“You ready?” I ask her as I grab my wrinkled pile of articles off the dinged-up coffee table.
I’m not sure I’m ready, but she nods and puts the half-eaten bowl of ice cream down, nervously pulling her worn yellow notebook out of her bag. She hesitates before holding it out to me, crossing over some invisible line as she lets go of it.
I open to the first page. Her neat, even cursive pulls me in, making me forget she’s reading my articles as I’m instantly drawn closer to the hidden parts of her, the secret pieces of Marley that make their way into every single fairy tale.
One story is about identical twins feeding a gaggle of ducks at the pond. More and more ducks come, until they are both swept away, flying high above the pond and the park and the cemetery.
Another is about a young girl who plants pink flowers that won’t stop growing, until one day they turn into a whole person: a flower reflection of the girl.
Marley’s stories are so good they make me want to lean over and snatch my lame articles back from her.
“Marley,” I say. She peers at me over the top of one of the articles, her eyes wide, questioning. I hold up her notebook. “You have to share these with more people than just me. Kids would go crazy for these stories.”
She shimmies up on the couch, eager, her nervous energy bubbling over. “You really think so?”
I nod, looking down at the page in front of me, where there’s a doodle of the flower girl from her story. “Absolutely.”
“Yours are great too,” she says, holding up the article she’s reading. “I don’t even like sports, and you actually manage to make it interesting. These player profiles you did are my favorite. I feel like I really know Sam after reading this,” she adds, Sam’s black-and-white picture staring at me from the top of the pile. “You make them more than just stats. That’s what you should use for your internship application.”
I laugh, relieved that she doesn’t hate them. She’s silent for a long moment, staring at the yellow notebook in my hands.
“People will like them?” she asks softly.
Our eyes lock.
“They’re gonna love them,” I say, meaning it.
She looks past me to the French doors, the moonlight reflecting off the glass. “Do you want to go outside?” she asks as she tugs at her collar.
I know how she feels. The room seems to have contracted around us, filled to the brim with that still-unnamed feeling swirling between us.
“Sure,” I say, and I grab a thick, quilted blanket from my room.
We head to the backyard and lie down on the blanket, gazing up at the ceiling of stars. Her hand brushes lightly against mine, and the night comes alive. Everything brighter. Everything buzzing.
She pulls away to point at the moon, a perfect circle hanging in the sky. “They say people don’t sleep as well when there’s a full moon.”
I study the shining surface, knowing I sure as hell won’t be able to sleep tonight, full moon or not.
“Werewolves?” I ask, and she laughs, nudging my arm.
“I wrote a story about the moon,” she says as the electricity from her touch still hums softly through me. I look over to see her face shining in the faint glow, the pale moonlight outlining her features. “A new story.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s a… love story,” she says hesitantly. “My first one.”
“Then definitely tell me.”
She looks over at me, her eyes dark pools, deep and vulnerable. I push up on my elbow, waiting.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Once upon a time—”
“Why do all stories start like that?” I ask. I don’t want to break the spell, but the question is out before I can stop it.
She smiles. “Not all of them. Only the best ones.”
“That’s the first thing you said to me, remember? Once upon a time.”
We stare at each other for a long moment, an invisible force pulling me closer. I swear I stop breathing. Marley clears her throat and looks away, the pull fading but not disappearing.
“Story,” I say, turning my eyes back up to the moon. “Right. Go on.”
“Once upon a time, there was a girl,” she says.
“I like it already,” I say, encouraging her, and she punches me lightly on the arm, her expression half-amused, half-exasperated. And like I hoped, it spurs her on.
“Every night she walked a path through a dark, dark forest to the base of a beautiful waterfall, and there, she looked to the moon and made her wish,” she says. “It was the same wish every night.”