Keeping The Moon(65)

At 12:15, we went to find Mira under her moon.

Norman was holding my hand, with Isabel and Morgan bringing up the rear. Frank had gone home; we figured the dancing had kind of

thrown him.

“No big deal,” Isabel said. “He was too stuffy anyway.”

“I’m going to have to start over,” Morgan moaned. “God, I’m going to have to date again.”

“You’ll be fine,” Isabel said as we stepped over the hedge. “We’ll go someplace new, where there are new men.”

“Really,” Morgan said. “God, you know, we should. We could go anywhere. And reinvent ourselves, just like in high school.”

“Only if you promise to have the same hair that you had in high school,” Isabel said with a snort. “Then we’d meet all the men.

”

“That was a nice cut,” Morgan said defensively. “Well, then you have to wear that stupid necklace you always wore, the one with

the frog. And those glasses. And—”

“Okay, okay,” Isabel said. “You win. We go as we are.”

Frog necklace, I was thinking. Where had I seen— Isabel’s cousin. The dork with the glasses.

I turned back to look at her. She had her arm linked in Morgan’s as they walked, and she was laughing. The blonde hair. The

perfect features. The beautiful girl.

So that was how she knew.

Now we were under the clear sky, stars scattered above us. And Mira was making her way across the lawn, face upturned to take in

the little bit of moon that was left.

When she got to me, I wanted to say something big, something important to mark this occasion. Because maybe it was her, Isabel,

Morgan, and Norman who had finally helped me to become. Or maybe, just maybe, I could have done it all along.

But I didn’t get the chance. Mira spoke for all of us.

“Okay,” she said, tilting her head up to the moon, just a sliver over us. “You can start now.”

And as we stood there, watching it be taken bit by bit, I looked across the faces of all these people who meant so much to me. Two

months ago, when the train pulled into Colby, the thought that I would be who I was now seemed impossible. As impossible, in fact,

as keeping the moon.

But now, as it disappeared, I felt a breeze blow across me.

Norman squeezed my hand, and I could see, as the eclipse reached totality, how he must have been scared all those years ago,

wrapped in a sleeping bag in his backyard. Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can’t fully understand.

So I looked down the line at all my friends, knowing I would always remember this. And then I turned my gaze back up to the sky,

and put my faith in that moon and its return.