Space Girl

There’s a comforting breeze in the air when the sun begins to set. If softly dries my eyes and pulls me back home to that blanket my aunt bought me when I was six. The blanket is no longer soft, but it reminds me of the special herbal tea she always made whenever I started to cry. It came from a cardboard box from the grocery store, but a warm aunt-hug always hooked itself to the mug. The breeze fills my nose with the smell of the herbal tea so completely that I can almost taste it on my tongue. It whispers like the Harry James song on my grandfather’s old record player that he could never bring himself to get rid of. He said it reminded him of his true love. Watching the sunset is heartbreaking and nostalgic, but it also promises herbal tea and hugs. It promises a home.

The wind whispers her name in my ear as the moon continues to share its vibrant glow with the rest of the night sky. It reminds me of the iridescent light that never once left her eyes. Every time she smiled my world seemed to get brighter and brighter until I thought there would be no more light left for her to give. Somehow, she never ran out of that light. I used to try to find craters in those seas of blue, desperately wanting to compare them to the moon. I could have spent a lifetime just looking into her eyes trying to find a flaw, but none ever showed themselves. At some point, I’m not quite sure when, I finally concluded that she was not the moon, but the sun. There was no one in the world who could ever darken her light.

I have always thought the stars danced around the moon. I know this is probably not astronomically correct, but it’s a comforting image. The stars are brightened by the rays reflecting off the moon and are so overjoyed that they have no choice but to dance. Sometimes I like to pretend a shooting star is her dancing again from somewhere far away from me. The stars’ yellow tint paints images of her gentle curls reflecting the dimmed streetlights like they had done so many times before. She would always beg me to pull over so we could find constellations while listening to one of her favorite songs.

I pull my jacket back around my shoulders as the wind turns from comforting to chilling. It latches onto my skin and I ache for a small sense of warmth as the night grows darker. My hands find solace in playing with blades of grass as my eyes wander to the sky. Growing tired, I let my back fall against the soft grass below me. The ground envelops me, like one of those warm aunt-hugs that I always took for granted. The sunset always promises a home, but I still don’t understand why she is not next to me. Why is the ground my only comfort when she used to be? She should be drawing lines in the sky and I should be lining them up with the freckles on her arms like in that romantic comedy we both secretly love.

Her song dances through my mind. If she were here with me, she would play it so many times that I would threaten to never go on a late-night drive with her again. She knew I was joking. She knew I probably loved the song more than she did just because it reminded me of her. I would have spent forever listening to that song. If I could go back in time, I would go to one of our moments on the grass under the fading sun. Out of all of our moments together, these are by far my favorite memories—full of nostalgia and heartbreak and home. We would stay for hours and would only need the sound of her song and each other.

In my mind, she comes alive with melody. The grass is her stage and the stars are her spotlights. I’m leaning against the front of my car when she takes my hand and pulls me into the grass with her. We dance and sing the lyrics, laughing as we look into each other’s eyes and try to rest our permanent smiles. The song finishes while we’re still dancing, but we never needed music in the first place. I take in the light radiating from her smile and her blonde waves that mimic the sun’s rays. There is nothing in the universe that can ever stop us. The sun has completely faded away and only the moon and stars remain in the sky. We stay under the streetlight anyways, reflecting our own light into the world.

The memory begins to fade, and I stay on the ground for a while. I’m in the grass where we both realized we had fallen in love. I have come back to this exact spot ever since. I try to find new constellations for her. My head is cradled in my left hand and my right connects the dots in the sky. I let my eyes trail back to the familiar moon. It’s almost perfect, but just not quite. My eyes go out of focus and my gaze is full of the light reflecting from the moon’s surface. For a moment, I swear I can see her face looking down at me from the sky while I sit on our spot in the grass.

There is no use trying to deny the fact that I will always be in love with her. Even if it's over, even if we both move on, I will always listen to her song on the grass. Now that I have been exposed to her light, it surrounds me like a calming storm. She will forever hold me in her comforting gaze, just as the ground provides support. It's scary to be in love. It's heartbreaking and nostalgic. But it also promises a home. I know she is somewhere out there and I will find her. There is nothing in the universe that can stop me from being in love with her.