Beaver Moon

We grew up in golden Autumn, in the salty-sweaty-greasy smell of the city. If there was ever a time we thought this is living, this is peace, it was then- on a golf course at midnight. The ice below our feet was thin and cracking and we laughed at it, yelled our defiance up towards the moon.

Autumn stayed the same; the oceans only rose, but we changed. Change is human nature, but not like this. Maybe it was never supposed to happen to the five of us. Maybe we were never supposed to change. Maybe the ice was supposed to crack beneath our feet and plunge us all into freezing water so we’d be suspended in time forever.

The ice didn’t break. We were forced to say, half-laughing, as if we found dead flowers and missed opportunities funny,

I Am Busy.

How are you?

I Am Busy.

We could be Busy. Grocery trips, cleaning, and coffee dates like right now fill up our time. College looms before us, faceless and heavy. Time becomes harder and harder to find, and meetings harder to arrange.

I Am Busy.

Because it’s easier to say I Am Busy than to say I am so overwhelmed, I miss you like a sibling, I miss you like a part of me, I have not felt my heart beating in so long.

It is easier to say I Am Busy than to say I’m not sure I love you.

I think, for a moment, about all the moments I Am Busy leaves behind. I wish I could have known that I Am Busy would erase the good memories, the ones we made together.

Of the things I give up, there is one memory that is most precious. There is one that is hardest to lose.

It was New Year's Eve. We were in a basement, all of us laughing on couches and floors and chairs. They were watching something creepy. something to do with the end of the world and don’t look.

I’ve always been a scaredy-cat. I slipped from our little circle to hide behind the couch, my skin crawling.

One friend followed after me. They pulled up music videos on their phone, and we watched them together, loud enough to drown out the chilling music in the background.

I remember thinking that no one had ever done this for me before. I remember feeling seen and special and loved.

Now, I can only remember. They stopped talking to me, driving a rift right through us. There were no more golf courses after that.

It was my fault, probably. A lot of things were. I have so many regrets that I whisper to the moon. I regret I Am Busy, I say to her pale face. I imagine what she says back. Sometimes she is cruel. Sometimes she is kind. Either way, I know that my regrets, as always, come too late.

We used to be inseparable. We used to eat lunch together, in some kind of compressed oval, and we used to laugh harder than I thought anyone could.

Me and her, we were like that too. We could play games the whole day, laugh until our stomachs hurt, and find peace together. Once, in a moment of cold clarity, drunk on moonlight, I thought I could marry her.

I always wonder why I gave that up. If I had known that giving us up meant giving up midnight music videos would I have done it? If I had known that golf course was our last?

The thing about Autumn is that it passes quickly. September is beautiful, golden and red and apple-sweet, and then November comes in gray and damp.

We Autumn children, we were doomed to end quickly. We were doomed to end with tears. November overtook us with cold shoulders and averted eyes, silence where there once was laughter. Gold leaves were crushed beneath heavy hearts.

We traded golf courses for computer screens. We left the city behind, moving to places we had never been, far enough to lessen the sting. There was no more need for I Am Busy; there was no need for words at all.