My heart starts beating faster in my chest. ‘And ... that was the day I realised that I loved you. It made it more meaningful for me to paint.’ He continues.

  His words are like a wrecking ball to the wall I built over the years between him and me. I can’t fathom what is happening right now. That day at the river is the same day I realised I was in love with him. My fingers slowly pass over the dried brushstrokes of the painting, trying to comprehend it all.

  ‘You ended up becoming my muse, Luna.’ Cooper’s hand travels towards my face, but he stops himself and maintains distance. ‘This painting was the centrepiece of my gallery, but after I saw you yesterday, it didn’t feel right sitting in the gallery. I want you to have it.’

  Soft sobs come out of me, the tears roll down my face, and droplets fall onto the painting. I look up at Cooper through my glassy eyes. His eyes dart between my eyes and lips, and I let go of the painting, which lands quietly on the couch. I throw my arms around Cooper’s neck and kiss him.

  He pulls back for a second, stunned by what just happened, but he instantly collides with my lips and kisses me back with what feels like a need that was festering within him for several years. I melt into him, but my thoughts immediately scream what are you doing? I pull back and put several feet of distance between us, my eyes widen, and disappointment tears through me. I touch my lips as if they were scorched. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Luna, wait, I—’

  ‘No, Cooper. If you say anything more, I will stay. But I shouldn’t. Not when I still haven’t forgiven you.’ I continue walking towards the door.

  I step out of the house and catch the faintest whisper. ‘I still think about you, Luna.’

  ​26​

  Luna

  I sit on the bus back home, nauseous the entire way, and my throat is thick with tears. I count down the minutes until I can get back home, and when I finally reach, I dash into my house and run up the stairs, sprinting past my parents sitting on the couch. The last few words of Appa’s question reach me as I open my door. ‘... okay, Luna?’

  I throw my bag on the floor and fall onto my bed, and the wail comes out of me, rattling its way through my body. I cry with the pain of love, anger and guilt. I can’t believe I kissed Cooper; it’s the last thing I should have done. Now I barely have forty-eight hours left before I have to pack everything and leave this country again – leave Cooper again. It hurts how thoughtful and affectionate he still is, but I cannot physically get over the fact that he left me. It was easy for him to cut the thread that kept us tethered to each other, and what good would it be if I put myself in the same position again?

  A headache throbs against my forehead from crying hard. In the silence between my sniffles, soft footsteps get louder outside my bedroom door, which is shortly followed by a knock. ‘Can we come in, Luna?’ Appa’s voice travels through the door.

  ‘Okay,’ I respond in between my chokes and sobs.

  The door creaks open, and my parents stand on the other side, their faces filled with worry. They walk into my room one after the other, my Mum closing the door behind her. Appa sits right next to me on the bed and pulls me to his side, hugging me tightly and smoothing my hair. ‘Enna aachu kanna?’

  The gentleness in his question cracks open the dam that I had built within myself, and a fresh set of sobs breaks out of me while he continues holding me and patting me, which translates to him saying that he will always be there, no matter what. Moments later, my tears slow down, and he nudges me to talk again.

  ‘I kissed Cooper.’

  ‘Okay.’ He prompts, waiting for me to continue.

  ‘I still love him, pa.’ My voice comes out louder. My eyes dart to Mum, and melancholy stains her face. She takes a deep breath and lets it out. I understand it as fear that I might be putting myself in a position to get hurt again, because of Cooper. But she still listens to me, being there for me comes first before the disappointment or anger that she might hold towards Cooper.

  ‘Okay, da. But what’s weighing on your heart, Lulu?’ His tone is consistent and soothing that it feels like a safe space for me to open up in.

  ‘I still can’t forgive him for breaking up with me. But it also hurts not to be with him, even though I still love him.’ This is the first time I have revealed to them that he initiated the breakup.

  ‘Lulu, we never asked you anything about the breakup because we didn’t want you to relive any pain that came with it. But do you want to tell us what really happened? So that we know how to help you?’ Mum’s voice comes out faint.

