Night Skies

I shut my eyes, running the soft white cotton ball over my eyelids, attempting to wipe off all the dark, smudged makeup spread across my skin. Dark lines ran down my cheeks from where my waterproof mascara had failed me. Messy eyeliner rimmed the outside of my eyes, making me look like I was a racoon that had been thrown into a pool. My cover-up was practically gone, wiped off on the sleeves of my sweater. It was all wrong. I looked like a mess. I was a mess. A broken, beaten-down mess.
I needed to fix it.
I sigh, gently dabbing the sponge against my skin, evenly spreading concealer across the dark area below my eye and above my cheek. I wince once, biting my lip in attempts to hold back a soft cry. I didn’t want to wake Jason. I didn’t dare wake Jason.
I looked past myself in the mirrored reflection, to the boy laying in my bed, fast asleep. He had passed out just minutes after he had detached his disgusting body from mine. He fell quickly. He was tired. We were both tired. It had been a long day.
I look back to myself, at my face. I had cleaned off the eyeliner and mascara, and applied more cover-up to my cheek, but I still looked a mess. I still looked as though I had been crying for hours. But I made no attempt to fix it anymore. Besides, Jason would be the only one seeing me, and he would be happy with my looks. He had done this to me after all.
I reluctantly crawled back into my bed, into the smelly, dirty covers. I never have time to wash them, and my mother refuses to do any of my laundry anymore.
All thoughts about my dirty blankets flew out of my mind the moment my head hit the pillow. Exhaustion swept over me as my eyes shut and my mind slipped away into a much more peaceful, free place.
I wasn’t there long. My mother’s voice filled the dreamlike space in my head. She began yelling, demanding I come out of my room and see her. We had things to discuss.
I reluctantly opened my eyes to see the world spinning around me. I tried several times to focus my eyes before I could see the red numbers on the clock clearly. 7:46pm. I had been asleep for an hour, and my hangover had already set in. My head was pounding and my eyes refused to focus clearly. I felt sick. I felt dirty.
“Meagan, you open this door right this second,” she demanded, my door making a terrible filter for her angry voice.
I lay still in my bed, hoping she would go away, hoping she would think that I wasn’t home. She didn’t. Instead, she began banging her fist against the wood, cursing at me.
Jason groaned, rolling over and rubbing his eyes, pupils still dark and dilated from the drugs he had taken earlier. “What’s going on?”
“My mom’s home,” I mumble, licking my lips. “You need to leave.”
He sighed, clearly annoyed, before pulling himself out of my blankets. He quickly got dressed, making his way over to my window. He opened it, climbing out onto my roof without glancing back at me. I reached for his hand, pulling him back for a second.
“I love you,” I say, hoping he would finally say it back to me. I had been waiting for months to hear those words come out of his mouth. I knew he loved me, he just didn‘t know how to say it. I was sure of it.
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he just nodded, looking more then a little baffled as he crawled his way off the roof and down into the bushes along the side of my house. I watched as he stumbled his way down the street, obviously not yet sober.
“Oh, this is disgusting!” I hear my mother’s voice once again, only now she was in my room.
“Mom?” I turn, seeing her standing in my doorway, looking around at the mess of my room. The clothes on the floor, the dirty blankets half on half off my bed. The condom rappers and cigarette cartons and other garbage littering the floor. It truly was disgusting, I just didn’t care.
“What is wrong with you?!” she screams, picking at my blankets. “What is on these?!”
“How did you get in here?” I yell, grabbing my blankets from her hands. “My door was locked!”
My mother glared, “I have a key. I had it made just for these occasions. It shouldn‘t even be locked anyways!” she began. She screamed more insults as me, then stopped. A thought had dawned on her. “You had a boy in here again, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. She knew. I didn’t dare make eye contact with her. I just hung my head low, praying she would leave. “That boy again? You know what I think of him! He’s nothing but trouble. But you wouldn’t know the difference anymore! You and your whore-ish ways!”
I zoned out, sinking onto my bed as my mother slithered her way around my room, screaming at me as she went through my things, picking up garbage and pointing out how disgusting I am and how my life is on completely the wrong path. I was wasting my life she said, I needed to go to school she said. I needed to start caring, she said.
“But I don’t care, mom,” I would say, rubbing my temples in attempts to chase away my nagging headache. Hangovers beat my body down, made me want to spend the day in bed. Coming down from my highs were worse though, that’s when I finally have to return to this fucked up world around me.
“You better care! You can’t live like this! This is horrible and wrong! Your father would be so disappointed in you!”
I roll my eyes, laying down in my bed. “Go ahead, pull the ‘Daddy’ card again. It didn’t hurt the first time, it won’t hurt anymore now.”
