Moonshine(17)

“But what?” I asked. “You knew what you were doing. They took off running like a bat out of hell. It was the funniest thing ever. There had to be like forty of em’, but the funniest thing was when that cow made that loud moaning sound and you fell back into that big pile of cow shit. You should have seen your face.”

“Hey, that cow was coming after me.” He replied.

“It was not, but just remembering you elbow deep in cow shit is awesome. I don’t think I will ever forget it.”

“Glad I could make you laugh, man.”

It was a nice feeling to be able to laugh. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had just relaxed.

“So what do ya say? Are we going to the pond or what?” He asked.

“I’m down.” I peeled out of the school parking lot leaving nothing behind me, but smoke and the smell of rubber.





10



Shine

I made it through my first day back at school, barely. Spending the last half of my day in the nurse’s office wasn’t so bad. She asked me several times if I wanted to just go home for the day, but that wasn’t an option. I told her I felt most comfortable laying there and she allowed it, thank goodness. Once we got through her questions I felt much better. She was curious about my panic attacks, and it seemed she recognized what was wrong as soon as Moon brought me into her office. Not wanting to go into much detail, I just told her enough to keep her from calling my parents. She said that it would get easier as long as I was taking my medicine properly. Little did she know I had already taken two pills that day. Obviously the medicine was not going to be helping me, not in a situation this bad.

It must have looked really bad for me to be carried out of the classroom and into the nurse’s station. Thankfully this will add to my never-ending list of things that people will be discussing behind my back. I certainly didn’t want to think about the fact that Moon was the one who got me to the nurse safely. He is always the one who takes care of me, and it hurts me that I have to keep him at such a distance.

When I got home from school I went straight to my room. The third degree from my parents was the last thing I needed. I would have to lie and tell them how wonderful it was to see everyone; otherwise I would have an appointment with the crazy doctor first thing in the morning.

I sat my backpack down on my bed and turned on my stereo. Sometimes the quiet was hard for me to listen to. I just needed the noise to be louder than the voices in my head. I decided that I would spend my evening catching up on all the homework I had missed. The nurse sent one of the teacher’s aides around to collect all of my missing assignments because of course I felt too weak to do it myself. Now I have homework to last me for days and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Mom snapped me out of my thoughts when she came to tell me dinner was ready. I put a smile on my face and let her know that I would be right down. I could do this. I could play this part of the happiest daughter on the planet. I would only have to keep up the façade when they were around. This shouldn’t be too hard.

At dinner I told them about seeing the girls from the squad. It wasn’t technically a lie. I had seen Katie, and of course I told them about Moon. I tried not to go into too many details about him though. I am sure that my mom and his mom would be chatting it up before the week was out. They asked me several more questions and I breezed through them with a smile on my face, never faltering. Inside I was screaming.

Once back inside my room I was physically and mentally exhausted. It took more work than I thought it would to act like I cared, and sleep was calling my name.





The next several weeks seem to pass by with more ease. The doctor finally took the cast off my arm, and people at school finally gave up trying to talk to me. I guess they realized I wasn’t going to talk back, and classes became easier once people finally stopped laughing and taunting me. Once they found someone new to talk about, I was free and clear. I thought that Moon had finally given up too, but I was wrong.

It was Friday afternoon and I was about to leave school. I had already stopped by my locker and grabbed my things and was heading out to my car. It wasn’t until I was a few feet away that I looked up and noticed him standing there. He leaned up against my driver’s side door. He knew that I’d seen him so it was too late to pretend that I didn’t. Damn it. What do I do? I couldn’t just turn around and run even though I wanted to real bad. I stepped as close as I could to my car without hyperventilating.

“I know that you don’t want to see me or talk to me, but there is something I need to get off my chest. Seeing as you still can’t even look at me, I wrote you a letter. I was hoping that this would be a way that I could still talk to you.” He held the letter out in his hand waiting for me to take it, but I didn’t want to step any closer to him. Just being as close as we are now was making it difficult for me to breathe. I couldn’t deny my love for this man, but it’s just too difficult to be near him right now. It wasn’t just him either. I didn’t want to be near any man. It was just the hardest with him.