< - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Another World
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Fire
By Lois Fogg
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Chapter Seven
Blood Moon
I woke up violently to the feeling of someone splashing cold water on my face.
As I opened my eyes I was surprised to see Lita’s face directly above mine.
Amy, Mina and Raye were behind her. For one joyous second I could not remember
what had happened. When I glanced at Raye, though, looking guilty and scared,
it all came crashing back. I groaned.
“Are you all right?” Lita asked, helping me sit up. I refused to look at Raye,
whose face I was sure held a look of glowing triumph. Instead, I buried my head
in Lita’s chest and began to sob uncontrollably. This entire situation was
getting out of hand. I couldn’t seem to get control of myself, and every time I
thought I could, Darien went and did something else to make me even more upset.
Lita must have figured out what happened, because she didn’t ask me. It all
seemed so hopeless; I wondered why I had even bothered trying in the first place.
I should have known that if Darien was determined to do something, he would do
it, no matter what I did. He would go out with Raye whether I liked it or not,
and it was obvious that Raye didn’t care about my feelings enough to stop him.
And why should she take me seriously, anyway? I was so melodramatic, as she had
said. I was too ditzy, too silly to really love anyone. Lita hugged me tightly,
and I could tell that for some reason, she was dangerously close to tears
herself. I heard the others leave quietly, but I didn’t turn and look at them.
My life was crumbling around me, it seemed, and all because of one man. One
stupid, inconsiderate man. After about fifteen minutes, I took my head off
Lita’s shoulder and stood up, rubbing at my puffy nose with one hand.
“Love sucks.” I said vehemently, reaching in my pockets for some tissues.
Lita rubbed at the wet spot on her shirt, and then reached into her pocket and
handed me some tissues. “Don’t say that.” She said seriously, as I blew my nose
with an audible honk. “You know the saying, ‘tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all.’”
“Crap on that.” I said bitterly. “If I had never met Darien, then I never would
have fallen in love with him, and he never would have been able to hurt me like
this. It would have worked out better for all concerned. I could have fallen in
love with some, other, better, more perfect and wonderful…” I trailed off, and
was forced to wipe at my streaming eyes again with the tissue. This wasn’t
working.
“Serena,” Lita said gently, putting her hand on my shoulder, “Do you regret the
time you did spend with Darien? Do you regret the time in the ice cream parlor,
when he read Shakespeare and then kissed you?”
I stared at her. “How did you know about that?” I asked.
She laughed. “Just about everybody who has email found out in about an hour,
you know. You still didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“Do you regret that? Would you give that memory up so that you wouldn’t feel
pain now?”
I could not meet her eyes. Instead, I looked at the floor. Would I give it up?
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to deny the pleasure that Darien had given me for
such a short amount of time. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t deny
that what she said was true.
“No,” I said finally. “No, I don’t suppose I would.”
Somebody passed us in the hall and gave us an odd look, and I suddenly realized
how strange we must look: two girls, one close to tears, the other crying.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Lita’s hand. “We can go back to my dorm.”
“You know, Serena, I think I ought to tell you something.” Lita said, when we
were both sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m not telling you this for sympathy, or anything. I can understand what
you’re going through, though.” Her eyes stared into space, and they held a pain
in them that reminded me of the look that I had seen in Darien’s eyes so many
times. “Five years ago, my parents were killed in an airplane crash. I’ve
basically, gotten over it, I guess. But at the time, I was devastated. I had to
live on my own. I…blamed them for dying. It was hard. For a long time, I
thought like you, Serena. I wished that I never loved them. I wished that I
could hate them, and then I could stop being so upset. But after a while, I
realized that it didn’t work that way. I couldn’t stop loving them, and I
shouldn’t. At least I did have parents for a while, and for that while they had
loved me. I realized that I should remember them for what they did give me, and
love them for it. I know your situation is different, Serena, but it’s never
good to shut yourself off from love. I know that that’s what Darien’s doing.
Darien can’t even remember his parents. He doesn’t even have the good memories
I have to convince him to love anybody. Try…to forgive him for that, Serena.
Maybe one day he’ll find the courage to open himself up.”
