Luna and the Lie

by Mariana Zapata

I cut that train of thought off real quick. Some things and people were so acidic, even thinking about them could destroy.

For one microsecond, I asked myself how I could fix this without involving anyone. But just as quickly as I wondered that, I reminded myself that there was no way. What was I going to do? Hide the car and do everything all over again? The primer alone needed a day to dry. I wasn’t sure I believed in miracles, and I wasn’t about to start now.

There was only one thing I could do. Suck it up, sugar tits, my sister would say.

I had messed up. I took ownership of my actions. I didn’t run away from my problems, even if I sometimes ignored them.

Own it. I had to own it. Lying was bad—most of the time. Pretending to be stupid was worse.

You’re a decent person and you try to do what’s right, even if it sucks.

I was tired. Inside and out. No matter how much I had tried not to wallow in the guilt I felt for screwing up—and

Maybe I had gotten in trouble. Maybe it hadn’t been the best day ever. Maybe everything hurt. But I was home. I had gotten a kiss from someone who loved me. I had a bed to sleep in.

I reminded myself that life was a gift—sometimes one you wanted to return, and other times one you’d want to keep forever, but it was still a gift.

Then I picked up the mugs by their handles, ignoring how many times I had done this exact same thing for other people in my life—except in those cases, the coffee never did anything, no matter how much I would have wanted it to.

For the first time in months, his mouth tipped up maybe a millimeter. At the most a millimeter. But it was a smile. A tiny smile that might have been interpreted a dozen other ways by people who hadn’t spent a whole lot of time looking at this man’s face… but I had, and I knew what it was. A little smile. All because of a birthday cake. Like a hopeless dummy, my heart thumped.

EEEEK

And I did. I wrapped up the tiny bit of hurt I felt at the idea that Rip would never be interested in me, my dream about two people who didn’t know what kindness was if it kicked them in the face… and I dropped it into the imaginary trash can that was full of other things I didn’t let hurt me anymore.

What I chose was to not let Rip ruin my day. I was going to choose to not stay mad or hurt over this. So, I balled up my anger toward Rip and I threw it in the trash.

But most grudges were a waste of time. They were a vortex where you lost time, energy, and happiness. Time, energy, and happiness you could apply toward something that was good, something that your whole life benefited from. Something that could actually make you happy. And I wanted to be happy more than I wanted to be right.

I couldn’t just turn my feelings on and off. I needed at least ten minutes.

“I’m just throwing out ideas since you’re being all desperate and needy about wanting to get this favor over with.”

Of course I’d reacted the way any sane person would. I had sat there and stared blankly for about a minute until he’d raised his eyebrows at me and said, Night’s not getting any younger, baby girl. Let’s go. And that, that had snapped me out of it.

Sometimes you outgrew people.

Legs and thighs pressed against me, and something warm grazed my cheek as gentle, almost delicate words filled my ears. “It’s all right, baby girl,” they started. “You’re a good girl.” “A nice girl.” “The nicest.” “Sweetest.”

“You got your ‘love you’ bracelet on. You’re all right.” The arm closest to the top, directly over my shoulders, tightened, and warmer, soothing words tried to drown the old ones away. “I’ve got you. I’m here,” the man holding me said. He had me.

It was hard to picture Rip as a little kid having his mom soothe him. But it was even harder to picture that it was him soothing me right then the only way he knew how.

I had used to think that my parents stomping my ego to pieces as a kid had been a disgrace, but now… now I thought it had been a gift. I knew what I could take without breaking. Bending hurt. It was uncomfortable. It was terrible. But I knew that bending didn’t kill.

Another “Luna…” that reminded me of a shooting star with a long tail behind it. A dying meteor. That’s what it was in a way. I would forgive him. I would move on, but that Luna wouldn’t change what it really was. A reminder that he was my boss first and foremost. A dying little dream that was burning itself out.

It was hard to tell your heart what your brain was smart enough to understand.

He got the next words out of his mouth before the cop interrupted, quietly, gently, and more earnestly than I ever would have imagined. “I’m glad you’re good too, baby girl.”

“If I want to come get you, I’m gonna come get you. Deal with it,”

“All I’m saying is, you don’t have to take shit, and you need to quit believing you do.

The heart wants what it wants, but the brain knows what it can get.

