Beneath The Moon

Once in my room, I slammed the door [hopefully making some kind of statement] and took a step over to the window. It was dirty, grimy, and you could hardly see out of it. Gross. The screen was missing. I unlatched it anyway, striving to open it enough so that Holly could get through. I stuck my head out of the window looking for her. There she was, standing right below my window. I smiled. Ouch, I thought, that hurt my nose… Her eyes grew wide for a moment when she looked up at me.

“Elliott!” she half-whispered, “you’re bleeding!” Shit. Thinking it must have been my nose, I put my hand to it. It was basically gushing blood! How did I not notice that? I put my pointer finger up to her; one minute. Quickly and soundlessly, I hurried my way to the bathroom and just stole the whole tissue box, practically shoving one whole tissue up my nose to stop the flow. I pretty much ran back to my room, and shut the door. I went to the window again. She smirked.

“Nice look for you,” she said sarcastically. I smiled. “Is there any way you can get up through the window?” I asked. She looked around, and then looked up the tree she was standing next to. It was almost touching my window, and there was a tree house in it. They must have had kids before me. What happened to them? Did Franklin push them up the stairs to death? I laughed to myself at that.

“I can probably get up through the tree house. Hold on.” It looked almost effortless, as she climbed up the stairs and into the tree house. She stuck her head through some leaves, looking at me. “You’re gonna have to help me from here,” she said. Fine by me… I thought. I shook that thought out of my head and gave her my hand. She stepped lightly on one of the bigger branches, and hopped to the window. I pulled her up and through, and she landed on my bed. Shit. And my boxers…It had just occurred to me, with a girl in the room, that this place wasn’t exactly ideal. My boxers and other clothes were strewn everywhere, along with other random crap that I had brought along with me. She sat up and looked at me, holding up a pair of my boxers. I almost started panicking in my head.

“Nice boxers…good to know you’re not a whitey-tidey kind of guy.” She threw them to the floor and laughed quietly. She sat against the headboard, cross-legged. I sat across from her, following suit. Our knees were touching. “So this is the crap-room they gave you? What kind of foster parents are these people?” I smirked. “Not good ones, for sure,” I replied.

“So what happened to you?” She asked. I was half-engrossed in the fact that this beautiful girl was sitting on my bed. “Hmm?” I said dazedly. She tapped one her fingers lightly to my nose. I snapped out of it and thought about what she was saying.

“Oh. That,” I said, softly rubbing my nose. It still hurt like a bitch. “This is from when Franklin pushed me.” She cocked her head to one side.

“What’d he do?” she asked, confused. From there I recount the whole event, from when I got into the house ‘till now. Through the story, she sat there like the perfect audience. When I finished, she sat staring at my nose.

“Well let’s just hope he doesn’t become a total fucking dick-head and start really abusing you,” she said, trying to bring up the mood a little. I smiled.

“So enough about me. What about you?” I asked, trying to be conversational. Truthfully, I wasn’t good at talking. I never really had any friends, and I only had to talk to my foster parents when necessary.

“Well, I was born in Las Vegas …” she said jokingly. She smiled. “I mean, what do you want to know?” she asked.

“Okay. What about friends? Who else do you hang out with?” I asked. She sat there quiet, looking like I had frozen her.

“I don’t have any friends,” she whispered.
“That’s ridiculous. You must have at least one. Everyone has at least one.”
“Not me. I don’t have anyone. You’re the first kid that really offered to talk to me, throughout my years here. How about you? Who’d you leave behind at your old home?”
“No one. I guess I’m being a bit of a hypocrite, saying that everyone has friends. I don’t, either. I keep my distance from everyone.”

“So you’re saying that we’re each other’s first friends now, and we were ten years ago?”
“Basically.”

“That’s cool shit.” We both smiled. “So when do you have to leave?” I asked. She changed facial expressions, and I really thought, for a second, that she was mad at me.
“Oh, I see how it is. Okay, I’ll leave, I’ll leave.” I heard the sarcasm in her voice, but she was already re-adjusting to get up to leave.