“You better watch your mouth before I smack it off your face. Clean this disgusting mess or I‘ll-”
“What? Going to kick me out? Because that worked out so well last time.”
My mother’s face grew a dark shade of red as she gritted her teeth. She clenched her fists at her sides, digging her nails into her skin. She was beyond furious with me, and I couldn’t care less.
“You are a disgrace,” she whispered, hardly audible. I heard her, though, and although I didn’t show it, it stung more than it should have.
My mother stomped out of my room, slamming the door behind her, leaving me in my room to cry. But I didn’t cry. I wanted to, and I could have. But I didn’t. I didn’t feel hurt. I didn’t feel upset or angry. I just felt numb.
I was falling asleep. My mind was floating away into my subconscious state, and a dream began to form in my head.
I was in a swing, one of those small kiddie swings at the park. It was bright red, matching my spring jacket wrapped around my small body. Red was my favourite colour, only because it was my dad’s favourite colour.
My small hands wrapped themselves around the chains on either side of me as I was swept into the air, only to be hurdled back by gravity. I would scream and giggle as the strong hands made contact with the swing, pushing me higher and higher into the sky--into the stars.
And then the person disappeared. The hands were gone, and the man was swept away from my dream, just like in real life. I was left there, in the swing, lost and alone.
There was a loud ‘tap’ in my ears, but my child mind couldn‘t register it as anything. It was just a weird tapping in my ears.
Suddenly, I was hurdled back to reality, realizing the tapping wasn’t coming from my dream. It was coming from the real world.
I groaned as I heard another ‘tap’, then another and another. I rolled over in my bed, facing my clock. 8:34pm. Was I ever going to get any sleep?
There was another ‘tap’, and I finally pulled myself out of bed, determined to find where this sound was coming from, and why it woke me from my sleep. It needed to go away, because I needed sleep.
I made my way to my window, hearing another ‘tap’ coming from the area around there. I stepped up to the window, smiling, because the tapping was actually rocks hitting my window, coming from a boy standing on my front lawn, a backpack hanging over his shoulder and a wide grin spread across his face.
I stuck my head out the open window that Jason had forgotten to close, smiling at the boy below.
“What do you want, Lukas?” I call down in a hushed voice. I didn’t want my mother coming in and screaming again at how much of a disgusting whore I am.
Maybe she’s right.
Lukas’ grin grew bigger, “Come on, let’s go out.”
I bite my lip, shaking my head. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“My mother-” I begin, but cut myself off. My mother wasn’t holding me back at all. Yes, she was furious with me, and she wouldn’t want me leaving the house, but she had nothing to do with this. This was all me. Me and my mind. I was holding myself back. I didn’t want to be with Lukas right now because I was embarrassed and hurt, and I didn’t want him to see this, to see what had happened to me. He deserved better than to be stuck with me.
“Fuck your mother!” he yelled, louder than he should have. He chuckled, slapping his hands over his mouth and looking around, making sure the front door didn’t open with a witch coming out with her broom stick, threatening to smack him with it.
It had happened before. My mother had chased a boy off our property with a broom. Since then, it had become a joke between Lukas and I.
When the coast was clear, Lukas spoke again, in a much more hushed voice. “You‘ve never cared about your mother before, why start now?”
I giggle, rubbing my face, careful with my cheek. I didn’t want to smudge the makeup. Lukas couldn’t see.
“I’m tired.”
“Oh come on. You’re Meagan. You’re never tired.”
If only he knew.
“It’s been a long day. Do you know what I’ve been through?”
“No, but we have all night for you to explain. Now get your ass out here.”
I roll my eyes, shaking my head. I’d regret this later, I’m sure of it.
“Give me a minute.”
I turn back around, considering fixing my makeup or fixing my hair, but shrug it off. Lukas was my best friend. He wouldn’t care… Just as long as my cheek was covered.
I grab an elastic and tie my hair in a loose ponytail at the back of my head. I take my baggy sweater and cover my torso with it before climbing out my window, scraping my knees on the rough shingled rooftop through the holes in my black skinny jeans. I didn’t care, though. Scraped knees were minor compared to the other things I’ve done.
“Don’t fall!” Lukas called, running to the side of my house.
My bedroom had a large window in it, large enough for someone to crawl out of. Underneath the window is about three feet of roof, just enough to walk on. Down the side of my house was a pipe going into my house, stretching all the way to the ground. It’s easy enough to climb up and down from, although usually when people are trying to get off my roof, they just jump into the giant leafy bush below. That’s what I do.
