Even the Moon Has Scars (13 page)

“No, sir,” Lena says. Her face is calm, but her voice has a hitch to it that gives her nerves away.

“Alright then, you and your girlfriend go ahead. We’ve got it from here,” one of the medics says.

I wrap my arm around Lena and pull her in close to me. She sniffles a little and I can’t see her face, but dammit I hope she’s not about to cry.

“You okay, doll?” I ask. I kiss the top of her head. I don’t know if that’s the wrong thing to do right now, but I don’t want her to cry.

Her only response is a quick nod.

“I’m so sorry about that,” I say.

We walk out onto the street and it feels like we’ve been on the train forever. The city is quieter now that the last trains have left for the night. Most people are where they need to be for the night.

I stop walking, turn to her and say. “We can fix this. We can go back to my mom’s apartment for the night.”

I watch a quick grimace fill her face, even though she tries to smooth it out before I see. She doesn’t need to hide her feelings for my benefit, I feel the same damn way.

“We can...We can call a car. I’ll get us a car service.”

Lena shakes her head. “It’s okay.”

“God dammit, I am so sorry, Lena. I should have made sure we stayed on the train—”

“It was my fault,” she shrugs. “Stupid, naive, Lena.” Her voice is a bitter singsong.

“Don’t,” I say. I reach over and tip her chin up so that she’s forced to look at me. “Don’t do that. You’re not stupid. You want to see the good in people, no harm there. Come on, let’s grab something warm to drink, then we’ll call for a car, okay?”

It’s going to cost me a fortune to get us a car service back to Gloucester tonight, but it’s worth it to know that Lena is home where she belongs: safe and warm.

She starts to laugh.

Like, really laugh. I want to join in, or at least ask what’s so goddamn funny, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to know.

Still, she’s cackling like I haven’t heard out of her yet tonight.

“Are you—are you okay?” I finally ask, as she’s nearly doubled over.

“I am—” she says in between breaths. “I just—this is all so silly. I had this idea in my stupid head that we were going to have some grand adventure today when we got on the train—” she blots at her eyes, wiping the tears of laughter as her voice returns to normal. “And instead, it’s just been one big fail after another.”

“I said I’m sorry,” I say. “We’re going to get home.”

Lena straightens up and shakes her head with a smile. “The thing is, I don’t want to. Do you?”

“Don’t want to what? Go home? Lena, it’s late and—”

“That wasn’t what I asked,” She shakes her head and her ponytail slips down a little, looser from the long day. “I asked if you actually
want
to go home. Right now. Do you want to call this day a loss and get a car back to Gloucester, and then go sit in your grandmother’s house?”

Hell no I don’t want to go back to Babci’s right now. I don’t want to sit in the quiet house in the floral print bed, when I know that Lena would be down the street, all alone.

“Well, what’s the alternative?” I ask.

“What’s your favorite place in the city?”

“What?”

“Your favorite spot.”

“That’s tough.”

Lena’s staring up at me with those big, bright eyes that fill me with nervous pressure to make my choice good.

“There has to be somewhere that you go when your day has been total crap and you need to forget everything,” she says.

She’s rubbing her hands together to keep them warm, so I reach over and hold them in mine. It’s how we started the day in my garage. Me trying to warm up her hands.

Maybe we’ve got a shot and turning the night around after all.

“Okay, yeah. I know a place—” I’m smiling along with her and nodding my head.

“Take me there,” she says, and steps off the street. “Let’s go.”

“Lena—are you sure?” I pull her back to me.

She nods and flashes a wide smile. “I want to. Really. For once I want to do something stupid. For once I want to live a little. And I want to do it with you.”

My grandmother buys me a journal every year for Christmas. I’m not sure why, it’s a nice gesture, I just don’t really have anything to fill them with. I have a plastic tote under my bed with at least ten of them.

Some are wire bound, some have thick covers and intricate designs, some have inspirational quotes or pictures of famous places. I do have one that I started when I was a kid that lists all of the times I ruined things for Kaydi because I, and my health took precedence. I stopped writing in it a few years ago, though.

We may be Catholic, but even that seemed a little heavy on the guilt.

Anyway, on the cover of one, there is a quote that asks:
‘When was the last time you did something for the first time?’

In my case, up until tonight, the answer was never.

I hadn’t done any normal teenage things like ride the subway into the city, even if it was with a guy I’d never met before. I’d never tried to help someone who didn’t want my help. And I’d never explored a beautiful city in the moonlight.

But tonight, tonight I can make all about trying things for the first time. Seeing things the way they were meant to be seen—by someone who lives and loves them, rather than on a rushed train just trying to make it to the end.

