MOONLIGHT, LAUREN
By Chisom Umenyi
Lauren said the moon was the only woman who never lied to her.
She said it the way people confess their debts — quietly, without looking at me.
We were lying on the corrugated roof of her mother’s house, the zinc still warm from the day. Nsukka’s night air smelled faintly of charcoal and hibiscus. Below, someone’s radio was tuned to a preacher’s voice, crackling between static and certainty.
The moon hung low, swollen and pale as a peeled lychee. Lauren reached for it with her fingers, pinching at the air like she could pluck it down.
“She always shows her face,” she said. “Even when it’s only a sliver. Even when she’s tired of you.”
The moonlight spilled over us like silk let loose from a seam. It touched my collarbone before it touched my face, as though asking permission. It was warm — impossibly warm — the way breath is warm when whispered too close to your skin.
Lauren tilted her head toward me. “She likes you.”
It was not a question.
I could not tell if she meant herself or the moon.
---
The first time I touched Lauren’s hand, it was by accident — or maybe the kind of accident that waits to happen. We were rinsing guavas in a blue plastic basin when the moon came in through the slatted kitchen window, turning the water silver. The light clung to her knuckles. I remember thinking the moon had a taste, faint and metallic, like the inside of a seashell.
That night I dreamt the moon slid into my bed. She smelled faintly of wet grass. She curled behind me, her palm pressed flat against my stomach. Her fingers were long, her nails blunt. When I woke, my skin still remembered the weight.
---
Lauren kept secrets like other people kept jewelry — not many, but each one chosen carefully. She told me she had once asked the moon to take something away.
“What?” I asked.
Her eyes flicked toward the dark. “My father’s shadow.”
I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t ask again.
---
One evening, we walked past the abandoned well behind St. Theresa’s. The moonlight fell straight into its mouth, illuminating the green water. Lauren leaned over, her hair almost brushing the surface.
“She listens, you know,” she said.
“Who?”
“The moon.”
“She’s far away.”
Lauren shook her head. “Far doesn’t mean deaf.”
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe the moon could hear the things I could not say aloud — the way I wanted Lauren’s voice in my mouth, or the way my pulse rose when she laughed at something that wasn’t funny.
---
The night she kissed me, there was no warning.
We were on the roof again. The zinc creaked under our weight. The moon was round and watching. Lauren’s hair smelled of woodsmoke. She leaned in, and for a moment I thought she was telling me another secret. But her lips brushed mine, slow and deliberate, like she had been practicing in her head for months.
The moonlight flared — I swear it did — flooding the roof in a pale heat that made my bones hum. I kissed her back, and the warmth deepened, almost unbearable.
When she pulled away, she smiled, but her eyes were wet. “She saw that,” she said, glancing upward.
“She sees everything.”
“That’s the problem.”
---
Two weeks later, Lauren stopped coming to the roof.
Her mother said she had gone to stay with an aunt in Enugu. But I knew the truth before it was spoken — the kind of truth that prickles the back of your neck. The moon that night was thin as a blade, and she would not look at me.
I stood outside, letting the cold light soak my face, waiting for her warmth to return. It didn’t.
---
Months have passed. I still sleep with the curtains open. I still let the moonlight touch my fingertips, though now it feels different — cooler, like the hand of someone who is already halfway gone.
Some nights, if I stare long enough, I think I see her standing in the moon’s glow, bare feet on the zinc roof, her mouth tilted in that almost-smile.
I wonder if the moon keeps her, the way a woman might keep a letter she never sends — folded carefully, pressed flat, but never thrown away.
Chisom Umenyi is a dedicated pharmacy student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with a passion for healthcare, storytelling, and exploring the intersections between science and the human experience.