A Moonlight Façade
by Erica Turner

Darien sat bolt upright in bed yet again.  That darned dream.  It was always the same girl, the same words.  Only this time it was a little more desperate.  He needed to get out.  Barely five minutes later he was dressed and standing in front of his building.  It was then that he realized that he had no idea where he planned to go or why.  Deciding not to analyze it, he strolled off towards the park.
In the moonlight, the park seemed eerie, almost ethereal.   The ponds glimmered, and leaves from bushes and trees fluttered and rustled quietly.  The whole thing made him feel instantly at peace with himself.  He wandered around, along various pathways for a good twenty minutes.  That was when he saw her.

His heart stopped at the same time his brain kicked into overdrive.  Serena was standing by one of the larger ponds, her hands resting on the safety railing, just watching the water.  The moonlight glinted off her hair and glittered from the pieces of jewelry she was wearing.  He didn’t know exactly what she was wearing, but whatever it was, it made her look exactly like the mysterious girl in his dream.  She was even more breathtakingly beautiful.  He didn’t know when he started thinking of her like that, but right now it seemed impossible to think otherwise.  Some distant part of his mind said that it was after midnight, and she shouldn’t be out.  He approached her quietly.  Any thought of ‘meatball head’ had vanished long ago.  Up close, right now, she looked like an angel.
“Serena?  What are you doing here?”  He asked softly, touching her shoulder briefly.  ‘Briefly’ was long enough however.  He felt a sharp tingling sensation just milliseconds before she whirled around, knocking his hand away, her own arms raised defensively.  He had seen that pose before, but where? He backed away but said nothing.  She, in turn, frowned slightly before turning back to the water.  Darien frowned at the back of her head.  He was worried about her.  The normal, happy go lucky teenaged façade, was just that.  A façade.  Underneath she was very troubled by something.  Carefully he moved to stand beside her, still not saying anything because he was content to stand there with her until she answered the question or he lost patience.  He was about to try conversation again when she beat him to it, speaking for the first time.
“I can’t do it.”  She said.  “I can’t.”  The sorrow in her voice made his heart melt.
“You can’t do what?”  he asked carefully, not wanting to upset her.
“I just can’t.”  She fell silent for a moment, leaving him to puzzle over it.  Her next words were bitter.
“You wanna know what I do every night?”
“I…”  he started, but she didn’t let him finish.
“I fight.  I fight things that shouldn’t even exist in this world.”
He should have been at least a little shocked.  But it was as if somehow he knew that it was true.  After all it was exactly what he did at night.  She turned to him a looked right into his eyes.  Searching for something.
“Do you know who I am?”  Another surprise.  Her eyes were so pleading.
“I don’t even know who I am anymore, Serena.  How can I know who you are?”  He replied quietly, gazing right back into her own eyes.  They were nearly brimming with tears, but they softened and she held them back.  Then she turned away again.
“I’m sorry.”  She said. “You and I have similar problems.  I just found out who I really am, and you don’t know who you are.  And we’re both having trouble living with it.”  Coming from Serena, this sounded very intriguing.  It puzzled him to no end.
“Why don’t you tell me who you are.  Maybe we can find out who I am.”
She looked at him, a little hope shining in her pretty eyes.  But all of a sudden she realized who she was talking to and what about, and that hope faded.
“I don’t think so…maybe it would be better if I left.”  She turned, and slowly began to move away.  Darien was confused.  What could be that secret that Serena wasn’t talking?  He had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew.  He had one exactly like it.  He quickly reached out and grabbed her hand.  He couldn’t let her leave now, he had so much to say…
“Wait, please don’t go yet.  I…I need to talk, you don’t have to say anything at all, just… listen.”  He begged.  She stared at him, surprised at his actions, but more so at his words.
“I can listen.”  She murmured.  And she did.  She listened to him tell her all about the accident that claimed his parents lives, the trouble at the orphanage and the day to day monotony and pain in his life.  He hadn’t let go of her hand, and somewhere along the way she held his even tighter.  She said nothing, but her expression spoke volumes.  All of a sudden her problems seemed, to her at least, very minor.  He realized that he’d been staring into her eyes for quite a while, even though he had finished speaking.  Now he tried to pull away from her, but she held tight.  Then, very slowly, she reached her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug.  For a moment he stood there, baffled, before wrapping his own arms around her,  a single tear crawling down his face.  He heard a soft noise below him and knew that she was crying too.  Resting his head on hers he held her even tighter.  She responded, tightening her own hold.
“I was wrong.”  She whispered.  “We have very different problems.”
“I think you’ve helped me face mine.  I just wish I could help you with yours.”  He answered quietly.
“I wish you could too.  But, you can’t.  No one can.”  She cried again, softly.
“Why won’t you even let me try?”  He murmured.  She took a deep breath.
“Because you won’t understand.  I have become something so completely different that I barely understand it myself.”  She said sadly.  Just then, he had a radical idea.  It was risky, but it might be the only way to know for sure.
“What if I were to tell you that you weren’t alone?”  He asked.
“What do you mean?”
As of that moment neither of them had moved.  Now, he took hold of her shoulders and gently mover away, to look at her face.
“I have dreams.  In these dreams a beautiful girl calls to me and asks me to help her.  I had one of those dreams tonight, before I came out here.  You look exactly like her, you know.”  She gasped slightly and tried to speak, but nothing came.
“You say you fight every night.  So do I.  I help a warrior girl discover the truth about everything, even about herself.”  Her eyes widened.
“Since you won’t tell me anything, maybe I can guess.”  She managed somehow to nod.  “I think it’s you.   You are the warrior with the spine of steel and heart of gold.  And you’re the princess in my dreams.  The one that desperately needs someone to talk to.”  She started to cry again.  He’d seen clear through all of her masks.  All the way to the pure truth.  He pulled her into his arms again as she cried into his shirt.
“You’re right…oh...my…god You are so right.”  She choked out between sobs.  She was holding onto him for dear life as if she had nothing else to hold onto, and she didn’t.  He let her cry.  Gradually she quieted.
“If you know all that then you have to be…My God.  It’s you.  You’ve been there every time.  Like a knight in shining armor.  And my own dreams, the prince who would come to save me…it was you.”  She whispered, smiling as memory came floating back.  He smiled too as his memory drifted into place.  After a moment she giggled lightly.
“You realize that tomorrow everyone is going freak out.”
“So what.  It’ll be fun.”  He felt her take a deep breath, then she pushed herself away and looked into his eyes.  This time he saw something different.  Love.  And he knew the same look was reflecting in his eyes.  She looked down, overcome by sudden nervousness.
“I love you”  She murmured.  Instead of answering right away, he tilted her face up, to look back in her eyes.  Leaning forward, his lips connected with hers.  Her eyes widened then fluttered closed.  Breaking contact, he hugged her to him again.
“I love you too.”

The end.