Nobody Like Us (Like Us #13)

by Krista Ritchie

“I asked Donnelly out the night Grandfather died. Because when the world doesn’t make sense, my feelings for him have. So I went to him.”

“When I’m with Donnelly, I’m no longer scared. I’m not afraid of the world. I’m not afraid of the past. Of any darkness. All the fears I have about myself are gone because I’m my most beautiful self in his eyes, and he sees her before even I do.”

“He loves every version of me, and I love being with him, Dad. I love how he loves me completely. I love how uninhibited and mighty I feel when I’m with him. I could be a broken mess, and he’d still pick me up and try to love me back together. And he’s already done it. He’s already tried.” I blink away more tears. “Do you understand what that feels like?”

His eyes have reddened, and he nods slowly. “I’ve loved your mom at her weakest, at her strongest, at her most broken. And she’s loved me at mine. There’s n...

“I could say I found that too, but I have a feeling I never searched. Love like this feels inevitable. Like it has alwa...

“But the kitchen,” Dad says gently. “We eat there.” I wince and try not to visualize Donnelly eating me out there, but the clear connection seems to hit my dad because he grimaces. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “Never in a billion years…”

“Sometimes…I think this is all my fault.” It hurts. “Why?” “Because you’re an adult, and I’m still so goddamn scared I’m not doing enough to protect you that sometimes I think I’m hurting you by trying.”

I say what I feel again, and this time, I tell him, “I never want you to stop protecting me.” His eyes shoot up to mine. “You’re my dad, and I don’t want that to change with time.” “It could never, Luna.” His eyes bore into mine. “I’ll always be your dad. I’ll always try my best…” He gets choked up, and he has to look away. I wonder if he’s thinking about the night I was taken. “…even when my best isn’t nearly enough.”

“That’s all we can do, right?” I ask quietly. “We do what we can, the best we can, when we can. And we hope that’s enough.”

“Can you just ask Donnelly?” I whisper. “I don’t think I can tell you.” It hurts too much to share, and I want to protect him. It should be his choice on how to let it spill. After a long moment, he nods. “Okay. I’ll ask your boyfriend.” My lips part in gut-punching shock. Did I just transport myself to an alternate universe? Is this real? “Did you just call him my…?” “Is that not what he is to you?” he asks.

“You don’t think I’m obsessed? That this is just a trauma bond?” I’m almost scared to hear the answer. “If it is,” he says, “then it’s something your mom and I have, and we can’t throw stones at glass houses, can we?”

“She’s very upset, as she should be. As I am. She’s a sex addict who saw her daughter in a sexual position with a bodyguard in our kitchen.” Guilt invades, but I can’t even imagine how this is affecting her. “I’ll try to be more considerate,” I whisper. “Tell your boyfriend the same thing or I will. And if your mom sees him naked again—his funeral will be the next we attend.”

poor Lily 😭😭😭

“You two make out at the bar. You come home and hook up again. Then at the Fanaticon Convention, there was the late-night call into her bedroom. It sounds more like sex, man.”

GROW UP XANDER ADULTS HAVE SEX

“I think I’m just nervous you two won’t last as long if she doesn’t remember the past three years.” He’s casting sparks of doubt my way, and I’m not loving this kind of Hale magic. I want to reverse this feeling. “We’ll last,” I tell him. “She’s already fallen for me twice.”

That’s why he’s at the funeral home for Luna. Xander is putting me in his sister’s orbit. I love circling her—would do it all day—so I’m not complaining.

“I’m still afraid there is a universe where you’re not endgame anymore. And the Luna before the amnesia needs you around if she comes back.” She’s all one Luna to me. One girl to love over and over and over again.

😭😭😭😭😭😭

“He should know he’s wrong,” she says quietly, but she sends O’Malley those very words through her pinpointed gaze. I love my space babe.

“You can’t corrupt me, space babe.” Her lungs expand. “Are you sure?” Am I sure that she’s not toxic for me? That I’m not toxic for her? That we’re not toxic together? Yeah. Because loving Luna has made me happier than I’ve ever been. On the outside looking in, we might appear like a weird mess, but inside looking out, we’re the rulers of our own universe. And I don’t care what anyone has to say about us.

