Page 241 of Unlucky Like Us
And with the new year on the horizon, I have greater plans for my future. Back in Philly at the penthouse, morning light shines through the curtains of my window, and I sit cross-legged on my bed, scrolling on my laptop.
I’m enrolling as a full-time student at Penn next semester. English major, I’ve decided, but maybe I’ll double major in Business too. On the laptop screen, the red and blue University of Pennsylvania logo stares back at me while I choose my college courses.
I pick my last one and click intoTelevision and New Media. It sounds fun to dive deeper into the mediums that I use often and love so much, and I want to learn more about digital media and the history of television, which the course says it covers.
It fits into my class schedule too. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. Professor:Wyatt Rochester.
Done.
I shut the laptop, and Orion leaps off the bed, wagging his tail like we’re about to adventure the Philly streets for a morning walk and hydrant sniffs. I just took him out to pee. “We can go exploring soon, I promise,” I say, and he flops happily on his doggie bed. “I need to clean my room first.”
I start with the heap of manuscripts on my bed. Gathering them, I put each one gingerly into my plastic tub, only storing the ones I’ve read. So I check each title carefully. I’m not back on Fictitious yet, but I’ve given Charlie more of my stories to edit.
When I reach for a thinner stack of papers, my brain whirls and dizzies at the typed font. “The Chasm of Elsewhere,” I read out loud, pulling the story closer.
More slowly, I sink back on my butt and flip the page. I haven’t read this one yet, but my heart speeds like I knowit’s important somehow. Like a string to a memory is tickling my mind, and I just need to pull…
So I read.
And as soon as I reachtheline, tears flood my eyes. “He didn’t,” I whisper to myself, and with my finger, I trace the printed words that Donnelly spoke to me.
My heart is a chasm of everything I know and love, and it will always be filled with you.
My chin trembles, realizing he quoted my story, and I didn’t know until now. I clutch the papers tighter, treasuring them a thousand times more. Memories are threads sewn into a magnificent tapestry of life, and following this one teeny string led me back to him.
They all keep leading me back to him.
Donnelly loves me.This me. The Luna of Today. The Luna of Yesterday. And I hope he’ll continue to love the Luna of Tomorrow and each version of me thereafter.
Silently, I read more.
“In time, everything could be destroyed, and your knowledge and love could be strewn elsewhere,” Jocoby feared.
“You will be with me for eternity.” She squeezed harder.
He held her cheek, stared into her depth, feeling her chasm of everything. “Eternity is not long enough.”
I wipe the last of my tears. Those lines mean more to me after losing love and time, but Original Luna couldn’t have known she’d have amnesia. “I wish I knew what you were telling me,” I say to myself. “I have so many questions still.”
Was he your first love?
Was it love at first sight?
Do you think you were star-crossed to end tragically?
Were you hopeful that you’d be together for eternity?
Did you feel like eternity was not long enough?
If I don’t ever get my memories back, I’ll never really know, and the weight of despair tries to bear on me again. I blow out a long, long breath and try to concentrate on what I can control now. Clean my room. Fresh start. Original Luna decorated this space, and though it’s still full of everything I love, I figured it might be good to have my own touches too.
So I declutter my desk, chucking dried out markers, and I feed Moondragon fish flakes. I unspool a string of multicolored fairy lights, and using a rinky-dink ladder, I carefully staplegun them to the molding of my walls. When I reach the Sagittarius tapestry, I hop onto the ground, and I thumb the sketches Donnelly drew for OG Luna that are still tacked up.
I’ll leave those.
The tapestry can go. Maybe I’ll draw on the walls instead. I unfasten the tapestry, and as soon as the fabric cascades to a pool at my feet and I see what it was hiding, my heart begins to race.
“Luna,” I say to myself. “What is this…?”