galilee moon

THE FIRST TIME T-Boom held the moon to my nose, his fingers were warm and shaking. He touched one to his tongue, then dipped it into the bag and held it up for me. Seems slow motion, remembering now the way I moved my head down so that my nostril was right over that little bit of moon. The way T-Boom whispered sniff hard, and so I did, feeling something bitter drip down the back of my throat and then my head filling up with so many different beautiful things that I had to lean back against the 7-Eleven wall and let it drop down. I could feel the air on my teeth. Could feel something that must have been heaven moving through my body so fast and slow at the same time that I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh real loud or cry or just let T-Boom move closer to me, lean in and add his kisses to all the beautiful other things. Then the whole world was moving fast in front of me and I jumped up high, did a quick flip in the air and laughed.

T-Boom watched me, smiling like he’d seen this a hundred times before. You feel good, don’t you?

And I did. I felt great.

I felt like I was holding up the whole world and there was no water anywhere, no roads in front and behind me filled with empty land and tore-up houses. No past. Just this new, just this amazing, just this forever now.

Later on, when Kaylee came back behind there to get me, she said, My mom’s here, Laurel. We gotta go. And I realized then my fingers were near blue from cold I didn’t even feel. I looked hard at Kaylee—trying to see her clear, but she was wavy, standing right there but with all these shadows swaying around her.

You look wild-eyed. Was it that good? Kaylee whispered as we started walking away. But I wasn’t listening to her anymore. I was thinking about T-Boom and the moon and how I’d never known a person could feel a whole lot of things all at once that way and how glad I was we’d moved to Galilee because if it wasn’t for this town, how would I have ever met T-Boom?

We got in Kaylee’s mom’s car that was all warm and humming. I put my head on Kaylee’s shoulder and whispered, I think I love him. And maybe Kaylee laughed. Or maybe she just got quiet and stared out into the darkness.