I felt as if the bottom had dropped from my stomach. I looked at Lita with
newfound respect and compassion. How had she lived through that? What right did
I have to complain about my life when my friends had experienced so much more?
I felt terrible for complaining to Lita like my life was ending. Feeling a
fresh bout of tears erupt, I hugged Lita again, and we cried on each other.
“Lita, I’m so sorry.” I whispered.
After a while, Lita went to grab some tissues, and wiped her face. I blew my
nose again with a honk so loud that we both burst into uncontrollable giggles.
“We really are a pair, aren’t we?” Lita said, catching her breath.
I smiled at her. “Yeah. Come on, if we can manage to stop crying for about an
hour, we may be able to go and get something to eat.”
That night, Amy found me in the library, attempting to write a paper for
English. She sat down in front of me, and put her hands on the table.
“Hello, Serena.” She said quietly.
“Hi Amy.” I said, eyes still on the computer screen. I really didn’t feel like
talking to anyone, especially about Darien.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, so I won’t.” She began, and I stared
at her. Had she read my thoughts? Well, I never was very good at hiding what I
was feeling from people. “I just want you to know that I’m still your friend,
no matter what happens. You know that, right?”
“Of course, Amy.” I said, feeling a warm glow in my stomach. Did I really
deserve such wonderful friends?
“And,” She looked down awkwardly. “I thought that you might like to read this.”
She said, giving me a book. “You can have it, actually. I’m sure you need it
more than I do. It’s a book of Dorothy Parker poems.”
I had heard of her before. “Isn’t she that feminist writer in the twenties?” I
asked.
“Well, ‘feminist’ is a little mild, I suppose. But, she’s definitely a good
read if you’re feeling a particular dislike of the male race.”
I winced. “I can sure relate to that.”
Amy smiled. “I thought you could. So, do you need help on that essay?”
I shoved the book in my bag, and nodded. Some things, I supposed, never
changed.
I couldn’t manage to sleep at all over the next few nights. Every time I
drifted into an uneasy doze, vague impressions of danger would awaken me, and I
would sit up in bed, awake, exhausted, but unable to sleep. Raye and I had come
to an uneasy truce with the extensive help of Amy and Mina. We still didn’t
talk to each other, outside of what was necessary, but at least we suppressed
the urge to fight every other word. I got the impression that Raye was growing
more and more guilty over what she had done. I, however, was in no mood to
forgive her. I wanted her to at least suffer a little for what she had done to
me. These strange sleepless dreams, though, wouldn’t go away. I felt the
danger, the despair, but I could not see anything, and I woke up too soon to
discover their source. I stared outside of the window, at the moonlit buildings
and bare trees and shuddered. Beyond my range of sight, I wondered if Darien
sat up in bed as well, unable to sleep, losing all sense of reality. On the
third night, I remembered Dorothy Parker. I got up and rummaged through my bag,
not even bothering to be quiet. These past few nights, Raye had slept more
soundly than Rip Van Winkle after a keg party. I walked back to the bed, and
curled myself in my sheets, pressing my face against the cold window. Then I
opened the book. I realized why Amy had given it to me almost immediately.
Dorothy Parker was like a balm for the rejected soul. I wondered at the type of
life this woman must have lived to be able to write so knowledgeably about men
and yet be so cynical. I read until dawn, and did not want to fall asleep.
I couldn’t eat either. When I tried, I could only manage to swallow half a
salad before I felt like throwing up. It wasn’t like I wasn’t hungry; it was
more like I didn’t have the energy to eat. I knew that it was bad for me, and I
could feel the little energy I had slipping away, but I just couldn’t make
myself do it. I knew the others noticed, but they were afraid to say anything.
None of them knew that I couldn’t sleep though, and I didn’t tell them. It just
would have made them more worried, and I knew that there was nothing anyone
could do about it. I couldn’t force myself to sleep no more than I could force
myself to eat—even though I knew in my head that it was the right thing to do.
