My lips have swelled under the kisses of the moon and I allow myself to bask in its love, as if it can make me immortal with its endless affection. I can see Grace, asleep in the flickering lights of the night, her chest rising and falling in the delusion of sleep. And I see Anastasia, her toes tangled with the water, the sky draped over her shoulders and her delicious lips blossoming in the world.

    We have been sitting in the dock behind our cabin for the last few hours. Grace has fallen asleep, and it's just Anastasia and I, still in the cosmos. And she watches the world as if she knows all of its secrets, and I want to devour the stars in her eyes.

     But she'll never want me. So I decide to take my departure. "I-"

     "Do you know the story of Ursa Major?" Anastasia asks, abruptly.

     "Um, no," I say.

     "There once was a beautiful woman, whose name I can't remember." And she smiles, the grim sort of smile that promises infinity in a moment. "That's a broken sort of thing, that the only thing I remember about someone is that they're beautiful. Regardless, she was like a fragment of heaven and Zeus took favor to her. She tried to refuse him, for he desired her for her face and not the mind behind it, but he was the ruler of all the forces in the world. And so she went to Artemis, the huntress who was known as an eternal maiden, and she begged her for protection. Artemis, with her golden heart, took her in. Artemis turned her into a bear, for her heart was no enriched by humanity, in order to protect her from the lusting Zeus. And it worked, for the powerful god left her alone, yet she was forever doomed to be a bear, for Artemis never came to return her human form to her. On one such day, a hunter shot her down; Artemis, as the goddess of the hunt, could feel the dying pulses as if they were her own. Sobbing from guilt, she returned to the woman turned bear, and stole her spirit from the dying figure. Artemis then sewed them amongst the quilt that was the night sky, immortalizing the woman she had killed."

    We are silent for a moment.

     "She sounds lonely," I tell her.

     "She is a monument among women, immortalized in the stars," Anastasia replies. "Love may make us human, but it binds us to morality."

     "That sounds lonely, too," I add.

    "The time of the gods has faded like another breath into the wind, yet their stories circulate throughout all the airs of the world, tainting it with their ancient tongues and truth," she informs me.

     "It sounds like you don't believe in love."

     "Love is not a religion, it's simply a way of being. I choose not to be," Anastasia says.

    "How can you choose that?"

     "I'm asexual."

      I snort, yet no flicker of a smile appears on her lips. "And do you do photosynthesis as well?"

      "Perhaps a better term would be aromantic. I feel no urge for a romantic relationship and have never had or wished to have romantic feelings," she explains. "Does that surprise you? I may not do photosynthesis, but we as a species are not too different than plants. I don't need love to survive, and neither do you."

     The smile has faded from my mouth. "That still sounds lonely."

     "But aren't we all alone, in the end?" Anastasia insists. "In life and love, we are all but lonely souls, wandering around brokenly hoping for love to fix us. But love is not more powerful that friendship or family or-"

     "Isn't that love, too?" I ask.

    And at that, she does smile. A smile that could steal the sun from the sky and cause the universe to revolve around her. "You're stubborn, aren't you?"

     I smile back, shyly. "Maybe."

     "Maybe you're not as bad as I thought you were."

      I laugh. "What a compliment, Ana, you're quite the charmer."

      Her eyebrows rise. "Ana?"

       Now I blush, uncertain. "Yeah."

     "I think I like that."