All This Time(36)

“Okay,” she says finally. “Once upon a time—”

“Why do all stories start like that?” I ask. I don’t want to break the spell, but the question is out before I can stop it.

She smiles. “Not all of them. Only the best ones.”

“That’s the first thing you said to me, remember? Once upon a time.”

We stare at each other for a long moment, an invisible force pulling me closer. I swear I stop breathing. Marley clears her throat and looks away, the pull fading but not disappearing.

“Story,” I say, turning my eyes back up to the moon. “Right. Go on.”

“Once upon a time, there was a girl,” she says.

“I like it already,” I say, encouraging her, and she punches me lightly on the arm, her expression half-amused, half-exasperated. And like I hoped, it spurs her on.

“Every night she walked a path through a dark, dark forest to the base of a beautiful waterfall, and there, she looked to the moon and made her wish,” she says. “It was the same wish every night.”

Marley’s words weave a spell and I imagine I see the girl. Really see her, gazing up at the moon from the base of the waterfall, her lips parting as she wishes for…

“She wished for love,” Marley says, as if reading my mind. “She was a dreamer with no one to share her dreams with.”

I feel it, the loneliness of the girl, sitting deep in my bones.

“But it happened that on that night, the moon was full. Brighter than it had ever been,” she says softly. “Looking down, she saw something on the path. A pearl. She picked it up and heard a man say, ‘Excuse me, but I believe that is mine.’?”

“Was it?” I ask. “His pearl?”

She nods. “So she held out the pearl, and he saw in the bright moonlight tears in her eyes,” Marley says as I hang on every word. “The man asked her, ‘Why do you cry?’ And the girl answered him quietly, ‘I thought for a moment it might be for me.’ But the man took the pearl and kept walking the path.”

“Dick,” I say.

“Just wait,” she says to me with a knowing smile.

“He better not be a dick.”

“The next night, while making her wish, the girl heard a sound behind her,” Marley says, ignoring me. “It was the man, and in his palm was the pearl. ‘I traveled many roads to find this lost treasure, this piece of me, but it was you who found it and returned it to me. Now I wish to give it to you,’ he said, placing the pearl in her hand. And every night for the next month, she met the man at the waterfall.”

“Not a dick,” I say, relieved.

Marley smiles and shushes me. “They talked of everything, shared their secrets and their dreams. The girl had gotten her wish. She had found love,” she says, the word making me turn my head and look at her, something inside me shifting. “But on the thirtieth night, the night of the next full moon, the man was not there. In his place… was a pearl.”

My heart sinks. The sadness weaving through her words is familiar.

“For the next twenty-nine nights, nothing. She didn’t wish. She just kept going, kept searching, but he was never there. But on the thirtieth night…”

“The next full moon,” I whisper.

“Another pearl,” Marley whispers back. Her eyes meet mine, the energy between us crackling. After a long moment, she continues. “The girl cried and cried. Then she wiped her tears, looked to the moon, and made another wish. A different one.”

I hold my breath, my eyes on Marley’s lips.

“?‘Bring him back to me.’?”

Chills move up my spine as Marley says, “The moon brightened, its rays reflecting off the waterfall, making it look like a million falling pearls. The girl looked back at the moon, and suddenly… she remembered what the man said.”

Marley stares reverently at the full moon like she’s making her own wish right now.

“What did he say?” I ask quietly, when I can’t wait any longer. I know I’m being a terrible audience, but I need to know what she’s wishing for.

“He said, ‘I traveled many roads to find this lost treasure, this piece of me.…’?”

This piece of me—holy shit. I start losing my mind a little.

“Each full moon for the rest of her life, the girl received another pearl…,” Marley continues.

“The man in the moon,” I say, and sit up, totally shook. “He was the man in the moon!”

Marley smiles. “… and she knew that he was watching over her, shining down on her, lighting her path through the dark, dark forest. And every once in a while, off the water’s reflection, she could see his face. There in the moon, smiling at her.”

Her voice is barely more than a whisper as she finishes the story. “And she knew that she was loved.”

Our eyes lock, and I know this isn’t friendship. All my excuses fall away. I don’t think about if it’s wrong or right or anything. I love her. I love her like the man in the moon loved that girl.

She flushes, sitting up, suddenly bashful, totally and completely misinterpreting my silence. “It’s stupid, isn’t it?”

I shake my head and take her hand. “It’s not stupid,” I say, meaning it more than I’ve ever meant anything. “It’s beautiful.”