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Summer is lying next to Jade in a small grassy field not too far away from her house. Wildflowers peak through splayed hair; daisies and dandelions find themselves in an ocean of brown and purple where Summer’s dark brown coiled hair meets Jade’s dark brown almost black hair streaked with purple. The two girls are smiling at one another like they create all the stars in the sky without really understanding what that means. Because Summer finds herself to be the happiest around Jade—she smiles more, she laughs more, she loves more—but that is a simple fact, not a dangerous admittance. Summer is happy around Jade not because that means anything to her yet, but because she simply is, and that’s all that there is to it.
And to Summer, it’s the most logical thing in the world to think—that Jade makes her happy—because it is. Jade makes her so undeniably happy, but she’s never given it a second thought. Even now as the two bask in the sunset’s honey-golden glow Summer is admiring Jade like the sun admires the moon under the guise that she is only just paying attention to his words. She notices Jade’s soft smile, happy rambling and the way that the sun makes the colour in Jade’s eyes look like galaxies. But Summer thinks she notices these things because it makes Jade look happier—she looks at peace in a way he never really looks when they're with anyone else—not because things make her heart skip a beat and feel like she’s been blessed by the moon.
Summer has found herself drawn to the night for a while now: drawn to her kindness and acceptance and the gentle care he treats everything with. But Summer says she was drawn to Jade because she was a mystery—because Jade looked cool, and Summer wanted to be the first person who took the time to know everything about him; Jade was the frowning outcast who spent lunches alone and Summer just wanted to make her smile. And maybe it started like that, but somewhere along the way she fell for everything about Jade without even realising it. She fell for Jade’s laugh, Jade’s smile, Jade’s voice, just Jade, Jade, Jade. And still, she likes to blame the heat on her face and the feeling in her chest on the warm temperatures and believes her excited tone to be the result of their passionate conversations.
And it is in moments like these where her feelings are exemplified. Moments where the two girls laugh and talk as the sun travels its descent across the sky, painting the blue canvas with beautiful orange and pink shades. Those very few seconds where Summer has the unyielding urge to tuck the little wildflowers into her friend’s hair just to see if she can create a halo tangled into the strands. As if subconsciously labelling him as a deity justifies Summer’s unknown offerings of friendship bracelets and artworks to the night that fills her with awe.
Summer finds herself to be staring – admiring Jade from mere centimetres away truly believing that by creating Jade as a deity she is just praising her friend’s achievements and not just entirely infatuated with everything about her. Summer gives into the temptation lifting herself up from the bed of grass to pluck a daisy—a foreshadowed admission of the love she olds for the friend lying beside her—from the grass and tuck it into Jade’s hair. Her hand lingers there a moment longer than necessary and her heart leaps in her throat. But she’s unwell she thinks, dehydrated surely, and so she lays back down next to Jade and dismisses the sick feeling from Jade’s soft smile as nothing more than that.
When the stars blink into the sky the two girls find themselves leaning close to one another; the moon tucking herself under the sun and Summer feels warm despite the cool air around her. Though it is important to note that like everything else, this warmth was written off as the proximity and not how the proximity made Summer feel. Because there’s a little quiet part in Summer’s mind that knows that this feels like this is right—that this is comfort, this is the feeling home she's been longing for her entire life—but that part in Summer’s brain doesn’t voice this, it lets the whispers remain secret under the blanket of the night and settles deep in Summer’s heart for a later day to be discovered or perhaps acknowledged.
Rather than recognising Jade to be home and picking up on the soaring within her heart, Summer speaks up and gently breaks the warm silence that has settled between them. The sun’s honey glow has long since descended, leaving room for the moon to wash the two in a light that makes the other believe that the girl in front of them looks ethereal, whether or not they understand the implications of that admittance. And instead of speaking up about the quiet voice in her head, Summer says this: 'You know, you always show me pictures of your bà nội’s holiday home in Dalat every time you visit and well it looks beautiful really, and so, so homey. And every time you show me a photo I smile because you look like you love it there and yeah... it's pretty. I don't know why I'm bringing this up'
Their conversation eventually whirls from there, spiralling into an intricate silver-spun pattern until the blanket of the stars isn’t the one above them but rather the unacknowledged secrets that worm their way into their brains. The two laugh and smile and Summer feels lighter in that moment, feels content with the warmth that settles in her chest, like even though curfew is approaching, and they will each find their respective way home, Summer at that moment feels the happiest she has ever been. But for now, that blanket—the threads interwoven with silver secrets and soaring hearts—clouds her judgment of the rosy tint in which she unnoticeably views Jade and thinks of Jade in everything she sees. And Summer doesn’t quite know why everything reminds her of Jade. Doesn’t really understand that it’s the same reason that thoughts of daisies plague her mind around him; the same reason Jade feels like home. She only knows that they exist, and it is natural for them to do so.
But for now, Summer doesn't need to understand it, that’s a discovery for another night. One that doesn’t start with a warm afternoon where two girls lay in a field of wildflowers as they admire each other instead of the sunset. One where the creation of starlight deities becomes gentle devotion rather than a silent thought. A night where star-inwrought secrets become more than a simple thought and the sun finally realises that she is happiest around the moon because she has fallen for her and that is the most meaningful thing in the world.