still see Luna’s face every time I look at the moon.It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, but I still see Luna’s face every time I look at the moon.
And not just for the obvious reason that her name means “the moon” in French.
I never saw her in the daylight. We always met down by the river, where we both liked to walk after dark. For whatever reason, I always just knew when she was going to be there, and even if it was the middle of the night I would put on my shoes and jacket and walk there. It was like I was drawn by some invisible, magnetic force.
I guess I must have been like 10 or something the first time I met her. I had been coming to the little grove of trees by the river near our house for some time, and I had come to think of it as my own special place to think and be by myself. There were already a lot of people living in my house at that time—Taylor and Zac and I all shared a room, and Jessica was a baby then-and I really needed a place of my own.
To my surprise and consternation, I found her there one June night, sitting on my rock in my grove of trees. At 10, you really have no concept of the fact that the outdoors belongs to everyone, and I was upset by her presence.
She was a tiny thing, and she looked to be about my age. She was pretty, I guessed … at the time, girls were kind of not my thing. I was more interested in Legos and frogs and the like. She had short, curly brown hair and deep brown eyes, which I would soon discover always held a worried look. I just wouldn’t know why until years later.
I walked slowly toward her, and decided I would let her know I was there so that I didn’t scare the living daylights out of her.
“Hi,” I said.
The girl turned and looked at me. “Hello,” she replied.
“I’m Isaac,” I said.
She smiled wryly. “I’m Luna.”
Luna? That was an odd name. Most of the girls I knew were named things like Megan and Ashley and Tiffany.
“What are you doing out here in the dark?” I asked, moving a little closer to her.
“What are you doing out here in the dark?” she challenged.
“I asked you first,” I said, unable to come up with anything more clever.
“I’m getting out of my house,” she replied. “I couldn’t stand anymore.”
I was intrigued. “Me too,” I said with a sigh. “I come here all the time. How come I’ve never seen you here before?”
“We just moved here not too long ago,” she replied.
I got brave and sat down beside her on the rock. “I have two younger brothers and a younger sister,” I told her. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe at my house.”
The girl smiled. “I’m the only one,” she said. “I live with my mom and my stepfather. I hate him.”
I was taken aback at the fury in Luna’s eyes when she talked about her stepfather. I had always been taught that “hate” was a really strong word, and we weren’t allowed to use it in our house. But I could tell from the look on her face that she really meant it. “Why do you hate him?” I asked curiously.
Luna looked into my eyes and smiled. “I don’t really want to talk about him,” she said. “I came here to forget about all that. Can we talk about something else?”
So talk we did. We talked for hours. So many hours that I lost track of the time and got grounded for my trouble.
But Luna and I met again, and as the years passed we spent many Oklahoma evenings in that grove of trees by the river, talking about this thing or the other thing. She became my very best friend and the one true confidante I had outside of my family. But the only time we ever saw one another was at that rock by the river, after dark.
When Taylor and Zac and I got pretty serious about the music thing and started getting gigs in town and playing Mayfest and stuff like that, she would come watch us. At least she said she did. I never saw her there. But she could always tell me what songs we had done, so I knew she must be telling the truth.
She got interested in boys, and I got interested in girls. We would discuss our matters of the heart. The first time I got my heart splattered to hell and back by the girl I was in love with, she was there to hold my head in her lap and tell me that the girl was a complete fool to have hurt me. In return, I did the same when it happened to her.
There was nothing Luna and I didn’t talk about. We shared each other’s triumphs and tragedies; she was there for me when my grandmother died; I was more excited for her than she was for herself when she won the Oklahoma Young Author’s Award. And yet as close as we were, she adamantly refused to tell me anything about her home life. I would go on and on about how Jessica or Taylor or Zac had done this silly thing or that silly thing, and she was the first person I told when Avery and Mackie were born. When my parents were on my case about something, I would tell her about it in great detail.
But all she would say about her family was that her time at home was “hellish” and that she hated her stepfather.
In early spring of 1997, we were getting ready for the release of our first major label album. Our excitement was at a fever pitch, and we had been in and out of town so much that Luna and I hadn’t been spending too much time together for a while. But one night, as I lay in bed, I got that feeling … that feeling that she was down by the river and that she needed me.
I slid quietly out of bed and put on my shoes and jacket. I made my way down to our special place, and, just as I suspected, there she was.
She never even lifted her eyes to look at me, but I knew she was aware of my presence. I put my hands in the pockets of my denim jacket and sat beside her on the rock.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
She shook her head.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
She raised her sad, worried brown eyes to meet mine. “I need to tell you something,” she said.