Lukas smiles, meeting my eyes with his bright, loving green eyes. God, Lukas was so perfect, in every way a person could be perfect. The blonde hair, the bright eyes, the perfect skin. He was gorgeous. Flat out gorgeous. And the kid was smart. Insanely smart. School was something he never needed to worry about. It all came easy to him. And his personality was what topped everything off. Lukas was the nicest, most down-to-earth, non-judgemental person I’ve ever met. I loved him to death. He was my best friend. Irreplaceable.
We had been friends since kindergarten. He was the first friend I ever had, and the only friend I have from grade school. Everybody else split off into different groups and cliques. But not Lukas and I. We stuck together.
In grade seven, he went to a different school, but it didn’t affect our friendship whatsoever. Weekends and after school was just for us. We went camping, we went fishing, we hung out and enjoyed each other. When we got to high school, we figured out a way to get myself into his school. I had weaseled my way in, really. I tricked my mother into letting me switch schools. But it didn’t last long. My life took a turn for the worst when my father died, and soon, Lukas and I grew apart. We were still the best of friends, but where he had decided to surround himself in schoolwork, I surrounded myself in drugs.
But we were still friends. We were still stuck together. We were always together.
Dad said we would get married one day. “Just watch,” he would say, “You think it‘s gross now because he‘s your friend, but when you grow up, you guys will get married. Just watch.”
“Ready to go?” Lukas smirks, pulling crunchy leaves out of my hair.
“Where?”
He just smiles. “You’re bedroom light came on just as you hit the bushes, which means we have like, ten seconds before your mom-”
“Meagan!”
“Shit!” I whisper. “What do we do?!”
Lukas laughs, taking my had and dragging me across my front lawn. “Run!”
We ran with my mother’s loud, furious voice calling behind us, but fading as we got further down the road. She was cursing and demanding I get back in the house right that moment, but I didn’t listen. I couldn’t listen. I was too distracted by Lukas’ hand in mine and the laughter coming from both out mouths.
We ran around the corner, jumping in his grandfather’s old, light clue 1970 Cadillac. He had been the only grandchild in the family, so his grandfather had given it to him for his sixteenth birthday, as long as he didn’t do the driving lessons in that car.
Let’s just say it’s a good thing he didn’t.
Lukas slammed the door, sticking the key in the ignition and turning it. The engine roared to life, and soon, we were speeding down the road, the warm summer air blowing in and wiping away any of the anger or pain I had been holding in before.
I liked doing this with Lukas. Jumping in his car and just driving, letting the wind wash away any negative feelings or thoughts, letting it clear my head. It worked. It always worked.
But it didn’t magically make the headaches and hangovers disappear.
“My head hurts,” I mumble, pressing on my temples. Luke smiles, reaching in the glove compartment and pulling out a bottle of Advil, tossing it in my lap.
“I know what you get up to, I’m always prepared.”
I roll my eyes, tossing back a couple red pills before leaning my head against the leather seat, facing Lukas. “Where are you taking me?”
“Surprise,” he winked, before looking back onto the road.
I shook my head, finally resting. I trusted Lukas, more than anybody on this Earth. I knew that while I was with Lukas, everything would be okay.



“Don’t tell me you fell asleep,” Lukas’ voice rang in my ears, jolting me awake. I was panicked for a moment, waking up somewhere I didn’t remember falling asleep. But when Lukas’s face came into view, I was fine.
“I was bored, and tired,“ I yawn, adding to my argument. “You need to take me to places closer to my house.”
He rolled his eyes, opening the door and getting out. I followed.
I recognized this place as soon as I opened the door. The trees, the air, the smell, the dirt, the rocks, the water. It was all so vivid in my mind. The small pond where fish swim around, the pond that is always warm enough to swim in. The old oak tree, perfect for picnics. The dirt, filled with ants and other insects. The air, rolling in from the mountains, fresh and clean. I remembered everything about this place, yet nothing at all. I couldn’t place a specific memory or even a face to this place.
“Where are we?” I asked, walking to the edge of the water, feeling compelled to stick my toes in and feel the warmth. It was just as warm as I thought it would be… as I remembered.
“You don’t remember?”
“I do,” I say, turning to face him. His hands were stuck deep in his pockets. “But I don’t.”
He smirked, taking off his running shoes and standing beside me, our feet soaking in the warm water. “We used to come here as kids. Your dad brought us here.”
I remembered immediately. Everything came rushing back.
There was a pathway off to the side, leading to an old park with swings. The kiddie swings that my father used to push me in. The ones I dream about. I remembered the picnics we would have together here, Lukas, my father and I. We would spend summer days out here, then we would spend the evenings watching the sunsets, waiting for the stars to come out. I never liked looking at the sky. It was too big, and frankly, I found it boring. There were toys and other things to keep my mind busy. I didn’t care about the stars and the moon.
