Jaze, Baby

Jaze fell to the ground, knees sinking into the dark sand and palms kissing the dirty face of a flat stone.

"No. No, god."

The sobs broke out of him in jagged, half-formed gasps.

It had been such a warm day. In the pre-dawn hours it rained, filling the air with a blanket of humidity that always made him feel alive.

Tonight the heat was a suffocating force. It laid across him and licked down his spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake. The sun continued its ceaseless staring, splattering dark orange light across the high angle of his cheeks. It glinted off the sweat coating his throat. Burned in his eyes.

“Luna,” he whimpered. The sand pricked at his palms as his weight shifted forward. “Oh god. Luna. Luna. Lu-na.”

Jaze curled his hands into fists as the salty sea air pricked his nostrils.

The summer was for them. For the two of them. But she was gone. And he was alone.

Something cracked in his hand as he slammed it against the stone.

“Agh,” he moaned, clutching his hand.

The pain was deceptively soft where it pressed against his skin. It teased him with possibilities. With the idea of punishment. He would have taken a dozen blades against his skin if it meant abandoning this grief. He would peel himself open if it meant protecting Luna.

Jaze curled over himself with another moan.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Luna. Aw fuck.”

Luna was stolen by the night. Here and then gone. Jaze had just slept. He'd slept comfortably in his flat, windows open and sheets thrown off, not ever realizing that Luna had begun to disappear.

Jaze held his injured hand to his forehead and wept. Burning paths of saltwater curved down his jaw and trailed over the aquiline curve of his nose. A high, whining sound squeezed out of his throat. The pain was too much to stand. It pounded in his temples. Burned in his throat. Tore him apart.

There was a creature inside of him destroying what little was left and he couldn’t even stop it.

Just like the waves.

Jaze thumped softly onto his side and gazed out over the ocean. Sand stuck to his throat and jaw, shading in the tears while his hand, broken and aching, settled in the cool sand with the other resting beside it. The exhaustion of not having slept finally began to creep into the edges of his expression, cooling the temperature of his grief.

The sky gave up on its sunset and shifted into the blue of dusk.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The waves crashed against the shore.

A haze crept over the open ocean as Jaze’s eyes went glassy.

He could see Luna dance across the dark sand in his memory like a ghost. Moonlight dumped over her shoulders and lit the muscles of her back. Her face was open and bright with her obvious adoration of the universe. The memory of it turned his stomach. He could make out every drop in the ocean behind her. Every star reflecting in her eyes. The ocean in her hair.

Luna was too easy to remember.

“I’ll forget you, won’t I? When I’m not paying attention. Maybe when I’m paying too much attention… But I’ll forget. I’ll forget you, Luna.”

Jaze’s chin tightened as the tears slipped back into his voice.

It was different now, the sadness. It leaked out of his abdomen and burned in his entire chest. His heart fluttered.

“Forget…Forget how your hair felt between my hands. How you danced. How you liked to walk barefoot on the tile because it was cool. I’ll forget your eye color someday. I’ll think they're brown, but they aren’t. Not just brown. Not simple. They’re warm. A warm place. Libraries, leather, summer… Jesus, Luna.”

Jaze covered his face with his good hand, wincing as the sand on his palm bit into his sunburnt forehead.

Memories decayed like fruit. One glance and it was over.

To think of Luna was to lose her.

The wind turned sharp and cold. He shuddered and rolled onto his back. Venus blazed near the horizon and already Jupiter’s light was poking through the darkness. Jaze stared through the jagged mountains at the moon beginning its ascent. It was fat and heavy in the sky, leaning over the peaks, but no longer full.

“She’s gone.”

Jaze looked back at the ocean.

He couldn’t see her anymore in the dark sands.

Lightning flashed on the far distant horizon as a storm grumbled closer. He buried his fingers in the sand, utterly transfixed by the way the granules fell like water. The lightning flashed there too. Bright and then gone.

Slowly, he got up to his feet and walked to the edge of the water.

It stopped six inches short of his bare feet, splashing the edges of his dark pants. Warm water dripped down his ankles into the sand.

“Oh, she loved you,” he said to the water, playing with a coin she’d given him months ago.

Taking her here, introducing her to the ocean… It was a thing of love that left a hole inside of him. The thought of it was enough to disconnect his eyes from his head. He stared vacantly at a point out over the water. Lightning flashed but he saw nothing.

“I loved her.”

He flung the coin far into the sky.

The swash rushed over his feet as he took several steps forward into the liquid night sky. His pants moved like the edges of Luna’s dress, but he possessed none of her spirit. Jaze’s eyes were hollow and the skin of his face slack. He was too attractive to be pitiable, even when he was feral like this. Luna was too unique to ever be anything but stunning.

His heart fluttered again.

This time he staggered sideways, catching himself with his injured hand before crying out.

“Enough,” he wept. “I’ve lost Luna! Her uncle’s taken her god knows where and I can’t get her back. I don't know where they've gone. She wouldn't give me her last name. I can't... I can't help her! So don't chastise me. Don't judge me. Jesus Christ, leave me alone!”

He slapped at the incoming water with a rough shout before falling over himself in tears.

This time they would not relent. They would not ease.

Jaze leaned on his elbows, softly weeping into the water.

“I just want her back. Oh god, I just want her back.”

The water lapped at his arms.

"Just...give her back."