Anji, Jonathan, and I trailed behind Will up the stairs. Despite the enormity of Velvet’s house, the dark color on the walls made everything feel tight and twisting, like a maze. Halfway down one long hall, Will opened a door and led us up another staircase.
The rooftop terrace was decked out like one of the outdoor pages in a home design catalog. It hadn’t looked like this on the night of Velvet’s birthday party, so I was momentarily disoriented. There were these cute little cabanas in every corner. The middle of the patio was outfitted with a neat line of padded lounge chairs, each with an amazing view of the entire night sky. The moon glowed overhead, full and butter yellow. The walls around the patio were low, so we could see the sky stretching out to the edge of our town on three sides. If we were a little higher up, we might have been able to see the New York City skyline glimmering way off in the distance. The fourth side of the patio was walled off by darkened glass with a door that led into a study of some kind. “What’s this?” Anji asked, reaching for the doorknob.
“Don’t go in there,” Will said so abruptly that Anji pulled her hand away. “It’s Velvet’s dad’s studio, and he’s not big on people going in there. I’ve only been in a few times myself.” I cringed. He spoke about Velvet’s house and parents like he was part of their family or something now. It still freaked me out to think about the two of them hanging out together the way they each used to hang out with me.
After Will and I settled into chairs on the terrace, I spilled open our bag of snacks. Anji and Jonathan grabbed a bunch of Starburst, then walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the people gathered below. I could hear them making up stories about our classmates, creating fake little dramas to amuse each other.
“I had a feeling you’d do something like this,” Will said, gesturing to the outer-space-themed food. “It’s totally you.”
“It’s silly,” I said, finally starting to relax. “But I knew I had to do something fun for my birthday eclipse. My mom will be disappointed I didn’t find some sort of moon worship circle to celebrate with. I guess I should be dancing and howling or something, to really honor such an important day.”
Will raked a hand through his hair and rubbed his tongue over the gap in his front teeth. “You are the Moon Child,” he said seriously. “There are certain duties that go along with such an important title.” We both laughed.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” I said, shaking my head. Mom and her friend Suze had called me Moon Child until I was old enough to make them stop. Because of the eclipse on my birth night, they felt the moon had somehow claimed me as one of her own. Her. Who knew the moon was female?
“Remember what we called me?” Will asked.
Of course I remembered. I remembered everything about Will—because whenever I hung out with him in the safety of our connected backyards, I had always felt comfortable being my real self. In my family, I was the uncomplaining kid who helped keep the peace. Hidden under Velvet’s wing, I was a follower. At school, I was invisible. But with Will it was different.
When we were little, Will and I spent summer days digging for worms under the giant garden rocks, testing the volcanic power of Diet Coke mixed with mint Mentos, or hiding out in our tree fort watching the stars and their constellations slowly appear as the day sky turned to dusk and then dark. Then we would go to his house, and his mom would stuff us with homemade cookies, these delicious mint chocolate sandwich cookies that I’d never been able to replicate on my own (I’d tried and given my whole family terrible gas). They were really, really good cookies, and it made me sort of sick to think that Velvet could eat those cookies whenever she wanted.
“You don’t remember!” Will said accusingly after I’d been silent for a few seconds. “Ouch.”
“The Full Mooner,” I said. “You called yourself the Full Mooner. Don’t bring me into this. I had nothing to do with that stupid name!”
He giggled—really, truly giggled, like he had when he was seven—which made me start giggling too. When Will snorted, Anji turned and raised her eyebrows at us. “That’s such a horrible name,” I gasped. “Really, really brutal.”
“Hey, don’t knock it.” He relaxed back into his lounge chair, and we both stared up at the sky. Before long, the silence hung heavy between us again. I hated that I could no longer just be around him. It never used to be like this. As kids we spent hours together every day. Every second I wasn’t with Velvet, I was with Will. Last spring he was the one who helped me survive the days of watching my parents separate their lives, putting this and that into boxes of his and hers. He had listened to all my dumb complaints and helped me remember to laugh when all I wanted to do was cry. He had been a best friend in the truest sense of the word.
