Moonlight

“Untitled” by Ananya Roy

Moonlight by Alex Coulouris

I had seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off before. I had a sense that kids who had gone through nine months of high school went to events together, not to cheer for our school colors, or witness cinematic excellence, but rather just to be there, together. I had a sense of how the night would go, but somehow the moonlight was still blinding when I stepped out of my mom’s car in a parking lot in Rockville. The only time I’d ever been there before was crossing the finish line for a three mile run. But my youthful energy had long been frayed at the seams, and now I only wore my Girls On the Run shirts to bed. 

I had a sense that first impressions were everything after nine months of having mine stolen and filtered through pixels. The group of four teenagers sprawled out with blankets and popcorn in the back of a truck did not seem like my kind of people. But they recognized my friend through the window, sitting in the car seat that usually held my sister. It seems they all shared English together, but the air quickly fell silent from lack of inside jokes or stolen conversations from behind teacher instruction, building to a sense of familiarity between the group. My guess was that given names and blank screens were more familiar than faces, outfits, or snorts that they made when someone cracked a joke, the looks of horror when they’d catch the trail of the past conversation, the lack of context dirtying the words enough that they felt miserable to hear. But it was all laughed and shrugged off, like the speakers that barely reached us, or the movie splayed on the projector that lacked the genius idea of subtitles. 

I had sweated through my jacket from the ride there, but I found myself pulling it tighter around me as the night trailed on, and I wracked my brain for knowledge of Harry Potter, just enough to shove into the frame of the door left ajar, to insert myself into the conversation. Time passed, and my friend’s head brushed my shoulder, testing the waters first before resting comfortably. My hypothesis was, bit by bit, trial by trial, proved correct; teenagers are not likely to pay attention to the movie they went out of their way to witness. Rate of success proven higher when said teenager is probably crushing on the other, exponentially when said other is questioning whether it’s platonic or romantic, when all of their contemplation should be an answer enough. 

There are some things that stick out in my head, through all the memories muddled with the passage of time between now and then. The talk of being able to get our drivers permits soon, and my legs started to hurt from sitting like that for so long as I joked about my summer birthday doing me a disservice in that field. The talk of older siblings already in college, as it became too dark to identify which bag of candy I was sticking my hand into. I don’t remember the discussion that led up to her head in my lap being shifted just enough to take a cool, blurry, mysterious picture, ripe for the judgment of social media. 

Neither do I remember talking with my friend Jaydyn about going to the same drive-in movie event, but she inferred enough from the background of my Instagram story, and I was lucky enough to check my phone just as the notification banner appeared over my lockscreen. Soon, me and my browning Vans and her freshly white laces were stepping over blankets and limbs, while we left apologies in their path to go greet Jaydyn. I still put down a hand to maintain my modesty, jumping down from the back of the truck with a dress on. I can only assume the star pattern on the skirt blurred in her vision as I did, because I saw the corner of her eyes crinkle in a smile while we searched over suburban cars for our friend, stepping over the wires that kept the whole event together. 

Jaydyn stands at 6’2”, and would make fun of me for having the best hugs but only for a short person, to which I always respond that my height is average for the adult woman; yet I never say that I feel dwarfed in every situation I’m in with others my age or height category. But her smile is enough to root me to the comfort of being made small, to feel lesser, to let her take the floor and talk of the self-proclaimed idiots she associates with and all their antics; to be tucked under her chin in an embrace that makes me so grateful our two minuscule existences have intertwined in such a lavish way.

Her conversation with us is at an arm's length, because we came to the same place as parts of two different parties rather than a complete unit for the night, so we shift our tone to let her know she could return to her friends and I’d still give her a good hug for our departure.

For the first time that night, without unfamiliar new companions with voices and mannerisms I still needed to commit to my subconscious, or mothers behind the steering wheel, always overhearing us, we were alone. Standing behind those big, imposing speakers, we could finally hear the movie, though I only wanted to hear her voice, reassuring me that she’d also felt smuggled onto that truck, rather than warmly invited. 

And we could mull over that strange joke the one with the dusty brown streaks in her hair across from me had cracked, allowed to share words rather than just a knowing glance, to have our feet step a little closer. To discuss the knowing glances that we were ostracized with in return, when my hand went to her hair instinctively. 

We both saw the texts from the new group chat we’d been added to back when the moon was lower in the sky, telling us to come back, but I was still hanging on what the both of us had to say in that moment we’d carved out to be ours, standing in the corner of the vision of the defects in my hypothesis that came to actually enjoy the movie. 

I was still reluctant to let go, even though we walked back to the truck side by side, and if our hands brushed I sincerely could not tell through the gold rushing through my veins and arteries. 

Eventually, an 80s pop song started to seep through the closing scene, and the screen went black, save for the stars of the cast, and everyone began to remember the slew of homework they’d ignored to come here. Eventually, I managed to get into the conversation, but a dart shot straight for the center of my newfound teenage freedom, when I heard that my possible new awesome friend group was going to bathe under the pitch black in Bethesda afterwards. I knew that my friend would be okay, if her parents were okay with it, but her hands weren’t flapping with joy like I had grown accustomed to seeing. 

I knew my mother wouldn’t have been okay with it, so I was already buckling my seatbelt in her car and had received goodbye hugs when I informed her of the offer. My eyelids were fluttering as I watched the night go by and heard Lorde sing of her breakup over the speakers, while I watched a couple hold hands over the gearshift in the lane adjacent to us. The wind from the convertible laced hands through their messy, wild hair, not quite enough to displace the sunglasses that they both wore; despite the only light source being orange, filtered through streetlamps. I rolled my window down in hopes of joining them, though the side of the window frame still dug at the skin of my arm and left an imprint that my mom would’ve laughed about. I could feel all the grime covering outside of the car that I could’ve been happy staying oblivious to. 

I had been contemplating and daydreaming the whole day, like usual, but I always find it much more comforting when done under a weighted blanket in flannel pajama pants that still ride over my ankle, fuzz matted by washing machine abuse, middle school honor roll pen and journal in hand. 

I had a sense where I would’ve ended up, romantically, when she said that existing by me is different than existing near anyone else in her life, but she was unsure, too. And I won’t blame myself for squinting in moonlight, so bright and full, filling my pupils and slowly creeping its way into my heart.