  I nod and tell them everything. A constant pain hums in my heart, like a piano key that’s not been let go of, as I recall every detail.

  ‘Okay. Kanna, it sounds like he wanted to break up to stop you from giving up on everything you’ve worked for. Don’t you think that?’ Appa’s logical side comes out.

  A bitter and uncomfortable feeling grows within me. I am not going to like what I am about to do, but I can’t stop the gnawing feeling inside me. ‘Are you taking his side?’ My voice comes out cold and flat.

  His face changes, his eyebrows furrow and a deep wrinkle appear on his forehead. ‘That’s not what I’m saying, kan—’

  ‘He left me as easily as Apollo did!’ I roar. The expression on my parents' faces immediately sobered me up. Guilt sears through me. It dawns on me that I haven’t moved past Apollo’s death. Even if I did move on from his actual death, the way he left me has stayed with me like a recurring bruise. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.’

  The tears come out of me like a waterfall again, and Appa continues to hold me despite what I’ve said out loud. I keep repeating, ‘I can’t believe that I didn’t know he was in pain,’ and he keeps saying that it’s okay and tightens his grip on me. I tremble underneath his touch, and my breath comes out ragged and uneven. ‘He was my brother; I should have known.’

  Mum comes closer, sits next to me and holds my hand. ‘Muffin, it is not on you to know that. He was going through something, and he didn’t want to tell us. It happened, and we still love him and think of him. But you can’t have prevented it.’ Her voice cracks, and I know how painful it is for her to talk about Apollo.

  A sharp sting goes through my heart, the familiar pain of losing someone I love. I remember how I cried on the same bed when Apollo died, and Appa held me all night until I fell asleep. I know it is distasteful to be angry at Apollo – who suffered horribly – for leaving me alone on this Earth. But after he left in the blink of an eye, I had so much love that I couldn’t put it anywhere. I thought I had Charlie to help me handle the love, but he left, too, because I was too much. I was holding the love within my heart behind ironclad walls until I met Cooper. He showed up every day and stayed until I removed the bricks from my walls myself. He gave me the strength to love again, but with more facets than sibling love. But he left too, just as quickly as Apollo did. But the more I think about it, I recognise that I need to heal from Apollo’s death and acknowledge that it is normal for me to be angry at him and let go of it. Maybe I can find it in my heart to forgive Cooper for making his decision.

  Minutes pass by, and my eyes feel heavy; I feel exhausted. Right before I fall asleep, Mum and Appa leave a kiss on my forehead.

  ***

  I wake in the middle of the night, darkness surrounding me and a blanket on top of me. I move the blanket from underneath and leave my bed. It’s finally time to do something that I have avoided for years.

  I try my best not to make too much noise while leaving my room, and I stand in front of Apollo’s room door. This is the first time since his passing that I am prepared to face whatever is behind this door. The memory of Apollo sleeping on his bed while I closed the door behind me and left for my room flashes in my mind; it is the last time I saw him in this room, the last time I saw him alive.

  I take in a deep breath and pull down the handle until it clicks. I push through the door and flick on the light switch on the wall. The room comes alive, and so does the memory of Apollo. His room smells exactly like his cologne, and it looks exactly like how I last saw it. It has been cleaned, but things are still placed exactly where he had them – the acoustic guitar on the wall, the overflowing bookshelf with books layered in two rows and the trinkets on his desk. The room is suspended in time, but it is missing its owner.

  I knew to expect that his room would be the same and untouched, but the reality of it came in like a tsunami. When my parents came to help me move to Cologne all those years ago, they called me in to talk. Appa brought up the topic of what to do with Apollo’s room. It had been four and a half years, and he was the only person who had been inside the room after Apollo passed. He knew how much pain it brought Mum and me, and so he wanted to get our opinions on what to do with it. He suggested renovating it, moving Apollo’s things into a storage space. But I had immediately broken down; I wasn’t ready to let him go. It wasn't right that the room would be scraped clean of Apollo’s essence. We all concluded – until we were ready to say goodbye, we would leave his room as it is. However long that takes us.

