Lois Fogg
Fire
Email: SireneCall@hotmail.com
PG-13
[Author’s Notes at the end]

Chapter Seven: Blood Moon

	I woke up violently to the feeling of someone splashing cold
water on my face. As I opened my eyes I was surprised to see Lita’s
face directly above mine. Amy, Mina and Raye were behind her. For
one joyous second I could not remember what had happened. When I
glanced at Raye, though, looking guilty and scared, it all came crashing
back. I groaned.
	“Are you all right?” Lita asked, helping me sit up. I refused to
look at Raye, whose face I was sure held a look of glowing triumph.
Instead, I buried my head in Lita’s chest and began to sob
uncontrollably. This entire situation was getting out of hand. I couldn’t
seem to get control of myself, and every time I thought I could, Darien
went and did something else to make me even more upset. Lita must
have figured out what happened, because she didn’t ask me. It all
seemed so hopeless; I wondered why I had even bothered trying in the
first place. I should have known that if Darien was determined to do
something, he would do it, no matter what I did. He would go out with
Raye whether I liked it or not, and it was obvious that Raye didn’t care
about my feelings enough to stop him. And why should she take me
seriously, anyway? I was so melodramatic, as she had said. I was too
ditzy, too silly to really love anyone. Lita hugged me tightly, and I
could tell that for some reason, she was dangerously close to tears
herself. I heard the others leave quietly, but I didn’t turn and look at
them. My life was crumbling around me, it seemed, and all because of
one man. One stupid, inconsiderate man. After about fifteen minutes, I
took my head off Lita’s shoulder and stood up, rubbing at my puffy
nose with one hand.
	“Love sucks.” I said vehemently, reaching in my pockets for
some tissues.
	Lita rubbed at the wet spot on her shirt, and then reached into
her pocket and handed me some tissues. “Don’t say that.” She said
seriously, as I blew my nose with an audible honk. “You know the
saying, ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at
all.’”
	“Crap on that.” I said bitterly. “If I had never met Darien, then
I never would have fallen in love with him, and he never would have
been able to hurt me like this. It would have worked out better for all
concerned. I could have fallen in love with some, other, better, more
perfect and wonderful…” I trailed off, and was forced to wipe at my
streaming eyes again with the tissue. This wasn’t working.
	“Serena,” Lita said gently, putting her hand on my shoulder,
“Do you regret the time you did spend with Darien? Do you regret the
time in the ice cream parlor, when he read Shakespeare and then kissed
you?”
	I stared at her. “How did you know about that?” I asked.
	She laughed. “Just about everybody who has email found out
in about an hour, you know. You still didn’t answer my question.”
	“What question?”
	“Do you regret that? Would you give that memory up so that
you wouldn’t feel pain now?”
	I could not meet her eyes. Instead, I looked at the floor. Would
I give it up? I wanted to say yes. I wanted to deny the pleasure that
Darien had given me for such a short amount of time. I wanted to, but I
couldn’t. I just couldn’t deny that what she said was true.
	“No,” I said finally. “No, I don’t suppose I would.”
	Somebody passed us in the hall and gave us an odd look, and I
suddenly realized how strange we must look: two girls, one close to
tears, the other crying.
	“Come on,” I said, grabbing Lita’s hand. “We can go back to
my dorm.”
	“You know, Serena, I think I ought to tell you something.”
Lita said, when we were both sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed.
	“What?” I asked.
	“I’m not telling you this for sympathy, or anything. I can
understand what you’re going through, though.” Her eyes stared into
space, and they held a pain in them that reminded me of the look that I
had seen in Darien’s eyes so many times. “Five years ago, my parents
were killed in an airplane crash. I’ve basically, gotten over it, I guess.
But at the time, I was devastated. I had to live on my own. I…blamed
them for dying. It was hard. For a long time, I thought like you, Serena.
I wished that I never loved them. I wished that I could hate them, and
then I could stop being so upset. But after a while, I realized that it
didn’t work that way. I couldn’t stop loving them, and I shouldn’t. At
least I did have parents for a while, and for that while they had loved
me. I realized that I should remember them for what they did give me,
and love them for it. I know your situation is different, Serena, but it’s
never good to shut yourself off from love. I know that that’s what
Darien’s doing. Darien can’t even remember his parents. He doesn’t
even have the good memories I have to convince him to love anybody.
Try…to forgive him for that, Serena. Maybe one day he’ll find the
courage to open himself up.”
	I felt as if the bottom had dropped from my stomach. I looked
at Lita with newfound respect and compassion. How had she lived
through that? What right did I have to complain about my life when my
friends had experienced so much more? I felt terrible for complaining
to Lita like my life was ending. Feeling a fresh bout of tears erupt, I
hugged Lita again, and we cried on each other.
	“Lita, I’m so sorry.” I whispered.
	After a while, Lita went to grab some tissues, and wiped her
face. I blew my nose again with a honk so loud that we both burst into
uncontrollable giggles.
	“We really are a pair, aren’t we?” Lita said, catching her
breath.
	I smiled at her. “Yeah. Come on, if we can manage to stop
crying for about an hour, we may be able to go and get something to
eat.”

