All Night

Flowers who love the moon

Lucille

My heart is racing and I'm almost sure, he can hear it too. I forget how to breathe.

“Hello?” he repeats and a tear rolls down my cheek. I don't want him to hang up. He could say the same over and over again or yell at me for not talking but I don’t want him to hang up. I wish I wouldn't have to say anything. Hearing his voice is already enough. So enough…

“Dad?” my voice is so shaky and so weak that I'm not even sure if he heard me. “Lucille?!” he screams, with his shaking voice. He recognized my voice so fast, although it’s raw and husky. I can hear how he's crying. He sounds so relieved and happy.

I remember how I was sitting on the stairs, watching and listening to how my mom was breaking his heart and now I’m listening to how I am breaking his heart…

I need to be strong. I'm not a baby anymore and I never will be again. I need to shake this feeling off. I wipe my tears away. Things changed.

“It's you right? This is not a joke?! Sweetheart, I knew you were alive! TYLER! Lucille, we missed you so much…” I can hear the pain in his voice. I’ve never heard him like this and it’s breaking my heart like nothing else. Not even my finger is hurting as much as my heart is.

He's nervous and excited… he doesn’t know what I’m about to say. He’s just glad that he’s hearing from me.

Knowing how much he missed me and how sad he is, makes me really weak.

“I've missed you too dad…” I say. My voice is very raw from crying and screaming too much. “Tell me where you are I'll pick you up immediately! I'm already calling the police!” he says and my heart stops. It brings me back to reality.

“No! Don't! Dad, don't do anything! Only listen to me. Please…” I sound desperate. I am.

“Lucille, where are you? I'm coming! We're going to talk, as soon as you're back, you're going to tell me everything and those who hurt you will pay for that!” he says and I notice that he’s sobbing. I look at the ceiling of the phone booth to not burst out in tears.

Then I look at red hood. He's leaned against the glass and looks at me, with furrowed eyebrows. He's not angry. He looks like he’s sympathizing. As if he's sad… Knowing that comforts me and gives me a little bit strength.

“Please, Listen to me. Don't call the police. I'll leave soon... I only wanted to tell you something…” I try to hold my tears back. I cover my mouth with my hand and look at the ground.

“What?” he sounds upset but listens carefully. I wish I could explain him what's going on and that he doesn't need to worry because I'm okay but that's not true because a few hours later he'll think that I'm dead. That means he'll think I lied and I don't want him to remember me as a liar...

He would never understand what's going on and that this is okay for me. Even if I would tell him that I would want to stay, he wouldn't let me.

“I only called to say goodbye.” I close my eyes and hot tears are running down my cheeks while I can feel two hands around my heart. They’re squeezing it until it bleeds out. These hands are my own hands.

“Goodbye? No, Lucille! You're telling me where you are, now! There's no goodbye! You're not going anywhere anymore!” he says and I can hear how sad he is. His voice cracks multiple times. My scalp starts burning with the panic.

I've never seen him like this. Not even when mom left. I'm killing him. Not mom.

“I wanted to help you, with the end of your book…” I say and hold my breath again. This is our project. We started it together and we're going to end it together.

“I can't end it without you and you know that…” he says but I know he knows exactly that I won't come back. “You can.” I say and a little silence takes over. I take a deep breath.

“Tell them… That the little girl finally grew up and understood how much the moon loved the sun.”

My vision is blurry.

“Tell them that she's the flower who fell in love with the moon, instead of the sun. She grew with the moonlight.”

He doesn't say anything. He's not even interrupting me. He knows how serious I am and that there's no going back. I hope he can accept it…

“And tell them how much she loves the moonlight and rainstorms and so many other things that have a soul...”

I can hear how he’s quietly sobbing.

“That someday someone will look at her, like she looks at the moon.”

I say, looking at red hood.

He needed an end. I’m giving him one.

“Tell them how he stole the sun for her and she stole the moon for him, how they stole the stars together and how they'll build their own universe together…”

My voice cracks and I know I can't hold it in any longer.

