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“You want a shirt?” “Nah.” I try to breathe in something lighter. “I like the chill on my nipples. Keeps them perked.” He rolls his eyes into a slight smile. “She’s watching you.”
She is studying me from afar like I’m the most interesting patient and she’s the most inquisitive doctor. When I catch her, her cheeks go rosy. It’s cute. Gotta say that I’m glad I still have some positive effect on her. If she completely feared me, I don’t know what I’d even do. Go sob on a deserted island for a solid millennium. Befriend a volleyball.
In my heart of hearts, I know I’d use every ounce of self-given, self-accumulated resilience to show her I’m not som...
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“She fell in love with you for you,” Farrow says with the tilt of his head. “You don’t believe she could fall for you again?” It might seem far-fetched, but I have to believe it’s possible. Perseverance is what I’m good at. That never-giving-up attitude has saved my ass more than once, and I won’t give up on us now.
“You and I still brave them like they’re total background to our awesome abnormal lives.” He slips me another brotherly smile, and it feels the same. Not so different.
My parents—their souls were intertwined. In my life, their love had always been one-of-a-kind. Stuff of legend and fanfiction, and the fact that it was my reality, that I got to be raised by two soul mates, was a treasure I wouldn’t trade for anything. Not even dirt from Mars or the guarantee I’d write the best sci-fi novel in the world. It was that precious to me.
Pain radiated inside me. It was too much. I kept looking over at Donnelly in the corner. He’d give me a thumbs up. There was no Past Donnelly to gauge Present Donnelly. I just had this one Donnelly before me, and unlike with my family, it made things easier.
“Don’t put too much stress on yourself over it. I’m a knower of things, and I have this super annoying husband who practically drilled in my brain: Stress Bad, Relaxing Good.” My brother loves Farrow.
It pummels me again. Two of the most important, influential people in my whole life cosmically collided together—and I can’t even reminisce with him. Because I never saw them fall in love.
Charlie is someone who can create multiple Grand Canyons of his choosing, and it’s a calculated risk to exert the effort to even reach him.
Question of the Day: Has Rose Calloway ever farted in front of Connor?
I flip another page and another. Not reading everything, I’m just seeing how much Donnelly has used this notebook. So, so many pages are filled. My heart swells.
This is…not a tattoo sketch. Or maybe it is, but the style has changed from thick black lines to a thinner pen. He’s drawn a girl. Inside her eyes are twinkling stars, and I’m lost in the expressiveness of those lively orbs, as though she’s seen universes of light. And her hair—oh wow, her hair floats around her soft face, the tendrils whirling into flying saucers and comets and crescent moons and hearts. I’ve never seen anything this stunning or this beautiful, and I wonder if she might be…could this girl be me? Involuntary tears leak and one drips on the page.
Pain is an unwelcome companion in my life, something I find myself bumping into, and now it’s sitting on my chest.
“Whoever the girl is, you made her look out-of-this-world extraordinary.” His lips begin to rise. “You are, Luna.”
Brightness explodes in my body, an inward radiance that I haven’t ever felt before, not to this degree. He’s making me feel overpowered. An OP character in the novel of my life. And despite all of that, it’s hard to agree with him. “The Luna you know was extra spectacular, and I’m not sure she would’ve gone through your things.”
“Was your Luna a cynic too?” “Cynical, yeah. Pessimistic, sometimes. But you wanted so fucking badly to believe. Mostly in aliens.” I smile a little. “And yourself,” he adds, “and in us.” He tips his head, catching my gaze. “You were still adamant that the world was shit and people sucked.”
I just seem to always fail in the end.” I shrug. “I could be considered Luna the Failure.” “Failures are those who don’t even try. You always try—” “And face-plant.” “And pick yourself back up. Sounds more like Luna the Fighter to me.”
He’s such an encouraging human, and he’s right—he already knows I’m gonna try to remember, even if I’m frightened of the worse outcome.
“Careful of me,” I warn. “I could burn you. I am hotter than hot.” “No lie,” he smirks. “I’d burn up from you.”
an old photo. The edges are yellowed and creased, but the picture is clear. A smiling little boy is on the shoulders of a young guy, whose cheeks are a bit sunken but he’s smiling up at the boy too. They have the same chestnut brown hair. Same blue spinel gem eyes. Only, the little boy’s gaze is a billion watts brighter. Livelier. “Is this you?” I point to the boy. “Yeah. And my dad.”
“You’re alive, Luna.” He holds my gaze. “And I get to look at you and talk to you and go on dates with you. What more could I want? That’s everything to me.”
It barrels into me in the brightest, most luminous way possible.
Something about Donnelly makes me feel like I’ve known him my whole life, as if we’ve been together millenniums already.
My lips begin to rise. “I’m at your earthly service, space babe.”
We share a lethal attraction, and I’ve never fully understood Romeo and Juliet till I found a love I’d rather die inside than live without.