	That night, Amy found me in the library, attempting to write a
paper for English. She sat down in front of me, and put her hands on
the table.
	“Hello, Serena.” She said quietly.
	“Hi Amy.” I said, eyes still on the computer screen. I really
didn’t feel like talking to anyone, especially about Darien.
	“I know you don’t want to talk about it, so I won’t.” She
began, and I stared at her. Had she read my thoughts? Well, I never was
very good at hiding what I was feeling from people. “I just want you to
know that I’m still your friend, no matter what happens. You know
that, right?”
	“Of course, Amy.” I said, feeling a warm glow in my stomach.
Did I really deserve such wonderful friends?
	“And,” She looked down awkwardly. “I thought that you
might like to read this.” She said, giving me a book. “You can have it,
actually. I’m sure you need it more than I do. It’s a book of Dorothy
Parker poems.”
	I had heard of her before. “Isn’t she that feminist writer in the
twenties?” I asked.
	“Well, ‘feminist’ is a little mild, I suppose. But, she’s
definitely a good read if you’re feeling a particular dislike of the male
race.”
	I winced. “I can sure relate to that.”
	Amy smiled. “I thought you could. So, do you need help on
that essay?”
	I shoved the book in my bag, and nodded. Some things, I
supposed, never changed.

	I couldn’t manage to sleep at all over the next few nights.
Every time I drifted into an uneasy doze, vague impressions of danger
would awaken me, and I would sit up in bed, awake, exhausted, but
unable to sleep. Raye and I had come to an uneasy truce with the
extensive help of Amy and Mina. We still didn’t talk to each other,
outside of what was necessary, but at least we suppressed the urge to
fight every other word. I got the impression that Raye was growing
more and more guilty over what she had done. I, however, was in no
mood to forgive her. I wanted her to at least suffer a little for what she
had done to me. These strange sleepless dreams, though, wouldn’t go
away. I felt the danger, the despair, but I could not see anything, and I
woke up too soon to discover their source.  I stared outside of the
window, at the moonlit buildings and bare trees and shuddered. Beyond
my range of sight, I wondered if Darien sat up in bed as well, unable to
sleep, losing all sense of reality. On the third night, I remembered
Dorothy Parker. I got up and rummaged through my bag, not even
bothering to be quiet. These past few nights, Raye had slept more
soundly than Rip Van Winkle after a keg party. I walked back to the
bed, and curled myself in my sheets, pressing my face against the cold
window. Then I opened the book. I realized why Amy had given it to
me almost immediately. Dorothy Parker was like a balm for the
rejected soul. I wondered at the type of life this woman must have lived
to be able to write so knowledgeably about men and yet be so cynical. I
read until dawn, and did not want to fall asleep.