  I have to pause to take a minute because the feeling of loss envelops me entirely. I walk through every part of his room, letting my fingers pass over them, to feel it be real underneath my touch – to know that he existed once and that I haven’t made him up in my head. I open his closet and run my hand through his shirt, and I am hit with a stronger scent of his cologne. I lift the guitar from the wall and sit on the floor, positioning it properly on my lap. I strum a few strings and listen to it wake up. Apollo’s voice follows suit in my head. My ears are bleeding, Loony. At least let me give you proper lessons.

  It hurts being reminded of how well he used to play. He created some of my most favourite songs. I breathe in deep once more. 1 2 3, exhale slowly, 1 2 3 4. I mentally capture every single corner of this room so that I can commit it to memory for the next set of years, before I can come in here again. I walk over to the bookshelf, tilting my head sideways to read the titles, and I remember how Percy Jackson was his favourite series of books, even at twenty-two.

  I flip through his battered yet well-loved copy of The Lightning Thief, and a blink of a white sheet catches my eye. My eyebrows crease, and I riffle through the pages more slowly this time. A piece of white paper folded in half is tucked into the middle of the book. I take it out of the book and flip it to look for any label. My name is written across one of the folded sides.

  My head spins, and I have to sit down. I walk a few steps and sit with a soft thud on the bed. I open the letter quickly; if not this way, I will never be able to deal with it.

  Hi Loony,

  Wow, all it took was for me to die for you to finally pick up my favourite book series, huh? Even after all the nagging.

  ‘What an ass,’ I say out loud to the room.

  I didn’t want to leave this letter in an obvious place because I want you to be in the right state of mind when you read this.

  ‘I hope this fits your expectations.’ My throat cracks at the end of the sentence. A bitter anger was rising through me.

  I’m sorry I’m not telling you how I feel right now, even though you are a wall away, laughing at whatever Charlie said. I keep looking for the words, but I can’t find the right ones.

  I am ashamed. I feel like the embarrassment of the family because, after all the money Mum and Appa spent on my studies, I can’t even go to Trinity anymore. Because of one stupid mistake.

  I can’t come to you either because I don’t know how to face you as the failure of an older sibling who comes to their responsible younger sister for advice.

  I miss you. I know you can tell that something’s wrong with me. I don’t know how to pretend it isn’t.

  I hope you kept going. I always assumed you would. You were never the kind of person who let things stop you for long.

  I’m sorry I didn’t say any of this when I had the chance.

  Yours,

  Ollie.

  I put pressure on the place where my thumb is holding onto the letter, I rub it, hoping that the paper gives way to reveal an additional sheet with more of Apollo’s words. But it doesn’t. I lie on the bed and press the letter onto my chest. ‘Oh, Apollo. I was right next to you.’​

  ​27​

  Cooper

  It is almost twelve hours since Luna kissed me (and I kissed her back) in my house, but my phone has no messages or calls from her. I almost want to go to Kingston to see her in person, talk it out with her and let her know that I made a mistake letting her go all those years ago. But I don’t. I want to give her space to process everything that happened between us and think about how she feels, but I am also afraid that the kiss last night was a momentary act of nostalgia and that she doesn’t still love me or want me back.

  I shake my head and hope that I am able to shake the thoughts out of it, too, but I open my phone moments later and go through the photos of Luna and me from when we were together. We looked happy and young, and in love. I lock my phone and groan, realising that I am a grown thirty-year-old adult male going through the photos with my ex-girlfriend and yearning. My therapist would not be thrilled to hear about this. I need to wait this out for a few days and contact her so that we can talk about this like adults.

  I go through my morning routine like a well-oiled machine and pack my bag to visit the gallery for a couple of hours. Today is my day off, to work on painting new art in my studio – with the high-quality paints that Leo ever so kindly gives me a staff discount for, even though I don’t work there anymore – but I get out of my house to get fresh air and distract myself from the recurring thoughts of Luna and her lips.

