AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Luna
“Sweetheart,” Dad says, pulling me into his arms. “Welcome back home.”
I hug him back tightly, swallowing a lump in my throat. “Hi, Dad.”
He strokes my hair and I pull back, taking him in, taking in the house with its old, cozy furniture and landscapes hanging on the walls, painted by my grandmother.
“Nothing has changed,” I lied.
“It’s all the same as when you left,” Dad mutters, glancing around, thinking I’m talking about the house.
Maybe I am talking about the house. I’m not sure.
Maybe I’m just voicing a fear lurking in the back of my mind, that coming back after three years, I’d find that nothing had improved. Not about the house.
About myself.
I left to escape the bullying at my school, and went away to live with Aunt Emily, finish school there. Now I’m back and not sure how I feel about it, what I have to show for my absence.
If you hadn’t noticed.
Josh, my little brother, rushes up to me, breaking my train of thought, the swell of dark thoughts and memories. He wraps his arms around my waist and looks up at me.
“Looney!” he says with a big grin.
I roll my eyes. “Stop butchering my name, little skunk.”
Josh chortles. “Come see my new bike!” He tugs on my hand, and I follow him, shooting Dad a wry look.
He shrugs helplessly and perches on a stool at the kitchen island, reaching for his favorite black mug of coffee.
God, it’s so weird to be back. It makes me feel younger, unsure of myself, it brings back so many memories, both good and bad. Dad looks older, though, more white at his temples and in his beard, darker freckles on the back of his hands.
As Josh drags me to his room upstairs, I can’t get those freckles out of my head. The hands of an old man, I think, and shiver. How did time pass by so fast?
“Dad gave it to me for my birthday,” he says. “Here.”
His small hands are strong, hinting at the man he’ll grow up to be.
Men are strong, bigger, and cruel. Not all of them, I’ll give you that, and I’ve seen girls way crueler than guys, but even so...
Enough now, Luna.
“You weren’t here for my birthday,” Josh says, and guilt rips through me.
“I know. I had school exams.”
He nods jerkily. “Look. It’s sleek.”
The bike is a pretty, vibrant blue. “God, look at all the gears it has,” I gush over it, just to see his eyes shine with joy. “It’s a super bike.”
“It’s better than the one you had,” he says breathlessly.
He should know. He used it up to now. Dad makes better money now than before, and the bike I used to have was a piece of crap. Whenever I rode it to school, I was made aware of that fact by everyone.
“You be careful when you ride it,” I tell him sternly, and he just smiles crookedly at me. “Don’t go too fast. Don’t race with your friends, you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah...” His turn to roll his eyes. “You sound like Mom.”
I doubt he means that. Josh is ten, born right before Mom and Dad got divorced. Dad got custody of us. Mom had never been good with children, apparently. Never really wanted any.
No offense, she said once.
Yeah, Mom. Sure. One day I may understand this, but not now, not yet. I mean, I don’t want children right now either, and maybe never, but I didn’t get married, have the kids and then decide it wasn’t what I wanted, right? Me and Josh, we’re not toys to throw away.
This is the new me talking, by the way. The old Luna did feel like a discarded toy most of her life, but staying with my aunt and cousins went a long way into changing that.
God, I miss them already, no matter how happy I am to see Dad and Josh again. How will I get through this return, through this summer? What will I do next?
***
“Are you happy to be back?” Dad observes me from the corner of his eye as we sit at the table, eating a dinner of pot roast he made. He’s a great cook. We were lucky we stayed with him, for so many reasons.
And of course, he can read me like an open book, and chose to ask the one question I don’t want to answer, that
I dreaded to hear.
“I’m glad to see you and Josh,” I deflect. Chew on a piece of meat to buy time. “Really glad.”
He nods, shoves the bowl of salad toward Josh who’s frowning down at his food, moving it around his plate. “Greens.”
Josh makes a face. Just like when he was four. Always hated his greens. This much hasn’t changed.
The sounds from outside the half-open window are quiet and familiar, from the chirping of birds in the big oak to the shouts of kids playing on the street and the more distant whirring of cars passing on the main road.
With the taste of the roast on my tongue and the smell of the flowers outside the window, this certainly feels like a homecoming.
And it scares me. I can’t go back to who I was, what I was.
I swore not to go back to that.
Dad is observing me again, while pretending not to, fork poised over his plate. When he catches my eye, he chews on the inside of his cheek and says, “All good in there, honey?”
I nod, try on a smile. “Yeah. It’s just...”
Just so frigging weird to be here, and so disconcerting to know I’m back in the same town as the people who bullied me.
Deep breaths, I order myself. You’ll be fine. Avoid them for the Summer. Just keep away from where they hang out, keep other people around you. Easy-peasy.
And then you’ll be gone again.
We finish dinner, and Josh gets up to bring the desert. All specially made for me, the daughter who has returned to the nest.
I haven’t told Dad that I’m planning on leaving so soon. Surely he’s guessed it? Why would I want to stay? Except for him, of course. And Josh.
Oh God...
“You know...” Dad tracks Josh’s progress with the desert. My brother is wrestling with a box which I bet contains my favorite cake from the coffee shop on the main street, trying to open it. He’s destroying it, basically, and it’s a familiar sight that makes me grin. “That guy and his buddies who called you names and pushed you off the bike once?”
