Moon Launch
Photograph courtesy of NASA
By Emily Hoang
When Oliver said to meet where colors melted into each other, I thought he was kidding. He often spoke in riddles and it was up to his audience to decipher the answer. In the beginning, I found this to be part of his charm. Now, it was just an annoyance due to the extra brain power needed on a man set out to be more complicated than he actually was, maybe because of some desire to be more. Why should I bend to accommodate for his language? There were too many times I showed up to the wrong meetup spot. We ran into each other at a local coffee shop, and he was on his way out the door. I was about to ask him if there was a specific time these colors melted, but he was already too far away when he repeated colors melting, as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
The first time we went to the beach, there was a group of people, not much younger than the both of us, having a bonfire. In the background, the speakers blared the pop song of the summer, with a girl’s voice softly singing colors melting. The song had fit the mood. It was a rare sunny day in San Francisco, where no clouds were in sight. It was also the first time we kissed, in the backdrop of the colors of the sunset melting into the horizon. How and why my brain came up with that moment were beyond me.
He was waiting for me, seated in the sand, at the same spot we heard the song. He was wearing an outfit I had seen recycled throughout our relationship—a loose green flannel over a gray tank top that exposed the outlines of his ribcage, and navy joggers. He had switched his sneakers for flip flops. He didn’t see me until I walked right in front of him, blocking the sun. There was an awkward pause, and I realized he was waiting for me to say something.
“Hey,” I said.
“Glad to see you made it,” he said. It wasn’t so much of what he said, but of how he said this comment that made my mouth fall into a frown. I stayed silent, not wanting to give him any hint that this comment hurt.
He got up and started walking. I didn’t move, wanting to see if he would wait for me. He didn’t. I walked in long strides to catch up with him. By the time I caught up, I was out of breath.
“I’ve been thinking,” he paused, “about our relationship.”
“Ok. And?” I asked.
The person I was a couple months ago would have started to feel something close to hopeful. We had been together for a year, and he ended the relationship by saying something about how our auras were no longer complementary and stopped responding to my texts. After about a year, just when I thought our connection was severed, he reached out, commenting on something I had posted on social media. I was about to not respond, but after a couple hours passed, he texted again. A double text from him was rare, so I knew he wanted something. I responded out of curiosity and we started a strained conversation of small talk on my side and trite platitudes on his.
“My aura has undergone massive changes,” he said.
I resisted the urge to laugh. “What does that mean?”
“After we broke up, I did some soul searching.” He lifted his sunglasses so that they rested on top of his hair.
“Ok, well, I think that’s quite normal after the end of a relationship.” I also had to do some of this “soul searching”; although, I wouldn’t have phrased that particular moment of my life in that way. I spent the first couple of weeks in bed drinking cheap wine and eating things that had been in my fridge well past their expiration dates. I had to relearn how to be by myself again. I realized that this was the first time I was actually single. Since high school, and maybe even before that, my happiness always depended on my romantic relationships with others. I was never alone long enough to see this pattern.
“But this was different. There was something about our relationship that really required me to dig deeper. I couldn’t pin it down—why this relationship affected me so much.” He looked directly at me for the first time, and I saw those same flecks of hazel in his irises that had once made me think of sunlight peeking through the redwood trees nearby my childhood home. Now, they were just colors that were a part of his eyes.
A laugh escaped. “I’m sorry, but really? You never showed much during our relationship. And now, Oliver? You’ve figured us out?”
“I don’t know, Mira. I took my time really reflecting. I even went to a monastery for a month. I needed to learn how to clear my head again and to get away from everything.”
I pictured him in the monastery, meditating just as he used to every night before bed. He would look so serene, until his nose wrinkled, or his face scrunched up, exposing times when his mind wandered.
A strong gust of wind blew from behind, causing my hair to temporarily block my vision and Oliver’s sunglasses to fall off. I ran my fingers through the tangles while he picked up his sunglasses and placed them in the small pocket of his flannel.
“What are you really trying to say Oliver?” I crossed my arms, in part due to the cold.
“I guess I’m trying to say that this relationship mattered to me, Mira.”
Was he trying to ask for a second chance? Why reveal this to me now? We hadn’t seen each other in over a year. I didn’t know what to do with the statement, so I stayed quiet and looked out at the ocean. The different shades in the sky were darkening, and I started to think about how my day was ending. I never liked driving at night. My astigmatism made it hard to see. Colors weren’t just colors, but rays of light shining towards my eyes. Only the light from the stars appeared as they were, white light peeking through the backdrop of an otherwise dark sky.
“I guess I just wanted to say that before it was too late. Before it doesn’t mean anything.” Oliver rubbed the back of his head.
I’ve thought about this moment—when he would reveal how he truly felt. It had seemed so far away because of my preconceived notions of who he was as a person during our relationship, as someone on a pillar I was constantly trying to reach.
My mouth formed a tight line. I didn’t want to admit it, but a small part of me wondered what a relationship with Oliver now would look like. I quickly blinked a few times, trying to wash away the nostalgia.
Artwork by Yashna Bowen @whisker_merlin
“I felt like I had to continuously prove our relationship’s worth. Even my own worth,” I responded.
“I think at the time, it was easier to take things out on you. Things that I had felt insecure about myself.” He was looking into the sand as he was saying this.
I was tutoring kids part-time, and Oliver didn’t consider that a job. He also came from an immigrant family, mine from Vietnam and his from Mexico. We found a common space through our family background and passion for our desired fields. I fantasized about becoming a professor, teaching undergraduate students then hiding in an office, smoking cigarettes and writing books. He landed his dream job after college within San Francisco’s booming tech industry.
“It was easy because you didn’t see me on the same playing field as you,” I said. “I felt this all the time, and I was ok until I really started thinking about it. I only realized how much pent-up anger I had towards you, and even myself, after we broke up.”
My status as a part-time teacher was only temporary, and it just took time before I landed a larger role as an adjunct professor at a community college, teaching creative writing. Oliver was never really the patient sort and was looking for someone who was just as successful as him. But as our relationship progressed, our definitions of success became more disparate.
“I’m sorry you—,” he was about to continue talking but stopped himself.
And just like that, my impression of who he was in our relationship returned. I knew what he was going to say, had he continued. He said it every time I tried expressing my feelings or tried talking about our relationship. Despite the passing time, his responses were the same. Whatever image I had of him before this conversation disappeared. Outside of the relationship haze, I was able to have a clearer image of character.
“What I mean is, I’m sorry,” he said.
“What’s past is past. We had some good times too.” And I meant it. When we were able to communicate, there was a thread between us that vibrated. There was a time when I was really in love with him. Whether he had felt the same was something I wasn’t going to ask.
We continued walking. The colors were starting to melt as the sun dipped into the horizon. Oranges turned to blues. Blues turned to darkness. We had stopped talking for a while now, watching the day blur into night. Oliver muttered a quick goodbye then turned and walked away. I stayed for a moment, gliding my feet on the sand, and let the cool air linger against my cheek. A moment after he left, I felt an unexpected weight in my pocket. I reached inside, feeling something round and smooth. A white orb was in my hand. I made some small tosses, testing its tangibility. Then I threw it out into the sky, where it stayed in the air, defying any natural gravitational law. The light glittered on the oscillating waves. I let myself stare at the glow of the white light, finally finding the space to breathe.
Emily Hoang is a Chinese-Vietnamese American writer from San Francisco. Her work has appeared in GASHER Journal and Black Horse Review. When she’s not writing, you can find her running, eating, or exploring new spots around the city.