Waning Crescent

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.

I’d been up in my unlit room, lighting matches and throwing them out of my second-story window. When I would strike a match, the flame burned red-hot against my face, but I didn’t turn away from it. I stared it straight in the eye as it darted around in the breeze and lit up my room for a brief second. And as it fell, it would sway with the wind until it became too much and the light flickered out. And it would fall to the ground. Another disappointment. The movement was almost mechanical; I’d collected an uncountable pile of them before one glorious match decided to break the pattern.

I struck the match against the side of the matchbox once, twice, three times, and the fire roared to life. I watched as the bright flame ate its way down the length of the wood, and just before it reached my fingertips—I let go.

As the match fell from my fingers, my room dulled. There was no moon out tonight. The only lights I could see were the stars speckling the sky and the flash of yellow that darted down from my window.

There was no breeze this time. It fell straight down. Hit the grass.

The flame grew.

Somehow, I could almost feel a smile threaten to bloom on my face. The flame wavered now, bright and beautiful and painful, growing like a cancer and swallowing up the grass in its path.

I finally came to my senses. The matchbox clattered to the floor as I bolted downstairs, nearly tripping over my own feet. When I shoved the door open…

Well, you remember, right? Of course, you do. The leaves were on fucking fire.

I wasn’t alone, though. Nearly as jarring as the growing flame was the other sight before me: a boy I didn’t recognize, shirtless, flailing a piece of cloth over the fire.

The light flickered on and off on his face as he struggled to cover the flame. It was crackling now and growing too quickly out of control.

“You’re fanning the flames,” I said finally. I took the cloth from him—his shirt, I realized, blackened and smoldering from the fire. I tried and failed to smother the flame. The boy left. For a second, I thought he was abandoning me. I was still trying when I heard a click and a sputter. I looked up as water started shooting out in every direction.

The boy was standing there with his hand on the sprinkler. The fire hissed and sizzled as it died. I coughed as the smoke filled my lungs. I could feel my clothes soaking through and moved to the sidewalk. The boy was just sitting there on his knees. His chest was heaving now and he made no moves, even as the water covered his thin, shivering body. His naked skin glistened in the starlight. His ribs were visible through his skin. I grabbed his forearm and lugged him to the sidewalk, out of the spray.

“What were you doing, Casper?” he asked me once he caught his breath.

I jerked at the sound of my name and the fact that he knew it when I certainly didn't know his. “I, uh…” I tried to think of a good excuse. There wasn’t one, so I didn’t try to make one up. “I was throwing matches out of my window.”

He just blinked his big, brown eyes at me. He didn’t say a word.

“Why are you so out of breath?” I asked, handing him his shirt back.

He pulled it on, even though it was dripping and full of holes and probably smelled like ash. “I had to run here,” he said, gesturing behind him.

Oh. Right. The staff house.

I nodded. “You’re the maid’s kid,” I said.

It was hard to tell under the dim light, but I could’ve sworn he blushed. He nodded.

“That’s a long way to run,” I said. I looked at him, blackened shirt and pajama pants sopping wet. I hesitated. “Um. How about you, uh, wait here? I’ll bring you something to wear?”

He didn’t say anything, just blinked his big eyes at me again and fidgeted with the hem of his wet shirt.

My feet were cold against the marble floors. I had to hold onto the railings to make sure I didn’t slip. When I got to my room, I actually turned the light on. It was the first time I’d done that in days, maybe weeks.

I peeled my wet clothes off. My window was still open, but I didn’t really give that much of a shit anymore. Anyone who might’ve been watching me had definitely seen worse of me in the past few minutes. Also, the scrawny, shirtless boy in my front yard was a good distracter.

I pulled on some dry clothes and then sifted through my closet for something to give to the maid’s kid. I tried to go fast—he was probably shivering—but I didn’t know what to get him. Eventually, I just picked the smallest hoodie I had before barreling down the stairs again.

The sprinklers were off now. The boy was lying in the grass, wordless. I walked barefoot over the wet grass until I stood over him.

“Here,” I said, handing him the sweatshirt.

He sat up briefly to put it on, then laid back down. “Thanks.”

I sat down next to him. “Pithy,” I tried, even putting a fraction of distaste into it so he would know it was an insult.

But he still stayed silent, the wind blowing through his hair. Whether it was light brown or blond, I couldn’t tell in the darkness, but it framed his head like a halo.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” I said. “Is one word at a time above your limit?”

Then he smiled a wicked, little smile. “No.”

I chuckled and his grin grew.

“It’s a good thing you don’t get paid by the word.”

I laid down next to him. I didn’t know what I was doing, but whatever it was, it sure beat arson. Or, you know. Almost arson.