“Tell them that she loves the moon so much that she would burn oceans for him.”

I add, still looking at him. Then I look away...

“Lucille…” he sounds so hurt. As if he just realized that I grew up. That I'm the girl I was talking about… Like we both know that we've been writing about me but never really said it out loud because we didn’t have to mention it.

“Dad I love you, Tyler and mom so much. I love you. I'm so sorry.” I say and hang up, as fast as I can because otherwise I'll have a mental breakdown or get weak and want to go back. I wouldn’t be able to hang up at all.

I silently burst out in tears.

Toni

She did it once again. She proved me wrong again. No matter how often I lie to myself, I see how that will make a different ve in my life. She is different. She's that one girl.

There's always a person who'll come into your life and change everything because that person the right one. The main character of your life. Everyone has it. Every story has it.

Everyone has a meaning to someone.

If it wouldn't be like this there wouldn't be such a thing as love…

My heart. I can feel it beating. It exist.

This girl has a soul and it's about to get damaged. I know there's more than what we did to her, what turned her into what she is now and I'd love to know what exactly it is but we still have time for that.

“Can we… Can we please leave?” she’s barely able to speak. Her lips and eyes are swollen. She needs some sleep and I think I can leave the annoying, asshole part of me somewhere else tonight. It won’t kill me. It’s only for a night.

I nod and we get into the car.

During the ride, she doesn’t say a word. I play some music, that will help her calm down. I don't know what to say in this situation. Maybe because there's nothing to say.

We arrive and she can barely walk. Tonight was really rough for her. Maybe even worse than every other night until now.

Everything was perfect until now and now we’re back at the beginning. I need to distract her so we can keep going again. We can't let this ruin everything.

We enter her room and she lets herself fall onto her bed. She looks up at me because I'm still standing.

“Can you stay tonight?” she asks and I look at her, eyes wide open. I've been so distant and cold these past weeks…

I tried to spend as less time with her as I could because I was afraid of getting too close and used to her but now she really needs me.

She's lonely. She doesn't have anybody else except me, who she knows so well, although she doesn't know anything about me at all. She doesn't even know my name or my age but she also doesn’t need to. Regardless all of this, she still wants me to stay.

I nod and walk towards her.

I sit down on the edge of her bed and she lays her head on my lap, like a fragile child. For a second I’m shocked about this because no one has ever put their head on my lap and I don’t know how to handle it but then she asks “Can you stroke my head? Like my mom did it?” she sounds empty.

I furrow my eyebrows. Like her mom did it? How am I supposed to do that?

I don't know what love is. I don't know what being a mom or having someone who cares is. No one has ever caressed my head. How am I supposed to give her the feeling of being safe and comfortable when I don’t even know what it feels like?

“Like this..?” I ask, slowly stroking her head. I’m careful. Maybe too careful, trying my best to be as gentle as I can because I’m usually touch and harsh. Thankfully she nods.

After a few minutes, I can feel how her breathing and heartbeat find a rhythm. Her body temperature sinks, so I slowly pull the blanket on her and keep stroking her hair, to not wake her up. I start laying with her hair...

I could get used to this.

It made her calm down and feel better. Not only her… It also did the same with me.

Sometimes giving love is more important than receiving love because sometimes people need it more than you do. I haven’t received it for over twenty years. I can wait a little longer.

I don't need to be loved to make her feel loved or let her know that she's not alone. Although we both may don't have the best lives right now, we still have each other.

And I really don't need to be loved to be able to give her any love. I made her calm down and fall asleep. That’s more than I’ve ever done to any other woman. I'm proud of myself.

Damn, I'm thinking too much again.

This confuses me a little bit as well. This whole situation.

I take a deep breath and keep stroking her head..

Lucille’s dad

I didn't sleep. I think I'm never going to sleep again until she comes back or they find her. She called me.

I heard her voice after so many weeks…

I've missed her so much. I'm giving myself the fault for everything.

