Starry Night 3: Stars

My Mom, now, asks me what I did at Danica's house. I guess it's worth asking. I got there ate like two thirty and I left there at nearly eight. But it was--oh my goodness it was so good. And although I told my mom that we didn't do much, it meant so much to me. 

'Cause we just lay there on the floor talking and being punny and laughing and talking about things with wings. We just sat on the couch and I played Halo with Hobbs, which was hilarious 'cause he kept killing me and I kept being super confused but laughing still. We just drew on Hobbs' chalkboard wall, and played with Danica's little sister, and ate candy and sat on Danica's bed in silence and talked about cute baby books and oh my goodness played with toys. 

But I'm going back there again someday, mind or no. Right now I'm sitting next to Danica with her little sister's arm around me, watching The Happy Family {boys+Barbies=what the heck} on YouTube. Right now I'm, yup, playing Halo.

Right now, I'm standing on a fold-up brown chair in Hobbs' room drawing on his wall, and sometimes I'll be writing something and Danica will just stand back and I'll feel her eyes on me. 

Like next to her picture of Saturn. Tell me, did you sail across the sun? And on the hot air balloon that was the first thing almost that I drew. I'll be out of my mind. And by the grass she said was green. Grass is for sitting, not eating. {Yeah Danica.}

And she tells me when I'm drawing stars at the top that I should listen to a song that I haven't found the time for yet. And some of those lyrics ...


Of all the stars out tonight
You shine brighter

Then I'll sneak onto her computer to leave her a note in a tab I hope nobody's closed yet. I'll sneak a look at her mirror because there are the two glittery stars that were my crappy Christmas present. 

We're sitting on the couch watching Phineas and Ferb and I can see her eyes shining brighter than any stars. Her parents drive me home and we chat but she's sucking her lip and I saw the sad smile on her face when I drew a star on my window like I always do, for her. That smile, sweeter than any laundry basket*.

*Which, according to Danica, taste like plastic. I have yet to affirm this, because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to lick your friends' laundry baskets.



So I say nothing as we hold our breath and joke about stuff on the way back and I almost forget to lean over and give her a hug. I don't want her to cry because of me. Because I know one thing.

Hope is a citrus constellation in the galaxy scratched at the back of both my eyelids that I've been dying to see ... 

But I guess I've finally opened my eyes. Because there are stars all over Danica's room. My sticky notes are on her wall and so are my drawings and she has a box on the top shelf of my letters and she says that she's got a favorite. I realized something--that these previous nights, I've been crying because I miss things. I miss so much. 

I missed me. 

But I'm back now. I'm ready to shine, because I know someone out there will see.

And there are those little promises, too. Those little things I know I can and want to do. Like write Georgie a birthday song. Go skating for my birthday with ALL of my friends. Inside jokes aplenty that Danica, Hobbs and I are going to do on Monday. And someone has to go to China to bring Danica back a star.

Not that she isn't one already.

Starry Night 2: Ants

I get to Danica's house and the first thing that happens is that her mom opens the door and calls me Pat. And I smile and laugh and feel at home even if she apologizes that she doesn't know me that well, but that Danica always calls me that.

I think it's awesome. And Danica comes down the stairs and leads me up to her room. We sit talking for a while when the ice breaks and we're in her closet talking about shoes, and I talk about the carpet. Then she's lying down on it and we're both on our tummies with our chins rubbing against the carpet, and suddenly my stomach hurts. Our conversation goes something like this:


"Eew Danica, the carpet's eating your face."
"Psh, that's okay."
"But what if there's ants in it?"
"Then I'll eat the ants!"

Then we start talking about how she's gonna get an anteater to eat her ants and put it in her laundry basket and suddenly we're laughing about how {I don't even know how this happened} in order to eat something, you must ask it out on a date first. Then she brought out her cute plastic clothes hanger and called it a swan with an extra front. I started laughing really hard, and we brought out dolls and pretended they were us and played with our clothes hanger dates, and then she ate hers and mine ran wee wee wee all the way home. 'Cause it was pink ... like a pig, I guess.


Oh, there are so many precious things about tonight. The time flew by. One time we stopped playing with her little sister long enough to do something double-dog daring {what the dog}. Suffice it to say it was Danica's idea, but that I went with it.