Part of the reason I think this night went to crap was because I was trying to be too cautious. I wanted to experience things, but wasn’t open to letting things happen on their own. And when they got complicated, or ugly, I shut down.

So now, I let Gabe keep his arm around me and don’t ask where we’re headed, and it’s amazing how much lighter my step feels and how much more relaxed the mood is now that we aren’t in such a rush. Now that we’re not trying to hurry up and figure each other out.

Now that we’re free.

“I really am sorry about back there,” he says.

“It’s not your fault,” I say. “It was sort of mine.”

“Nah, you can’t help it if you have a big heart.”

“It
is
miraculous,” I joke.

“I’m also—I’m sorry for shutting down on you. In my mind, once you told me that you hadn’t been into the city in so long, I had this idea in my head that I was going to show you everything and we’d have this awesome time—”

“There’s still time,” I say.

A quirk of a smile forms in the corner of his mouth.

“You’re right, we do have plenty of time now.” Gabe nods with a laugh. “Aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?”

I shake my head and let him lead on.

***

We end up in a park.

A park is fine. A park is great, even.

If this is legitimately Gabe’s favorite spot in the city, then I’m happy to be here with him. It’s just not exactly what I expected when I told him to take me to his favorite place.

The sprawling green space has several statues of historic figures, a memorial of some kind and an amphitheater.

It’s nice. It’s a park.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah, it’s great,” I say.

“But?” he asks.

I rub my hands down the length of my jeans. “It’s not what I expected from you, I guess. Then again, I don’t really know you, so—”

“That’s true, you don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling back. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“No, it’s fair. Tell you what, the rest of the night, anything you ask, I’ll answer.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“Lena,” he says, turning to me. “I want to.”

“Okay,” I say. “So far, all I know about you is that you’re an only child, your mom wouldn’t take your dad’s last name, and you like cars.”

“And my ex is maybe stalking me,” he adds with a laugh.

“That too,” I smile.

“What else do you want to know?”

“Gabe, I appreciate the effort, but isn’t getting to know someone supposed to be—I don’t know, a little more organic than just a Q and A session?”

The ring of a bicycle-type bell interrupts us.

“Hot chocolate?” Gabe asks. There’s a man walking along the path with a white push cart and some thermoses.

“Yes, please,” I say.

Gabe buys two cups and hands me one. The warmth in my hands is heavenly. I press the hot cup to the side of my face.

“Are you too cold? We can go find somewhere indoors to hang if you’d like.”

I shake my head. “No, this is great. Thank you for this.”

“You sure?” Gabe narrows his eyes at me.

“I’m sure. Let’s sit. I want to know all about what makes this Gabriel Martinez’s favorite spot in Boston.”

My jeans are little protection from the cold cement bench, but the warmth of the cup in my hands, and the way Gabe scoots in close to me, make it more than bearable.

“Well, for one, awesome hot chocolate,” he says, tapping his cup to mine.

“That is true,” I say with a laugh.

“Also, you see that memorial over there?” Gabe points to a granite wall. “It’s in honor of lost Marines. Lots of people come to pay their respects, leave flowers and notes, say prayers. Some of the visitors are family members. They get emotional and sometimes it’s hard to watch.”

It’s beautiful, and touching, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t confused as to why that somber act makes it his favorite.

Gabe continues, “And then right there, you’ve got a playground and a splash park for kids. During the day it’s full of kids screaming and laughing and their parents chasing after them.”

“So, you like...the playground?” I ask, hoping it doesn’t come out rude.

Gabe shakes his head. “You asked me where I go when I’ve had a crap day. This is it. This park, this spot right here. It—” he leans back on the bench and wraps his arm around my shoulders. “It captures the whole range of humanity. Kids are playing right over there, people are grieving over there. It’s the one place in the city I’ve been where you can see the dark and the light side of life this close together.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. Gabe continues to surprise me.

“And there’s also the fact that my dad and I used to come here every weekend. Before…”

He lets his voice trail off and even though I’ve been pressuring him for answers all night, now,  suddenly, I don’t want them. I don’t want him to have to feel the pain that I know he’s dealing with.

“I don’t know why he took off the way he did. Maybe he just couldn’t handle the pain. I get it. Maybe he couldn’t risk sticking around to see if things got worse.” Gabe takes a long pull from his cup then shrugs. “I just don’t know. And that’s probably the hardest part.”

“And you have no way to get in touch with him?”

Gabe shakes his head. “Nope. He took off on one of the boats from Gloucester. Some of those are gone for months at a time. Guess I’ll see him when I see him, right?”