The night her mother left, I was so cold to her. It was hard for her too and I should've been there for her but I was so selfish and only pushed her away, while she was trying to help and I made her feel guilty but we humans only realize things, after it's already too late to make anything alright again. I took her for granted and now she’s gone.

I didn't forget any of the words she said last night. She told me how she wanted me to end the book and that's exactly what I'm going to do, as soon as she comes back.

Hearing her say all these things made me emotional. Knowing how fast she grew up and how mature she is, knowing that we both have been writing about her all the time without mentioning it… What made my baby grow up so fast? What happened to her in these four months?

I miss her so much. I always thought I gave her enough attention but now that she’s gone I feel like I didn’t take care of her well enough.

I know there are things going on that I don't know anything about. She used to tell me everything. but I guess she had secrets that she liked to keep to herself.

Secrets that caused this all. That destroyed her. How could I be so blind? I'm such a bad father. A horrible father.

She told me she wouldn't come back and that she just wanted to say goodbye but she has to come back. I hate that I can't do anything about it and that she didn’t tell me where she is.

I told the police about everything and they're trying to follow the signal from where she called me from. I still have hope…

I can feel her heart beating. These past months have been so rough for us, I don't know if I'll ever be able to live normally again if she doesn’t come back.

Someone knocks on the door and I run, as fast as I can. Tyler follows me. I open the door with the hope of seeing her or receiving some good news from anybody. When I see a police officer standing in front of me, my heart stops.

He looks serious and sad. I tell him to come in. I know he doesn't have any good news but it's making me crazy that he's teasing us with the glance he gives us.

I feel my whole body shaking, when he holds up a plastic bag with the stamp of the local police department on it..

Her clothes are in one of them and one of her nails is in a smaller one.

“I'm sorry, sir. We found these, near a river, two hours ago. The blood stains are hers as well. Everything indicates that it is her but we couldn’t find her body.” he says and my whole world collapses.

Lucille

I wake up with the voice of a news anchor.

“Lucille Madris’ file has been closed. She's been missing and after four months of looking for her, her clothes, the nail of her pinky finger and blood has been found near to a river.”

I sit up immediately. My heart is about to jump out of my chest. I start to sweat.

Red hair is already sitting on the end of the bed. His back is turned to me…

“Testify declare that she was seen, near to a gas station at 3am, close to the river. Whatever happened to her, happened after she called her father from a phone booth.”

I don't want to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry.

What’s happening right now is insane. I’m in the news.

“Her body couldn't be found because there’s a possibility that the river carried it away but officers and detectives are still looking for it.”

I cover my face with both of my hands and try to stay calm.

When am I going to wake up from this nightmare? When is this going to stop?

“It's tragic. Family and friends are besides themselves and planning-…” her voice gets cut off because red hood turns off the tv.

I take a deep breath. I'm thankful he did that. I've never been more thankful for anything else. I don't want to hear this all. I don't want to know what's going on with them there, while my life keeps going here in a huge dollhouse.

I don't really want to know what my friends and family are planning, what they are feeling or doing... I don't want to know anything about them. I want to close this chapter. I want this to stop. I want my brain to shut up.

I want to live this life and nothing else. This was probably the best decision ever. Now I don't need to be afraid anymore. Of nothing and nobody. I can work and I'm finally free..

People think I died and I don't know how great that is but I'm glad they do. I'm glad we did this. It’s relieving. More than I thought. Things can be different now. Maybe I can finally forget about my past… I will bury it, with my old self in the river that carried my body away.

I know people in this business won't talk. That's one thing I've learned because they won't harm themselves so I'm safe here. There’s nobody here who could recognize me. It makes me feel good to know that.

He stands up and turns around to me.

He actually stayed.

I squeeze my hair behind my ear.

“Everything fine?” he asks with a little smile. That smile gives me enough energy, motivation and strength for everything that could happen in the future.

He was so nice and caring last night and now there’s this little smile that he gives me. Sometimes a smile like this can make everything so much better.

I raise my pinky finger, smile and nod.