Page 112 of To Catch a Firefly

He hums. A questioning sound.

“Nothing fancy,” I explain. “Just me and the open air and the people…and person…I love.”

“Sounds nice,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, voice barely there. My heart is pounding too fast, too out of control, so I add, in a joking tone, “Maybe even in front of the corn. Because, you know, I love it so much.”

He snorts lightly.

After a moment, we come to a stop.

“Come on,” Ellis says, dropping his hands. “Race you.”

“Where?” I ask, but Ellis is already disappearing into the field. I curse, chasing after him, laughing as the leaves whack my arms. My lungs start to burn, but it’s a happy sting, and I welcome it, following Ellis’s blurring form through the field.

He stops when he comes out on the other side, bending down to catch his breath. I fall right to my butt before sprawling out on my back, arms out wide. I stare up at the stars above as my chest heaves.

“Cheater,” I rasp.

He settles down next to me, huffing a breathy laugh. It’s long minutes later when he says, “It shouldn’t matter.”

“What’s that?” I ask, turning my head to look at him.

“Who you love,” he answers, arms crossed over his knees. “People who judge…” He shakes his head. “Love is big. Important. I think…people could love most anybody…if they only opened their hearts to it.”

I watch Ellis, feeling struck. It’s not often he gives voice to so much, so it feels big and important that he’s doing it now.

“Others…they might come and go,” he says slowly, gaze holding mine. “But I’ll always love you, Luck. Won’t ever stop.”

I sit upright, my heart pounding all the way down to my toes. Ellis is bathed in moonlight, his body illuminated enough for me to make out his features. And he means it. I know he does. I can see it in the lines of his face and in the way his eyes are hooked on mine. He means it. He loves me. I’m his best friend. And he’s mine.

And maybe that’s all we’ll be. Maybe, in my lifetime, that’s the only love I’ll know from Ellis. But it’ll be worth it. I don’t think another love will come around that’s bigger than his.

I draw my finger over the dirt near my leg, writing out the letter E. Next to it, I add L. Ellis plucks the flower from his tux, setting it on the ground below my scrawl. I do the same with mine.

As we sit beside a sea of corn in our wrinkled, black tuxes, our declaration of love on the ground between us, I twist my fingers with his and make a promise.

“I love you, too, El. Always.”

Epilogue

Luna

I was six years old when I caught a firefly.

“Luna?”

“In here,” I call, peeking out the window. Papa looks up at me, my baby brother on his hip.

“Ready to go?”

I nod, standing up and dusting off my knees. I climb down the ladder to the top of the stairs, and then I walk—not run—down the winding staircase. Papa is waiting at the bottom of the windmill when I get there.

How cool is it that our house has a windmill?

“Come on,” Papa says with a smile.

We load into Papa’s car, and my stomach flips over. “Where’s Daddy?”

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