Starlight Dreams: A Short Story

I had literally no idea what to publish today I thought I might do something different today, so I wanted to share a little short story that I wrote on Wattpad! It’s a 500 word flash fiction about young love that takes place in the course of one magical night, originally written for a contest for the Midnight Sun Movie.

 

The tapping wakes her up. She crawls out of bed and peers out the window. Looks away. Looks back. He’s still here. And if he doesn’t stop throwing pebbles, he’ll break the window. Irritated, she rushes downstairs and throws open the door.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. “What time is it?”

“Two-thirty,” he says. “I’m here to ask if you’ve ever been to the beach at night.”

She wonders if he’s drunk. “No…”

“Come on then,” he says. “I’ll drive.”

“Are you serious? It’s the middle of the night!”

“Please?”

And because she would do anything for this boy, she agrees.

Getting into his convertible is the strangest thing. She’s seen it hundreds of times before parked at the house next to hers, but she’s never been in it before. They stopped being friends before he got his license.

He has the top down, and the summer air is blissful on her face. As they fly down the highway, the wind rushing past her face blows her hair everywhere; normally she would be annoyed, but tonight she doesn’t mind. Looking up at the inky sky inlaid with stunning pinpricks of light, she’s speechless.

And then he’s parking alongside a curb, which might be illegal, and grabbing her hand, which almost sends her into shock, and pulling her down the wooden steps, and they’re running, flying, and… Oh.

The ocean is beautiful. The full moon is a shining pearl that illuminates the sea and reveals a thousand diamonds hidden just below the water’s surface. It’s so dark that she can’t see the horizon; maybe the water just keeps reaching until it kisses the moon.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asks when she can finally wretch her gaze from the sea. “We haven’t spoken in years.”

“I couldn’t bear the thought of you leaving with knowing how much I love you.” He’s looking straight into her eyes. “I’ve loved you forever. But you’ve always been so amazing; you got straight A’s in AP classes, you did community service–and now you’re going to Harvard! I resolved to never muck up your life–but now you’re leaving and I had to tell you.”

Her breath is gone. “I love you too.” She can’t believe she’s finally saying the words aloud. “I always have. But once we drifted apart, you were always so incredible and out of my league! You were quarterback, homecoming king, always surrounded with friends. I thought you’d forgotten I existed.”

In the blinding light of day, they allowed shallow surface reasons to hold them back. But here in the darkness, she knows that they’re really seeing each other; they’re seeing beyond their outward appearances and in to their hearts.

She knows this is ridiculous. She’s moving to Massachusetts; he’s staying here in California. Logic says it’ll never work. But her heart is telling her differently. Maybe she’s high on starlight, but when she tilts her face up, his lips are right there.