“You did?” she asks, slightly breathless.
“I did, but I’m not going to ask her right now. I want to ask her the right way and make a big deal out of it so she can have time to think about her answer.”
“I think she might say yes.” Her chest heaves as our lips brush.
“I sure hope so.” I kiss her again and again, tasting her lips. “Are you sure you want to stand up to Piper?”
Her breath dusts across my lips as she exhales. “I should’ve done it a long time.”
“No matter what happens, I’ll be here for you.” I move in for another kiss but stop. “You know that, right? I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods. “I know, and I’m glad. It makes it a bit easier, knowing I won’t be in this alone.”
“You definitely won’t be alone,” I say then kiss her.
We spend the rest of the morning making out in my car until the bell rings. As we pull away, readjusting our crooked clothes, I get out my phone to text Piper that the deal is off.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I double check.
She fixes the strap of her shirt then takes my phone, types a message, and hits send.
“There. Now there’s no going back.” She returns my phone to me, trying to appear confident, but I can see the sea of concern in her eyes.
I’m worried, too. With how quickly Piper spread the rumor about me, I wouldn’t be surprised if people were whispering about Luna’s kleptomania before first class even starts. She’ll probably drag me through the gutter more, too.
I wish she would only come after me. Piper’s drama may be annoying, but I haven’t been mocked throughout high school like Luna, and I don’t have to go home to parents who rip me apart.
If this is what Luna wants to do, then I have to let her. The last thing she needs is more people telling her what to do. All I can do now is hold her hand and be there for her the entire way through. I can be the guy my father knew I always could be.
The rest of the week passes by excruciatingly slow, mostly because I’m so excited for Friday to get here so I can meet my aunt. My parents have been focused on packing up my stuff and seem rather upbeat about the idea that I’ll be leaving. Of course, they’re telling everyone that I was awarded a scholarship to some prestigious private school up in Washington, and that’s why I’ll be moving away. They spend every dinner pointing out all the stuff I’ve done wrong and why I’ve ended up in the position I’m in.
I endure it the best I can, counting down the days until I move out it. My soon-to-be freedom is my motivation to keep my kleptomania under control, and it’s working pretty well. I don’t sleep very well, though, too worried that my plans will get revealed somehow.
Getting through school is complicated, too. Piper made good on her word. Within an hour after learning Grey would no longer be playing her game, she told the school my secret and decided to embellish, adding that Grey and I slept with each other at the party. So, not only am I a thief, but I’m also a slut.
Logan takes every opportunity to remind me of this while Piper sits back and watches the drama unfold. Life could be worse, though. I could be going through this alone.
“I’m getting so tired of this,” Wynter says to me on Friday morning when we walk up to my locker and find a bunch of “Living with STDs” brochures taped to it.
She rips the brochures off, marches over to the trashcan, and tosses them in there. On her way back to me, people whisper and stare, and it makes something snap inside her.
“Stare all you want, but you’re the ones who are idiots!” she shouts, turning in a circle in the middle of the hallway. “You’re the ones who are going along with this, but you know what? Sooner or later, she’s going to come after you, too, and you’re going to know what it’s like to be laughed at.” When the whispers and stares increase to laughter and gawking, Wynter fumes, returning to my side.
“I’m going to put a stop to this.” She leans against the locker beside me with her thinking face on.
“Just let it go.” I collect my English book and iPod before I close my locker. “Eventually, it’ll all blow over.”
“You’re too much of an optimist,” she mutters, putting a braid in her hair. “If anything, things are going to get worse.”
“So they get worse.” I shut my locker and hug my books to my chest as we start toward class. “I have you guys, and that’s all that really matters to me.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Her lips thin as she pinches them together. I can see her wheels turning in her head, her thoughts heading to who knows where. “I need to go somewhere before class. I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Wynter, leave it alone!” I beg as she strides away from me with her chin held high.
She raises her hand up and waves at me before turning down one of the side hallways.
I sigh and begrudgingly go to class, crossing my fingers that she doesn’t do something that will add fuel to the fire.
By the time the lunch bell rings, I noticed two things. One, this thing going on between Beck and Willow isn’t simply going to blow over. The two of them still can’t look each other in the eye, which makes the vibe in our circle awkward. And two, Wynter has definitely done something to Piper.
I first noticed something was off during third period, a class I have with Piper. Usually, whenever she walks in, she seizes the chance to whisper as loudly as she can to her friends, “There’s the thief slut. Everyone keep an eye on your purses.” Then her friends snicker and clutch their bags as if, at any given moment, I’m going to get up and try to steal it from them.
Today, however, nada. No whispering. No snickering. Piper doesn’t even look at me. It’s as if I’ve become invisible or something. The same thing happens with Logan during fourth period. He doesn’t even so much as cast a glance in my direction.
By the time the lunch bell rings, I know something’s going on.
