Sarah Allen - The Girl Who Chased the Moon

She’d been there a few hours when Sawyer showed up. It was after midnight, but suddenly there he was, walking around the track. The moon was out and he was wearing white shorts and a white polo, so she could see him clearly from her seat.

She didn’t move, so she didn’t know what made him look up. But he did, and her breath caught, as it did every time he looked at her in school.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then he crossed the track and walked up the bleachers toward her.

Sawyer had never approached her before, but he had always watched her at school. A lot of people watched her, so that in itself wasn’t unusual. But he was always so deliberate about it. She’d often wondered if that was why she had these strange feelings for him, because she thought he really saw her.

He came to a stop in front of her. “Do you mind if I sit?”

She shrugged.

He sat, but didn’t say anything more for a while. “Do you come out here at night a lot?” he finally asked.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. I’ve walked around this track at night all summer, and I’ve never seen you, like I do during the school year.” She wondered why he walked the track at night. She was too nervous to ask. “Are you ready for school to start?”

She suddenly stood. Being this close to him made her heart feel lighter. He made her whole world seem lighter. But it was all a horrible illusion. “I’ve got to go.”

“Where are you going?” he asked as she clomped down the bleachers in her heavy black boots.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll walk you,” he said as he stood and followed her.

“No.”

“I’m not going to let you walk alone at this time of night.”

She stepped off the last bleacher and walked across the track to the football field. She looked over her shoulder. “Stop following me.” Once she reached the middle of the field, she looked back again. “I said, stop following me.”

“I’m not letting you walk alone.”

That made her stop and turn to him. “What is the matter with you? Stop being so… so…”

“What?”

“Nice to me.” She lowered herself to the ground and sat cross-legged. “I’m sitting here until you go away.” This didn’t exactly have the effect she wanted. “Don’t sit beside me. Don’t…” She sighed when Sawyer sat beside her, right there on the fifty-yard line.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked.

She looked away. “My dad is sending me away to boarding school tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving?” he asked incredulously.

She nodded.

He pulled at some of the grassy turf around them. Finally he said, “Can I tell you something?”

“Not unless it’s goodbye.”

“Stop being such a smart-ass.” That made her swing her head around. Her father and Beverly had been treading so lightly around her all summer that it was surprising to hear someone willing to call her on her attitude. “This past year, sometimes I would get up in the mornings and actually look forward to going to school because I knew I would see you. I would wonder what you were going to wear. I loved lunch because I could sit in the cafeteria and look out the window and see you up there on the bleachers. I’ve been looking for you all summer. Where have you been?”

Her mouth gaped and she felt like punching him on the arm. He had a girlfriend named Holly who, despite being in Dulcie Shelby’s group Sassafras, was mostly nice. And they’d been going together forever. People even referred to them as a single entity. Sawyernholly. “What is wrong with you?” Julia said. “You and Holly belong together. You match.”

“I’m just saying I’m sorry I never talked to you. I’ve always wanted to. I’ve always wanted…” His eyes went to her lips, and she was suddenly very aware of how close they were, of how he was leaning in toward her.

His lips were inches from hers when she turned away. “Go away, Sawyer. Go back to your nice, perfect life.” She felt tears come to her eyes, and she wiped at them with the back of her hands. They came away streaked with her thick black eyeliner. The tears kept coming and she kept wiping her face, knowing she was making it worse. God, why didn’t Sawyer just go and leave her to her ugly misery?

Sawyer very calmly took off his white polo shirt and handed it to her. “Go on. Use it.”

She reluctantly took it and scrubbed her face with the shirt. It smelled like something green and fresh-like flower stems.

When she finally stopped crying, she looked at the shirt in her hands. She balled it up, embarrassed. She’d ruined it. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care about the shirt. Are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.” And her eyes started watering again. “I don’t want to go away to school. But my dad doesn’t want me anymore. He has Beverly now.” The school had been Beverly’s idea, of course. Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut about the cuts?

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sawyer said.

She just shook her head. He didn’t understand, after all.

He reached over to her and hesitantly pushed some of her crisp pink hair behind her ear. “I forgot what you looked like without makeup.”

“I disappear.”

“No. You’re beautiful.”

She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t believe him. “Go to hell, Sawyer.”

“You can believe whatever you want. But I don’t lie.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re perfect.” She paused, then turned to him. “You think I’m beautiful?”

“I’ve always thought that.”

“What about these?” she said, drawing up the sleeves of the button-down she was wearing. She showed him the lines on her arms. Her father and Beverly had emptied her room of any sharp objects, like she was a toddler, so many of the deeper cuts were healed over, but she would still use her fingernails when she got anxious. “Do you think these are beautiful?”

Sawyer actually recoiled, which was exactly what she wanted him to do. It was proof. She really was unlovable. “Christ. Did you do that to yourself?”

She pulled the sleeves down. “Yes.”

She expected him to leave her then, but he didn’t. They sat in silence for a long time. Finally she got tired and leaned back so that she was stretched out on the ground. He watched her, then slowly lowered himself back beside her.

The sky was incredible that night, the moon nearly full and the stars littering the sky like tossed stones. She’d never been away from Mullaby before. Would the sky look like this in Baltimore?

When Sawyer’s stomach growled, he laughed. “I haven’t had anything to eat since the cake I had for lunch,” he said sheepishly.

“You had cake for lunch?”

“I’d have cake all the time if I could. You’re going to laugh at this, but I’ll tell you anyway. You know how some people have a sweet tooth? Well, I have a sweet sense . When I was a little boy, I could be playing across town and know exactly when my mother took a cake out of the oven. I could see the scent, how it floated through the air. All I had to do was follow it home. I will fiercely deny that if you ever say anything.”

It was such a surprising thing to admit. She turned her head and saw that he was staring at her again. “You’re charmed,” she said. “But you probably know that already. It’s even in the way you look at people.” She stared at him for a moment, gorgeous and bare-chested in the moonlight. “Yes, you know exactly what power you have.”

“Do I have a power over you?”

Did he honestly think she was immune? “Of course you do.”

He lifted up on one elbow and looked down at her. What she wouldn’t give to see what he saw, to know what made him look at her that way. “Can I kiss you, Julia?”