Moon Song

Chapter 5 - Claire/Jasmine

Claire lived with her Mum, her 4 year old twin sisters Skyla and Millie, and her baby brother, Finn.  Because her Dad was no longer in the picture and her Mum was always working from their office, Claire's mum and siblings relied heavily on her do help out around the house. She would often be cooking dinner when her mum couldn't or she would walk her sisters to and from preschool.

It never really bothered Claire, plus she admired her mum so much for going through what she did with her dad, and just wanted to make her life a little easier.

However, she did sometimes catch herself feeling really exhausted and burn out. It wasn't often that she'd get time to herself, except of course for late at night when she'd work on her art.

But tonight, for the first time in a long time, she didn't feel like drawing. She just wanted to enjoy the stillness of the moment, breathe some fresh air.

At around 1am, Claire grabbed her AirPods from her nightstand and headed outside. Her property didn't really have any nice grass to lay on, the ground around her washing line was covered in pebbles. She decided her neighbor wouldn't mind if she just snuck through the gate onto their grass, and that's what she did.

As she opened her phone and pressed play on Phoebe Bridgers, she lay down on the grass. She couldn't help but hope she might've found a certain neighbor of hers out here, but she wasn't that surprised when she was nowhere to be found.

Claire looked up into the sky, and smiled when she saw the moon above her head. It was as if it hadn't even moved from its place from two nights ago. She lay there like that with Phoebe's words singing softly in her ears for about ten minutes. Luckily it was warm enough tonight. She decided she could lie here like this forever.

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Jasmine finally lay in her bed. Her room was finally coming together, slowly. Along with now actually having a bed, she also had curtains, a desk and a bedside table with a gray alarm clock on top. It made her uneasy that it was actually started to feel like her room. It still wasn't home though.

She rolled over to look at the time. 1am. Too early to sleep. With a sigh, she got out of her bed and padded across the hall to the music room. The keyboard had now been unboxed and set up, the guitar sat in it's brand new stand.

Jasmine sat down against the wall and grabbed her guitar. As she was trying to decide on a song to play, she stared out the window.

It took her a few seconds to see Claire, a dark figure laying on the slope below her window. She shuffled over to the window, before gently opening it. She watched Claire lie still on the lawn, decided if she should intrude. The girl didn't seem to be upset or anything, just still. 

She stood at the window. She really wanted to join her, but didn't want to seem like she was desperate to talk to her.

'Ah fuck it,' she whispered. Claire was on her property anyway.

Jasmine climbed out the window and slid down the roof with ease. She was getting good at this. She assumed that the noise she had made getting to the ground would have definitely gotten Claire's attention, but the girl made no indication of knowing she was there. Jasmine wandered up the hill towards Claire in her socks, wondering if she should just turn around before things got awkward. But there was a voice in her mind telling her to keep going.

'Hey,' she said once she reached her neighbor. Still, there was no movement. Claire just stayed laying on the ground, eyes shut rather peacefully.

Hesitantly, Jasmine spoke again.

'Claire.'

Suddenly, Claire's eyes fluttered open. She quickly sat up and pulled out her AirPods.

'Oh, sorry.' She was embarrassed to have been caught like that. 'Hey.'

Jasmine sat down next to Claire, keeping eye contact with her neighbor. The grass was surprisingly dry tonight.

'You're on my property,' she said sternly, but couldn't help breaking a smile.

'Sorry.' Claire smiled back.

'What are you doing?'

'Moon watching. Wanna join?' Claire held out an AirPod for Jasmine, which she took gratefully, before placing it in her ear. Claire did the same with her one.

As soon as 'Moon Song' started playing, Jasmine whipped her head back around to look at her neighbor.

'Dude!' She exclaimed. 'You listen to Phoebe?'

'Yes! She's kinda been keeping sane recently,' Claire said honestly.

'Been there.' Jasmine lay down in the grass, Claire following suit.

The two girls lay there as the song played, watching the sky. Neither of them spoke for a while, but it was a comfy silence. Jasmine was just happy to have some company.

'So what do you do?' She asked, eager to actually get to know her neighbor.

'What?'

'Like, for fun. What do you like to do?' she clarified.

'Oh.' Claire thought for a while. 'I guess I draw. I make art. It's not that good though. More of a hobby than anything else.'

'Cool.'

'What about you?' She returned the question.

'Umm... I guess I make music. Well I play it, anything I've tried writing has kinda turned to shit.' Jasmine had always loved music, especially music theory. She even took an extra class at school on it. She liked to think of it as the 'behind the scenes' of a song.

'Cool.' repeated Claire.

The next hour continued exactly like that. Comfortable silence, occasionally interrupted by the most basic questions. Slowly, the girls got to know eachother better. 

At 2.30 am, Jasmine watched as Claire checked her phone for the time.

'I should probably go inside now,' Claire whispered.

'Yeah, sounds like a good idea.' 

Jasmine disagreed with herself. If she had her way, her and Claire would sit out here a chat until dawn. She didn't want to go back to the silence of her room. She couldn't be bothered to fail at trying to sleep for another night. She liked the way that talking to Claire made her forget about all that shit. Something about her just made her feel... heard.

'Do you have snapchat or something? That way we can actually communicate during normal, human hours,' she asked her, with a smile.

'I don't sorry, we don't have WiFi at our house. But I can give you my number.' She replied.

'Ok, cool.'  Who the heck doesn't have WiFi?

After Claire had finished typing Jasmine's phone number into her contacts, the girls went to say goodbye. Jasmine knew that they weren't close enough to hug yet, but it still felt quite empty just leaving.

'I'll see you around, I'm sure,' said Claire, breaking the now slightly awkward silence.

'See ya, neighbor.'

After another really long second of awkward eye contact, Claire turned around and headed back toward her gate. Jasmine watched her until she closed the sliding door behind her, before going back to her own roof.