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“I was messing with mine one day, and I realized it’s easy to figure out their combinations. If you get the feel for it, you can tell when the tumbler clicks.” Luna gets an evil grin. “I had an idea. Every day I stayed after school, and I went to her locker. I figured out the code, and then I changed it. For two weeks straight, she had to get the custodian to cut the lock off, until eventually the principal said if she couldn’t remember her combination, then she couldn’t have a lock.”
“Okay.” I hedge the word. I think that probably annoyed the girl but doesn’t sound like too intense of a revenge.
Luna isn’t done. “With her locker open like that, it was free game. I’d leave things in it. Tuck an open bottle of milk in the back corner of the top shelf. She didn’t notice until it went rancid. Same with the thin slices of cheese I’d slip between the pages of her textbook. One of those turned into a pretty big mold bloom. Dairy products are surprisingly handy.”
I huff out a shocked laugh. “Clever.”
Luna nods, smirking as she drives us through the early morning. “Didn’t stop there. Because she didn’t stop either. She knew something weird was going on with her locker, but not who was doing it or why. I wanted to make her pay.” Luna’s triumph dims, and I catch a hint of pain in her voice. “But more than anything, I wanted her to stop.”
“Of course, you did.” I keep my tone soft. “What did you do?”
“Well, after enough smelly items ended up in her locker, there was always someone watching. Teachers, one of her friends, other students who were curious to find out who it was. Even after school, people hung around to see.” Luna turns the wheel, and I realize we’ve made it back to Paige and Dash’s house. “So I went at night. I’d found a video online about picking locks, and I tried it on a side door at the school. Worked like a charm. Then I took a permanent marker and wrote every shitty thing I ever heard her say on the inside of her locker. Space filled up fast. I wrote on the outside of the locker too. Then I dumped a can of cat food inside. Next day came around and my art display was the talk of the school.”
“You didn’t get in trouble? When they knew it was you?”
“That’s the thing. They didn’t know. Because I’m not the only person she said fucked-up shit to. I wrote all of her hate down. Could’ve been any of us. All of us. She didn’t know.”
“Wow.” I let my head fall back on the headrest, impressed and intimidated by my wife’s evil genius mind.
“Plus, I left open cans of cat food in all of her friends’ lockers as a warning. None of them wanted to go through the stinky locker torment. She had zero backup.”
“That’s…impressive.”
Luna laughs, but there’s no humor in the noise. “Yep. That’s the kind of woman I am. Guess I should’ve told you before we got hitched. Bet you’re glad for that end date now, huh?”
“Luna—”
“But that’s the thing about bullies. It’s not only that they hit you or say mean things.” Luna turns a defensive glare on me. “It’s the fact that they steal your sense of safety. Maybe they’ll go an hour without bothering you. Or maybe a day. Or a week. But you don’t have their fucked-up schedule. You’re just braced every second you’re anywhere near them, waiting for what torture will come next.”
Her strong hands fist, and I want to reach across this small yet gaping distance between us.
“They tried taking my safety away. So I took theirs away. They never knew what I would do or when. They were never completely sure it was me either. Not enough to prove it. But they eventually figured out if they left me and mine alone, the chaos in their life stopped.”
“Luna, I’m not judging you.” I speak quickly and firmly. And I do reach for her, pressing my palm against her thigh in what I hope she sees as a reassuring touch. “I’m wishing I was in that school with you so you didn’t have to fight back on your own. Hell, I would’ve carried the can opener for you. Helped you put the milk on the top shelf so you didn’t need a stepladder.”
She glares at me then, but this time the expression attempts to cover a curl of her lips. “I reached just fine.”
In the dim car, I grin at her. My fierce wife who’s had to fight her whole life.
Luna amazes me, and I long to do more than convince her I don’t judge her vengeful actions.
I’m desperate to prove I’m worthy to be in her presence.
And if I’m lucky, in her heart.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
CHARLIE
“Why won’t she stop crying?” Luna stumbles into my room, bleary-eyed, with an anxious pit bull trotting at her heels.
We arrived back in Nashville late, having stayed longer at brunch with Paige and Dash than we’d planned. Plus, the return trip required more stops to give Pig bathroom breaks. When we got home after dark, we took the time to walk our new dog around Luna’s yard and into each room of the house, showing her all the dog beds and toys I stocked up on.
The two of us headed to bed maybe an hour ago. But Pig doesn’t seem to have gotten the sleep memo.
“Maybe she misses Pumpkin?” I offer as I reach for my glasses on the bedside table. Once I slip the frames on, everything loses its blurry edge and I can meet Luna’s eyes.
She blinks at me, more awake than I first thought.
