To Know The Sun

Spring

Our third period English class read Romeo and Juliet in March, just like every other freshman English class in the nation. Juliet started counting down the days in November.

“Why are you so excited about some stupid play?” I asked her some time in December. She gave a huff as if even deigning to think that question was an inconvenience to her.

“Because, Anna, wouldn’t you want to see your name in a famous work that transcends time?”

I wanted to point out that there were several famous works that used the various forms of my name—Anne of Green Gables, Anna Karenina, Anastasia—but I knew her, and I knew that wasn’t the point. While we read Romeo and Juliet and saw Juliet written out countless times on each page, everyone in our class wouldn’t be able to help but think of her, glance at her, pay attention to her. Regardless of the narrative or the implications of conflating Juliet and, well, Juliet—to her, all attention was one and the same.

And sure enough, the day we read “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks” there sat Jules, radiant as always, playing the practiced role of shy and slightly embarrassed, as the others turned their pock-marked, acne ridden faces to surreptitiously glance at her as our teacher read aloud.

As everyone else’s gazes fell away, I stared at her in awe. Had she done extra work to herself that morning? Because damn. She looked at me and beamed. Obviously reading my mind, she gestured to her face and hair, holding up two fingers and mouthing “two hours.”

That minx planned out the whole thing. I mirrored her smile. Say what you will about her constant need for attention, but I had to respect the full-on commitment she had to her personal brand.

We sat in my room that night working on the assignments for the next act. She sat at my desk, her stockinged feet propped up on my bed. I was on my floor, laying on my belly in the patch of cool blue light streaming in through the window.

“So, what do you have planned for the rest of the play?” I asked her.

She blew an extra large bubble in her bubble gum and didn’t look up from her notebook perched in her lap.

“I like working at your house; it’s quiet,” she said.

I stared at her a moment, wondering if she would answer my question, but when she didn’t and coolly kept her eyes on her paper, I looked away and stayed silent.

After several moments, I heard her sniff and saw her rubbing her wrist out of the corner of my eye. I looked up at her again eventually and saw an unfamiliar emotion clouding her normally shining expression. When she looked at me suddenly, it was as if it had never been there. She smiled at me, a smile so bright, excited, and genuine that I couldn’t help but reflect it.

“I think when Juliet dies, I’m not going to show up for class. Put some mystery into it.”

Summer

June always brought an explosion of sound at night— the clicking of grasshoppers in the trees sounding like monsters from a sci-fi movie, the singing of crickets, the eerie cries of screech owls— a cacophony of night springing to life in the golden yellow vibrance of the moon. Sometimes, when we would sit outside with nothing to do, we’d just listen— listen for hours— then I would go to bed with the window open so the living symphony would inhabit my dreams. In the mornings, I’d rise with the sun and temperature to meet up with Jules and find some activity that included water to pass the day. It took several weeks for it to warm up enough for us to go to my neighborhood pool. The first time we did, Jules met me there. She instantly stripped out of her cover up to reveal a yellow string bikini underneath; we weren’t in middle school anymore.

“Like it?” She said, switching between two equally seductive and alluring poses. She had her auburn hair down, cascading around her shoulders in effortless waves— completely impractical for swimming.

“I can’t believe your dad let you get that,” was all I could say. She made a face that showed I was a party pooper.

“Oh, who cares what he thinks.”

As a matter of fact, I knew that Juliet cared what he thought— that she cared a great deal what he thought. This streak of rebellion shocked me.

“Well, should we get in?” She looked around the pool as she said this, and her eyes landed on a group of slightly older boys that had noticed her the instant she revealed herself.

Much to my chagrin, we never did much swimming, even though we were at the pool almost every day. And when I finally got the nerve later in the summer to ask my mom if I could trade in my tankini for a bikini like Juliet’s, I got a long lecture about modesty and a call to Juliet’s house.

Juliet didn’t meet me at the pool the next day, so I went to find her at her house. Her mother, a ghost of a woman compared to Jules, answered the door and directed me to Juliet’s room. I passed through the living room where Juliet’s dad, a thunderstorm of a man, sat glowering on the couch. When I walked into her room, the first thing I noticed was all the clothes on the floor— every piece of clothing Juliet owned was out. The second thing was all the drawers and hangers pulled out and askew as if there had been a robbery. The third thing was Juliet, staring at me in shock, her lips slightly puffier than normal and a red mark inching up her right cheek. I didn’t ask anything.

