Prompt: write about two people seeing each other for the first time. what’s going on in their mind(s)? what effect does such eye contact bring?

The first words Luna said to her undressed her immediately and she’s had to play catch up ever since. By this point they’ve known each other so long, and have been up on this hill meeting for years. It feels like they’re a part of each other. Hannah’s not sure where she ends and Luna begins, knows every part of her. The way her shoes are always tied haphazard and poorly, she’ll stop twenty times up the hill to re-tie them and that’s not counting the five times on the walk to it. The embers in her hair when the light hits it, and the way the coils refuse elegance in the breeze, the noise in her throat when she passes a gross meme on her feed. Hannah loves the way Luna’s chuckle starts in her belly because Hannah’s favorite position is resting on hers. The softness of her clothes. Her forced burps when there’s silence, just to break the tension. The never-ending giggle that follows when Hannah rolls to her feet, pretending to bolt in disgust.

Hannah doesn’t mind any of it. They could do this forever. There’s an ache behind the fact that time refuses to bend to her wills, that unless she comes up with a way to see her next summer, Luna will walk out of her life at the end of May. She decides to risk one glance, just to record everything in this moment, so she can carry it forever. Instead Luna shoves her phone in her face, earbuds blaring some scratchy rock song that would have Hannah’s ears bleeding. Hannah’s eyes don’t focus on the phone or the song, they land on the grime under Luna’s nails. The nails themselves are bitten to stubs, and her eyes refocus as she blinks involuntarily, on Luna’s face.

And Luna’s beautiful.

Hannah knows this, she’s catalogued every part of her these past few years but somehow it’s different now, with Luna slowly fading from her life. The way her smile lights up her whole face, like you could see the universe exploding from her seams. The glee bursting from her cheeks as she waits for a reaction to the song blaring from her device. The freckles that reside on the left side of her nose like a fallen rock zone and the acne scars on her temple from when she had a reaction to the hair oil she used on her bangs a few years ago. How can one person envelop so much?

“You don’t like it?” Luna finally says. “I kinda expected a bigger reaction.”

Hannah manages a smile as she wakes from her stupor. “Oh no, I love it.”