Disclaimer: Not mine
Mark was on the far side of the room fiddling with his projector as he did every other night. He replayed the shots he had taken that day of the homeless people he had seen throughout the course of his travels.
"Pookie," a girly voice sang. Mark turned to see his girlfriend of six months, Maureen, standing in the doorway of his bedroom. She had been coming around the loft more often these days, spending nights at a time. Mark did not complain.
"Yes?"
She entered, sitting on the edge of the bed. "All the clothes I brought over are dirty. Do you have a clean t-shirt I could sleep in? I was going to do our laundry tomorrow."
He looked around the room. "Uh…" He noticed the pajamas he had set out for himself on the dresser – a t-shirt and flannel pants. He planned to wear that t-shirt the next day, but the one he was wearing now wasn't really that dirty. And besides, Maureen was going to do their laundry tomorrow – he'd have plenty of clean clothes then. "Take that one," he pointed towards the black and white t-shirt.
"Thank you, baby," she shed her own clothes and pulled on Mark's t-shirt. She walked up to him, her arms snaking around his waist. "You're such a sweetheart, you know that? Giving me the shirt that was almost on your back."
Mark laughed. "I'll give you anything you want."
"I want the moon," she smiled up at him.
"I'll see what I can do."
"It's over," Maureen repeated to her now ex-boyfriend, who was near tears, "we're done. There's someone new."
Shaking, Mark collapsed onto their bed – his bed – before his legs gave way beneath him. "Wait," he sniffed.
Slinging her overstuffed duffel bag over her shoulder, she turned to face him. "What?"
"Take this," he went in the drawer of the bedside table and dug out a small, unwrapped box. "It was going to be your Christmas present." He gently tossed it towards the bottom of the bed, where Maureen was standing.
Tears in her eyes, Maureen dropped her bag and picked up the box. She slowly opened it, gently removing the parcel inside. In her hands, she held a dark scarlet picture frame. Inside it was a picture of the night sky, September's full moon in the left corner. A myriad of tiny white stars decorated the velvet black of the sky. Living in the city all her life, Maureen had never seen that many stars before. She looked up at him questioningly.
"It's the moon," he whispered, "just like you wanted."
-Fin