AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He crashed on my planet the first time then. I picture Donnelly orbiting my universe and landing at my feet. It excites me as much as this inversed reality where I’ve fallen at his. “Uh-huh,” I say, breathless.
“Welcome to Earth, space babe.”
“It’s peculiar here,” I sing-song. “But I already like one of its inhabitants.” I’m looking right at him. “I just wish…” I could remember you.
The pressure to remember has amassed since seeing my family. I’ve wanted to remember to comfort them and ease their worries, but now, more than ever, I crave to uncork these memories of Donnelly. Not just for him, but for me.
I pick at my bitten thumbnail, and more cowardly, I stand up and avoid his gaze.
Donnelly rises to his feet. He makes no effort to put away his things. He just rests against the wall, giving me some space. “You scared?” he asks.
Yep. “I want to remember, and I don’t know how your Luna fared, but I’m not always that successful at things I put my brain power to. I just seem to always fail in the end.” I shrug. “I could be considered Luna the Failure.”
“Failures are those who don’t even try. You always try—”
“And face-plant.”
“And pick yourself back up. Sounds more like Luna the Fighter to me.” He’s such an encouraging human, and he’s right—he already knows I’m gonna try to remember, even if I’m frightened of the worse outcome.
I give him a once-over. “You’re not mad I went through your stuff?”
“Whatever helps you,” he says honestly, then motions to the bed. “You check the real hiding spot?”
“Under your mattress?”
He grins. “Not under, no.” He lets me wander over to the bed, and only one place really seems likely.
I belly-flop on the mattress to reach his bed pillow, and I roll over on my butt. “Am I getting hotter?” I squeeze the fluff of the pillow.
“Girl, you’re roasting.”
While he comes closer, I dig inside the pillowcase. “Careful of me,” I warn. “I could burn you. I am hotter than hot.”
“No lie,” he smirks. “I’d burn up from you.”
Flush bathes my cheeks. Now he really is scalding me inside-out, but I manage to scoop out the contents tucked in the pillowcase.
A small roll of cash tied with a rubber band.
A pack of cigarettes.
“Why do you keep these here?” I ask.
“Just habit.” He watches me scooch to the edge of the bed. My bare knees knock into his legs, and a ripple of sensitivity shoots through me, then goosebumps pimple my skin. Donnelly stays standing above me as he says, “My parents would go through my room and try to sell my things to buy drugs. Most everything I had I bought myself with money I made working.”
I frown. “That’s awful,” I mutter.
He takes a seat beside me. “I got used to it, but the pillowcase was one spot they didn’t really look too often.”
The last thing I find in the pillow: an old photo. The edges are yellowed and creased, but the picture is clear. A smiling little boy is on the shoulders of a young guy, whose cheeks are a bit sunken but he’s smiling up at the boy too. They have the same chestnut brown hair. Same blue spinel gem eyes. Only, the little boy’s gaze is a billion watts brighter. Livelier.
“Is this you?” I point to the boy.
“Yeah. And my dad.”
I study his father again. He’s really young. “He kinda looks like Ethan Hawke.”
He smiles, scratching the back of his neck. “That’s what you said the first time.”
“You’ve showed me your hiding spot before,” I realize and slip the cash, cigarettes, and photo back, wishing this jarred a memory. Alas, I’m memory-less.
He’s shaking his head.
I freeze. “You didn’t show me?”
“I just showed you the picture. The hiding spot didn’t come up.”
So perfect Original Luna didn’t know every little thing about Donnelly then. I may have a leg up on her in this stupid pseudo competition in my head. I’ve never been competitive, so I don’t know why I’ve decided to compete against myself. Maybe it’s another amnesia symptom: the sudden urge to defeat my alternate version.
I would rather become her and seep into her memories of him, but that still seems unrealistic.
I place the pillow behind me. “Why show me now?” I ask.
“Guess I’d rather tell you now than later.” He reaches back and reclaims the cigarettes from the pillow. “It’s not easy for me to talk about my upbringing and some deeper things, but I wanted to with you. I meant to.”
“Did I share a lot about myself with you?”
“I think so. I got the sense you did, anyway.” He leaves the bed, digging in his pocket and unearthing a lighter. “But you had limits and not nows or not tonights.”
He must not have been pushy.
Slowly, I stand and glance at his drawer. The condoms. Questions spring in my mind again, but he asks if I’m hungry.
