The house was sad to look at. To the right was my living room, where the TV sat on the floor, not even plugged in. To the left was the kitchen, with most of the dishware stacked on top of the island. I didn’t look at Moon’s face, too afraid to see his reaction. This would be a true test of our friendship and just how deep it’d be able to go.
“Have you unpacked the boxes in your bedroom yet?”
“Uh, no. It’s the most finished, but it isn’t fully set up.”
He twirled around in a circle, looking at everything around us. “This is a really nice house, Em. Let’s start with the bedroom first.”
I frowned. “I thought for sure you’d say the kitchen and living room first.”
“Nah, those are aesthetics, really. Your bedroom is your sanctuary. It’s where you go to wind down, get comfortable, and sleep. You’ll spend more time in there, anyway. You deserve a comfortable, inviting space.”
Oh. It was that simple for him. I’d been so obsessed with how things looked, I hadn’t thought about my comfort at all. It hadn’t crossed my mind because I hadn’t thought it was the priority.
I led him to my bedroom, where another TV sat on the floor, waiting to be put together and used. I had a lot of stuff set up, but there were more boxes than there were unpacked items. Moon immediately sat on the floor and grabbed one of the boxes. “Are there any boxes you don’t want me to go through? Like, with personal items you don’t want me to see?”
Everything intimately personal was already in a drawer, hidden away from view. “No, I don’t think so.”
We each took our own boxes and grabbed some box cutters I had lying around for the tape. A lot of the stuff was books I’d yet to put on my bookshelf, or clothes I hadn’t dug out yet because I hadn’t needed them. Honestly, I could’ve thrown a lot of them away.
“What’s all this?” Moon was looking down into a box, his brows knitted together in confusion.
I peered over, noticing all the trophies and knick-knacks. “Oh, yeah. I haven’t had the heart to open this one up yet.” I knee-walked closer to him, sitting in front of the box. I pulled one of the trophies out, slowly turning it in my hand. “Theseare all of Harrison’s trophies from school for all sorts of stuff. Spelling bee, math competitions, sports, you know.” I pulled a small ceramic bird that was wrapped in bubble wrap out next, peeling the bubble wrap away. “And these are all of my mom’s most prized possessions. She loved collecting little figurines like these.”
Moon watched as I reached up and set both of them on top of the dresser beside us. “Those are beautiful.”
Smiling, I looked back into the box. “Yeah, they are. Harrison and I split the figurines up when our parents died. We each took half to keep in our respective homes. When Harrison died, I took all of them and found his trophies in his storage shed. I used to kiss each one before I went to bed. Made me feel closer to them, I guess.”
“Fuck. So, wait, did your parents pass when you guys were young, or?”
I took another one of the trophies, tracing the date with my finger. “We were twenty-two years old. I was already married by that point, and Harrison had just moved into his very first apartment. Car accident. They said they died on impact. That they hadn’t felt any pain. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we both took it really hard. Harrison, even more so, it seems.”
Moon pulled one of the figurines out of the box, holding it in his hands gently. I watched as he started to peel the bubble wrap away. “Why do you think he took it harder than you?”
“I guess he was more alone. I don’t really know.” I looked up at the photo on my dresser. “See that picture up there?” I waited until he looked up. “He’d had three beers by then, and we weren’t even two hours in. He was drunk all the time. Constantly. I had Olivia to help me through the grief, and for some reason, Harrison had convinced himself he had nobody. Not even his twin brother. I tried to get him help. I tried to gethim into rehab. But exactly a year and a half later, I found him on the bathroom floor of his apartment.”
Moon was quiet, holding one of Harrison’s trophies in his hand now. He did the same thing I had, twisting it around, investigating the date and achievement on it. After a moment, he looked up at me. “He was dead?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he was dead.” That day would never leave my mind, forever burned into the very surface of my corneas. I’d never forget what I saw. I’d never forget the disbelief. I’d convinced myself for all of twenty minutes that there was no way he was dead. No way. Not my twin brother. Not Harrison.
Not the only person I had left.
But he was. He was gone. And there wasnothingI could’ve done about it. No amount of intervention or kind words could’ve kept that from happening. He’d taken his path, and his path ended on his bathroom floor. Alone. By choice.
“He died from alcohol poisoning. His liver was shot to all hell.” Sighing, I started to pick up the remaining trophies and figurines, placing them on the shelf. I didn’t find anything from my dad that was ever worth keeping, but he’d dusted each one of these figurines for my mom every day. He cared for them as Mom wanted him to. That was good enough in my mind. “He was too far gone. I’d really tried, but in the end, he made a choice. And that choice wasn’t one I agreed with, but it was one I had to accept. No matter how hard it was.”
Moon helped me place each one, holding them as gently as I had been. “Fucking hell, Em. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine just how horrible that is to go through. I just…” He stopped and shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how else to express that.”
We both reached up at the same time, our hands brushing as we set something down. I turned to him, hovering my hand where it was. “You express it by being here, Moon. I don’t needwords. Hell, you came to my house to help me unpack all of this shit, and you’ve listened. You’ve just listened to me talk. That’s more than a whole lot of people would be willing to do, and I appreciate it more than I could ever tell you.”
“You listen to me, too. You’ve been there for me, too. Even when I didn’t want you to be.Especiallywhen I didn’t want you to be.”
Because I wanted to be there for him, no matter what. Because I wanted to keep seeing his beautiful fucking smile, now that I knew what it looked like. Because there was a light just beneath the cavern of his eyes, and I was desperate to see it at its full brightness.
Moon Miller wasn’t just under my skin; he was inside my head. He was everywhere I looked. He was safety and familiarity where there wasn’t any. He was an anchor from the sky, coming down to save me. A full moon on a dark, dreary night, lighting a path I hadn’t known existed before. I liked Moon Miller, the brat. And I liked him as more than a friend.
Chapter Fourteen
Havinga TV in my room again was nice. Moon had helped me set it up, plugging everything in and finding the remote I’d put in a random box that took us ten minutes to find. Why I’d hidden it so well from myself, I wasn’t sure. We’d finished the kitchen and decided to take a little break, cuddling and watching a show.