That Thursday, Mina and I were in the one lounge on campus with a Nintendo hooked
up to the television. We had made this discovery about a month ago, and since
we shared a clandestine passion for video games, we sneaked there every free
moment. I was glad that she had forced me to come along, because over the past
week my mood had grown blacker and blacker. The only times I looked forward to
were the nights, when I would be able to forget my own world and read more
Dorothy Parker. I think Mina knew this, though, which was why she was so overly
enthusiastic about the video games.
“So, you want to play Mario Kart?” She asked, already turning on the Nintendo,
I smiled despite myself and nodded. I lost miserably every single level we
played and Mina positively gloated.
“Seems you’ve lost your touch, huh?” She said, playfully sticking her tongue
out at me when I fell off the rainbow road for the sixteenth time.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said with more enthusiasm than I had exhibited all week, “I’ll
bet you rigged the game. I never liked the rainbow road anyway. What about…moo
moo farm?” I asked, aware of how ridiculous our conversation must sound to
anyone else. After she won in every single level, we played bomber man. In
fact, we played every single other two player game in the collection and she
positively demolished me. We had, in fact, gained a little audience, wondering
exactly how badly it was possible to lose to one person.
“I’m not usually this bad!” I protested, when I blew myself up for the tenth
time.
“I’m not usually this good.” Mina chortled, and tossed another bomb at me.
“I don’t really know what happened.” Mina said, as we were walking back across
campus. “I’m usually so right about these things. I’m sorry that I encouraged
it, you know. I really thought that it would work out. You seemed so perfect
for each other.”
I squeezed her hand. “It’s all right. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it. We all do,
eventually.”
The next day, in Government class, I was suddenly overwhelmed. Not with
emotion, since I had certainly done my fair share of that over the past month,
but with exhaustion. Suddenly the combined effect of an entire week without
sleep or food and the droning voice of the professor was more debilitating than
ten sleeping pills. Lita wasn’t there that day to stop me, and Darien, of
course wasn’t looking. I pulled my huge winter hat further down on my head, and
almost against my will, put my head on my desk and fell into my first sleep in
a week. I hoped that I wouldn’t get caught, but even that thought couldn’t
deter me. I drifted soundlessly into dreamless oblivion.
I didn’t know how long it had been when I woke up, only that the rest of the
class had left, and something had made me regain semi- consciousness. I opened
my eyes slightly, only to be rewarded with the sight of Darien staring at me.
He had not seen my eyes open, and did not know that I was awake. Through my
fuzzy lashes I watched him, and felt renewed confusion when I saw his
expression. Was that tenderness? He looked nearly as tired as I felt, but his
eyes were bright when he looked at me. He reached down, as if to touch my hair,
and I felt the breath leave my lungs. Just when he was about to, though,
someone came in the room and he recoiled quickly. It was Raye. I had avoided
them for just this reason, and now I was trapped, forced to watch two people I
had trusted betray me. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t.
“Darien--“ Raye began, but Darien hushed her, pointing to me. I felt touched,
but still angry. That man was a walking contradiction! One minute he saves me
from a snowstorm and the next he dates my roommate a week after breaking up
with me!
“Oh,” Raye whispered. “Is that Serena? I didn’t know she was in your class.
Just like her to fall asleep though.”
“She looks tired.” Darien said, giving me one last look. “Come on, let’s go.”
And they walked out of the room. After the door closed, I sat up, rubbing my
eyes.
The room echoed with the sound of my hand slamming on the desk in fury.
That night, Amy, Mina, Lita and I sat in the lounge, watching television. Lita
had, apparently, met them briefly while I was passed out, and I introduced them
again. It was strange without Raye, but she was out with Darien, and we all
knew that she wouldn’t come around if I were there anyway. We were watching the
end of one of those terrible ‘news’ shows that gossiped about everyone in
painful detail. Mina had insisted, since it was practically her favorite show.
She liked watching all the hot guys, she said. Well, I have to admit that I
didn’t object to the hot guys either. At least the TV show stopped them from
asking about Darien. Well, they didn’t really ask about Darien any more, they
just tiptoed around me in a way that made me sure they wanted to. So I lay back
on the couch, and stared at the television. They had just finished this bit
about this teenage actor (who was, by the way, not cute at all) who was having
an affair with Barbara Streisand’s sister. Lita yawned dramatically.