“What did you do?” I ask Wynter the second she sits down with her lunch.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Willow says, taking an apple and a soda from her bag. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “I know you said something to Piper, Wynter. She hasn’t said anything to me since you walked off this morning, and even Logan’s left me alone.”
“Hey.” Grey sits down beside me, leaning in to give me a kiss on the cheek. When he catches sight of my face, though, he pauses. “What happened?”
“Ask Wynter.” I glare at her. “I told you not to get involved in this. Now she’s going to come after you.”
Wynter waves it off, biting into her apple. “I’ll be fine. I’m tough as nails, Lu. You know that.”
“But I don’t want you to have to be tough as nails,” I say. “Not because of me.”
“It won’t be because of you. I chose to do what I did.” She pops the tab on her soda can. “You didn’t make me do it.”
“What exactly did you do?” Grey asks, massaging my shoulders.
Wynter takes a sip of her soda, shrugging. “Something that should’ve been done a long time ago.” She balances the can between her outstretched legs as we wait for her to explain further. “Look, all I did was talk to a few people and see if any of them had any dirt on Piper. Turns out, Beth, one of my friends from the volleyball team, has an uncle who is a plastic surgeon out in Fair Hollow. Apparently, right before Piper moved here, she lost some weight and really matured in the”—she points at her chest—“department, but only because she went and got a bunch of plastic surgery done.” Wynter relaxes back on her hands and slips off her sandals. “Now, normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but since Piper is so fixated with how people look, I didn’t think she’d take it too well if people knew that her little caterpillar to butterfly transformation was a lie. It also helped that Beth knows how to get some of the before photos of her.”
While I’m glad to have a break from Piper, I still feel guilty that this will eventually backfire on Wy
nter.
“I really wish you’d have talked to me first before you did anything.”
“Why? You’d have just talked me out of it.” She kneels up and moves over in front of me. “I love you, Luna. You’re like the sister I never got to have, and when I made a promise to you in third grade that no one would ever hurt you, I meant it.” She targets her gaze on Grey. “Remember that when you so much as think about doing anything that will hurt her.”
Grey slings his arm around me. “Good thing I’m planning on never hurting her.”
“Good boy,” Wynter says then hugs me. “Now, let this go and start packing your stuff. We might have gotten all the drama settled at school, but we need to get you out of the house.”
I nod, and then we pull away, shifting the conversation to much lighter things like the dance. Ari and Wynter decide they’ll go together as friends while Beck works and works to get Willow to smile and agree to go with him to the dance. At first, I don’t think he’s going to be able to pull it off, but I should know better than to ever question Beck’s ability to charm people. After doing a little dance and song performance in the middle of our circle with half the school watching, Willow finally cracks a smile.
“Fine, I’ll go with you,” she says, laughing. “Just no more singing.”
“Sounds like the perfect deal.” Beck grins as he plops down on the grass beside her.
“But just as friends, right?” Willow asks, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger.
“Of course,” Beck replies with a nod.
I’m still not exactly sure what happened between the two of them at the party. Willow insists it was just the sexy dancing that made things uncomfortable, but I have to wonder if something more happened after Ari and I took off.
If that’s the case, Willow seems pretty dead set on keeping it a secret.
“I’ll be at the store if you need me,” Grey tells me as we stand in front of the restaurant I’m supposed to be meeting my aunt at. He has his hands resting on my hips and worry creasing his face. “Maybe I should wait until she shows up, just to make sure everything is okay.”
“I’ll be fine.” I stand on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. Even after a week straight of kissing him, it still turns my stomach into butterflies and my legs into goo. “And if you stick around, you’ll be late for work.”
“I can be a few minutes late.”
“No, you can’t.” I step back and point a stern finger toward the end of the block. “Now get going.”
His lips quirk. “I think the bossy side might even turn me on more than the sore loser side.”
I lightheartedly swat his arm, and he laughs, reluctantly heading away from me.
I watch him walk away for a moment before I muster up some bravery and open the door to the restaurant. I take a seat in a corner booth and order a Coke while I wait for my aunt to show up, worrying that I won’t be able to spot her when she walks. Although I’ve seen photos of her, she’s almost fifteen years older now. She could’ve changed a lot over that amount of time.
All my concerns vanish when the door dings, and a woman in her thirties walks in with similar features as my mom and freckles on her nose just like me. She recognizes me, too, and rushes toward me with joy radiating from her eyes.
“I’m so glad I finally get to see you after all these years,” she says as she reaches the table I’m at. ”
“Me, too . . . I’ve wanted to meet you forever.” I get up and give her a hug. As I put my arms around her, I become painfully aware of just how little my parents hug me and how most of the hugs I’ve received over the years have been from my friends and now Grey.
My aunt pulls away to get a good look at me. “You look so beautiful and happy.” Worry suddenly masks her expression. “Does Mom know you’re here?”
I shake my head. “She wasn’t at the house when I left. She’s at a church meeting, and she should be there until at least seven, so we have a couple of hours.”
“How are things with her?” she asks as we take a seat across from each other in the booth.