	I couldn’t eat either. When I tried, I could only manage to
swallow half a salad before I felt like throwing up. It wasn’t like I
wasn’t hungry; it was more like I didn’t have the energy to eat. I knew
that it was bad for me, and I could feel the little energy I had slipping
away, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. I knew the others noticed,
but they were afraid to say anything. None of them knew that I couldn’t
sleep though, and I didn’t tell them. It just would have made them more
worried, and I knew that there was nothing anyone could do about it. I
couldn’t force myself to sleep no more than I could force myself to
eat—even though I knew in my head that it was the right thing to do.
That Thursday, Mina and I were in the one lounge on campus with a
Nintendo hooked up to the television. We had made this discovery
about a month ago, and since we shared a clandestine passion for video
games, we sneaked there every free moment. I was glad that she had
forced me to come along, because over the past week my mood had
grown blacker and blacker. The only times I looked forward to were the
nights, when I would be able to forget my own world and read more
Dorothy Parker. I think Mina knew this, though, which was why she
was so overly enthusiastic about the video games.
	“So, you want to play Mario Kart?” She asked, already turning
on the Nintendo, I smiled despite myself and nodded. I lost miserably
every single level we played and Mina positively gloated.
	“Seems you’ve lost your touch, huh?” She said, playfully
sticking her tongue out at me when I fell off the rainbow road for the
sixteenth time.
	“Yeah, yeah,” I said with more enthusiasm than I had
exhibited all week, “I’ll bet you rigged the game. I never liked the
rainbow road anyway. What about…moo moo farm?” I asked, aware of
how ridiculous our conversation must sound to anyone else. After she
won in every single level, we played bomber man. In fact, we played
every single other two player game in the collection and she positively
demolished me. We had, in fact, gained a little audience, wondering
exactly how badly it was possible to lose to one person.
	“I’m not usually this bad!” I protested, when I blew myself up
for the tenth time.
	“I’m not usually this good.” Mina chortled, and tossed another
bomb at me.

	“I don’t really know what happened.” Mina said, as we were
walking back across campus. “I’m usually so right about these things.
I’m sorry that I encouraged it, you know. I really thought that it would
work out. You seemed so perfect for each other.”
	I squeezed her hand. “It’s all right. Don’t worry, I’ll get over
it. We all do, eventually.”

	The next day, in Government class, I was suddenly
overwhelmed. Not with emotion, since I had certainly done my fair
share of that over the past month, but with exhaustion. Suddenly the
combined effect of an entire week without sleep or food and the
droning voice of the professor was more debilitating than ten sleeping
pills. Lita wasn’t there that day to stop me, and Darien, of course
wasn’t looking. I pulled my huge winter hat further down on my head,
and almost against my will, put my head on my desk and fell into my
first sleep in a week. I hoped that I wouldn’t get caught, but even that
thought couldn’t deter me. I drifted soundlessly into dreamless
oblivion.
	I didn’t know how long it had been when I woke up, only that
the rest of the class had left, and something had made me regain semi-
consciousness. I opened my eyes slightly, only to be rewarded with the
sight of Darien staring at me. He had not seen my eyes open, and did
not know that I was awake. Through my fuzzy lashes I watched him,
and felt renewed confusion when I saw his expression. Was that
tenderness? He looked nearly as tired as I felt, but his eyes were bright
when he looked at me. He reached down, as if to touch my hair, and I
felt the breath leave my lungs. Just when he was about to, though,
someone came in the room and he recoiled quickly. It was Raye. I had
avoided them for just this reason, and now I was trapped, forced to
watch two people I had trusted betray me. I wanted to close my eyes,
but I couldn’t.
	“Darien--“ Raye began, but Darien hushed her, pointing to me.
I felt touched, but still angry. That man was a walking contradiction!
One minute he saves me from a snowstorm and the next he dates my
roommate a week after breaking up with me!
	“Oh,” Raye whispered. “Is that Serena? I didn’t know she was
in your class. Just like her to fall asleep though.”
	“She looks tired.” Darien said, giving me one last look. “Come
on, let’s go.” And they walked out of the room. After the door closed, I
sat up, rubbing my eyes.
	The room echoed with the sound of my hand slamming on the
desk in fury.