“Do we *have* to watch this?” She asked, looking pointedly at Mina.
“Shhh!” Mina said, eyes glued to the screen. “It’s almost over. This is my
favorite part.”
The announcer, a heavily made up, middle aged man, with what I suppose you
could call ‘rugged good looks’ came back on the screen. “Thanks, Yolanda. And
now for our affair of the week.” Litarolled her eyes expressively. “Our
close-knit couple this week were both born to privilege and fame. Vice
President William’s son, Vance Jr. and Presidential hopeful Ken Johnston’s
daughter, Serena, have officially hit it off, according to their parents. They
met at the Vice President’s annual Christmas party, and have continued their
relationship at Harvard, where he attends the Law School and she undergraduate.
In an exclusive interview, Vance said that “Serena and I are just getting to
know each other, but I think that it could turn into a meaningful
relationship.” It’s certainly a lucky match for Ken Johnston, whose ratings in
the polls have gone up by at least ten percent since the news got out. We’ll be
right back after these messages.”
Everybody turned to stare at me, but I still gaped at the screen in dumbfounded
disbelief. How could he have done this to me? He publicized a fake relationship
with Mr. Creep so that he could go up ten percent in the polls? Far from
wanting to cry, I was about ready to put my foot through the television screen.
“Serena,” Amy ventured in a small voice. “Is it true?”
“Of course not!” I shouted, standing up and pacing around the room. “Of course
it isn’t! Do you honestly think that I would go after that snotty, zit-faced,
lemming! He’s been bugging me the past three weeks, but I didn’t think he would
actually say something like that. I bet his dad put him up to it…damn it, I bet
*my* dad put him up to it.”
“Woah, Serena, calm down.” Lita said, trying to hide a grin. “After all, it is
kind of cute, cliched and corny. All good reasons for your father to exploit
it.”
“I think it’s kind of cool that you were actually on television, Serena. You’re
famous.” Mina’s eyes had that rosy glow that meant she was impervious to all
reason.
I glared at her. “Well, I hope you become famous some day, and tell me how you
like it, because this is as far as it goes. I am going to call my Dad and tell
him how I feel about the whole thing. And then he is going to call every damn
TV station in the country and tell them that it isn’t true.”
I stomped out of the lounge, fully intending to blast my Dad, but when I
called, Mom just stalled me.
“Well, dear, he is rather busy right now, in a meeting. Why don’t you call back
later?”
“Mom, I have to talk to him now. I don’t care if he is in a meeting. Tell him
that it’s an emergency.”
“I’m not so sure that it’s a good idea to talk to him if you’re not in the
right frame of mind, honey.”
“Believe me, mom, I’m definitely in the right frame of mind.”
“If this is about the whole Vance Jr. thing, believe me, he has good reason.
It’s all for—“
I cut her off. “He has absolutely no reason to involve himself in my private
life!” I raged, making other people in the hall stare at me. “He has already
screwed up my life enough as it is—you have no idea how much. He doesn’t need
to go around making it worse for a measly ten percent in the polls!”
“Actually, honey, ten percent is a lot, as you know—“
That was it, I couldn’t take it anymore. I hung up the phone, angrily wondering
when mom would get some backbone. It wasn’t the first time Dad had done that,
just the first time he had done it so obviously to me. Frustrated again, I
wandered back to the lounge, considerably deflated. They all looked up at me,
but didn’t say anything. They had probably heard me anyway. The phone wasn’t
that far away, and I had been screaming. I plopped back down on the couch, and
noticed that we were now watching the news, specifically, the weather report.
“…negative twenty degrees tonight, and almost negative thirty with wind chill
estimated for tomorrow night.” The weatherman was saying, pointing to some
incomprehensible lines on his map.
Lita mock-shuddered. “No wonder I’ve been feeling like I’ve been in the barren
wastes of Siberia.”
“It’s always like this around now.” Mina said. “What I want to know is if we’re
going to get any snow.”
“But if we get too much snow, they may cancel classes!” Amy said with such a
horrified expression that we had to stare at her. The weatherman interrupted
us.
