The Girl Who Chased the Moon

she would grow out of it. And of course, he did exactly as Beverly suggested.

Then the cutting started.

Her unhappiness and self-loathing got the better of her one day when she was in her World History class. Mr. Horne was writing something on the whiteboard and Julia was sitting in the back of the room, Dulcie Shelby a few seats in front of her. Julia looked up from doodling in her notebook to see Dulcie whisper something to one of her friends, then take something out of her purse. Seconds later, a small canister of flea powder rolled down the aisle and stopped at Julia’s feet.

Dulcie and her friends laughed and Mr. Horne turned around.

He demanded to know what was so funny, but no one in class said a word. Julia kept her eyes down, staring at the canister touching the toe of her Doc Martens knockoffs.

Mr. Horne finally turned back around, and as soon as he did, Julia took the sharpened pencil she was holding and dragged it heavily across her forearm. She didn’t realize what she’d done at first. She simply watched the pebbles of blood form on her skin with a weird sense of satisfaction, of release.

At first it was random, using whatever she had on hand, but it soon became more deliberate and she started using razor blades she hid under her mattress at home. Every time she cut herself, it was intense and dramatic, like being jerked from the gaping maw of nothingness and back into life. It not only made her feel, it made her feel good. At one point she realized she couldn’t stop, that she couldn’t get through the day without cutting herself, but she didn’t care. She truly didn’t care. It wasn’t long before her forearms were covered in angry spider-webs of scabbed-over cuts, and she wore long-sleeved shirts even on the warmest days.

She’d been cutting her arms for months before Julia’s father and stepmother found out. It was Beverly who first saw the marks. Julia had just stepped out of the shower one morning and had wrapped a towel around herself, when her stepmother tapped on the door and waltzed in, saying, “Don’t mind me. I’m just getting my tweezers-”

She stopped short when she saw Julia’s bare arms.

When Julia’s father got home from work that evening, he came into her bedroom. His face was pinched and worried and he approached her cautiously, as if trying not to crush her with the weight of his presence. He wanted to know what was wrong, and Julia resented the question. How could he not know?

Her sophomore year ended not long after, and her father and Beverly never let her out of their sight that summer. Instead of feeling like she’d finally gotten what she wanted, she hated that they were trying to stop her from doing the one thing that made her feel better.

The entire summer was one long power struggle. She actually started looking forward to the school year so she could get away from them. And of course, the new school year meant she would get to see Sawyer. Beautiful Sawyer. But just a few days before the start of school at Mullaby High, Julia’s father told her that he was sending her away to boarding school. It was a special school, he said. For troubled teens. They were supposed to drive to Baltimore to the school the next day. He’d given her only one day’s notice. One day. He’d been planning this behind her back all summer!

That night, she crawled out of the laundry room window and ran away. If her father didn’t want her around, fine. But she wasn’t going to some stupid school. The problem was, she had no idea where else to go. So she ended up on her favorite perch on the high school bleachers.

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.”