	That night, Amy, Mina, Lita and I sat in the lounge, watching
television. Lita had, apparently, met them briefly while I was passed
out, and I introduced them again. It was strange without Raye, but she
was out with Darien, and we all knew that she wouldn’t come around if
I were there anyway. We were watching the end of one of those terrible
‘news’ shows that gossiped about everyone in painful detail. Mina had
insisted, since it was practically her favorite show. She liked watching
all the hot guys, she said. Well, I have to admit that I didn’t object to
the hot guys either. At least the TV show stopped them from asking
about Darien. Well, they didn’t really ask about Darien any more, they
just tiptoed around me in a way that made me sure they wanted to. So I
lay back on the couch, and stared at the television. They had just
finished this bit about this teenage actor (who was, by the way, not cute
at all) who was having an affair with Barbara Streisand’s sister. Lita
yawned dramatically.
	“Do we *have* to watch this?” She asked, looking pointedly
at Mina.
	“Shhh!” Mina said, eyes glued to the screen. “It’s almost over.
This is my favorite part.”
	The announcer, a heavily made up, middle aged man, with
what I suppose you could call ‘rugged good looks’ came back on the
screen. “Thanks, Yolanda. And now for our affair of the week.” Lita
rolled her eyes expressively. “Our close-knit couple this week were
both born to privilege and fame. Vice President William’s son, Vance
Jr. and Presidential hopeful Ken Johnston’s daughter, Serena, have
officially hit it off, according to their parents. They met at the Vice
President’s annual Christmas party, and have continued their
relationship at Harvard, where he attends the Law School and she
undergraduate. In an exclusive interview, Vance said that “Serena and I
are just getting to know each other, but I think that it could turn into a
meaningful relationship.” It’s certainly a lucky match for Ken Johnston,
whose ratings in the polls have gone up by at least ten percent since the
news got out. We’ll be right back after these messages.”
	Everybody turned to stare at me, but I still gaped at the screen
in dumbfounded disbelief. How could he have done this to me? He
publicized a fake relationship with Mr. Creep so that he could go up ten
percent in the polls? Far from wanting to cry, I was about ready to put
my foot through the television screen.
	“Serena,” Amy ventured in a small voice. “Is it true?”
	“Of course not!” I shouted, standing up and pacing around the
room. “Of course it isn’t! Do you honestly think that I would go after
that snotty, zit-faced, lemming! He’s been bugging me the past three
weeks, but I didn’t think he would actually say something like that. I
bet his dad put him up to it…damn it, I bet *my* dad put him up to it.”
	“Woah, Serena, calm down.” Lita said, trying to hide a grin.
“After all, it is kind of cute, cliched and corny. All good reasons for
your father to exploit it.”
	“I think it’s kind of cool that you were actually on television,
Serena. You’re famous.” Mina’s eyes had that rosy glow that meant she
was impervious to all reason.
	I glared at her. “Well, I hope you become famous some day,
and tell me how you like it, because this is as far as it goes. I am going
to call my Dad and tell him how I feel about the whole thing. And then
he is going to call every damn TV station in the country and tell them
that it isn’t true.”
	I stomped out of the lounge, fully intending to blast my Dad,
but when I called, Mom just stalled me.
	“Well, dear, he is rather busy right now, in a meeting. Why
don’t you call back later?”
	“Mom, I have to talk to him now. I don’t care if he is in a
meeting. Tell him that it’s an emergency.”
	“I’m not so sure that it’s a good idea to talk to him if you’re
not in the right frame of mind, honey.”
	“Believe me, mom, I’m definitely in the right frame of mind.”
	“If this is about the whole Vance Jr. thing, believe me, he has
good reason. It’s all for—“
	I cut her off. “He has absolutely no reason to involve himself
in my private life!” I raged, making other people in the hall stare at me.