“I don’t know . . . Everything’s fine, I guess.” I reach for a saltshaker and spin it in my hands, feeling restless.
She shucks off her jacket and sets it aside. “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
I sigh and start telling her what’s been going on while she’s been gone. I tell her about my strict home life, how hard things have been sometimes, how I never felt like I was good enough for them, and how part of me didn’t want to be good enough for them because, whenever I tried, it felt like I wasn’t being true to myself. Then I tell her about my friends and how, when I’m with them, I feel at peace with who I am.
I talk for over an hour, and by the time I’m done, I feel so much lighter.
She collects the mug in front of her, takes a sip, and then smiles thoughtfully as she puts the cup down. “You sound just like me. I always felt like the walls were closing in on me every time I was in that house, but when I was at school or hanging out with my friends, it was like I could finally breathe, you know.”
“That sounds exactly how I feel. It took me forever to act like myself in front of other people, though. I kept a lot of stuff from my friends for quite a while because I was afraid they wouldn’t like me.” I tear open a sugar packet and dump it into my coffee.
“It took me until I was about sixteen,” she says. “Up until that point, I spent every waking hour trying to do exactly what was expected of me. Of course, nothing was ever good enough, and I eventually got tired, said to hell with it, and did what I wanted.”
“Do you ever regret it?”
“Nah. I mean, I regret some of the stuff I did during my wild spree, but I don’t regret getting kicked out or anything.” She cradles the mug in her hand. “Leaving that house was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
I stir my coffee with a spoon, mixing the sugar. “Can I ask . . . ? Do you mind if I ask why you got kicked out?”
Her brows spring upward. “They never told you?”
I shake my head. “I was always told you just did a bunch of bad things and that your mom kicked you out.”
“I did do some bad things. That part is true.” She sets the cup aside and rests her arms on the table. “I guess where it all really started was with the fire, though.”
I turn my hands over on the table, palms facing up, showing my scars. “The one that put these on me.”
Sadness creeps into her expression as she slides her hands across the table and places them over my palms. “I didn’t know it left scars.”
“They’re not that bad. Hardly anyone notices them.” Lie, but I don’t feel as guilty as I typically do, because it helps erase some of the guilt in her eyes.
“Still, you never should’ve had them at all.” Her tone is tight.
“Do you know how the fire started? Because I was always told that it was intentional, but that was about it.”
“Yeah, Mom started it.”
“My mom started it?” My eyes become round like saucers.
“Burning my clothes,” she adds. “Mom and Dad hated the clothes that I started wearing, so they threw them into the fireplace. One thing led to another, and the fire got out of control and spread through the house. They panicked and ran out of the house, shouting that it was all my fault. They were probably a little bit right. I did test their patience a lot. I was just glad I got you out of the house without us getting hurt. That’s what they can’t see—that their crazy punishments lead to so much damage. Even their verbal abuse isn’t harmless. It made me hate myself for a very long time until I realized that maybe it was just them, that maybe they had expectations that no person could ever live up to.”
Two things crash down on me in that moment and knock the wind out of me. One, I realize why I always felt I knew my rescuer, because it was her. She saved me from that fire. She might be the reason I’m alive today. And two, she keeps saying Mom and Dad like my parents ar
e hers.
“Ashlynn, what are you to me?” I ask. “I mean, you’re my aunt, right? Because that’s what I’ve been told for pretty much my whole life.”
“No, I’m your sister.” Her shock slowly simmers to rage. “Those assholes. I can’t believe they’d do that, that they’d lie to you about something like that for all these years. I should’ve tried to get in touch with you earlier, but I thought, until you were eighteen, there was no way I’d be able to see you without risking getting the cops called on me.”
“They threatened to call the cops on you if you tried to see me?” That’s why she stayed away all this time, because they kept me away from her.
She nods, her eyes wild with fury. “They said they’d report me for stalking if I so much as ever came within ten feet of any of you. I should’ve said fuck it, though. I never should’ve left you alone with them, not after the fire.”
I have so many questions, so many things I want to say, but before I can get the words out, my mom storms up to our table.
Untamed anger burns in her eyes as she grabs my arm and yanks on me, stabbing her nails into my flesh. “Luna Harvey, get your butt out to the car right now. I couldn’t believe it when I drove by. At first, I thought I was seeing things because I thought there was no way my daughter would betray me like this.”
I wrench my arm away from her and scoot back into the booth. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her anger blazes as she pounds her fist against the table, knocking a glass of water over. “You do not say no to me, young lady. Now get in that car before I make you. And say good-bye to Aunt Ashlynn because you’re never going to see her again.”
“You mean my sister Ashlynn.” My words carry a punch, and I can see the impact as my mother tenses.
“You can’t make her do anything,” Ashlynn says calmly. “She’s eighteen years old, and she can decide when she’s going to leave, where she’s going to go, and who she’s going to see.”
She points an unsteady finger at Ashlynn. “You stay out of this. You’re not a part of this family anymore.”