“No, no. I don’t mean it like that. I just meant, I don’t want you getting in trouble just because I’m making you hang out with some kid that you haven’t seen in ten years.” She looked hurt as I said that.

“Two things, shithead,” she smiled, and I realized I might just have to get used to that being my nickname. “One, you’re not making me hang out with you. I’m doing this because I feel like it. I want to talk to you. And two, you’re not just some kid I met ten years ago. You’re my friend.” I smiled as she said that. Friend…I hadn’t had a friend since, well, her. It was a good feeling, suddenly knowing that I had one. And then the pessimistic side of me thought, what about when I’m kicked out of here again? I mean, it was true that my birthday was in 16 days, and I would be a legal adult. But since I was never in one place for too long, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have any money, and the government would only give me so much to get on my feet. So I would most likely have to stay at another foster agency until I could find a way to get more money. Just a note for you, kids. A foster life is possibly one of the hardest to live. Don’t try it.

I focused my thoughts back on Holly. All I could think about was going back to our bench. I had decided that we could share it. But now really all I could think about was sitting on that bench, much like we were now, our faces two feet away from each other, talking about anything and everything.

“Elliott.” I blinked. “You stare a lot…you okay?” Holly asked. I ran that sentence over in my head and decided that it made no sense. Maybe I was getting sleepy.
“Huh?” I asked stupidly. She smiled kindly and looked directly into my eyes.

“You stare off into space all the time…lots of times you’re staring at me. What are you thinking about?” she elaborated. I thought about that. What was I thinking about? I thought about a lot of things, all the time. I could be contemplating up to about four different things at a time. Since I didn’t want to worry her with my foster problems, and I didn’t think I should let on about how much I actually like hanging out with her, I pulled one of those random thoughts out of my head and went with it.

“Do you believe in the supernatural?” I asked quietly.
“You mean like, God? Cause I don’t believe in God. I’m kind of an atheist,” she answered. “Besides, that doesn’t answer my question.” I smiled.

“Not God. I mean like, vampires or…fallen angels or something. This was just one of the things that I was thinking about…”
“Oh. Hmm…Like immortals and stuff? Yea, I guess I believe in that. I mean, you have to have hope for something, right?”
“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s so much shit out there that just makes you think that nothing in life is worth living for. If you believe in it, it’s nice to know that there’s something magical out there for you.”

“You pulled that out of your ass.” We both started laughing. Calming down, Holly replied, “No, really. I do believe that.” I laughed again.
“Optimistic bitch,” I muttered, loud enough to make sure she heard me.

“What? Excuse me shithead?” She giggled and playfully hit my arm. I sighed. Looking at my watch, I saw that it had somehow turned into two in the morning. Time flies fast, and is just an illusion. As if we were reading each other’s minds, we both maneuvered so that we were laying down next to each other on my bed [even though it was impossibly tiny]. Somehow, we kept talking until the sun was rising and it was time to sneak her back out of the house. Quietly and carefully, I helped back into the tree house; from there she had no problem getting down. I took a quick shower, put on new clothes, and headed out the door before either of the Durmur’s had a chance to wake up. School was a good length away from the house, but I had extra time. And time passes quickly when you’re walking with someone who’s fun to talk to.

Soon enough, we reached Holly’s house. Stepping up to the front door, she reached her hand inside her shirt and I wondered what the hell she was doing. In a matter of seconds, she pulled a key out of her shirt and stuck it into the key hole of her front door. I looked at her, confused, and slightly turned on.

“I hate carrying a purse around,” she laughed lightly, “so I keep anything important in my bra. It’s not as uncomfortable as anyone would think.” She gave me a toothy grin and pushed the door open. “Come on in, I don’t bite,” she invited me. As I walked in through the front door, I heard her whisper, “hard.” I silently smiled and followed her down a hallway until we reached her room. We both stepped inside.