Twenty hours until the Fairytale premiere.

Orion was hunting the night sky above our heads. I pointed to the constellation as Mara leaned closer to follow the tip of my finger.

“Three in a row?” she asked.

“That’s his belt.”

“I see it. Neato.”

Autumn was still a month away, but the air was cool and crisp and brought back memories of shucking corn with my sister. The roof was hard against our backs, but we didn't care.

The lake was a puddle of ink without the moonlight, but its distant lapping provided our date with a dreamy, undulating soundtrack.

Mara was eating gummy bears, red ones first, then white, green, and finally the yellows. She named every bear, then watched as they marched along her waist, waged wars across her tummy, and fell in love atop her chest. Eventually, every gummy either lost their heads in battle, killed themselves by jumping off her torso, or met their end in another creatively morbid way, giving Mara the excuses she needed to gobble up their remains.

The movie was waiting for me in my room, but my girlfriend requested company. Besides, we both needed a break from our punishment and the dreary confines of the castle.

Mara's head was in my lap. Our faces were amber in the light of a dancing candle. I made a goofy face to calm her nerves. She grinned, then stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes.

I removed a marker from a plastic bag. Mara adjusted her head, mashing her hair into my thighs like a mortar and pestle, then I marked her exposed earlobe with a black dot. She looked right, and I did it again.

I capped the marker, dropped it in the bag, and covered my yawn with my arm.

“Already sleepy, sleepyhead?”

“It's been a long few days,” I said. 

The safety pin was next. I unclipped it, then held the tip over the candle until it turned brilliant orange. With my free hand, I reached in the bag and dramatically removed a peach to divert Mara's attention away from the hot needle. “We're outta apples,” I said. “Think this’ll work?”

Her shoulders touched my knees with a shrug. Her smile masked the blood in her broken eye. “Do it quick, kay?”

I pressed the peach into the soft junction of neck, jaw and hair. Her earlobe rested on the fruit's fuzzy skin.

“James, do you ever feel like we're too young to think the things we think?”

I touched the metal tip to the center of the dot, then pressed hard through the fleshy lump of ear. “Every day since I met you,” I said. I felt a slight burst of relief as the needle punctured the peach on the opposite side. There was something provocative in the sight of Mara’s wince and the smell of singed fruit...

“You've been a gentleman,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I removed the needle, used the peach as a pin-cushion, then quickly worked an earring into the fresh hole. It was sterling silver--Mara told me earlier--with a violet Swarovski bead.

“We're supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but you're the only one who really acts like it.” She pinched the bead between her thumb and forefinger, then turned in my lap. “You're gonna write about me someday and I'm gonna read every word. I don't wanna look back and realize how bad I treated you. I'm your first girlfriend.”

“Mara, you’re--”

“I know you don't have a choice but to like me. I know that any other boy would be just as sweet to me, ‘cause they have to. But I want you to know that it doesn't make your kindness less special. I don't appreciate you any less just 'cause other boys like me too. Does that make sense?” She groaned. “It sounded better in my head.”

Her words hung between us like a white balloon. I torched the needle for a second time, brushed a strand of hair from her eye, and positioned the peach behind her lobe.

“I see the things you do for me,” she said.

I punctured her again. She didn't wince.

“You gave that film to social services. Most boys wouldn’t do that, even if it meant saving my life. I know you've been exercising. I hear you sometimes, grunting, counting sit ups. It makes me feel... warm.”

The compliment stung. I had a mental list of every nice thing that Mara ever said to me, but they were always part of a game or joke. This time, the words carried sincerity that drove me a little mad; mad because this was the only person who could instill such a feeling of affirmation in my soul; mad because I could never return the favor. 

“I think about your creativity.” Mara sat up, took the pin and peach from my hands, and set them aside. “You're like one of those scruffy artists who goes totally nuts.” She plucked the second earring form my palm and slid it through her ear like a business woman returning from an affair.

Whatever color her eyes were before that moment, it didn't matter. Tonight, they were purple, matching exquisitely the crystals dangling against her cheeks. “Know what else?” she asked.

I was weightless. Dumbstruck.

“Sometimes I think you're so wrapped up in 'who likes who' or what line of dialogue to cut... I don't think you realize how cool you are.”

My peripherals darkened. I felt faint, but I didn't black out.

“I recognize my own faults too, ya know. That day on the hill was bad. You could've teased me for weeks ‘cause of that.”

Every word simultaneously pulled me in and pushed me back, kinda like the zolly shots in Vertigo where the lens zooms in but the camera pulls out. Beautiful anxiety took me over, and the suave boy who pierced a girl's ears was melting into goo and seeping through his own feet. “I need to finish editing.” I said.

“Don’t go,” Mara replied and laid her back across the roof's paper tar.

“The art show...” I stammered. “It's tomorrow. The rides are already up outside. They have a VCR waiting for me.”

“Don't go,” she said again and I found myself laying beside her, holding hands, watching the stars. “This night will be perfect if you stay. We can lay exactly like this until our muscles get all stiff. We can pretend like the movie doesn't matter, that we made it, that it was fun, but that, in the end, it doesn't really matter. Eventually, everything’s gonna change and run off without us... but maybe we can make tonight last forever if we try hard enough. You know that moment when you hug somebody you like? When your heart feels warm and high and tingly in your chest? When you feel just for a second like a baby in a womb... that nothing matters? That's how I want you to feel tonight. That's what a girlfriend should do, I think.”

So I stayed with Mara on the castle roof. Just a little longer.