It was too beautiful a night to be wasted. The moon was unusually full and the stars shown brightly in their locations. She sat on the wooden deck, raising one knee to herself with her hands to support her weight.
Weight. That was the very thing she worried about. Why did it feel like she bore a heavy weight on her shoulders? She had never been good at holding grudges and she thought...no...she tried to think happy thoughts. If she tried, well, that meant she was unhappy about something. She smiled at her shadow on the deck. That's right. There was her answer. She was a shadow. She never said what she wanted to. She never let her opinions be heard and just as shadows struggled so hard to be seen, even in the dark, she wanted to be noticed. She wanted to be brave. She wanted to be free. So why wasn't she? Her shadow faded a bit beside her, forcing her to look up. The moon had been partially covered by a light cloud. It was a cloud all right, but in her eyes, it was an excited rabbit holding a shopping cart, probably ready to shop for carrots. What a night! She didn't think that she'd find all her answers when she came out for air. She wasn't free, and she wasn't brave because she saw. She saw what the others couldn't see. She saw more than there was to see and drew her conclusions and opinions from what she saw. She saw the deeper side of people and it scared her away. But, who was she? What right did she have to judge?
She denied herself close friendships and opportunities. She chose to believe nobody was really worth the risk, but was that really? A butterfly in the night sky could only mean one thing but was it certain? Her rabbit in the sky floated away, bringing back her only companion beside her. So, what if she was wrong? She was clouding herself with what she saw through her teenage sentiments. She suddenly felt jealous of the clouds. All they had to do was float with no worries. She wished she could be like them but at the same time, she did not want to be hurt. The clouds had floated away so who would stay with the moon now? Even if other clouds came along, they would still go away and even worse, they would disappear. That was why. She didn't want anyone to disappear anymore, so she'd rather they didn't come close at all. She was safe that way, even though it hurt. Even though she bore a weight she couldn't carry, she was safe that way. She was. She really was. But she also didn't trust that she'd be safe when morning came.