Her moonlight glow

Chapter 1: "Who even are you?"

She was everything to me. The way she smiled, what she said, how she looked. I was intoxicated on her.

It was like she had a way of pulling your secrets out of you without your knowledge, things you would never had considered telling people. She made you feel seen.

Whenever I walked with her in the hallways she'd wave to at least five people. That's just the kind of person she was, you either were her friend or you weren't.

I don't think she ever really realised just how many people saw her. Saw the way she walked through the halls with her head held high and the way people would turn to look at her.

She was just...unreachable.  

So when she died I was shattered.

To understand that day I'll have to start five months before, to the first day of school

"I'm so glad our classroom's on the first floor, I could NOT go another year all the way on the fourth floor" she put her bag down against the leg of the table and slumped into her chair.

"I'm so excited for this year, dya think we're gonna get any new students?" She asked, turning to me

"Hopefully, otherwise this year's gonna be super boring" I replied.

"Let's go check out the other classrooms, I wanna see who's where" she stood and walked to the door, turning to see me walking towards her.

She was always doing this sort of thing, she wasn't embarrassed about walking around and being curious.

We walked into the next classroom and she immediately spotted-

"Olivia!" She grinned, walking towards her and squeezing the life out of Olivia who had just turned to see who was calling her

"Lylah! Oh my god I missed you so much!"
She squealed out, wrapping her arms around Lylah

"How was your summer?"
"It was so fun! Korea was so amazing, how was Colorado?"
"Boring, but pretty fun actually!"
"Aww that's good"
"Yeah, I'll see you later!"

She skipped to me and pulled me out of the classroom, my arm looped around hers. Her colourful bracelets pressed into my upper arm

She talked to a couple of her friends in the next classroom before steering me into yet another classroom

But when she opened the door she didn't rush in like normal, so I peeked my head in.
A new student! And he was actually quite hot.

His wavy blond hair puffed up at his forehead like a less severe case of TikTok boy hair. His piercing hazel green eyes were lined with long, dark eyelashes that I was definitely not jealous of. Light from the windows illuminated the left side of straight nose and handsome face.

In the seven seconds it had taken me to observe him, she had already skipped over to him and stuck out her hand with a smile and a

"Hey there new guy, my name's Lylah, what's yours?"

He blinked at her hand before giving her a shaky smile and a shakier handshake "My name's Aster, it's nice to meet you."

She grinned, pulling up a chair to sit next to him and asked:"Im hearing a bit of an accent, where you from Aster?"

Chuckling, he turned away from her shyly before looking back to her "I'm from Poland but I moved here from South Africa."

"Oh my gosh that's so cool! I'm half Polish, what part are you from?" She was all smiles

His eyebrows climbed to the top of his forehead like it was the speed climb section of the Olympics

"I'm from Poznań, you're- mówiś po polsku?"
Which I've been told means 'you speak Polish?'