I squeezed my eyes closed, because suddenly the only thing I could think about was the fact that Will and I had kissed. It was right after sixth grade ended, the afternoon before I left for Sweden to spend the summer with my mom. Sometime near the end of fifth grade, Will and I had been joking around one day and agreed that if neither of us had kissed anyone before we started middle school, we should get our first kiss out of the way with each other.
When it happened, the kiss was super awkward, and we both laughed about it as soon as it was over. We just weren’t meant to be boyfriend-girlfriend. I don’t know why I thought kissing him would be a good idea. It was kind of wet and slimy, and afterward I felt the tiniest bit uncomfortable around him for the first time ever.
Later that night, after she’d begged me to tell her why I was acting so weird, I’d told Velvet everything. I told her about the kiss and wondered aloud if things were going to be different between Will and me when I got back from Sweden. I asked her, “Do you think Will likes me . . . like that ?” I didn’t like him as anything more than a friend, so I hoped the answer was no—but I didn’t tell Velvet that. Still, Will was one of my best friends, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. I was pretty sure he felt the same.
Velvet had laughed in a mean way and said, “It sounds like it was a disaster. Maybe you need kissing lessons.”
“It wasn’t awful,” I argued, my face red. “But we’re just better friends than more than friends. At least, I think we are?”
That’s when Velvet had said suddenly, “Jasmine Hendricks told me she heard Will likes me.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and added, “Maybe he was just using you as practice for kissing me.”
I stared at her. “Are you serious?”
Velvet shrugged.
“You would make a terrible couple!” I said before hastily covering my mouth. But it was true. Velvet and Will would be awful together. They had nothing in common—other than both being friends with me.
“How do you know?” Velvet asked in a snappy tone.
“Because I just do,” I said softly. “You’re both great, but—”
“But what?” Velvet demanded. Then she smirked at me and said, “Well, I guess we’ll have to see what happens.”
I didn’t know what she meant then, but I soon found out. I guess she’d taken what I’d said as a challenge or something. Or maybe she was jealous that I had kissed someone before she had. Velvet had always been first to do everything, and she didn’t like when I had something she didn’t. Velvet had never really paid much attention to Will before that day. The two of them were separate, opposite parts of my life. But suddenly she seemed interested in him as something more than the “obnoxious guy” who lived next door to me.
A few months later, on the night of Velvet’s awful birthday party, twenty girls watched as Velvet announced to me that Will was her boyfriend now—and so that made him off-limits to any other girls, especially me. “I’m sorry if you’re upset that he likes me more, Lucia. Just so you know, I told him how you feel about him and he laughed.”
“How I feel about him?” I whispered. I felt that he was my friend—nothing more. “What did you say?”
“I told him you’d told me all about the kiss,” she said sweetly. “And I also told him how much you’d been looking forward to kissing him again when you got home from Sweden.” A few of the other girls at the party laughed. One girl I had just met that night, Ceriah, chewed her lip and gave me a look that told me she felt sorry for me. Velvet shrugged and said, “I guess this means he likes me more than he ever liked you.”
Without warning, tears welled up in my eyes. That’s when I realized I should never have told her about the kiss. I should have kept it a secret between Will and me, and I definitely never should have announced to Velvet that I thought they would make a terrible couple. Her talking to Will about that stupid kiss was almost as bad as if she’d written a note on purple-lined stationery, telling him to check a box, yes or no, to say if he liked me back.
I had spent the whole summer hoping Will and I would be able to go back to the way things used to be, before the dumb old kiss. But instead, Velvet had taken control, as she always did, and ruined everything. How could I face him now that he thought I liked him as more than a friend? And she’d told him I had been hoping to kiss him again! That was so far from the truth.
“I’ve always liked Will—you know that,” Velvet said with a casual shrug as she stared straight into my eyes. I knew she was lying. She had taken him just to prove that she could have anything she wanted. Then she tilted her head, smiled a pitying smile, and said, “I’m sorry about your crush, Lucia. I’m sure you’ll get over it. And I really am sorry if you’re disappointed he picked me over you, but he told me it was never like that with you. He’s never really liked you. He just feels bad for you because of everything with your parents.”