“We will definitely see at least six inches of snow tomorrow night, possibly
over a foot…” The rest of his sentence was made inaudible by the volume of
Mina’s shriek. She bounced up and danced around the room whooping and hollering
enough to make us all start to laugh.
“Maybe it will be pretty cool.” I said smiling. “The last time DC got that much
snow was when I was in sixth grade.”
“Well then,” Mina said, still bouncing, “I’ll just have to show you how to
properly utilize snowy weather.” She said, with mock seriousness. “Yes! Everything,
the proper packing of a snowball, proper tactics for running away from
snowballs, proper methods of traying without getting caught by the cafeteria,
and above all, ice skating!”
“Sure, Mina.” Lita said, laughing, and then looked at her watch. “But I for one
am going to have to get some sleep if you’re planning to give us your…expert
advice. It’s almost eleven.” We said goodnight to her. It didn’t take long for
Mina and Amy to realize how tired they were, and soon I was alone in the
lounge. I stared into space for a while, vaguely hearing the news. I was tired,
but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight any more than I could this
past week. Something caught my ear, though, and I turned to see the weatherman
back again.
“Tomorrow night, there will be a lunar eclipse. Between the hours of eleven
thirty and twelve thirty, the moon will be fully covered by earth’s shadow and
will appear red…”
That was strange. I had never heard of a red moon before. I wondered what it
would look like, and knew that I would see it, since I had seen the moon every
other night this week. Without anything better to do, I shut off the television
and trudged up the stairs to my room. Raye was there when I walked in, and we
ignored each other studiously. She was, apparently, about to go to bed anyway.
I didn’t even bother changing my pajamas, and sat on my bed cross-legged,
staring out the window.
“I know you feel guilty, Raye.” I said quietly. She didn’t answer, but I sensed
her stillness. “We were friends. You said that you didn’t want a guy to pull us
apart, but you allowed him to. I guess that I’m partly to blame for that. When
I love people, I think I love too strongly. A tragic flaw, I guess. It’s okay,
if you don’t want to be friends anymore, we don’t have to be roommates next
year. I’d like you to be, though. If we never knew Darien, this never would
have happened, you know. But I can’t say I regret it, because I did enjoy my
time with him. I hope you enjoy yours. What’s terrible is that Darien really
*is* wonderful when you’re with him. Just…watch out, Raye. When he bites, it’s
fatal.” My breath fogged on the window, and my tears splashed on the sill. Raye
turned off the light.
That night I discovered the poem. I had read the anthology haphazardly, just
flipping to random pages and reading whatever poems struck my fancy. Dorothy
Parker had a wonderful range, with poems from two lines to thirty. Most were
cynical pieces about love— or lack there of. The title caught my attention, it
was different from all her others. It seemed more like the title of a classic
love poem than the others I had read. When I finished it, I wished I had never
found it. My chest racked painfully, but no amount of tears seemed to relieve
the pressure inside of me. Amy hadn’t meant for it to happen. She had probably
never read the poem—it was in the back of the book, sandwiched in between some
of her long-winded rants. Only, it was as if Dorothy Parker had reached into
the future and knew that one day Serena Johnston would be reading her poetry
and that on this particular night, she was too tired, exhausted and sad to
resist its glaring temptation. I wondered again what had happened in her life
to make her write such a poem, and I wondered if we were kindred spirits,
separated by time but bound by similar experiences. I hugged her book closely
to my chest during that sleepless night, and knew that something within me had
changed, irrevocably.
I did not leave my room that entire day. I didn’t have any classes on Saturday,
and even if I had, I wouldn’t have gone to them. School suddenly seemed like
such a joke compared to what I was facing within myself. Raye looked at me,
curled up on my bed, my head resting on the window, but she didn’t say
anything. Eventually, she jut left the room, too scared to confront me. It was
okay, I understood her, and I didn’t blame her for it. I didn’t blame anyone
now. The sky looked increasingly cloudy, and I wondered what the weathermen
were saying about that snow now. At least Mina would be happy. I remembered when
I would have gotten that excited about snow. But happiness, just like school,
seemed like a transient memory that I couldn’t quite get a grip on any longer.
