AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Should I text him? Just to hear from him?
No, no. I’m about to go see him. I try to channel patience, and my finger hovers over a social media app. Maybe the uproar over my leaked fics has died down. Maybe checking the temperature of the social media waters will make me feel better.
I click into Twitter.
My feed is a hot mess, and my stomach instantly nose-dives at a tweet.
Luna Hale writing alien porn 100% proves that she’s a sex addict. You all are living in a fucking fantasy if you think differently.
The tweet has over 10k likes. A student from Penn that I follow retweeted it. Great. I slump down in the passenger seat.
Returning to a college campus after this public blow-up sounds not fun at all, but I also hate the idea of hiding away forever. Everything just majorly sucks right now.
“You okay, Luna?” my mom asks, and I realize she’s off her phone and staring down at mine.
“Uh-huh.” I shut off my cellphone and try to hoist my sinking body. “Just…social media.”
My fics.
The unsaid thing floats in the air.
She’s quiet for a long, long while. She chews on her bottom lip, but eventually, she asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shrug.They think I’m just like you.It’s not going to make her feel better. It’s making me feel really awful. “It’s just people online. I know I’m not supposed to listen to any of them.” I bite at the cuticle on my thumb.
“You could talk to your therapist. Have you seen Dr. Raven in a while?”
“Not really.” My voice sounds smaller. “I just don’t feel like talking much.” I glance over at my mom. “How is this going to affect Hale Co.? My leaked fics, I mean.”
“It’ll be fine. You shouldn’t worry about the companies. They’ve been through worse—not that this is bad.” She catches herself quickly. “You should call your aunt. Rose was ranting on the phone for over an hour about the types of people trying to ridicule your writing. She called them pigs. Or swine. Maybe both.”
I realize I haven’t even talked with Eliot and Tom yet. I only sent a thumbs up emoji in reply to their texts from last night.
“And she’s right,” my mom says with another nod. “They’re not good people, and you did nothing wrong. You know that?You did nothing wrong.” She emphasizes it with her entire being, her whole core, and God, I want to believe in that as powerfully as she does.
I try to cradle her words, but she hasn’t read any of the NC-17 level fics: the graphic smutty ones. She’s in my corner because she’s my mom…and I am grateful she’s in my corner at all. I think of Donnelly again, and I wonder how many people will really be in his.
4
PAUL DONNELLY
Everything isall backwards and shit.
Can’t date Luna.
Now I’m texting my dad.
I’d say Mercury is in retrograde—but Luna told me that it already happened back in October. So I can’t really blame this strange turn of events on any planet.
Just on myself, maybe.
Maybe not.Is there really any explanation for why things go bad? Other than bad luck? The only way to get out of it is to move, so I’m not doing nothing. I’m doing somethin’.
I stare at the string of texts on my phone. I’m the one who opened the door I’d padlocked with a single text.
Wanna meet up for a bite Sunday?
My dad responded in less than five minutes.