“You don’t talk much, either,” he said.

I almost laughed. “Me? Dude, my back hurts from carrying this conversation.”

He turned to me, revealing that his hair was indeed light brown and that his face was dotted with freckles. I shivered as the breeze picked up and blew his hair into his eyes.

“Well, you won’t tell me why you were throwing fire out your window.”

I swallowed. “Fuck. Okay. You got me.”

There was another silence, this one so long that I couldn’t tell if it was comfortable or awkward.

He spoke finally. “Is Mr. Vesta home?”

I nearly rolled my eyes. “Don’t talk about my dad. And no. Never is.”

He nodded. “Not a fan?”

“Why is it that the one time you decide to talk, it’s about something I specifically told you not to talk about? And no. Never have been.”

“Why not?” he said.

I propped myself up on my elbow so he could see my smoldering glare as I lectured him. “Kid.” I stopped mid-rant. “What’s your name?” I asked instead.

He knotted his hands in the hoodie and wrapped it tighter around his body. “Julien,” he said, so softly that the wind nearly carried it away like the flames of the failed matches.

“Well, Julien. Are your parents home? Shouldn’t you get back to them?”

“They’re asleep,” he said, looking back up to the sky. His thick lashes fluttered and cast long shadows over his cheekbones. “I can stay for longer. I want to stay for longer.”

“Okay…” I said, laying back down. His simple statements only vexed me further, but interrogating him never seemed to get me far.

We laid watching the sky silently again, but this time, I was sure it was comfortable.

I turned to him. I expected him to turn to face me back, but he didn’t.

“How did you know there was a fire?” I asked. “Why were you awake?”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I like watching the moon. And then I saw the matches falling out of your window. You look like a total psychopath, by the way. The fire lights up your face and you look like a mad scientist or something.”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Not what? A mad scientist?”

“No, no. You know, a psychopath.”

He did turn to me then, his round eyes large and dark like black holes that threatened to swallow me up if I wasn’t careful.

“I thought you might be,” he said. “But now I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I’ve read that psychopaths are usually either charming or anti-social, and you don’t really seem to be either. And I don’t think a psychopath would give me his hoodie. So you’re probably not one. You might be, though.”

“Stop that, you. You’re making me blush,” I said.

And then this marvelous thing happened: he laughed.

It was the type of thing that made you wish paintings could capture videos. I felt like a nature documentary narrator watching some special celestial event that only happened once in every million years.

“I have a question,” I said. “You know. If you’re up for an open-ended one.”

He nodded, still looking into my eyes.

“How’d you know which one was my window?”

His face flushed again and he averted his eyes, looking back up to the sky.

“Okay. I get it,” I said. “I’m an almost-arsonist-slash-possible-psychopath and you’re a pithy people-watcher. It’s alright. We all have our flaws.”

“I’m not a people-watcher,” he said, scowling at the stars like they’d done something to hurt him. “I told you, I like watching the moon. I just happened to see you."

“Alright, people-watcher. Could’ve fooled me, but you forget one very simple thing.”

He turned back to me then, eyes huge and anxious.

I pointed up. “There’s no moon out tonight.”

He averted his eyes. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached up and turned his chin so he faced me again. Despite the cold of the autumn night, his skin was warm against mine. I dropped my hand away just as quickly as I had put it there.

“It’s okay. No judgment here. Hey, you just watched me almost light a fucking mansion on fire and you aren’t even freaking out about it. I’m not really in a place to judge. How about this: you can keep my secret and I’ll keep yours, alright?”

I held a hand out. Hesitantly, he reached his own slender hand out and grabbed it. I shook it.

We laid there for a while, the silence large but not overwhelming like the silence of being alone. We looked up and watched the stars and the black sky and the moon that wasn’t there.

***

I went and laid down there again the next day, in the same spot as before. I don’t know what I was expecting or why I was there, but my only other half-decent options were to play with fire again or go to sleep. Neither one was particularly favorable.

So I laid down, my eyes tracing the patterns of the stars and the little sliver of a moon that had finally decided to show up.

When Julien finally came, he did so silently, laying down beside me and rustling the grass under him as he laid down.

“I thought you’d want this back,” he said, plopping my hoodie down on the ground between us.

“It’s small on me,” I said. “Looks better on you. You can keep it if you want.”

Wordlessly, he laid the pile of fabric over himself like a blanket.

He inched a little closer to me to point at the moon. The hairs on my arms stood straight up. “It’s here now.”

“So I’ve seen,” I said. “It’s about time. That self-important fuck stood us up last night.”

