Yuppa

I’d spent so many nights in her bed that her scent was slowly becoming my own. The days were long and for sleeping; but the nights were different. Each night was its own individual explosion of hope. Each night was a flurry of flesh, secrets and the occasional blinding 4 am fumble to the bathroom.

 

She told me about when she was a little girl, and how she would never go to sleep when she was supposed to. Even at that age, she had a tiny rebellion boiling inside of her. A noir-haired, button-nosed little girl, with her Dora Pyjamas. She waited for her mother to fall asleep. Then she’d sneak out to her sitting room. And drag her pink fluffy socks across the plush beige carpet and she’d climb her spotless leather couch, kept clean by her mother, of course. She’d separate two wooden blinds from each other even more than they were, to get a glimpse of the night sky as it blanketed over her favourite tree in her garden and she would look up at the moon. The moon was her friend. This seven-year-old girl spent hours leaning her pale forehead against the cold yet securing glass of her living room window because it made her feel important. She was the only person awake. Not in her house, not in the town that she was already outgrowing. No, she was the only person awake in the entire world. And she saw that the moon felt lonely. Excluded by all the stars and their constellations. So, she stayed up to keep it company, and a friendship was born.

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Now the moon is my best friend as it helps me see the face of the woman this little girl has grown to be. The button nose is still there, hopefully, the Dora pyjamas aren’t; it would be a strange question to ask.                                                                                                                               

The moon doesn’t fail to illuminate every single feature of her face. Her skin bathes in the milky light washing over us. She curls her blood red lips as she walks beside me. Her brown eyes shimmer as they peer at the forever rolling view of run-down houses on either side of the cracked road.

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with s” she exclaims with a whisper softer than the stream of black locks that flow over her left eye with the grace of a waterfall.

​

“Streets!” I proudly exclaim, giving away my enjoyment of stupid games faster than you can say 20 questions.

I’m met with a swift, “no” that was given such little time to form, that I grow suspicious of her chosen s-word.

​

We edge our way through the foggy air, heading towards the beacon of warmth that is her house. As I throw out a slew of failing guesses, I watch as the starlight peers through the occasional gap in the treetops above our heads. Trees planted in a futile attempt to improve our very much fleeting town.

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As we near the door of her mother’s home, the streetlights (one of my guesses) allow me to see her for all the beauty she is. Her black converse blends into the black leggings, the ones she hoarded as if there were a coming apocalypse in which leggings were to be worth their weight in gold. Those precious leggings covered long, lovely legs that led into a baggy jumper given to her by me a few weeks before because it looked like the comfiest thing ever apparently. That hoody led to a soft pale neck and a paler face that held the biggest smirk ever.

​

“Give up yet?” she chuckled gently.

I threw my head back as a sighed out a puff of visible breath and said, “yeah I guess so”.

“Shadows” she laughed.

“That’s just straight up cheating I mean come on”

She just giggled in victory as she searched for the right key.

“Can I come in as consolation at least?” I asked, knowing the answer would, of course, be yes.

She raised an eyebrow with a bemused look on her face.

“I mean, it would be nice to warm up the bed” I suggested, sealing the deal.

“Okay, but I get to pick the music, cause I’m not a loser.” She boasted as we walked in her door at 4 am, the only ones awake in the world.

​

It was her, myself and the moon. The moon was her best friend, and so was I, and nothing more, I just couldn’t admit that to myself.

Not yet anyway.