Moonchild

CHAPTER ONE

'I promise, nana,' my one hand, the one that I wore my watch on, was still on the doorknob while I was holding my schoolbag with the other. The schoolbag was hanging, extremely heavy from the books, 'I won't be late.' I yelled back to the house, letting my voice travel towards the kitchen. The short and narrow hallway from the main entrance of the small house, that I called home since I could remember, towards the kitchen where nana was at the moment, made my voice louder than intended.

In a split second I glanced at my watch and noticed that I already missed the school bus, which I always did, by the way, so I had to walk all the way to school. With an eye roll to the gods, I whispered a loud sigh so that nana would hear that I was listening for her to say something.

My chest tightened and the air in the hallway was being sucked in and pulled out like a broken vacuum does in order to start properly. Since I got nothing, not even a single blah, from the kitchen, I yelled,

'Marie, George and I will go play at the park for some time and then I'll be back.'

I could feel the air thickening now from the narrow hallway and towards me. A soft rhythmic tap that sounded like nana's fingers tapping the kitchen table out of worry or something, and echoing loudly towards me, I immediately imagined her in there on an audio mixing console, DJing and jamming a very good intro with a very famous song that, oddly enough, I heard yesterday, and wearing a very expensive set of headphones but only one on her ear, her hand raised in the air and waving it for the audience to do the same. The thought made me smile for a second or two, and with a slight giggle I added,

'I promise, nana. I –'

There!

I almost said it this time.

I love you.

A close call, that was what it was.

I stood there, eyes wide like a night owl, hand tightening on the doorknob, while my insides twirled a little bit just by almost saying the three words out loud. I could think of them or mouth them without the fear of my lips falling over, but I could not get my voice and lips to cooperate in order to express them properly. They absolutely never did. I could curse harshly for a boy in my thirteen years of age, but God forbid. Love was never on the table. I never knew love. No parents. The origin of the definition of love was not in the picture.

So I, Lucas, never knew love.

I shut the door behind me with a loud thud and walked down the steps towards the driveway. Dammit. I forgot to grab an apple from the kitchen table, and I was not willing to face her now. What if she heard, I thought, and understood what I was going to say?

I love you. What an idiot.

I walked towards Mr. Costa's car, the next door neighbour's car, and glanced at my face first: Dark medium-sized curls bouncing from my instant stopping in front of the green Suzuki, my hazel eyes glowing by the sight of the sun ray blinding me. Ouch! Then I checked on my clothes, because as a teenager, I lived in a world where everyone gossiped or judged on what we chose to wear: I wasn't sure about my black t-shirt, it was not ironed properly, but I pushed it inside my blue jeans. The grey sweatshirt was tied on my waist, so the extra belly fat was not visible to the naked eye. Even if I were skinny, which I was, I still felt fat, in my own way.

School was a short distance away by foot, two turns and a jump over the short fence that surrounded it. The sun was almost at its glory with its guardians: the clouds. I always admired the clouds more than anything. White and strong, grey and pale, dark and edgy with a hint of black and drama, letting you know that a storm was coming. You could see anything marked by the clouds. I was so clueless, but at the same time I knew more than I wanted the others to know I knew. The clouds, to some, were sort of a cotton-like substance that produced rain. To me, they were God's brush strokes on a white, blue, orange, pink or black canvas.