Taking back the Moon

Chapter Twenty-Three

Two Weeks After

Three AM. I haven't even slept yet, because honestly, I barely sleep at night these days. 

Consciously, I don't attribute it to what happened, and that the sun was absent, and the moon stared. 

But I know on some level... the idea of sleeping in the dark gets to me. 

Never mind the fact that I can sleep in the dark, sometimes...

I'm just having significant trouble doing so. 

It's Monday. 

If Monday's aren't bad enough, try having the worst day of your life on one. 

Dad is supposed to fly back to the jobsite, and I need some serious psychiatric care. 

I'm a sleepless wreck. 

So we gather into his Honda CRV and I am careful to stare only at the atmosphere directly surrounding me. 

Not up. 

We begin our drive into Houston, and I'm okay. 

It's not until we start hitting Beltway 8, near where he lives, that I begin to get anxious. 

I stare. 

I watch. 

I wait as the road that took me directly from his apartment complex and directly into safety comes into view. 

It's not until we pass its view until I can breathe again. 

Thus far, no moon. 

I'm beginning to think it hasn't come out to play with me today. 

Tonight?

It isn't until we're almost at the airport that I happen upon it. But as soon as I see it, it's like the crescent-shaped bastard tipped itself upside down and emptied itself of the blood in my heart. 

If I see it, does it see me?

It saw everything that night. 

Of course it sees me. 

From then, until the interstate changed direction, the moon is in a stare-off challenge that I will not accept. 

We catch glimpses of each other. 

Accidentally, or because I can feel its light bleeding into my pores and can't help but look. 

It's not until after we drop off my dad that the moon calls off its mental wolves. 

I can breathe again. 

The moon is behind me. 

If I can't see it, it can't see me.