I was totally humiliated. Nothing had been the same between any of us since. I guess Will was uncomfortable about the whole situation too, since he had mostly avoided me once school had started. We never met up in his tree house anymore, and we didn’t even share a ride to school. Everything had changed because of that kiss and because of Velvet. I wasn’t heartbroken that I’d lost Will as a possible boyfriend, but I was devastated that I’d lost him as a friend.
When I opened my eyes again, Will was looking at me. He couldn’t have known I was thinking about the kiss, but even still, I blushed. Anji and Jonathan plunked down on lounge chairs next to us then. Will kept looking at me with this weird expression that made me feel like he had something to say. But I stared down at my lap, eager to avoid his eyes. It was hard for me to read him.
He’d changed.
I’d changed.
We’d changed.
I was so busy trying to stay occupied and contribute to the conversation without looking at Will that I mindlessly downed an entire bottle of root beer in less than half an hour. I suddenly and desperately needed to pee. It was after ten, and I had exactly six minutes before the total eclipse began, so I excused myself and ran down the stairs. I got lost several times trying to locate one of the many powder rooms. Though the main floor of Velvet’s house was crowded and lively, the upstairs was empty and still, and it gave me the willies.
By the time I’d found a bathroom, I had no idea where I was anymore. I realized I should have left a trail of Starburst to help me find my way back to my friends. I hustled through the corridors. There were closed doors everywhere, leading to who knows where. I was certain I’d be lost for all eternity in Velvet Mills’s mansion.
As I slipped through the halls, I heard Velvet talking to someone in her bedroom at the end of the hallway. I was tempted to sneak down the hall for just a minute, curious to hear what Velvet had to say. But ultimately, the fear of getting caught or missing the eclipse made me hustle in the other direction.
I opened a door that looked vaguely familiar and found a set of stairs that led upward—to the roof, I hoped. I climbed quickly and pushed open the door at the top. I was on a roof, but nothing looked familiar. Only two chairs, no cabanas, no friends. I’d somehow led myself to a deserted garden terrace that smelled of fresh lavender. It was dark and deserted, nothing like the rooftop deck where my friends were waiting.
My body tensed with the realization that I was alone. But then I heard Anji’s laughter from somewhere nearby and relaxed. I called out to my friends, but the band Velvet’s dad had hired for the party began to play a loud song down in the yard, and I knew no one could hear me. I noticed a wall of glass on the far end of my terrace that looked very much like the wall on the other side of the roof. The rooftop must be split into halves divided by Velvet’s dad’s office, I realized, and I had simply managed to find my way out to the other side of the roof.
I glanced up. There was only the tiniest sliver of bright moon left. If I ran back down the stairs and tried to find my way up again, I would miss the magical first moment of total eclipse. After a brief internal debate about politeness and appropriateness, I decided to try to cut through Velvet’s dad’s studio. It was the easiest and quickest way back to my friends.
I hustled across the expansive rooftop. The band transitioned into a bass solo in the yard below, and in that moment of quietness the crinkle of moon pie wrappers echoed through the still night. To keep myself from getting any more spooked, I rubbed my moonstone and thought about all the things I would wish for during my birthday eclipse:
I wished for Will—that he and I could go back to being friends like we were before.
I wished for guts—to let both Velvet and my mom know how much they’d hurt me this year.
I wished for confidence—to speak the truth, rather than kicking my anger deep down to fester and rot and boil inside.
I wished for bravery—that I might find my moment to step out of the shadows to shine.
If the first star of the night were worth one wish—Star light, star bright / First star I see tonight—how many would wishing on the eclipse get me? How many wishes might it take to change my life?
A cool blast of night air blew over the roof wall. Just as the moon took its last timid step into the full, round shadow of the earth, I heard the tentative crunch of a footstep on the terrace behind me. I was momentarily frozen with all those unspoken wishes trapped on my tongue. Suddenly, and without warning, I felt myself crumple to the ground.