beach seemed to be in the water, but that’s when my eyes landed on a man who seemed to be looking everywhere but at me. That made me want to mess with him, of course.

I got up and brushed the sand off my shorts before walking over to him. I smiled and pulled my glasses up to rest on my head before handing him the airplane. “Think this might belong to you,” I told him with a chuckle, “Great aim, by the way. I’ve been told my head makes a great landing strip.”