But Lukas loved the sky. He shared that bond with my father. The two of them would lay on the ground and stare at the sky, pointing out things they saw. It meant so much too them. I would sit back and be bored out of my mind, wishing I was anywhere but there.
Nowadays, I like looking at the sky. It reminds me of my father, and sometimes I like to think that he’s out there somewhere, watching over me.
He’d be disappointed.
“You going to lay down with me?”
I look down to see Lukas laying in the dirt, his arms folded over his stomach. He was staring up at me, smirking his goofy smile.
I laugh, shaking my head. “I am not laying in the dirt.”
Lukas sighed, rolling his eyes at me. He got up, brushing himself off before walking back to his car and climbing on the hood. “Then we’ll lay here,” he grumbled. I smirked, crawling on beside him, facing the sky.
All I could see was sky.
The sun had set already, but the sky was still a shady pink and purple colour. Lukas and I laid there, on the hood of his car, in silence, for what seemed like hours. It felt like time flew by so slowly as I watched the sky move and the stars come out.
“I like coming out here and doing this,” Lukas said softly. “I like watching the sky move. It’s so quiet out here, so calm and peaceful. Everything moves so slowly, it makes me feel like I have something to slow life down a bit… slow down all the hectic things teenage life brings us. I feel almost in control.”
“But you aren’t. You aren’t in control of the things around you. All of this,” I hold my hands up to the darkening sky, “you can’t control any of this. It’s all natural.”
He smiles. “That’s why I like it. The things we go through… the things you go through… it’s all natural. It’s all part of being a teenager. It’s part of life.”
We’re silent again, watching the clouds drift through the air and the sky grow darker and darker. Soon, stars fill the sky, and the pink and purple faded into a dark blue and black shade, only brightened by the moon.
My eyelids grew heavy, and I found myself dozing off. It was easy in the silence and the darkness and the calmness I had in this place, being here with Lukas. Everything just made me feel so at peace.
Lukas’s gaze on my kept me from sleep, though. I was too aware of him, his eyes on me. The hairs on my arm stood up, and I was suddenly aware of how close we are.
“Can I ask you I question?” Lukas mumbled. I keep my eyes closed, nodding. “You’ll answer honestly?”
I turn to meet his gaze, slipping one eye open. “What?”
He licks his lips, shaking his head. “You know I’m here, right?”
I blink, confused. “Of course I do. You’re-”
“I mean, you can tell me anything. When you’re having problems… if you need help or if something’s wrong, you can tell me.”
“I know,” I nod, not liking where this conversation was leading. I didn’t want to talk about any of this with him. I didn’t want to talk to anybody about it. It was better to keep it to myself and not get the people I care about involved with my problems.
“Then tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Don’t play games with me,” he sits up, looking down at me. He wasn’t smiling like he usually was. He’s always happy. He’s always joking. But now, now he was serious. He looked hurt, almost. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know-”
Lukas stuck a finger out, poking my cheekbone. I jumped up, screaming out as I took my cheek in my hands. “Asshole!”
“What happened.”
“What the fuck was that for?!”
Lukas looked at me, his face stone cold. “Tell me.”
I open my moth, searching for words to explain. “How did you know?” I asked, gently rubbing at the makeup that had obviously failed to hide the dark purple bruise.
“I’m not stupid. You’ve been cradling your cheek all night, being so careful. Besides,” he holds up his finger, showing the peachy toned makeup on his fingertip. “Makeup doesn’t hide everything.”
“Dammit,” I mumble, looking at my own fingers that were now covered in makeup. I shrugged, mumbling “Oh well,” before laying back down on the hood of the car and closing my eyes again, hoping Lukas would shrug it off.
Of course he didn’t. He was a good guy. He cared.
“I want to know what happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“You’re lying to me, again.”
“I fell… into my bedpost,” I say, cursing at myself for making up such a stupid lie.
Lukas chuckled. “The truth?”
“Hey, it’s possible! I could have hit my head on the bedpost.”
“But you didn’t. Someone hit you,” he pauses, taking a breath. “If your mom hit you, she can get in trouble. You don’t have to-”
“Whoa,” I stop him, shaking my head. “It’s not my mom. No worries.”
“Then who?”
I looked up at Lukas, pain and worry on his face. Worry for me. He was hurting because I was hurting, and because I wouldn’t tell him the truth. But I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell anybody. It was embarrassing and pathetic, and it was a secret. My secret.