“I’ve never feared being pulled to the dark side when I’m with you, Luna. If anyone was going to corrupt me, it would’ve never been you.” Her smile grows tenfold. “We are Jedi together.” “Are you my master or my apprentice?” “Master.” I grin. “Knew you were teaching me the ways, all this time.”

“I don’t want this to hurt our relationship at all,” she whispers. “Not when we just became something. But I think I need your help, Donnelly.” One of her hands grips tighter to my beltloops. “Whatever you need, I’m here. I’ll always help you,” I tell her.

Instead of fearing whatever has her freaked out, I hang on to the best part of her asking me for help. Luna sees me as reliable, the one she can depend on for anything. Why else would she be coming to me with her problems and not her older brother? Makes me feel like her actual boyfriend. Which I am, but damn, I’m really going to love the fuck out of this.

Frog asks over comms, “Is she okay?” “Should we approach?” Quinn’s voice follows. I click my mic. “Just give us a few minutes.” “Sure. You are the boyfriend after all,” Frog says, a smile to her voice. Yeah, I’ve always liked

“It might be too much to dig out from.” “Pile that dirt on me,” I tell her, making a rock on gesture. “I’m already halfway buried. There’s nothing I can’t get out of.” “With a shovel?” “Nah, I’ve got the best hands for digging myself out of shit, and I’ll use them for us.”

I let go of our phones when she grabs my hands. She inspects my callused palms with a sweet meticulousness. It double-thumps my heart. “They are tough hands,” she says, as if charting it down for history’s sake. “Of the best digging caliber.”

“See, I’ve got the hands,” I breathe. “What do I bring?” “The heart.” I eye her lips as she eyes mine. “You have two since I already gave you mine.” She presses a hand to her heart. “Feels mighty.” God, I want to wrap myself around her and hold her for the rest of eternity. Till death do we never part. “Your heart is mighty, Luna,” I say.

“We’re gonna dig ourselves out of every hole anyone tries to push us in, I know that.” “You’re not exhausted yet?” she wonders. “Not even close,” I say. “Are you?” “No,” she says with more confidence. “I’d do anything to be with you.”

Thatcher/Farrow: Chop firewood.

Jane and Moffy scheming 💀💀💀

I love it here, and I’d like to believe all of this has never changed and will never change while we’re alive. That even among the heartache and pain, this is the place where we get stitched back together.

“I love being here. With you. With your family.” His gaze rests softly against mine. “But I’m always expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me, and it’s bad enough you’re standing on it now too.” “I think I’ve always been on the same rug,” I say so quietly, I doubt he hears.

“I hate that, you know. I want to pick you up and place you on Thebula’s grass.” “Right beneath the Divothian Waterfall.” He grins. “You’re soaking wet.” “Uh-huh,” I smile back. “Drenched in the waters of immortality.” “With me.” My heart swells five sizes too big. “With you.”

“We all had crushes when we were sixteen,” Akara tells her. “Donnelly.” He suddenly brings him into the conversation. “Who’d you crush on?” His eyes dart to me, then the sky. “The moon. Round and sexy. Always out to play at night.” He makes a crude gesture with his fingers, splitting them in a V, and sticks his tongue between them. I grin. Akara holds out a hand like it’s strange evidence but evidence nonetheless.

“There you go, Sul. It’s not that big of a deal. The lifeguard wasn’t that ugly⁠—” “It was you!” she snaps. “Okay, it was you. You were standing behind him, Kits. I was looking at you and I slipped—which I never do!” Akara is stunned. Banks buckles in laughter. “It’s not funny,” Sulli groans. “No, now it’s fuckin’ hilarious,” Banks says, his laughter making Sulli’s restart, but she tries to stop, then strides away from her husbands.

“Do you think we’ll ever reach a place where we’re not standing on our tiptoes, waiting to sprint?” He starts to smile, which surprises me. “What do you have against sprinting?” I shrug. “I’m not that fast.” “I’ll carry you.” “I’ll weigh you down.” “You’re air in my arms.” I smile at the fantastical image.