"Let's run outside in the snow without our feet!" she said, laughing 'cause she meant shoes and I knew it. She didn't really mean it but we did anyway, and what started as a short sprint across the lawn turned into a full-out run across her backyard. Which, thankfully even with the crazy falling snow, was just wet. And cold too, but then we finished the backyard and realized we had to cross her front lawn to get back to the door, and aforementioned front lawn was covered in five inches {or more} of snow.

My pants were rolled up, but it's not like I cared. I wholeheartedly agreed with her when Danica yelled "MY FEET ARE NUMB!"

But they warmed up and we laughed and it was totally worth it. And I'd play hide and seek with her little sister just to hide behind Danica's door to see that my birthday present was still hanging there. 

So that's the ants, and as we were lying there absorbing the closet floor I realized that we are ants, in this little world where time doesn't have enough of itself to care who we are or what we do. And I thought so what? I don't care anymore and realized that there are some things I don't care about anymore.

Like sadness.

And for the first time in a long time {or so it seemed} my happy button, which had so far been stuck depressed {see what I did there?}, was jiggled a bit by Danica as we lay on the floor or ran around or shared candy or laughed until our abs surely got strong ... well, that happy button wasn't stuck up anymore. 

Starry Night 1: Butterflies and Flutterflys

Since my closet is the strangest and multiplying thing EVER {I swear, my purple shirts numbered one at the beginning of this summer and at the end I had at least, five, and now I have ... holy junk I actually HAVE a blue shirt!!!!}, I have lots of butterfly shirts.

AHEM, excuse me. Butterfly and FLUTTERFLY shirts.

You see, I've got weird friends. That should be evident now. I'm also ... strange. But not weird, right? Airplanes ... okay. Well. Danica has these quirky little things she says and sticks to, like ... flutterflys. Which are written that way, with no ie. So she says butterflies have antennae and flutterflys do not. Which I finally understand now, after those times she'd point them out on my shirt and I would stare at it upside down confusedly. 

Anyway, the reason I'm talking about butterflies is that my story of today {my amazing story of today} starts with them. And flutterflys.

I'm wearing this shirt that's really special to me. Not that anything special happened to me in this shirt. Not at the beginning of today, anyway. At the beginning of today it was this shirt that I really loved because it was biggish and soft and it had butterflies on it. I was thinking about them this morning. 

They glow in the dark! I thought. Which was stupid, because that brought me back to the time I was in a glow in the dark skating rink and bad things happened {this involves a boy. Further details will be omitted}. 

But this morning, I was just feeling really bleh. I had to wake up at six for a Mathcounts competition that my sister was coaching, and since I am an Asian person, gee great, I get dragged into lots of math-related things. By parents. But sometimes they pay off. Like today.

You'll see. 

{Or read. I'm bad at this.}

So I was feeling bad, because even though last night was one of them nights I DIDN'T cry myself to sleep {been doing that a lot lately. It's sticky} I was still feeling sore somewhere inside and, you know, like

ISSUE ISN'T IDEAL 

but not like I was actually going to make that happen anyway. I promise, I like living. Anyhoo, I was not having a good start to the day. Plus, after Mathcounts I wanted to go to Danica's house, but my parents would not let me 'cause my mom thought I'd starve. So I ate a big breakfast. AKA a couple of rolls. Lately breakfast is not nearly as big as it used to be. 

So, we drove up to this high school for the competition with our team members, and we started doing math. The thing is, I actually wasn't even nervous. I treated it like "Well what the freaking heck" because I wasn't so excited about doing Mathcounts, right? So I did it indifferently and not nervous at all. 

Then they came out with a list for the top 9, who would compete for another trophy, and I 

was

first.

I was like holy crap, 'cause there was this one sixth grader who was much smaller and younger than me who was my friend, but on a different team and much smarter. Turns out though ... I beat him. By one place, but ... I beat him. And it was a little nice knowing that, hey, my team got first too and we're going to state, and I'm a member of this team and I ... matter.

Thus, I immediately upon finishing the competition and getting my weird pointy trophies, I called Danica with permission and got her address and knew I was going to be at her house soon, so I leaned back and watched the snow and smiled knowing
I
was
looking
forward.