To Catch a Firefly

by Emmy Sanders

“I want more than corn or paper or five-cent candy at the corner store. I want my life to be…remarkable, El.” It will be. Because it’s his. He’s not capable of anything else, I know it. I just don’t know how to say it. I’ll show him; that’s what I’ll do. I’ll show Lucky there’s adventure to be had right here. That he can have his remarkable life. And then maybe, just maybe, he’ll stay.

There’s a long, warped path carved into the field that starts not 300 paces from where Lucky was standing. I’ve never been more afraid that, one way or another, I’m going to lose my friend.

Taking a step forward, I tip Lucky’s chin. His eyes catch mine and his lips pop open, and when I lean down to press my mouth to his, his fingertips dig into my arm. Not pushing, though, holding. I’ve never kissed before, either, but Lucky deserves a first with someone who loves him. At least I can give him that.

I like my life here, but for the first time, I consider Lucky’s words.

“If you ever decide to love someone,” he says slowly, “they’ll be very lucky.” He already is.

“But we’re not done,” he says vehemently, stepping into my space. “We’ll never be done. Me and you, we don’t have an ending.”

“Promise me something,” he says suddenly. What’s that? “I need you to be happy,” he says. “Promise me you’ll be happy here.” “I will,” I tell him. I like it here. I always have.

“Not everyone is going to understand you, Ellis. But it’s not your job to make them.”

I was ten years old when I met Lucky. I knew it then, and I know it now. He’s a firefly. Luminous and wild. He was never meant to be trapped. Not here and not with me. And in a few days, I’ll finally watch him fly away.

I think it was at thirteen that I first felt my heart beat for you. And break, just a little. Because I knew, like that tornado, you’d leave destruction in your path, and I’d be your willing victim. I’d do it again. I love you, my brilliant firefly.

“He’s your anchor,” Danil says quietly. “No,” I whisper, my eyes lifting to the full moon. “He doesn’t fight the tide. He controls it.”

It’s a million memories in one, that smile, and I’m swamped by them, overcome by the history we share. There are strings connecting us, so many of them. I don’t think we could ever be unraveled.

But it’s more than that, too. It’s my heart. A love letter I was too afraid to show Lucky. It was safer, keeping it to myself. Just like all those emails littering my drafts folder.

Lucky’s gaze lowers to me slowly. “They’re beautiful.” They’re you. The closest I could ever come to capturing you.

“You,” Lucky says, a hoarse sort of chuckle in his voice, “are trouble.” I shake my head, clearing my throat. “That’s you.” He huffs. “Well, I think you’re catching up.” “Uh-oh,” I deadpan.

Finally, I say, “When you’re…gone, you… You share your life. With me. Your adventures and… And your joy.” I set my gaze on the corn as I go on. “It means the world to me, Luck. To be a part of that. I… Please don’t stop just…just because I was…” Scared, I can’t say. I can’t. I let out a small breath before continuing. “I don’t ever want to lose…the place I have in your world.”

“I didn’t see it before, but I do now. And I’m here. I’m here, okay? So kiss me. Kiss me, please, or I swear to God—” As a tornado rages somewhere overhead, that leash around my heart snaps, and I give in to the thing I want above all else. I lunge forward and kiss my best friend.

I remembered our history in a series of snapshots, but I saw it under a different lens. And I knew.

But I’m not about to waste any more time away from the one person who has always felt like my port. The person I return to, time and time again. The one I come home to. Because he is. Ellis is home to me.

He’s not just a crush. He never was. He’s the man no one else has ever measured up to.

“Wish you were safe,” I tell him. “I am,” he says. “I’m always safe with you.”

“What do you see?” I ask quietly.

“Gold,” he says, reaching up and twining a piece of my hair around his finger. His touch is gentle, voice soft. “Sands and…sun. Light. Camels.” The last is said with a smirk, and I huff a somewhat disbelieving laugh. “Is that all?” “Here,” he says, touching the corner of my eye, his focus absolute. “Ocean. Sky and sea. Smith Falls. Great…Blue Hole.”

His thumb travels down, brushing over my top lip. My breath hitches. “Sails,” he says, tracing the two arches of my lip. “Birds in flight. Palaces and…windmills.”

“All the life in you,” he says simply. “That...

He’s gorgeous, every inch of him. I could stare for hours, days, a lifetime, and never get bored. I never thought I’d have the chance to.

