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Meals: Don’t care. Eat my heart out, world.
Water: Hydrate all day, every day.
Question of the Day: How often does Luna snoop through my planner? Is she reading this now?
38
LUNA HALE
It’s my 21st birthday and I can cry if I want to. That’s what Tom sang to me this morning since I did not magically wake and merge with Original Luna. Here I am—the memory-less variant. Birthday magic isn’t real after all.
I’m not so much in the mood to shed tears. I’m still just a jumbled mess of confusion and frustrations. It’s been six days since I woke up, and the more the days pass, the more I’ve been learning about the years I’ve missed.
I’m not any closer to my little sister Kinney. Her familiar brush-offs should be comforting. Nothing has changed, right? Except, I was hopeful that maybe we were the kinda sisters who text every day and send memes. We’re not even that.
I went through our text thread, and she barely messages me anything. I barely respond to her. It’s just sad.
I’ve also discovered that despite being friends with Sulli, I never told her or even Jane about my feelings for Donnelly. Why? It puzzles me in an anxious, nervous way. If I am such good friends with Sulli, wouldn’t I have confided in her?
Catching up on info about everyone in my family feels like binging ten seasons of a reality show in ten days. Like real life isn’t my life. I hate this feeling.
I’m hoping my birthday can take my mind off these lost memories. Focus on the present, not my missing past for a night. Even doing so, a part of me feels like I’m failing myself. Like I’m not trying hard enough to find Original Luna.
And now I’m in a slow-burn (maybe casual?) relationship with her guy. Who is technically my guy. But it weirdly feels like I’m stealing Donnelly from myself. Is that even possible?!
I stab a slice of Funfetti birthday cake too many times, wearing a Roswell Crashdown waitress costume: bobbing alien antennas, a 50s throwback mint diner dress, and a silver alien apron. It’s one of my favorite Cosplay outfits I made for Comic-Cons.
I smash the frosting spaceship.
“Is she okay?” I hear Xander ask our older brother, not quietly enough. “She’s mutilating the cake.”
Moffy has empathetic, kind eyes on me. When my big brother (aka my memory guide) asked what I wanted to do for my birthday, I said to keep the plans I had already made.
Apparently, I chose camping in the woods with an otherworldly theme. Not so strange. It sounded fun, but camping was promptly thrown out the window by security and my parents.
Yes, I am a legal adult.
Yes, I am freshly twenty-one.
Yes, I just experienced a head injury and horrific incident of some sort—which I have no memory of experiencing.
Yes, my parents are overconcerned and overprotective because of said experience.
So I didn’t protest when the venue changed from the state park to a bowling alley. It’s shut down for the private event. Safe and sound with a tight guest list and heap of security.
Neon lights flash over the alleyways, and silver streamers dangle celestially from the ceiling. Balls smash into pins down the ten lanes, and I’ve camped out at Lane 8 with my brothers, as most everyone keeps their distance from me.
Don’t overwhelm Luna. Don’t overcrowd Luna. Don’t pressure Luna. I’ve heard these phrases muttered more than a dozen times since I’ve woken from the hospital. I wonder if it’s a reason why I haven’t met my bodyguard yet. Maybe she’s here, but bodyguards aren’t attached to their clients as much during these types of private events. They mill around and focus on entrances, exits. That sorta thing.
My brothers and I have taken a pause on rolling balls into the gutter (mainly, I am the Gutter Queen) for a dessert break at our lane.
I pick at the lumpy green frosting.
“You know something about the cake that we don’t?” Moffy asks me, eyeing the mushy mound on my plate.
“It could be sentient,” I mutter.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’ll grow hooves and attack us,” Xander says, lounging on the swivel chair beside me. The retro 80s swivel chairs have always been my favorite part of bowling. As a kid, I would imagine we were on a spacecraft in Star Trek, commanding the USS Enterprise together.
Moffy feigns confusion. “Huh, that’s weird. I thought we bought murderfetti cake.”
I smile.
Xander laughs and shakes his head at Moffy. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you had the dad jokes before Ripley or not.”
I would know this better than anyone. “He did.”
“I did,” Moffy says, gesturing to me with his fork. “I’m the same amazing interstellar big brother.” He motions to his Pizza Planet shirt.
“With the corny dad jokes,” Xander adds, smiling. His costume is more elaborate than Moffy’s simple T-shirt. Xander is cosplaying my favorite character from Dune, Paul Atreides, by wearing a black stillsuit made for the harsh desert climate of planet Arrakis.