She looked around the room, then back at me. “I can’t find my swimsuit.”

I stared. She stared.

Her fingers went to her lips. “I’m such a klutz. I dropped my phone on my face when I was laying in bed. Hurt like hell.”

She smiled then, her face brightening and warming. I smiled back.

“I can help you look if you—”

“Oh, no! Let’s just get out of here.”

We tripped down to the edge of the train tracks that bordered town and stayed late until the warm, honey moon of August rested high above us, feeling the rattle of the freight trains in our bones as they thundered by. We watched for a long time; the only sounds were trains and the waning summer.

“Do you ever wonder if one of these times a train is going to come off the tracks and get us?” I asked after a particularly noisy train disappeared in the distance.

“Only if we’re lucky.”

Fall

One of our classmates was having a Halloween pary; they invited Jules and Jules invited me. We arranged our duo costume weeks in advance— Spongebob and Patrick— and decided to meet halfway between our houses to go together. Juliet didn’t meet me. I checked her house, but she wasn’t there. I wondered if she had gone without me. Spongebob would make sense without Patrick, but who would want to show up as Patrick without Spongebob? But no, I knew her. She wouldn’t ditch me. People could say what they wanted about her, but Jules was fiercely loyal. I decided to look elsewhere.

I found her in our spot by the tracks. She wasn’t in her costume. As I approached, I was going to say something, but then she looked up at me, and I could have sworn she had been crying.

“Wow, you look stupid,” she said. All concern flew away in my rage. It was her stupid idea and here she was without her stupid costume. I sat down next to her— sat stupidly in stupid silence, dressed as stupid Patrick Star. She looked up at the unnaturally red-orange moon that came every fall with the fires, staring at its full brilliance.

“I think my dad is a werewolf,” she said.

Now she was being stupid. I felt a train coming so I didn’t say anything, and Juliet turned her eyes to it as it approached and stampeded past. The roaring train washed away my roaring anger, and when it disappeared, we sat in comfortable silence for a long time— until Jules spoke.

“I hope you don’t ever hate me… no matter what happens.”

Winter

Juliet wasn’t in our first period class, and I was called into the front office halfway through. The principal greeted me and ushered me into a room where Juliet’s mom and dad waited…and a police officer stood in the corner.

“Anna, you’re here to discuss a very serious matter,” the principal said. “Juliet is missing.”

I stared at him, then looked at Juliet’s parents— her mother’s red and puffy face, her father rigid with arms crossed.

“We thought that since you are closest to her, you might know something, and you might be able to help us?” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t have to look at the principal to feel his anxiety.

“What happened?” I couldn’t look away from her mom.

“Ah, there was a fight last night,” Juliet’s mom started, glancing at the black hole of a man sitting next to her, “words were…exchanged. It all happened so fast.”

I stared at her fingers trembling against her purse, then looked at her husband looming next to her. He stared back at me. There was nothing.

“I haven’t seen her since yesterday at school, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Do you know where she might have gone?” the officer in the corner asked. My eyes met her mother’s, and I tried to get the dryness in my throat to go away.

I was the one who knew her best.

“I’m sorry.”

They let me go back to class soon after— and after school I went home and nowhere else. I knew what happened, and I knew where she was because I knew her.

The service was held on a Saturday, so nobody had to miss school. She was cremated, obviously, and it was weird staring at the urn at the front of the chapel and reconciling it as my friend. They picked a polished silver one— I would have picked yellow. She would have liked it better. It would have matched her.

My mom thought food would fix things, but moms can be wrong. I went for a walk instead of dinner. The winter air froze inside my nostrils and throat. It was dark, the lamp in the sky just a sliver of harsh silver glare. I didn’t have a destination or direction— I couldn’t even think of the train tracks— or pool—or school— or past…her…house. So, I stopped on the corner and stood. Stood and wondered where to go now. And then, finally, I screamed.