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Oh?”
“It’s really important,” she said.
I turned and put my arm around her shoulders. “You know you can tell me anything,” I said.
Luna took a deep breath. “It’s about my stepfather,” she said.
My eyes widened. For the better part of six and a half years, I had tried to get her to say something about her family. And now here she was, about to spill all with absolutely no provocation.
“Okay,” I said.
“Isaac, he … does things to me,” she said, her voice shaking.
I felt instantly sick. I knew just what she was talking about, but somehow I needed to hear her say it out loud. “What things?”
Her voice was almost a whisper. “He touches me.”
My heart was in my throat. I had heard about these things happening, but I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would know someone they were happening to.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“The touching has been seven years,” she said quietly. “The other stuff only about a month or so.”
I was horrified. “The other stuff?”
“Isaac, he’s making me have sex with him now,” she said, and she started to sob.
I held her closer to me as she wailed. I was totally numb. I didn’t know what to say to her or how to help her. For the entire time I had known her, these heinous things had been happening to her. I tried to let the information process, but my head was spinning.
She sniffled. “Are you disgusted by me now?” she asked quietly.
I held her out at arm’s length and looked into her dark eyes. “Of course not,” I said. “This is not your fault.”
Luna looked at me for a long time. The moon was bright and full, and I could clearly see her beautiful face in the silvery glow of it. “Will you do something for me?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said emphatically. “I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
She nodded. “Isaac, I feel like I’m ruined now,” she said. I started to object to that, but she put her finger to my lips. “Let me finish,” she said.
I nodded, never taking my eyes off her.
“These things … they were just starting to happen to me when I met you. And as time went on and they became more and more frequent and more and more severe, I found myself not trusting anyone and not wanting to get to know anyone. Because of my stepfather, you are the only person I love or trust,” she said.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
“Well, I want you to do something,” she said.
I nodded. “Anything.”
“I want you to make love to me,” she said simply.
I was flabbergasted. “What?”
“Isaac, my first time was not supposed to be with some drunk, dirty old man who was raping me in my canopy bed,” she said. “I know that you’re going places … I know that our time together is short. I want to know what it’s like to be with someone who loves me and who I love in return,” she said.
My mind was going in a million different directions. How could something be so absolutely crazy and yet make so much sense?
“Please,” she said quietly.
I took her face in my hands and looked into her eyes. I was all she had. And even if I knew we weren’t going to be together forever, I did love her with all my heart. How could I refuse her this?
“I’ve never done this before,” I confessed. “It might be pretty awful.”
She smiled weakly and shook her head. “No, Isaac,” she said. “I’ve already been through awful.”
I leaned forward and kissed her gently. I just wanted to make all the bad things go away for her. I wanted to make her forget the horror that had been a part of her life for so long.
It was pretty awkward, but at the same time it was a beautiful thing. We ended up lying in the grass on the riverbank, and because it was kind of chilly we opted to keep our shirts on, disrobing only from the waist down. I was actually pretty smooth about getting her jeans off, much to my surprise.
I was as tender with her as I knew how to be … I was only 16 years old, and I had no idea what I was doing. I just tried to make it what I thought it should be. I kissed her a lot, and I can remember constantly telling her how beautiful she was and how much she meant to me. I thought she needed to hear that.
I touched her everywhere. I tried to not let the kissing get too insistent … I had made out before, and I knew that sometimes I got a little carried away, even a little rough. I didn’t want to freak her out. She needed this to be soft and slow, and that was what I was going to do for her.
When it came time for the actual thing, I let her help me get to the right place. Actually being inside her was a weird sensation. I asked her over and over again if she was okay, and she kept smiling and telling me that she was fine.
Of course, being that I was 16 years old and a virgin to boot, it didn’t take long. She seemed to know when I was about ready to go, because she managed to push me away just in time for me to come all over the grass.
We lay there for a long time afterward, just holding onto each other. I wanted to protect her, but I knew that it was too late for that. I had done all for her that I could.
We parted ways shortly before the sun came up the next morning. A week later, the thing at Paramus Park happened for Taylor, Zac and me, and it would be a while before we went home again.
In my heart of hearts, I knew Luna would be gone when I got back. I knew she had gone shortly after the night we were together. I didn’t know where, but I knew she was gone.
I went back to the grove of trees recently, for the first time since I last saw Luna. There was a cluster of moonflowers growing in the exact spot on the riverbank where we gave ourselves to each other. I crouched down next to them and smiled, and I ran my hand lightly over the grass.
She’s there in the moon, too. I see her there. If she ever needs me, I’ll know it. But for now, I believe she’s okay.