“He has already screwed up my life enough as it is—you have no idea
how much.  He doesn’t need to go around making it worse for a measly
ten percent in the polls!”
	“Actually, honey, ten percent is a lot, as you know—“
	That was it, I couldn’t take it anymore. I hung up the phone,
angrily wondering when mom would get some backbone. It wasn’t the
first time Dad had done that, just the first time he had done it so
obviously to me. Frustrated again, I wandered back to the lounge,
considerably deflated. They all looked up at me, but didn’t say
anything. They had probably heard me anyway. The phone wasn’t that
far away, and I had been screaming. I plopped back down on the couch,
and noticed that we were now watching the news, specifically, the
weather report.
	“…negative twenty degrees tonight, and almost negative thirty
with wind chill estimated for tomorrow night.” The weatherman was
saying, pointing to some incomprehensible lines on his map.
	Lita mock-shuddered. “No wonder I’ve been feeling like I’ve
been in the barren wastes of Siberia.”
	“It’s always like this around now.” Mina said. “What I want to
know is if we’re going to get any snow.”
	“But if we get too much snow, they may cancel classes!” Amy
said with such a horrified expression that we had to stare at her. The
weatherman interrupted us.
	“We will definitely see at least six inches of snow tomorrow
night, possibly over a foot…” The rest of his sentence was made
inaudible by the volume of Mina’s shriek. She bounced up and danced
around the room whooping and hollering enough to make us all start to
laugh.
	“Maybe it will be pretty cool.” I said smiling. “The last time
DC got that much snow was when I was in sixth grade.”
	“Well then,” Mina said, still bouncing, “I’ll just have to show
you how to properly utilize snowy weather.” She said, with mock
seriousness. “Yes! Everything, the proper packing of a snowball,
proper tactics for running away from snowballs, proper methods of
traying without getting caught by the cafeteria, and above all, ice
skating!”
	“Sure, Mina.” Lita said, laughing, and then looked at her
watch. “But I for one am going to have to get some sleep if you’re
planning to give us your…expert advice. It’s almost eleven.” We said
goodnight to her. It didn’t take long for Mina and Amy to realize how
tired they were, and soon I was alone in the lounge. I stared into space
for a while, vaguely hearing the news. I was tired, but I knew that I
wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight any more than I could this past week.
Something caught my ear, though, and I turned to see the weatherman
back again.
	“Tomorrow night, there will be a lunar eclipse. Between the
hours of eleven thirty and twelve thirty, the moon will be fully covered
by earth’s shadow and will appear red…”
	That was strange. I had never heard of a red moon before. I
wondered what it would look like, and knew that I would see it, since I
had seen the moon every other night this week. Without anything better
to do, I shut off the television and trudged up the stairs to my room.
Raye was there when I walked in, and we ignored each other
studiously. She was, apparently, about to go to bed anyway. I didn’t
even bother changing my pajamas, and sat on my bed cross-legged,
staring out the window.
	“I know you feel guilty, Raye.” I said quietly. She didn’t
answer, but I sensed her stillness. “We were friends. You said that you
didn’t want a guy to pull us apart, but you allowed him to. I guess that
I’m partly to blame for that. When I love people, I think I love too
strongly. A tragic flaw, I guess. It’s okay, if you don’t want to be
friends anymore, we don’t have to be roommates next year. I’d like you
to be, though. If we never knew Darien, this never would have
happened, you know. But I can’t say I regret it, because I did enjoy my
time with him. I hope you enjoy yours. What’s terrible is that Darien
really *is* wonderful when you’re with him. Just…watch out, Raye.
When he bites, it’s fatal.” My breath fogged on the window, and my
tears splashed on the sill. Raye turned off the light.