With the moon lending its soft glow through the window, Lucky falls asleep. And I learn what it is to cradle a firefly in my palms.

“You’ve seen me a million times,” I point out, heart pounding. His expression manages to convey how much of an idiot I am, while also weakening my knees. “Never enough.” Fucking hell. “I’m going to kiss you now,” I inform him. “Sweaty.” “Don’t care.”

I could do nothing but kiss Lucky until the end of time, and I would be content. I’d swirl with him in the sky until we were one, binary stars gravitationally bound to one another.

Powerless against his pull—always, still—I show Lucky exactly how I feel.

The memory of us will be left in the pictures we take, the glass we repurpose. It will be in the wind and the floorboards and the walls of the silo. We’ll leave our mark on this world, and we’ll do it together because we’ve always been tied. Lucky came into my life at ten, but he’s not leaving. And when I think of it like that, I realize there’s nothing to fear when it comes to us. Adventure can call. Time can, too. But neither will take Lucky from me. He’s already written himself into my heart.

I store this memory—just like the Aurora Borealis and the parrotfish in the Caribbean Sea—in a place I can always return to. But I know, no matter how many pictures I take of the man before me, nothing will ever compare to standing in his presence.

When I open my eyes, there’s a smile on my face. I never thought I’d come to love the damn smell of corn. “Relocation,” I tell Beth, my heart and soul settling as my thoughts turn to Ellis. “I’d like to move home.”

“Do you want to know what the most remarkable thing in my life is?” He doesn’t say a word. “El,” I rasp. “It’s you.”

“You say I’m your firefly?” I nod. Yes. “Well you’re my goddamn moon, Ellis. You call, I come.” “I… I never asked for that.” “You didn’t have to.”

“I love you, too. I have for years. I loved you then, and I love you now, and I won’t ever stop. I’m not capable of it. You’re it for me, El. You’re my big goddamn romance. And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here with you.”

And if this is what he wants, what he truly wants and not what he feels is necessary, then I’ll make sure he’s happy here. I’ll give him a home so warm and inviting he won’t ever regret staying by my side. He’ll know he’s loved, without fail, without limits, without end.

“I love you,” I tell him, pulling him up. His legs circle my waist, and I hold him to me. I hold him as tight as I dare. “I love you, too, Ellis,” he whispers against my neck. “I’m so ridiculously in love with you, you’re going to get sick of hearing me say it.” I shake my head. Never.

Blue is love. To me, it’s love. And that’s always been Lucky.

“Promise me something,” he says, turning his face. My lips brush his cheek. Anything. “Promise we’ll still do this when we’re sixty or eighty or a hundred. I want a lifetime with you, El. Me and you. ’Til the end of time.” I draw an X over Lucky’s heart. Promise.

“Made you…something.” Ellis steps to the side, letting me see the center of the table. On it, glimmering slightly from the glow of the candles and fireflies overhead, is a glass heart. An anatomical heart. I pick it up gently, the piece fitting perfectly in my palm. It’s blue, and something within the substance makes it glitter in the light. “Ellis,” I say, at a loss for words. “My heart,” he says simply. “It’s yours.”

He opens his hands without a word, opening the small box within at the same time. The world feels hushed, not a sound reaching my ears above my own soft exhalation. Ellis never speaks. He doesn’t have to. Earlier, he gave me his heart. This…this is his life he’s offering.

It’s yes and of course and we’re going to be so happy, you just wait and see. It’s sixteen years of Hi. What’s your name? Mine’s Lucky. It’s knowing no matter how much more time passes, this is my person, and I am his, and we’re bound together by fate or choice or, hell, corn for all I know.

When the sun sets, we watch, the fairy lights keeping us company like little twinkling fireflies. The stars keep us company, too. And as night rolls over to morning, my fiancé’s hand is in mine.

“You’ve only been engaged a month,” he points out. “Dani,” I say evenly, “I would have married that man the day he asked.”

But… I promise you this, Luck. I will love you for all of our days. I will cherish you the way you deserve. I will hold you every chance I get. And I will be closer than that any time you need it. I will treat you more carefully than glass. I will hug you before every flight. I will kiss you all the days we’re together. And I will think of you any day we are not.

I feel your pull, and if I am your moon, as you say I am, then I promise to always call you back home.