TO THE MOON & TO SATURN | shawmila

one.

"Luna! Don't unbuckle your seatbelt!"

Camila glanced in the rearview mirror when she heard the sound of the buckle. Her daughter sighed before leaving her seatbelt on and flopping back in her seat.

"I was just trying to look at the moving truck." She whined.

"It's right there, see?" Camila nodded at the orange van they'd been driving behind for the last few hours.

"Are my Barbies still inside?"

"I promise all of your stuff is safe inside." Camila smiled at her daughter's reflection. "Do you wanna watch a show on your tablet? We're almost there."

Luna grabbed her tablet off the middle seat and Camila breathed in slight relief when she heard a cartoon starting up. She never wanted to be one of those moms who let their kid rot their brain by watching a screen all day, but this was an exception.

Camila and her daughter were currently moving across the state to live back in where Camila grew up, in Miami. Usually, Luna could amuse herself in the car without her tablet, but seeing as this was the longest drive she'd ever been on in her whole six years of life, Camila understood that her own imagination could only sustain her for so long.

Things would be better now that they were moving, Camila told herself. She'd been telling herself that every day, trying to convince herself it was true.

She had to do this for Luna.

Camila had only been twenty years old when she and her boyfriend of only six months found out she was pregnant.

She still remembered that day so vividly, crying her eyes out at the pregnancy test results after feeling sick all morning. She remembered telling Matt and watching the way his jaw set, his voice just whispering.

"Are you going to keep it?"

It wasn't asked with resentment, at least, Camila was pretty sure it wasn't. He said he was going to respect any choice she made and she believed him.

She thought about it all day, imagining how her life was going to change—how she was going to be bound to this man forever in a way.

In the end, she decided to keep her baby. She'd always wanted to be a mom one day, and maybe it was a little unexpected, but her baby wasn't at fault for that.

Camila's parents were a little upset she wasn't getting married, but they quickly realized they had to get on board with Camila's choices if they wanted to be in their grandchild's life.

Somewhere around the second trimester, she and Matt decided not to stay together romantically. She wasn't in love with him and he wasn't in love with her and it was just easier that way. It was mutual.

He was still kind to her, and respected her, the way you should with the other parent of your child. He was with her in the delivery room, holding her hand when she pushed and kissing her sweaty forehead when it was over.

He let her pick the name, since they knew it was going to be a girl, and since he knew how much she wanted a Spanish name.

Luna seemed like the perfect name for their girl, with her father's wide blue eyes and her tiny bald head. Camila kissed her newborn daughter's head and promised to protect her from everything bad in the world.

Matt was a pretty good father at first. Even though he and Camila weren't romantic, they still tried to be kind to each other and made sure Luna had what she needed.

They put Luna over everything, meaning they still relied on each other for companionship rather than trying to date around while they had a small child at home.