Julien laughed again. I felt a smile grow on my face for the first time in—God, who knew how long?

“This is my favorite part,” he said like it was a movie we were watching, his voice warm and quiet. “The waxing crescent.”

“Why?”

“It’s like a new start. Like an etch-a-sketch.” He shook an imaginary etch-a-sketch in his hands. “Just goes away completely and then redraws itself.”

“Makes you think it might stop one day. It must be exhausted.”

“I think it’s comforting,” he said and curled up next to me. We still weren’t touching, but I would only have to move a fraction of a muscle to do so.

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t give up,” he said.

***

I don’t know how many nights we did that, curling up under the moon and starlight together. I got the feeling he didn’t get much other company, if any. Neither did I. Honestly, I didn’t really care for his reasons so long as we were side by side at the end of the day. The nights fell like my ashen matches, uncountable and fleeting, but beautiful in their own right. Until one night, he showed up and the flame didn’t die. He hit the grass and spread like wildfire.

It was a waning crescent that night. I had recently decided that that was my favorite. Not quite gone yet, like the new moon, but just hanging on for a little while. I wanted to tell Julien about it.

But when he reached me, his face was tear-stained, his big, brown eyes swimming with tears as he collapsed beside me.

I jolted upright.

“Jules? Julien. What’s wrong?”

He cradled his forearm against his chest. I squinted to see it closer in the dim light. There was a large, angry, red mark on his wrist that I recognized.

“Is that a burn?”

He nodded.

“It hurts like hell,” he sobbed. “My mom would kill me if she found out.”

I grabbed his arm. He winced and bit his lip.

“The fuck did you do?” I whispered.

“I just wanted to see the flames again,” he said.

I let out a long sigh before dragging him off of the lawn and inside my house.

As I pulled him into the kitchen, the only thing he said was, “It’s dark in here.”

“I don’t like artificial light,” I mumbled. The fridge light illuminated the room. I winced and got a few ice cubes out to hand to him.

“I don’t think this feels better,” he said, pressing them against the burn.

“It’ll numb it. I’ve done it a couple times.”

He nodded and, thankfully, didn’t ask questions.

He reached around and turned on the kitchen light with his elbow. It felt oddly vulnerable, knowing he was finally seeing me in the light, but I didn’t say anything. I got out the first aid kit that I kept in the cabinet under the sink and got out the gauze.

“Can you… uh. This might be easier if you sit.”

He tried to hoist himself onto the counter with his hands, then yelped as he put pressure on his injured one. I winced. Then, I wrapped my hands around his skinny waist. His eyes widened as I lifted him onto the counter. My two hands could almost cover his entire torso. I let him go.

He lifted his injured hand up for me so I could wrap it in the gauze. I worked silently.

“I thought I could see what you liked so much about it,” he said softly as I wrapped his wrist. “And then I… I’m clumsy. It got out of hand.”

I nodded.

I finished off the gauze and set his hand on his lap. We were close now, closer than we’d ever been before. My hands were braced on either side of him and he was looking up at me with doe-like eyes.

“They’re blue,” he said.

“What?”

“Your eyes. I thought they were black all this time.” I don’t know if I was imagining it, but I could almost feel his breath, warm on my skin.

“I don’t like them,” I murmured.

“Oh? Why?”

“Because everyone says ‘you have your father’s eyes’ all the damn time. Makes me want to put my fist through a wall.”

He reached up with his uninjured hand and brushed my hair out of my eyes. His hand dropped just as quickly. “They’re not like his. I don’t think I’ve ever seen kindness in his eyes. Yours are warm.” He put the hand down on the counter so our fingers just brushed. “I like them.”

I reached my fingers forward just a fraction of an inch so our hands were touching. I glanced up to see his reaction. His eyes were closed.

“Say something,” I breathed.

He leaned forward.

His lips met mine, soft and warm and delicate. I reached my hands up to his back. I could feel the warmth of his body and the ridges of his spine through the fabric of my hoodie. With his bandaged hand, he pulled me in closer by the back of my neck. I knew it must’ve hurt him, but he didn’t seem to mind. For me, though, the feeling of the gauze on my skin was like a splash of ice water in my face.

I pulled away from him and pointed an accusatory finger into his chest. “I want to make it very clear,” I said, suddenly noticing that I was panting, “that I’m not rewarding your behavior.”

He nodded and tried to pull me in again, but in a great show of self-restraint, I didn’t let him.

“I don’t need the fire anymore. It doesn’t help me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And neither should you.”

He nodded again, slowly.

I nodded back before leaning back in to kiss him. Julien, warm and alive in my arms, was spreading through my veins like liquid fire. My own little flame.