That night I discovered the poem. I had read the anthology
haphazardly, just flipping to random pages and reading whatever
poems struck my fancy. Dorothy Parker had a wonderful range, with
poems from two lines to thirty. Most were cynical pieces about love—
or lack there of. The title caught my attention, it was different from all
her others. It seemed more like the title of a classic love poem than the
others I had read. When I finished it, I wished I had never found it. My
chest racked painfully, but no amount of tears seemed to relieve the
pressure inside of me. Amy hadn’t meant for it to happen. She had
probably never read the poem—it was in the back of the book,
sandwiched in between some of her long-winded rants. Only, it was as
if Dorothy Parker had reached into the future and knew that one day
Serena Johnston would be reading her poetry and that on this particular
night, she was too tired, exhausted and sad to resist its glaring
temptation. I wondered again what had happened in her life to make her
write such a poem, and I wondered if we were kindred spirits, separated
by time but bound by similar experiences. I hugged her book closely to
my chest during that sleepless night, and knew that something within
me had changed, irrevocably.

I did not leave my room that entire day. I didn’t have any
classes on Saturday, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have gone to them.
School suddenly seemed like such a joke compared to what I was
facing within myself. Raye looked at me, curled up on my bed, my
head resting on the window, but she didn’t say anything. Eventually,
she jut left the room, too scared to confront me. It was okay, I
understood her, and I didn’t blame her for it. I didn’t blame anyone
now. The sky looked increasingly cloudy, and I wondered what the
weathermen were saying about that snow now. At least Mina would be
happy. I remembered when I would have gotten that excited about
snow. But happiness, just like school, seemed like a transient memory
that I couldn’t quite get a grip on any longer. I didn’t eat, but that was
nothing new. I had barely eaten a thing all week. I wondered, frankly,
why it mattered anyway. I wondered why anything mattered at all. It
was obvious that I loved Darien. I couldn’t stop it, and time only
seemed to be making it worse. Every day Darien found a new way to
make me hurt more until I was one ball of pain, without a beginning or
end. If only it had been a clean break, like with Lita and her parents,
instead of this long, agonizing withdrawal. Because he didn’t want me.
Not because of the person I really was, but the person I was born to be.
He had, as Lita said, denied his capacity to love. In a vague way, I was
angry with him, but I felt most strongly an overwhelming despair. I did
not know what to do with myself. Around one o’clock, Amy knocked
on the door, and came in. She looked afraid, but I was too numb to
realize that she was afraid for me.
	“Serena,” She said tentatively, “Are you all right? Do you
want to come to lunch with me?”
	I shook my head mutely, and stared out the window.
	“I’ve noticed…” Her voice caught. “I’ve noticed that you
haven’t eaten much lately. That really isn’t good for you, you know.
And I don’t think you’ve been sleeping either. You ought to take care
of yourself.” She walked closer to me when I didn’t respond. “Serena.
You have to listen to me. I see what you’re doing to yourself, and…it
scares me. Please feel better, okay? Serena…” She trailed off, crying. I
looked at her, my own tears completely dried up.
	“Amy,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
	She nodded, and ran out the door, leaving me alone again. I
turned on the radio and lay back down on my bed again. Then I pulled
out all of my favorite comic books from under my bed and read them
cover to cover. I knew that I was just stalling. I knew that something
would happen soon, but I had lost the ability to predict my own moods.
I only knew that right now I wanted to lose myself as best I could.
After I had read all of Rayearth, Ranma, Tenchi and Sailor V, it was
nine o’clock. I sat up, and looked with foggy eyes out the window. It
was snowing, I noted first. Thick, large flakes that made the snow grow
quickly. Below, Raye and Darien hugged goodbye and she went inside.
I felt the familiar horror when I saw that, but I was distanced from my
body now. I had grown used to pain. Darien stayed below the window.
I wondered if he would see me, and just as I did his eyes went up the
building as if drawn by a magnet. I fell forward when our eyes locked,
my forehead pressed against the window. I suddenly felt warm, like fire
was spreading throughout my body. I knew that my eyes eloquently
formed the question that had been on my mind for weeks: ‘why?’ And
his eyes were naked for a moment, revealing a hurt as deep as my own.
His mask fell adeptly into place again, and he shrugged his shoulders
and walked off. He had given me his answer, more clearly than words.
	“Because I had to.”

