How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love With the Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Author:Raquel Vasquez Gilliland [Gilliland, Raquel Vasquez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781534448667
Google: w1w4EAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1534448667
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-08-09T23:00:00+00:00

35. And I Mean, I Run (Straight into La Raíz, Because That Is Just My Luck)

I DID TRACK in school, so this isn’t an unheard-of thing, but I’m not in my gear, I don’t have Maluma singing about his hot girlfriends in my ears, and without a sports bra, my boobs are bouncing so much, I wince from the pain.

I’m running. Running from a boy.

I’ve never run from a boy before. Mostly I run to them. Anything for a scrap of attention. “You’re like a dog,” my mother has told me. “Except I have to feed you.” Which, Mom’s obviously never owned a dog before, but still. That one really stung. What Mom tells her daughter that? What human tells another human that?

Santiago doesn’t think I’m like a dog, I bet. He doesn’t even think of me as a whore. And the way he looks at me. He looks at me the way people look at Star. But better. Because there’s no hint that he wants to get something from me. He looks at me like I’m perfectly lovely, and funny, and beautiful just as I am, and that is all enough.

It’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. And once I had an eagle land on my car in the middle of the day. I swear to the Lord in heaven. It looked at me right in my eyes, like it had a message for me. Still haven’t figured that one out, sorry to say.

I barely realize I’m heading straight for that lone red poppy out there like it has a message for me.

I run even harder until I reach it, and when I do, I gasp, because just beyond it, behind the gas station, are mountains, gold in the setting sun. They look carved from a jeweler’s bench, set with emeralds here and there for all the trees. And right before me, right here, a field of poppies. All rubies and garnets and red jasper, dappled pink in the light.

There’s an invisible thread pulling me in. I am a piece of wool, brown, about to be stitched to a great cosmic blanket. Or maybe I’m a petal stuck to a spiderweb, one tiny fabric-like spot making a whole universe undulate like wisps in the wind.

And I plop right in the middle of it, leaning back to look up at a sky that reminds me of the hand-sewn prom dresses a designer sent Star a couple months ago, teal and periwinkle and lapis lazuli, the shimmery hints of stars beyond thin, tulle-like clouds. The red of the poppies surrounds me, their heads bobbing soft, sometimes touching at my arms. I can’t decide if I am in an ancient red sea or being swallowed by a whale made of jewels and dresses that will never belong to me.

“Hey.”

My eyes are closed, but I’m so used to Santiago’s voice crawling over my skin like satin, I don’t startle in the least. “So these are the poplar flowers?” he asks.

When I do look at him, he’s smiling, like he’s got a secret, and I’m immediately breathless.

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