I didn’t eat, but that was nothing new. I had barely eaten a thing all week. I
wondered, frankly, why it mattered anyway. I wondered why anything mattered at
all. It was obvious that I loved Darien. I couldn’t stop it, and time only
seemed to be making it worse. Every day Darien found a new way to make me hurt
more until I was one ball of pain, without a beginning or end. If only it had
been a clean break, like with Lita and her parents, instead of this long,
agonizing withdrawal. Because he didn’t want me. Not because of the person I
really was, but the person I was born to be. He had, as Lita said, denied his
capacity to love. In a vague way, I was angry with him, but I felt most
strongly an overwhelming despair. I did not know what to do with myself. Around
one o’clock, Amy knocked on the door, and came in. She looked afraid, but I was
too numb to realize that she was afraid for me.
“Serena,” She said tentatively, “Are you all right? Do you want to come to
lunch with me?”
I shook my head mutely, and stared out the window.
“I’ve noticed…” Her voice caught. “I’ve noticed that you haven’t eaten much lately.
That really isn’t good for you, you know. And I don’t think you’ve been
sleeping either. You ought to take care of yourself.” She walked closer to me
when I didn’t respond. “Serena. You have to listen to me. I see what you’re
doing to yourself, and…it scares me. Please feel better, okay? Serena…” She
trailed off, crying. I looked at her, my own tears completely dried up.
“Amy,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, and ran out the door, leaving me alone again. I turned on the radio
and lay back down on my bed again. Then I pulled out all of my favorite comic
books from under my bed and read them cover to cover. I knew that I was just
stalling. I knew that something would happen soon, but I had lost the ability
to predict my own moods. I only knew that right now I wanted to lose myself as
best I could. After I had read all of Rayearth, Ranma, Tenchi and Sailor V, it
was nine o’clock. I sat up, and looked with foggy eyes out the window. It was
snowing, I noted first. Thick, large flakes that made the snow grow quickly.
Below, Raye and Darien hugged goodbye and she went inside. I felt the familiar
horror when I saw that, but I was distanced from my body now. I had grown used
to pain. Darien stayed below the window. I wondered if he would see me, and just
as I did his eyes went up the building as if drawn by a magnet. I fell forward
when our eyes locked, my forehead pressed against the window. I suddenly felt
warm, like fire was spreading throughout my body. I knew that my eyes
eloquently formed the question that had been on my mind for weeks: ‘why?’ And
his eyes were naked for a moment, revealing a hurt as deep as my own. His mask
fell adeptly into place again, and he shrugged his shoulders and walked off. He
had given me his answer, more clearly than words.
“Because I had to.”
I waited until Raye had definitely gone to sleep, since I knew there wasn’t a
chance of waking her. I went to the closet and dragged out my warmest winter
clothing. I had an idea, a shape in my head, and I would follow it, even if I
didn’t know where it would lead. Anything was better than staying here, trapped
in my own sadness with nothing better to do than contemplate why the only man I
had ever loved could not love me. I put on my clothes silently, without fear.
At the last second, though, I began to doubt what I was doing, and then I
spotted the Dorothy Parker book, still next to my pillow. I picked it up and
reread the poem. Yes, I was determined. Just as I was walking out the door, I
stopped again. Inexplicably, I ripped the page out of the book and taped it to
the window. No one, except possibly Darien, would understand, and Darien would
not care enough to do anything about it. Do anything about what? A part of my
mind questioned. I still had not admitted what was lurking in the back corners
of my mind. I only accepted that I was doing something, something that would
stop my torment forever. That was as far as I could go. I left the room and
shut the door behind me. I hitchhiked until I reached the area Darien had taken
me to that night. I didn’t really know where to go, since I hadn’t been paying
attention to what side streets he used, but I must have had a homing signal,
because I soon recognized the area where he had parked his bike. Satisfied, I
trekked through the woods, made slightly harder this time because of the snow.
