Page 12 of In the Light of the Moon

I agreed because I felt guilty for canceling on them the last three times. Not because I had anything to do, but because I couldn’t fathom being social each time.

I thought again of Sylvie’s arm brushing mine. What would her bare skin feel like?

Though I wanted nothing more than to follow that mouthwatering scent of cherry and the melodic tilt of her voice, I kept my distance. Staying just out of sight so that I didn’t make that nervousness in her rise again.

But thoughts of that debt and the way her hair tickled my shoulder wouldn’t let up. My mind easily went to that instead of the rage while I placed a bag of arborio rice in the cart. How did you repay a debt when the one who helped you didn’t want the payment? Da was too long gone to give me guidance on that one, and if I were being honest with myself, that was far from the only thing I wanted from Sylvie.

The itch under my skin was already growing. I looked toward the sky, still a bright blue with the setting sun dappling through the treetops.

I took a swig from my bottle while Juno and I walked along the beaten path near my house.How many times did Da walk this way?I wondered. The land was passed down through his mother’s family for hundreds of years. It all called to me, feeling home at the most minuscule level.

I stepped over a pile of scat, its stench having reached my nose far earlier, and my face screwed in disgust. Instead of running free, I was hiking with Juno. It wasn’t unpleasant, but when I looked over at them, clad in a pair of leggings and a cropped shirt, I caught the slight jerking of their movements. They wanted to run, too.

“I hate this,” I said, loud enough for any spies to hear. Though I couldn’t smell them, I knew that there would be at least one that would pick up on our walking soon enough.

Juno hummed and took a pull from their own beer. Once the time came for us to go out to some bar they enjoyed, I suggested they come over and we drink at mine instead. Thankfully, my friend was an easygoing type, and they readily agreed. Their high ponytail swished along their back, copper skin flushed from the heat, when they turned to look over at me. I felt their almost black eyes on the side of my face. “I do, too. But I’m planning on going home in a few weeks. You could tag along, and we wouldn’t have to do this,” they waved around, gesturing to our slow advance around the lake.

The land was indescribably beautiful, lush and bountiful browns and greens that caressed the edges of an idyllic lake that reflected the sky above like a mirror. My home, my father’s home, his mother’s home, and on and on and on. I deserved to have it in peace, dammit.

I thought over Juno’s offer, remembering the kind scents of their family, their encouraging yips while we ran on their land. Though appreciated, the thought of engaging in that now felt hollow. Like I was even more aware of how much I didn’t belong.

I was happy to have a friend like Juno, and even happier that they’d been reared with giving people around them. I’d tried to find my own version of that, once I knew that my mother would never provide it and my father seemed content in his forever solitude. And though I very much enjoyed my alone time, craved it more days than not, I still longed for a family.

When I thought I’d found it, eager to please just after my undergraduate studies, it felt like, despite my way of thinking differing from most, I’d fit in seamlessly. Finding my place and even a partner to share my most intimate moments with.

I huffed a sardonic laugh.Yeah, what a disaster that had been.

Juno looked over again, unaware where my mind had gone, and I sighed. “No, thank you, though. I’ll go just out of the area.” When I saw their features fall, and their scent grow sad to match, I added, “You’re welcome to come,” even though the words felt sour on my tongue. I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t sure why I no longer wanted to run for days on end with Juno. But, that would be a lie.

They eyed me like they sensed this, their black brows pinched while they were probably parsing through the shift in my emotions. I wasn’t going to explain myself, though. Especially when I didn’t have a very clear idea of what was going on in the first place. “I’ve already promised my parents that I’ll be there.But maybe the next time.” Their lips tilted up in a smile, “Unless you figure out a solution by then.”

I took another furtive glance around us and stretched my senses. No one besides us and the wildlife that belonged here, thank the gods. Trying to find a solution to reclaiming my land was a constant loop in my brain, always running like a hamster wheel while I planned my lessons, graded papers, did my own research. It was going nowhere, and save for staging an all-out confrontation, there was little else I could attempt. I’d tried negotiating, providing evidence that the land was mine.

But I was outnumbered, and my… less than diplomatic refusal when I first moved back had admittedly put me on poor footing from the beginning.

“I doubt it.”

Juno hummed. “Well, enough ruminating. What’s new with you, friend?”

I’d caught up to them, now, walking by their side. It was a lucky twist of fate that we’d started at Antler Pointe College in the same semester, two new professors cut from the same cloth. While I’d moved here after my father’s death to fix up his house and make a quiet life for myself, Juno took the first job they’d been offered.

“Nothing, really,” I started, but the truth was clawing its way up my throat. “I, uh—never mind.” I felt my cheeks get hot, and when Juno went all delighted in the face, I moaned at what I knew was coming.

They shoved me with their slender arm that belied the amount of strength they possessed. “What happened, Orion?”

I sighed and took another long drink from my beer, draining it like that would give me courage. My metabolism was far too efficient for me to feel the effects of it, though. “I’m not sure. Exactly. But I’ve become… intrigued by someone.”

“Oh?” They smiled even wider. “And are they intrigued by you as well?”

That was an easier question to answer. “No. I’m afraid I’ve just been scaring her away?—”

“With what? Your usual undeniable charm?”

I rolled my eyes, but their question was in jest, I knew. It’d been a sore spot for all of my childhood. Where I made few friends outside of the books I carried with me everywhere. When a child on the playground had made fun of me for it, I’d quickly learned that listing my father as my best friend was not an adequate retort. There were so many social rules that everyone just seemed toknow, and it was isolating and exhausting.

Things got better after I learned to look deeper, beyond just the confusing blend of words and facial expressions. The psychologists my mother saddled me with were annoying, but I’d taken some lessons from the collective experience.

To my benefit, in my profession, I mostly needed to be competent and feign friendliness enough so that students continued to sign up for my courses.

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