  I spend half an hour returning emails from buyers, and I simultaneously ignore the constant requests to buy my painting of Luna titled ‘Her’ that I had hung up in my gallery until a few days back. I decided to give Luna the painting, and it belongs to her, whether she wants it or not. I package the other paintings which have been sold and give a hand to my team of four amazing employees whenever they need me. I text Shiva to catch him up on the catastrophic updates of my love life, and his supportive responses soothe my wounds.

  The day goes by painfully, and Leo comes into my office with a strawberry milkshake in one hand and a banana milkshake in the other. ‘Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.’ He snarls at me.

  I grab the strawberry milkshake from his hand and sip on it to soothe my anxiety. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘The concerned messages I was receiving from your employees, saying they saw you come in to the office on your day off with a long face, might have helped.’

  ‘Right.’ I let out a long sigh.

  ‘Are you ready to stop pouting and actually go talk to her?’ His tone reminds me of a teacher talking to their student.

  ‘I don’t want to push her into talking,’ I respond.

  ‘Okay, fair. You are not helping anything by being here either. Will you please go back home and give yourself time to process things?’ He is moments away from grabbing me and walking me home.

  ‘Okay, I will. And, thanks for the milkshake.’ I stand from my chair and put my laptop into my bag.

  ‘I got you, Coop.’

  I walk back home; my mind still riddled with questions about Luna. Once I reach my doorstep, I look down to pull my keys from my pocket, but my eye catches on the envelope lying on my doormat, addressed to me. I pick it up warily, wait until I unlock the door and get inside, then open it.

  I get the knife from the kitchen and swipe through the seam of the envelope. I unfold the letter and immediately recognise the handwriting.

  Hi Cooper,

  I am sorry for running away from you multiple times. I was running away from a lot of things internally, and I had to come to terms with them.

  The truth is, I still love you, of course I do. I don’t think that was ever a question. You were the first person to make me feel seen and loved and gave me space to slowly open up, after Apollo’s death. Even in these two days we interacted (after seven years of not talking), you have made me feel safe and understood. I was furious at you, thinking that it was easy for you to let go of me, but now I understand that it was a choice that you believed had to be made. I don’t want to deny the fact that your choice caused me pain, but I can find it in my heart to forgive you.

  Why is why I can’t do this in person. But I can’t go without telling you either. I am leaving tomorrow for my mission. I am scared out of my mind, but maybe I can find comfort in the fact that you will watch over me from your balcony.

  Thank you for showing me the painting, Cooper. It was cosmic. I will always be proud of you and will root for you to become more famous and for more people to love and cherish your work, as I do.

  I will always think of you.

  With love,

  Luna <3

  My brain runs a million miles an hour; emotions overwhelm me. I grab my car keys, lock the door behind me and run down the stairs. My phone almost slips out of my hand as my finger rapidly clicks the buttons to call Luna’s Dad. I need to find her before it’s too late.

  ​28​

  Luna

  I woke up this morning and wanted to fix everything, or at least leave it in the best possible terms. I wrote a letter to Cooper letting him know about my feelings on everything and dropped it off at his house, hoping that he wouldn’t be at home so that I wouldn’t have to see him. Seeing him would crack my heart further because I would have to leave him again when I am at the highest point of my feelings for him. Thankfully, he wasn’t home.

  Now, I drive to Apollo’s grave. When I reach, I grab the bouquet of his favourite flowers – Lilies – and walk towards his tombstone. I sit in front of it and place the flowers on the ground. ‘Hi.’ My voice comes out in a whisper. I clear my throat and talk again. ‘I hope you’re in a better place, wherever you are. I want to believe that you are among the stars that we looked up to and that I can come visit you when I’m on my mission.’ I take in a deep breath and release it. ‘I’m sorry I was angry at you for so long. I was angry at myself for not seeing the signs of you in pain, for not helping when I could have. But Mum told me that I can’t keep blaming myself for it. I don’t agree with your choices, but I understand them. I am sorry that life was harsh on you. Please know that I love you very much, and I miss you every day. Nee eppome en kooda iruppa, in my heart and memories.’ I press my forehead to the stone and say goodbye.

 

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