AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Luna, did you hear me?” Kinney steps closer to my window and sticks half her body outside.
I turn my head a fraction, and her narrowed green eyes fix on mine. Dyed black hair is chopped at her collarbones, bangs shading her brows.
“The aliens aren’t coming for you,” she deadpans. “But if you fall off the roof, youwillturn into a ghost.”
She sounds so much like our dad. It just enlarges a rock in my esophagus. Words are lodged.
“I’ll be down in a sec,” I say so quietly. I’m unsure if she hears.
Her black-painted lips draw into a thin line, and her vexed expression is riddled with blistering concern. Kinney wears worry like a dress made of razor blades. Unapproachable, untouchable. It’s as hard for me to near her as it’d be for any enemy.
We continue to lock eyes in a game of chicken, unmoving and unspeaking and waiting for the other to spew their thoughts. I’ve never been a great competitor at anything, but breaking contact first sounds as exhausting as spilling my heart.
So I just stare at my sister.
She’s sixteen now, but her gangly frame and youthful face shave years off her age. Like me and our mom, she could pass for several years younger, and even though she’s firmly a teenager, I still feel the five whole years that separate us like boulders we can’t push.
Years don’t always create caverns and mountains between siblings. Sulli and Winona are secret-handshake, hip-bump close, but for some reason, Kinney and I never reached that tip in the sister pyramid.
I think it’s because she’ll always be closer to Xander, the way that I’m closer to Moffy. Maybe she’s contemplating this too because she finally blurts out, “I’ll go get Moffy.”
“No,” I say hurriedly. “I’m fine. I promise.” I make a move towards the window to demonstrate just how fine I am. While I step through the threshold, my sneaker catches on the windowsill, and I awkwardly splat on my fuzzy rug in a belly flop.
Oof.Beached flounder has become me.
She blinks. “Super graceful.”
I burrito-roll onto my back. While I take a heavy breath, she’s extending a hand to me. I clasp her palm, and she helps me rise to my feet. The sketch is still in my possession. Carefully, I slip the paper underneath my bed pillow.
I remember Donnelly’s words as he called up to me.“That’s what I imagine in the end. You and me and our galaxy. And maybe I don’t want you to forget it.”
“I never will,”I told him.
I never will.
It’s this tiny, delicate ember of hope that I’m trying to cradle close.
Kinney watches me hide my sketch as if it’s a diary. “What’s that?”
“A drawing.”Just a future not yet written.But I hear Donnelly again, telling me it’s in the stars. It’s already written.
I’m trying to believe.
My ribs constrict, and gradually, I face my sister.
Kinney crosses her arms, her sheer black sleeves complementing the dress-overalls she wears. Dark shadowy makeup further boldens her green eyes. “I’m not a fool, you know. I saw Donnelly talking to Dad. Then he came up here, and next thing you know, he’s sliding down your drainpipe to leave.”
Red heat bathes my cheeks. “You were watching from a window?” How else did she get that visual?
“Xander and I were.” She examines me, up and down, as though she can exhume every buried secret. But even with all my secrets, I’m almost positive who knows what.
The “good head” experiment is only known by my penthouse roommates and Oscar (Donnelly’s best friend/Charlie’s bodyguard).
Most of those roommates see Donnelly and me as close friends with inside jokes and flirty inclinations. If they have their suspicions about a secret relationship, they haven’t shared them with me.
Only Farrow and Maximoff really suspect we’re more than we were since Halloween, a week ago. The night of our first kiss.
No one knows Donnelly is StaleBread89.
