Jeremy and the Moon Dancer

EPILOUGE

                                                                                

                                                                          ****six years later****

The day after my dog Luna died, I was home again, after just graduating from college with a degree in astronomy and a minor in lunar cycles and eclipses. 

Summer caught me as I was heading to the shore to pay my respects.

"Hey you!" yelled summer, clearly out of breath from running after me.
"This is not the time, really summer; not the time!"
"I know, I know, it's never the time anymore, Jeremy is it? Anyways..." she continued. "Hey, is all I was gonna say."
"Summer...I told you." I warned, when she interrupted,
"No, I was gonna ask 'How are you"
"How am I?" I repeated, taken a back.

I brought Summer down to the spot for the first time and I told her everything.

***********
"Jeremy, you brought light into a girl's life who only knew darkness. You blessed her."

I cried silently as she said this, the salt dripping down my cheeks but I made no attempt to wipe them.

***************

"Just like that, wonderful!" I exclaimed to Summer, proud her the perfectly buried sand dollar, the special one that I had saved from that night Laila taught me how to bury them. I told her that "Luna" means moon in Italian and promised that a very special white fluffy dog, which meant a lot to a girl and a boy, was looking out for her always.

"So where do they go again?"

"Summer I've told you before." I sighed half-frustrated, half-tired, but mostly joking.

"No, Jeremy, I remember. I just want you to repeat it again. It makes more sense coming out of your mouth."

"Oh? So when you follow this procedure exactly...as soon as you finish the drawing of the heart, the final stage, the sand dollar appears on a beach in heaven. On that beach in heaven an exotic angle..."

"Her name?" Summer interrupted my thoughts.
"Sorry?"
"Her name, the angels name? What was it again? I remember from before her name was really beautiful. Wasn't it?"
"It still is"
"I remember..." she leaned back on her elbow, thinking. All the sudden I had a flashback of Laila.

"The name sounded almost like..."

"Just like the crashing of waves, right?"

"Shhh! I'm listening...," she warned in a tensed whisper through her teeth.

I scanned Summer's pale porcelain face and looked into her deep brown eyes. And there I was, remembering too.

"Yeah, just like the crashing of waves, over and over again."

She looked at me quizzingly, her eyebrows arched in question.

"Laila, her name was Laila."

"Oh. Right, I remember now." Yes, you sure do, Summer, I can see it written all over that face of yours...

And Summer, though I will never say this to you or anyone. But thank you. Thank you for reminding me not to be a coward. I learned from Laila that the worst fear of a coward is too being found out, for someone to ask you "Why are you scared?" But though it was a fear of mine, it was best that I was discovered. Though her lips never asked that question her eyes did. Realizing, looking into her eyes, that running away from your fears only confirms them. Fears of love, true loyalty, and darkness too. Looking into Laila's eyes that last time, in the doorway, I silently vowed never to run again. Summer, without realizing it, had knocked down a wall. Without protection I had to face my raw emotion head on, there was no more hiding. Behind the rubble of the wall was a possibility, something new, I had never been able to see; the possibility of walking forward.

"After all," she whispers. "Laila. Laila, it has a special power to it."
"What does?" I ask
"The name," she says, as if obvious to anyone.
"it has this kind of beautiful, peaceful fluidity to it."
"You said it first." I half smiled, peering sideways at her.

Play this when you're done reading this section, promise me, ok? -Bird's Eye by The National Parks. Also listen to-  And if my Heart Should Somehow Stop. Both songs are life changing!)