	I waited until Raye had definitely gone to sleep, since I knew
there wasn’t a chance of waking her. I went to the closet and dragged
out my warmest winter clothing. I had an idea, a shape in my head, and
I would follow it, even if I didn’t know where it would lead. Anything
was better than staying here, trapped in my own sadness with nothing
better to do than contemplate why the only man I had ever loved could
not love me. I put on my clothes silently, without fear. At the last
second, though, I began to doubt what I was doing, and then I spotted
the Dorothy Parker book, still next to my pillow. I picked it up and
reread the poem. Yes, I was determined. Just as I was walking out the
door, I stopped again. Inexplicably, I ripped the page out of the book
and taped it to the window. No one, except possibly Darien, would
understand, and Darien would not care enough to do anything about it.
Do anything about what? A part of my mind questioned. I still had not
admitted what was lurking in the back corners of my mind. I only
accepted that I was doing something, something that would stop my
torment forever. That was as far as I could go. I left the room and shut
the door behind me. I hitchhiked until I reached the area Darien had
taken me to that night. I didn’t really know where to go, since I hadn’t
been paying attention to what side streets he used, but I must have had
a homing signal, because I soon recognized the area where he had
parked his bike. Satisfied, I trekked through the woods, made slightly
harder this time because of the snow. It was cold outside, much colder
than it had been the last time, and I wondered again what I was doing
here. But it was too late to turn back, and something within me didn’t
want to. I finally came out the other end, after falling down several
times. I gasped when I saw the beach. The ocean was frozen. In a
delicately crystalline shape, even the ocean had succumbed to winter. I
trudged through the snow to the edge of the ice. I was afraid to touch it,
since I had never seen anything like it before. I had always thought of
winter as so cold and dead, but it did have its own austere, untouchable
beauty. I thought back to the first time he had brought me here, and
what we had come so close to doing. I understood why he hadn’t, and I
loved him for it. He had loved me then, that action made me sure of it.
What had changed? I sat down in the snow, shivering. It certainly was
cold, wasn’t it? I stared at the sky, at the snow that kept falling. It
looked like it was beginning to stop though, and some stars were
showing fuzzily through. Then I saw the moon.
	It was blood red, and I shuddered, not entirely because of the
cold. It was beautiful, but in a much harsher, more violent way. It
looked angry, without the calm serenity that I remembered from that
night over a month ago. I lay back in the snow in order to get a better
view of it. I could barely see the bunny through the gentle film of snow
clouds. I stared and stared, wondering what Darien would say if he saw
it. Wondering if he would have given in, if the moon had been this
angry that night. I wondered if the moon was this angry because of
what he had done, or maybe it was something that I had done. The cold
seemed to seep into my bones, until it was almost impossible for me to
move them. The snow fell on top of me, but I could not seem to brush it
off. I shivered uncontrollably, but my eyes were still riveted to the
moon. Maybe it wasn’t angry, maybe it was bleeding. Perhaps it was
sad like I was, and it was slowly losing its vitality, its strength.
Something within me knew that something terrible was happening, but
could not explain exactly what it was. My thoughts seemed perfectly
logical in the parallel universe I had entered. I knew that I was getting
dangerously cold, but at some point during the night, it seemed like I
was actually getting warmer, although I couldn’t feel my body. I
watched the moon bleed all night long, and I felt as though I were
bleeding with it. All of my life, my love, my fire was slowly seeping
out of my body, hidden beneath pristine white snow. All because of
Darien, who didn’t love me. I had read stories about girls who died of
lovesickness, but I hadn’t believed them. It had seemed too far-fetched,
to implausible to me then. But now, I was the girl in the story, the one
who had placed everything on the soul of one man, and had been
betrayed. I don’t know when it happened, but eventually, the moon
turned again its normal color, pale and silvery white—practically bled
to death.
	And then I knew what I was doing. I knew what my
subconscious had known all along, when it was too late for me to do
anything about it. I was frozen, in the snow, practically buried in it. I
knew that within a matter of hours, I would be dead. And suddenly, I
didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to hurt either, but anything was better
than lying out here, freezing to death. So long as I lived at least there
was a chance Darien would admit that he loved me. If I died, then I was
giving everything up, admitting that all I had ever believed in—true
love and destiny—was a farce. I couldn’t do that. But it was too late.
My mind raged, but my body had already given in. I was too cold to
move, to numb to feel my own body. I felt myself sliding into
unconsciousness dangerously alien to sleep. I fought it, but I knew I
would lose. I repeated his name over in my head, as if he would
somehow know I needed him, and was thinking about him this far
away. My last thought, before everything went black, was of the poem I
had taped to the window.
	“Please remember me.” It was a croak, emitted against all
odds from frozen lips.

<I Know I Have Been Happiest>

I know I have been happiest by your side
But what’s done is done, an all’s to be
And small the good of lingering dolefully
Gaily it lived, and gallantly it died
I will not make you songs of hearts denied
And you, being man, would have no tears of me
And should I offer you fidelity
You’d be, I think, a little terrified

Yet this need of woman, this her curse
To range her little gifts, and give, and give
Because the throb of giving’s sweet to bear
To you, who never begged me vows nor verse
My gift shall be my absence, while I live;
After that, my dear, I cannot swear.
~ Dorothy Parker

************************************

AHHH!! Cliffhanger!! All right, I’m sorry for doing this, but I *had* to
do it at least once during this story, and this was the ideal moment.
Please forgive me? <devilish grin> Well, you’ll just have to come back
next week to see what happens, now won’t you?
Second item of business: minna, thanks for all the email!! I *love* you
guys for it! I swear, my mailbox has *never* been this full before, I’m
practically one huge ball of happiness. Well, I’m not sure what else to
say, besides wait for the next chapter. This one is definitely the most
angst-induced of the story (well, so far at least, I’m not done with it yet,
am I?) Thank you’s go out to Kas, Lady Spring, MarshAngel and
Bethany for putting me on their webpages. Also to The ‘talented’ Sailor
Jupiter (you better write that story!)
Oh yeah, before I forget: Sailor Moon is the coolest anime, but
unfortunately, I don’t own it yet. Ask me if you want my story, though.
And finally, just a question: Who is hotter? Anime Mamoru or manga?
Personally, I *have* to go with anime, although there are some manga
pictures where he is too cute!

Lois