“I’m the guy who’s never been ashamed of anything I’ve ever done. I’ve stripped down in sweaty nightclubs, humped bronze statues at 2 a.m., skinny-dipped in strangers’ pools, pierced my cock, tattooed you.” She’s barely blinking, and I don’t stop. “Went down on you after your dad threatened my job over tattooing you, then tattooed you again.” Her eyes well. “I’ve been the son of addicts, a high school dropout, a slut, a tattooist, and a bodyguard, and I love everything about myself, despite so many people telling me I should hate who I am. That I’m shit. That I’m nothing. Not worth air. Not
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“I love dogs and dogs love me.” I leave out the fact that Kinney’s puppy would like to murder me in my sleep.
The Hales are something else. The Bad Luck Crew. Never thought I’d grow to love them as much as I do.
“I can’t believe she let you read our smut.” Her smile widens. “I kinda love her for it.” “Ditto.” I’m drawn into her emerging effervescence. Big word, effervescence, I know. It’d shock the pants off my dad, but I do read.
“I think you would’ve been proud of yourself, Luna Hale.”
“I’m ready. Take me to your planet.” More softly, she says, “I forgot the way.” It tunnels through me, and we gaze into one another, searching. Quieter, she whispers, “I’m lost with no map.” “You’ll find your way back,”
“I wanna do all the amazing things in this world.” The tail-end is too quiet to catch, but I’m hoping she said, with you. Please let it be with me.
Orion tries to follow me, but I close him in her room and whisper, “Stay with Luna. She needs you.”
I fucking hate this feeling. Anger has never lived inside of me, not long enough to take root and grow thorns, but every single time I think about that night…in that row house…it simmers beneath my skin. Crawling. Restless. Weight. I clench the counter.
I wanna scream, but the violent noise is like my nightmare, just soundless inside me. “I…need it to stop.” “What to stop?” “This…feeling, man.”
“Look at me,” Farrow urges, his clutch strong on my skull. I let my hand fall off my hot face. And with everything inside him, he tells me, “You are my family.” Tears gather in both our eyes, tears I don’t think we’ve ever shared like this. “That’s never changing.” It splits me open, and I bawl into my hand, into his chest. Glimpses of that night try to tear through me, and I just cry. It gushes out of me, and I can’t stop it any better than I could cut the anger. This time, though, the weight is releasing bit by bit. Easing off me slowly. I breathe.
I look up at my best friend. The closest thing I’ll ever have to a brother. And I know I’m gonna be okay, even if it takes some time. Bagel. Friends. Easier nights. Better tomorrows. He clasps my hand, and I rise.
Donnelly leans a hip against the booth, and he clutches on to a half-wrapped breakfast bagel. As he careens over my shoulder and peers at my journal on the table, I cage a fluttering breath. Absorbing the fact that Original Luna kinda dated him is like sucking on helium (even if we technically aren’t dating), and I feel floaty around him. So much about Donnelly compels me towards his bright energy field and pushes me to get to know him more. No amount of time spent with him feels like enough. I wonder if Original Luna experienced that too. I’m still holding in air. Like if I breathe too hard,
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One of my favorite bodyguards was a woman. Alana. I grew up with her, and when she retired, I wrote a story about Alana living forever in a queendom on Thebula. I tried to preserve her memory on my home planet, where I wished she’d always be.
“Maybe go out once in a while. Take a day off. Go wash your body with soap and you’ll find someone who wants to touch it.”
He carries himself like the world is his stage, a player amongst mortal men, while Tom walks with an earnestness like he has somewhere important he needs to be.
“But I personally have mixed, mostly negative, feelings.”
“I’m trying my best not to burn everything down.” Says the guy with a flame beside his face.
My Cobalt brethren telling Luna about her dog-shit ex-boyfriend is back-stabby, traitorous behavior. Something no friend or Musketeer would do. But like I’ve known, they’re her friends, her Musketeers. Not mine. So they’re true to Luna, and I can’t fault ‘em, especially if she asked outright. As much as I’ve looked up to the Cobalt Empire—been close to their brother Beckett too—Tom and Eliot don’t owe me anything. Not a sock, not a toothbrush, not loyalty. I’ve done nothing to earn that sort of devotion from them. On top of that beautifully steep mountain I haven’t tried to climb,
“You two just click,” Frog says simply. “Everyone who’s anyone can see it and believe it.” My friends are smiling, which are all of SFO in case that’s not clear. More than friends, actually. Family. Best I’ve ever had.
“When I was younger, I used to wish everyone would just stop.” His reddened eyes are off to the side. “Stop goddamn worrying about me. It was…suffocating. Even the days where I wasn’t fucking up, they were a reminder that I could. That I have. Then, as I got older, I wondered what it would’ve been like to never have people looking out for me, and I know I wouldn’t be here.” He shakes his head once. “It would’ve been easier to grab a bottle. My brother went to the ends of the earth to stop me from drinking myself into oblivion. But he shouldn’t have had to do that. There are people, family,
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Because all I’ve done is try my hand at luck, especially with his daughter. Hasn’t always turned out in our favor, but I’d rather keep taking my chances. At least then, I’m still racing towards her.
Turkey sandwiches made with heart, in a fancy penthouse, with a bout of amnesia, while casually seeing a guy who was dating my original self—it’s a great setting for a sci-fi fic, if I added time travel. It’d be cool if I could speak to Original Luna. Get more info from myself and not just everyone else.
he asks, even though my brain is halfway down his pants. I want him all the way down mine.
