The Sun and the Moon

Chapter 3

The house steadied as I slid down the door's smooth side. Tears slowly slid down my face, and I turned onto my side, laying my face against the cold tiles. Matthew would probably have practice, he'd leave me alone for a while, if not until the next day. After a couple of dry cheeks and tired eyes, shutting themselves a few times, I moved from the tiles to the couch.

It was possibly the ugliest thing I'd ever seen, a pale-colored knitted fabric, most likely a fading tan, with green designs of paisley-looking pattern. We'd used to have a nice leather couch, it could fit my entire family, all four of us, if we'd really try. But then, once when Matthew was over, we'd ended up getting in a fight. He'd angrily asked me to pass the barbeque sauce, so I yelled back, and the lid was open, me being spacey and angry, I didn't notice. I had slammed it into his chest, the stuff flying out of the top and onto his pants. I looked down at his pants, and we both burst into laughs, he doubled over and the barbeque sauce splattered onto the couch.

Needless to say, by the end of the day the couch had various stains, and so did our clothes from the food fight. It lasted a total of ten minutes, and we'd both had huge marks on our arms and faces too. I had some mayonnaise in my hair, which is weird cause neither of us like it on our sandwiches, so who knows how it got out to the living room. My favorite on Matt was a huge hand print of mustard on his cheeks. We'd also had a casual kiss, and there were some ketchup hand prints on his neck and one on the front and back of his shirt. The other ones on his shirt had to do with when I'd smacked him or just stuck my hands on his shirt.

I cuddled myself up in some blankets, closing my eyes, trying to fully fall asleep.

***

It was summer, junior high going onto ninth grade, on the roof of the school. We'd started a little garden club up there, consisting of the two of us. We were responsible for flyers, but didn't make any, and no one read the school's newspaper besides the administrators or parents. We'd gotten a copy key for the after school activity, and so we could water them on weekends, we'd done this club all three of our years at middle school.

Matthew and I had both survived through our own Hell, if not more than one, at that school. I'd gotten asked out as a joke, he'd been pantsed in the locker room, for probably being a shorter kid, a lower risk target for a prank. It didn't matter that he was my height, if not taller, all the guys made fun of him for it. It was so ridiculously stupid.

It was hot outside, abnormally so today. I was wearing a long black shirt, which didn't make it better. I was waiting for Matthew, watering the blue roses before he got here, making sure none of them would die today. I also checked the temperature of the little pond we had. We had two flowers that only bloomed at night, these purple water lilies, the inside was yellow, and they can become two to twelve feet in diameter, which we found out should be kept in a pond, or in this case, kiddy pool, above 65 degrees Fahrenheit, or 18.3 degrees Celsius.

The other ones, Matt gave to me for my birthday once after school, were called Moonflowers, they were white with pale pink full-moon-looking blossoms. They grow best in the Americas, South or North, so they required less maintenance then the other night-blooming lilies.

They were planted in sandy loam soil, which I researched is the best soil to plant the seeds in. As of right now they were 7 feet tall, the tallest is normally 15 feet. They were in a pot next to the lilies' pool, seeing as they also need warmer temperature. They typically bloom in spring and summer, so every once in a while Matt and I would sneak out or say we're going to be at each other's house, and see them and spend the night on the roof, surrounded by the aroma of the flowers.

I smiled thinking about the thought, we were going to do the same thing tonight. I think if we hadn't spent the night with each other as elementary kids, our parents would think something was up. Except the truth was, we both had friends outside of each other, we did have separate lives after all, but we never really hang out with other people because we were close enough to each other that we could just hang out whenever.