It was cold outside, much colder than it had been the last time, and I wondered
again what I was doing here. But it was too late to turn back, and something
within me didn’t want to. I finally came out the other end, after falling down
several times. I gasped when I saw the beach. The ocean was frozen. In a
delicately crystalline shape, even the ocean had succumbed to winter. I trudged
through the snow to the edge of the ice. I was afraid to touch it, since I had
never seen anything like it before. I had always thought of winter as so cold
and dead, but it did have its own austere, untouchable beauty. I thought back
to the first time he had brought me here, and what we had come so close to
doing. I understood why he hadn’t, and I loved him for it. He had loved me
then, that action made me sure of it. What had changed? I sat down in the snow,
shivering. It certainly was cold, wasn’t it? I stared at the sky, at the snow
that kept falling. It looked like it was beginning to stop though, and some
stars were showing fuzzily through. Then I saw the moon.
It was blood red, and I shuddered, not entirely because of the cold. It was
beautiful, but in a much harsher, more violent way. It looked angry, without
the calm serenity that I remembered from that night over a month ago. I lay
back in the snow in order to get a better view of it. I could barely see the
bunny through the gentle film of snow clouds. I stared and stared, wondering
what Darien would say if he saw it. Wondering if he would have given in, if the
moon had been this angry that night. I wondered if the moon was this angry
because of what he had done, or maybe it was something that I had done. The
cold seemed to seep into my bones, until it was almost impossible for me to
move them. The snow fell on top of me, but I could not seem to brush it off. I
shivered uncontrollably, but my eyes were still riveted to the moon. Maybe it
wasn’t angry, maybe it was bleeding. Perhaps it was sad like I was, and it was
slowly losing its vitality, its strength. Something within me knew that
something terrible was happening, but could not explain exactly what it was. My
thoughts seemed perfectly logical in the parallel universe I had entered. I
knew that I was getting dangerously cold, but at some point during the night,
it seemed like I was actually getting warmer, although I couldn’t feel my body.
I watched the moon bleed all night long, and I felt as though I were bleeding
with it. All of my life, my love, my fire was slowly seeping out of my body,
hidden beneath pristine white snow. All because of Darien, who didn’t love me.
I had read stories about girls who died of lovesickness, but I hadn’t believed
them. It had seemed too far-fetched, to implausible to me then. But now, I was
the girl in the story, the one who had placed everything on the soul of one
man, and had been betrayed. I don’t know when it happened, but eventually, the
moon turned again its normal color, pale and silvery white—practically bled to
death.
And then I knew what I was doing. I knew what my subconscious had known all
along, when it was too late for me to do anything about it. I was frozen, in
the snow, practically buried in it. I knew that within a matter of hours, I
would be dead. And suddenly, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to hurt
either, but anything was better than lying out here, freezing to death. So long
as I lived at least there was a chance Darien would admit that he loved me. If
I died, then I was giving everything up, admitting that all I had ever believed
in—true love and destiny—was a farce. I couldn’t do that. But it was too late.
My mind raged, but my body had already given in. I was too cold to move, to
numb to feel my own body. I felt myself sliding into unconsciousness dangerously
alien to sleep. I fought it, but I knew I would lose. I repeated his name over
in my head, as if he would somehow know I needed him, and was thinking about
him this far away. My last thought, before everything went black, was of the
poem I had taped to the window.
“Please remember me.” It was a croak, emitted against all odds from frozen
lips.
I Know I Have Been Happiest
I know I have been happiest by your side
But what’s done is done, an all’s to be
And small the good of lingering dolefully
Gaily it lived, and gallantly it died
I will not make you songs of hearts denied
And you, being man, would have no tears of me
And should I offer you fidelity
You’d be, I think, a little terrified
Yet this need of woman, this her curse
To range her little gifts, and give, and give
Because the throb of giving’s sweet to bear
To you, who never begged me vows nor verse
My gift shall be my absence, while I live;
After that, my dear, I cannot swear.
~ Dorothy Parker
- - -
AHHH!! Cliffhanger!! All right, I’m sorry for doing this, but I *had* to do it
at least once during this story, and this was the ideal moment. Please forgive
me?
Oh yeah, before I forget: Sailor Moon is the coolest anime, but unfortunately,
I don’t own it yet. Ask me if you want my story, though. And finally, just a
question: Who is hotter? Anime Mamoru or manga? Personally, I *have* to go with
anime, although there are some manga pictures where he is too cute!
Lois