My spine curls over, and I pull my legs from the water, curling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my shins. My head goes between my thighs, and I let out a silent cry, the never-ending flood of tears seeming to be turned on even though I so desperately want them to turn off.
My fist clenches, the letter I wrote to him on graduation morning clutched in my fingers. I was going to give it to him the night that he got home. The letter that speaks about my undying love, and how I'll give up dance to go on the road with him.
It's all meaningless now.
I cross my legs over one another, wiping my eyes with my free hand as I straighten out the letter, staring at my dainty scrawl in front of me.
Roman,
I'm writing you this letter with shaky fingers. In only a few hours, I'll be able to hold you in my arms again. I'll be able to kiss you and see your face. It feels like it’s been forever. It has been forever. I've been waiting a full year, and I know with my heart and soul that a piece of me left with you that morning after prom.
I don't want you to give it back to me.
I just want you by me, and I know everything will be right again. I have some news that I've been waiting to tell you, but I can't hold it in anymore.
I'm going on tour with you.
I already have my bag packed, sitting at my feet as we speak. I don't want to dance anymore, not when it means being away from you. I want to tour with you, watch you sing, watch the arms of thousands of fans shake into the sky at your beautiful words.
I want to listen to your voice blare through the microphone and float into the ears of hundreds, thousands, millions of people.
I don't care where we go. Let's go everywhere. Across the country and across the world. It'll be worth it as long as I'm with you. I want to travel the universe and experience this journey with you.
I'm ready, and I don't want to wait another second.
I can't wait to give you this letter tonight.
I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you.
I love you, Roman.
Now and always,
Your Luna.
A tear drops onto the middle of the heart right next to my name, blurring the ink and breaking it into two pieces. It's fitting, really, and it's exactly how I'm feeling right now.
I bend down, placing the letter in the lake. The water swallows it up quickly, wetting the center of the paper before it seeps onto the edges. Half of it falls underwater, bobbing up and down as it turns translucent. And then it floats away, taking the rest of me with it.
I'm a shell of the person I used to be. It feels like I was never a person at all. Not really, anyway. Like I was an addition to Roman, and now that he's gone, I'm a box without the contents. I'm a shell of a human.
The dock rocks, footsteps vibrating all the way to me from up on land. I turn around, seeing Nora walking up to me. She has that sad look on her face. The same face I've been looking at for the past year.
"Hey, what's up?" she asks, coming to sit next to me. She grabs her sandals with her hands, placing them on the dock beside me and dipping her own toes in the water.
I wipe my face, tucking my hair behind my ears as I look at her. "Just enjoying the sunset." I clear my throat, hating how full of tears it sounds.
"You don't have to pretend you weren't crying, Luna. It's all you've been doing for a year. Everyone knows."
I tip my head toward the cloudless sky, blinking away the tears that instantly spring to my eyes. I let out a groan. "I'm so tired of crying. I feel so weak."
"You aren't weak. You're just in love," she says softly, rubbing her hand down my arm.
"Have you heard from him?" I ask, bringing my head back down and looking into the distance. A bald eagle flies over the trees, and I wish I was as effortless as him. I wish we could fly through the trees together. Maybe I'd just fly away. Never come back.
"No. None of us have," she sighs. "I'm sure we'll hear from him soon, though. There has to be a reason he hasn't reached out."
I shrug. "Doesn't matter too much anymore."