Luna and the Lie

by Mariana Zapata

“You will, baby. You always do. I don’t know anybody with a heart half as good as yours.”

“There really isn’t. You got that little fox on you, but you’re a wolf, baby.

A fucking miracle. I don’t know how you came out the way you did, but you teach me something about forgiveness and love every single day.

The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose.

You get to choose who you become. Who you love.

And I knew right then what I would choose. What I would always choose.

This man, Lucas Ripley, who was just as much of a taped together puzzle as I was.

I looked into those blue-green eyes and told him the truth. “I want to. I really want to.”

“Whatcha doing, baby?” the giant hunk of a man I could look at every minute for the rest of my life,

I wasn’t even a little surprised when he leaned over and kissed my neck before scooting the stool even closer to me,

Lenny and her gang.

You’d have figured he would have gotten used to my hugs over the years, but he hadn’t. He still sighed into my neck like it was something new, and wrapped his arms around me as tight as ever when I threw my arms around him suddenly. Squeezing him tightly. Squeezing him like he meant the world to me and had made my life ten times better by just existing. By just being the person that he was.

I was seriously the luckiest person in the world.