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How kind.
And how dumb I am—to ruin it. Over what? Throwing my books isn’t going to bring him back!
“What the hell happened?” my dad asks, out of breath. The sharpness of his gaze cuts from me to my sister.
Kinney is waiting for me to explain. To share what I never shared with her:the details.
I bring the collar of my hoodie up to my eyes. My chest is being crushed with a weight heavier than the bookcase. Turning away from them, I go towards my bed and trip over the comics I’d thrown.
My knees hit the floor.
Farrow bends down, his arms around me while I crumple. A gnarled sound I’ve never heard myself make suddenly ruptures out of my lungs, and I choke on a scream.
The scream morphs into me crying into my hoodie.
I hate this feeling that claws at me.I hate it so much.
Knelt behind me, Farrow has a calming hand on my neck. He might be my brother’s husband, but he’s been a friend to me—and it’s nice…it isreallynice having him here. Once he whispers for me to breathe deep breaths, my cries die like a wounded bird going motionless, and I try to take a lungful of air.
I rub at my splotchy, hot cheeks and fight the urge to hide in my hoodie.
“It has to be her fics, right?” Xander asks softly. “It’s going to be okay, Luna.”
My dad looks distraught seeing me in this much pain, but I’m avoiding his daggered eyes more than anyone. I just can’t…
It’s going to be okay, Luna.
I shake my head slowly.
“I know…” Xander stammers for the words. “I know it feels like it never will be.”
I lift my anguished gaze to my seventeen-year-old brother. Xander Hale isn’t a supernova in my sky. He’s not Eliot or Tom or even Moffy. He’s my little brother who was stuck inside a decrepit, often dusty and darkened castle, and if anyone knows the roadmap out of that awful place, it’d be him.
Chunky red headphones rest around his neck, and pieces of his shaggy brown hair touch the lashes of his expressive amber eyes. It’s hard to look away.
“I know you don’t want to be here…” Xander tells me. “But you have to ignore that voice. Not forever. Just ignore it this minute, this shitty second.”
This minute.
This second.
I inhale slowly.
“Small hurdles, you know?” Xander says quietly. “You can do that. I know you can, sis. You’re way stronger than me.”
Hot tears fall in a blink because I don’t think I ever have been. I think sometimes I’m the weakest of the entire Hale family. Or maybe, I’m just the hardest on myself, but how can I even be certain that’s true?
“It’sDonnelly,” Kinney says with bite. “He hurt her.”
No.
The word is lost inside my swollen throat. I start to shake my head, and Farrow looks out at Kinney like she’s so wrong.Thank you!
“He’d neverhurt Luna,” Farrow says like it’s unfathomable.
She humphs, arms still crossed.
His brows rise. “He’d sooner hurthimself, Kinney.”