He tries to play it off like it’s no big deal, but I can feel little chips of him shattering next to me when he talks.

“What about you, Lena?” he says, slapping a hand lightly on my leg. “You ever run off? I mean, other than tonight, obviously.”

“Nope,” I say. I take a sip of my hot chocolate and savor the warm, thick liquid as it floats down my throat. “Wait. That’s a lie.”

“Tell me more,” he says with a smirk and edges in closer to me. "When I was eight, my best friend Lily and I were in Sunday School—”

“This is riveting already,” Gabe snickers.

“Shut up,” I say, swatting at his arm. “Anyway, we heard that they were putting in a new playground at the private school across the street. We both asked to use the restroom and ran off—”

“Across the street?”

“Hey, we can’t all be as rebellious as you. So Lily and I went across the street and played on the slides and swings for an hour. We didn’t hear the bells ringing at the church. We didn’t hear the sirens when the cops showed up—”

“Holy shit, Lena is a criminal.”

“Hardly. But it did take them a long time to find us—or until we got bored of playing and wandered back.”

“And you were in deep shit, huh?”

“Yep,” I say, stretching my legs out in front of me. “Probably not as much as I’m going to be tomorrow morning, but yeah.”

“Don’t think about it right now,” Gabe says softly.

“I do remember how much sand was in my hair, which was a nightmare all its own. And I never heard the end of how I could have contracted some gross bacteria or parasite from it. Do you know what kind of germs are in playground sand?”

“Never really thought much about it,” I say. “But thanks for ruining my favorite spot for me.”

“Oh,” I slap my hand to my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m kidding, Lena.”

I lean forward on the bench and look off to the side.

“What’s that, some kind of party?” I ask. The sound of trumpets and saxophones cut through the quiet of the night on the other end of the park. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

Gabe shrugs. “Guess if you know the right people you can get a permit for anything.”

A big gust of wind kicks up. My teeth chatter, so I drain the rest of the hot chocolate from my cup, savoring every last drop.

“Can we walk a bit?” I ask, rubbing my palms up and down over my cold arms.

“Yeah, of course.”

We walk up a short flight of steps and under a trellis covered with bright blue lights. A few steps in and I have to stop and stare up. I can feel Gabe’s eyes on me rather than the lights, though.

When I was ten, we went to the Grand Canyon. We didn’t camp, but we stayed in a cabin in the National Park. We can see a lot of stars in Gloucester where we live, but one night in the cabin, Kaydi woke me up. We grabbed our robes and went and sat on the wooden porch swing of the cabin and stared at the stars. It was the first time I understood the term ‘blanket of stars’ because that’s exactly what they were. There was hardly any dark space in the sky, just huge clusters of the brightest stars we’d ever seen that were so bright and so close, they looked like you could reach out and touch them. I remember feeling so small under that massive sky. I felt like all of the things that worried me were so minute compared to the vast universe and all of those stars above.

I get the same feeling standing under this canopy of lights with Gabe. They’re packed together so that you can hardly see any of the night sky around them. Outside the canopy is the city, its skyscrapers and old buildings still illuminated. Gabe and I are just these tiny specks in something so much bigger than we could ever wrap our minds around.

“Gabe, this is amazing,” I say, staring up at the lights. “No wonder this is your favorite place. They’re like stars.”

“Pretty cool, right?”

I tip my head back down and his realize his gaze is still focused on me.

“So, any question you’ll answer?” I begin, and Gabe nods. “About Jemma…”

“Ah, yeah, I figured I owed you a better explanation than I gave earlier,” Gabe says.

I shake my head and say, “You don’t owe me one, but I’d like to know what’s going on. Are things finished? Like, over this time?” I don’t know why, but the tightness of hope in my stomach that they’re really done outweighs the nervousness of asking for the details.

“Jemma—I think she gets it. I hope she gets it.” He rubs a palm across his cheek and says, “It’s definitely over whether she gets it or not.”

“What happened?”

“Tonight, or in general?”

“Whichever,” I say.

“You been following the news? Israeli-Palestinian conflict? All that?”

I nod slowly. “I guess. A little.”

Probably not as much as I should be, to be honest.

“Well, that’s all that Babci watches—even if she isn’t paying attention half the time, the news is always on in her house. And I still have trouble making sense of it all, or figuring out who’s right or wrong, or if either side is. But Jemma, Jemma is one of those people that likes to attach herself to causes. She doesn’t care if it’s anti-fur, anti-guns, anti-money, you give her a cause, she’ll back it.”

“Okay…” I say. “Isn’t she a little young for all of those big opinions?”