“Luna,” he growled through his teeth, taking another step forward. That big body seeming to expand before my eyes. “It’s my business. You are my business.”

You can’t make anyone love you or care about you. I knew that better than anyone. The hairs on my arms stood up, my back prickled, and I just went… numb as I stood there, looking down at the man I had cared for, for years. The one who had started to make me feel that I wasn’t a nuisance, that it was okay to ask him for things. That had made me feel safe. Understood. And I realized the burn in me was actually a freezer burn. Leave me alone, Lucas Ripley had just said to me. I didn’t have much pride, but I had enough. Maybe Rip couldn’t put things together enough, but I had left the people who hadn’t wanted me around and never looked back. Enough was enough. I was over it—those words, getting shoved aside by all these people I cared about, being made to feel dispensable—that all of this felt like acid on my soul.

My heart had been broken, stomped on, and moved to dust just yesterday, and like the other times the same thing had happened, I knew I could regrow it. That was my other superpower. I would make myself always come back from the dumps.

Only an idiot kept giving after a certain point, and I was no one’s fool. No one’s punching bag. No one’s temporary entertainment.

Looking back on it, I should have chosen a different approach. But that was the thing with looking back on your actions: life didn’t have a rewind button. Unfortunately.

“But I’m done. I know how to listen. I can tell when I’m wasting my time, and I’m not going to waste my time anymore. I’m not going to give and give and give to someone who doesn’t want what I have to share. My parents have done it to me, my siblings have done it to me, everyone does it to me when I let them, and you’re going to be the last person who makes me feel like a freaking nuisance.

I also didn’t need to glance up to know Lucas Ripley was looking down at me when I tried to pull my hand out of his, and his grip tightened instead of loosening.

The fingers around mine jerked. “I’m more than your boss.” That had me trying to pull my hand out of his. “No, Rip. That’s what you are, and I just happened to forget that.” He cursed. Rip cursed under his breath, his fingers tightening. “No, baby girl, there was nothing for you to forget.”

“Are you his fucking girl?” the other guy demanded, his pitch going higher. His girl? Rip’s girl? My “no” came out at the same time Rip said, “What do you think?” What do you think?

Rip got to his feet so fast, it was a blur. “You like having all those teeth in your mouth? Or you good with going home, missing a few of them?”

“I don’t know how to give you flowery words and shit like that, Luna. I don’t know how to tell you what you want or need to hear. It’s been a long fucking time since I’ve given a fuck about anybody. Do you understand that?”

Like an idiot, I asked, “What do you want back?” “I want my goddamn Luna back,” he breathed, stealing the air from my lungs.

You gave me these pieces of you I know you haven’t given to anybody else, and they’re mine. You can’t take ’em back. I need them more than you do, you hear me?”

“Mr. Ripley—” He smiled. He full-out, outright smiled. Dimple and everything. At me. “You mean Rip.”

I’ve grown up with guys. Even if they feel bad about something, most of the time, they won’t even say they’re sorry. They’ll just act normal and hope you forget. They’re not going to get you flowers and make you coffee and say things like that to you.

“I want what I should’ve been taking from you from the moment you started being sugar sweet to me. From the first time you went out of your way to make me feel good... made me feel better than anyone has for the first time in a long fucking time.”

I thought you were the most beautiful fucking girl I’d ever seen when you walked into that tiny-ass office three years ago being all cocky and shit.

“Did he finally decide to get his head out of his ass?” Mr. Cooper asked with a wary smile after a moment. “What?” He repeated himself. “Did he finally get his head out of his ass and tell you to save those dates for him?”

“I told him to get the fuck out,” he kept going unapologetically. “Told him you weren’t going to be meeting him tonight or any other night, and he might as well go hit up someone else’s girl because he wasn’t getting mine.”

I’ve got into a lot of fucking fights in my life, and I’m starting to think it was all to get me ready for you,” he threatened.

“You’re too young. You’re too sweet. You’re too good for me. But I’m done standing around trying to suck up all the goodness you make me feel without you even knowing, Luna. You are my girl. Just you. Nobody else ever has or will be.”

That was because… because… connected to the same keychain his house key was on, something dangled from it. Something that looked like an ice cream cone charm. An ice cream cone charm that I’d had on a necklace. A necklace that I had put on him after the car accident. He’d kept it? He’d put it on his keychain?