I felt myself forming a lie. A believable this time. But I stopped myself. I couldn’t lie to Lukas. Not for real.
“Jason,” I blurt out, before covering my eyes, wiping away tears that already started falling. Just from saying his name, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold myself together anymore. I couldn’t hold everything in forever. I needed to let it out. I needed to cry with my best friend.
Lukas was silent, just staring down at me, crying into my hands.
“Oh god, Lukas, I fucked up,” I cried. “He was so nice, a-and then he changed. And I should have walked away, but he got violent, and he pulled me into the drugs. And then I got in trouble at school and got caught by the police. Everything just went for shit. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore and I hurt so badly.”
“It’s okay,” Lukas smiled, taking my hand that was soaking wet from all my salty tears.
“It’s not okay,” I yell. “I’m so broken and lost. My family’s gone, you’re the only real friend I have. Everybody else just wants money and sex and drugs. Nobody cares anymore, Lukas,” I pause, looking at him through my blurred, teary vision. “I stopped caring.”
“You didn’t stop caring, not completely. This,” he motioned to the salty tears on his hand, “proves it. You cry because you hurt. And you hurt because you care.”
“But I don’t want to care. I want to leave, and I don’t want to come back,” I say, my voice growing weaker and weaker as I went on. “I want to die.”
Lukas didn’t flinch. He didn’t respond at all, he hardly moved. He just looked into my eyes, searching. Searching for the right words, something that would make everything better.
After minutes of silence, except for my quiet sibs, Lukas finally moved. He laid back down onto the hood of the car, staring up to the starry sky above.
“You know, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star,” he whispered, carefully taking my hand in his, squeezing. “You’re dad told me that the last time we came here, before he died.”
The last time we came here I had been fourteen. My first year of high school. I could hardly remember it now, with the other memories clouding around and taking up so much room. All I remember is that my father had been really happy that day. He had told Lukas a secret, a secret I would find out when I was older.
Dad died a week later. He was sick. Really sick. His lungs were damaged, and he needed a transplant. The list was so long… I didn’t know he was sick, not until he was hospitalized. Not until he died.
“He told me to look after you, that day. He told me to make sure you ended up okay in the end, to make sure you were happy.”
A smirk tugs at my cheek and I hold back an urge to laugh. I wasn’t okay here. I wasn’t being looked after. I was a mess. Off the rails. Out of control.
“He knew he was dying, Meagan. He knew, and your mother knew, but that was it. He was saying his goodbyes that day, to you and to me. He wanted to make sure you ended up okay, in the right hands.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “He always thought we’d end up together,” I turned to face him, my bruised cheek resting on the cool hood of the car. “He thought we’d grow up and get married, have kids and be happy…”
Lukas smiled, looking back up to the stars. “Do you think it could ever happen?”
“Hmm?”
“You and I… Could we ever end up together.”
The word ‘no’ screamed through my head, but I wasn’t able to say the word out loud. I couldn’t form the word in my mouth, because I had never really thought about it. Lukas and I, best friends forever, falling in love. It sounded cliché and cheesy, but not impossible. If Lukas and I stayed as close as we are now…
All doubts flew out of my mind the moment his lips met mine. Lukas had reached over, taking my face in his hands and kissed me, softly on the lips.
At that moment, I knew. Lukas and I would end up together. My father had been right all along. We were meant to be. It was him and I from now on. No Jason. No other boys. No mother. Nothing. Just Lukas and I. Because we were meant to be.
Lukas pulled away quickly, his cheeks slightly pink. He was silent for a moment, giving me time to think about what had just happened. But I didn’t need time to think. Everything was surprisingly clear.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, shifting to get off the car. “I just wanted to see… I mean, I‘m sorry-”
“Don’t be, it‘s fine,” I smile, laying back on the car. “I think my dad was right.”
He looked at me in pure disbelief. He blinked a couple times, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to kiss you- I mean I did, but I-”
“Shut up,” I chuckle, grabbing his hand and pulling him back on the car. “I told you. It’s fine. We can sort it out later.”
He nodded, smiling as he joined me back on the car, looking up at the billions of stars filling the night sky. It was quiet, except for the crickets calling out. Crickets’ sounds always were calming to me.
“I really didn’t mean to kiss you,” Lukas smiled, poking my side.
I roll my eyes, grabbing his hand. “I’m going to murder you if you don‘t shut up.”
He chuckled, squeezing my hand in his. “Everything will end up all right,” he paused, looking me in the eye. “Eventually.”
And I believed him. Not a cell in my body doubted him.
Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but everything would be okay. Because life goes on. The sun will always rise and the starts will always shine.