“You’ll never stop, will you?” “I don’t know how,” he admits. “That’s the thing about the rug. You stop caring if it gets pulled when you figure out how to land on your feet when it does.” “Teach me how,” I say. Donnelly approaches with a grin. “And so the apprentice becomes the master.”

“I’ve thought more about my memory guardian.” I’ve made a choice. There’s also a great, planet-sized chance that Donnelly won’t love who I picked.

“I was just thinking about your memory guardian.” Donnelly crumples the trash bags in his hands. “We must be riding the same wavelength.” “Uh-huh,” I agree. “Different species. Same language.” “One of these days I’m going to morph into an alien and we’ll be the same—then what are you going to do, space babe?” “Marvel at the discovery of inter-species transmutation.”

“Do I like this guardian of your memories? Are they a good person?” I squint. “Uh…depends on who you ask. I would classify them as more of an anti-hero. A Loki.”

is it Charlie

“It can’t be you.” His eyes redden, fighting emotion, and his gaze lands on me. “But Charlie?”

knew it

“Be selfish for yourself, Luna Hale. It’s what I would do.” Donnelly understands survival better than I ever likely could.

“Godspeed, space babe.” He gives me a perfect Vulcan salute, and my heart soars out of my body. This is my boyfriend. Did I manifest him from one of my fics? Feels like it.

I want to discover all there is and all there ever could be about my boyfriend. Leave no stone unturned.

“My dad…” Audrey is still holding the cardboard torso. “My dad is decapitated.” “Cardboard Dad,” Kinney says. “And he’s like seventy years older than this now.” She gestures to the cardboard face of a young twentysomething Uncle Connor. “The young version of him is disturbing. This might be a Christmas miracle for my eyes.”

I wish I could stay and watch them smuggle decapitated Cardboard Connor into the house, but I have a mission of my own.

Winona digs at her cuticles. “Sometimes it’s easier to pick a fight on behalf of someone else.”

First mode of action: Try to figure out how to pass them without being seen. Should I crawl? Moon walk? Pretend to wear an invisibility cloak?

“You have older brother tendencies.” Charlie side-eyes me with more interest than irritation. “I’m not like your older brother.” “I didn’t say you were like Moffy.” I try not to lean forward too much. Without a railing, the drop down makes me woozy. “That doesn’t mean you don’t land in the older brother category on the Venn diagram.” I zip up my puffer jacket as a gust blows through the Outpost. “You seem particularly irritated by your younger siblings.” “They are annoying.” Another page flip.

“But I think deep-down, you would try to move mountains for them, if they really needed you. You just maybe don’t feel all that needed, and sometimes, you like it that way. Because it’s easier than watching people you love fail over and over again.” I watch the light dance over the water, but I feel his gaze on me. “So…” Heat bathes my cheeks, feeling his stare, but I don’t brave a glance at Charlie. “I have thought a lot about you being older than us.” I whisper, “Maybe it’s the writer in me.”

“You can sleep on it. It’s a big deal. It’s my diary.” “You called it a journal,” Charlie says. “Same thing.” “A diary implies there are more personal pieces of information than just a journal. Scientists keep journals. They don’t necessarily keep diaries.” Oookay. “Well, I guess I’m not sure how personal it is. It’s like a dournal.” Charlie smiles at the made-up word while taking a drag. I know his dad would have cringed at it. “Alright then,” he says, smoke billowing out of his nose. “I’ll read your dournal.”

Uncle Garrison wears a black hoodie underneath a jean jacket—what he wore to Grandfather Calloway’s funeral.

I love him 😂🥹

I frown. “Strange.” “It is,” Charlie agrees, and I figure he’ll drop the matter. Until he sets course for the boathouse with the casual stride of a sightseer in Paris. Then he spins around, walking backwards, just to catch my gaze. “Are you coming or are you just going to stand there like a stupefied tree?” Solving a mystery with Charlie wasn’t on my bingo card today. But the invitation is all I need to accept the voyage. And the risk.