After all, everyone had warned the moon about this, her parents, her best friend Lo and especially her older sister Europa.
"Look out", they'd said, "Someday you will meet someone, someone you'll really like, who will completely change you and ruin you and then leave you broken and all alone. Remember my words, Moon. It's only a matter of time."
Moon had feared that day all her life. She didn't want to be changed; she didn't want to be broken! Could the universe really do something so cruel to her?
She didn't want to believe this, a part of her knew that maybe, love wasn't all bad, but somehow, she ended up hiding away all her life.
The moon stayed away from other kids and listened to music most of the time, became anxious as soon as she had to contribute to class discussion or talk to the cashier in the supermarket. What if somebody would fall in love with her, change, ruin, break and leave her?
She locked herself away. Felt herself fade and grow darker, and she didn't even care. She was just glad that it hadn't happened yet. That she was still herself.
Moon managed to hide herself for many, many years.
But love found the Moon at some point, when she least expected it.
She was 19, and she was moving out of her parents’ house and in with another girl, Earth. They had been getting coffee together every other week for some time now, and Moon as pretty sure they were friends. She wasn't good at stuff like this, but she was pretty sure.
Earth and Moon were going to the same university and were majoring in the same classes, (art history and astrology/science something) and they got along pretty well so it was just logical.
Earth picked Moon and her two suitcases up in her mom's blue-green car on an overcast September day, and she opened the car door for her.
"You ready to go?" Earth asked when Moon as in the car, and Moon nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. She wasn't sure, but she didn't want Earth to know that.
Earth really didn't need to know how anxious Moon was about leaving her parents, how unsure if it was the right thing to do.
After all, her parents had protected her all her life. Kept her safe and on track and hidden from that cruel, cruel universe she lived in.
Was Moon really ready to leave all that behind?
Suddenly, she felt Earth's warm hand in her own, making her skin tingle and her had swim as she jumped, snapping her head to look at Earth with wide, grey eyes.
"Don't be scared. It's okay. I'm here."
Earth was smiling softly, almost shyly, and it was in that moment that Moon's heart skipped a beat. And she realized how beautiful Earth's deep blue eyes were, how soft her brown, long, curls looked. That she had a couple of stray freckles dotting her cheeks, right below the thick, lower rim of her glasses, and how she faintly smelled like soil and gardens, a little more human than the rest of the people Moon had ever met.
"Don't leave, then." Moon breathed before she knew what was happening and Earth's smile widened.
"I won't." she said, and then she was turning the ignition key and they were flying down the street.
And Moon asked herself what she had been so afraid of all her life.
A little more human than the rest of us
A short story by @nordpolkind || @sticks-and-thrones || @poemistkiddo
For @john-laurens-was-super-gay and all my siblings from the Psychosquad because well, Dad, you asked for this and it actually kind of helped, thank you!!
