AllFreeNovel
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“Because you’re chickenshit,” I snicker, trying to keep the upper hand.
“You’re chickenshit,” she fires back, this time the fire in her eyes is her own. “You’re a fucking pussy,” she leans away and stands, putting space between us. The sudden distance makes me feel oddly disarmed.
“How’s that when you’re the one that will never take a dare?” I scoff back.
“Fine,” she throws her arms out, her voice deep with an emotion I’m hating the sound of. “I’ll admit I’m scared to do something scary or humiliating,” she lifts her shoulders in a shrug, “but you’re afraid of yourself,” she bites out, folding her arms over her chest and looking out at the water.
“How do you figure?” I feel my jaw go slack and my brows knit together.
“Well,” she blows out, somewhat haughtily, and turns back to me. “Clearly you don’t want to share any truths, enough so that you will choose to commit to an unknown challenge rather than share something about yourself that is anything other than surface level, every. Single. Time. You’re afraid to be seen.”
I have to say, the conviction in her voice is more of a knife to the gut than her actual words. They hit me like a tiniest pinprick, straight to my heart, stunning me.
She’s still for a moment, and I barely hear her breath hitch below the light symphony of frogs and crickets. The heaviness that has suddenly fallen over us makes me feel a little remorseful, enough to throw out the tiniest of bones.
“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me,” I spit out quietly, and immediately grab my beer back up and draw from it. Anything to distract myself.
“What do you mean?” Her eyes soften, not with pity, but with an attentiveness that I’m not sure I can take either, and it makes me look away.
“If you knew everything,” I clarify in a mumble, taking another drink.
“Why would I feel sorry for you?” she pushes, stepping closer again as I drain my bottle and chuck it in the empties. I don’t answer as I open the cooler, retrieving another cold one from what is now melted ice water. I feel every muscle in my back and shoulders tense as I tip it back, chugging as much as I can. Hell, the one in my chest too.
“Kaleb!” she prods again, a certain pang in her voice that makes me inwardly flinch.
“What? What do you want?!” I explode, turning towards her in time to see her body emit a small quake. “You want me to spill my guts? Bare my soul about what a shitty childhood I had? You want to hear about how my mom died when I was one, and my dad turned into an abusive drunk that took to smacking me around as his new pastime?” I rant, all the while secretly scanning her face for that damn look I don’t want to see. The one that would make this entire relationship feel like a sham.
One thing that’s always made me keep Luna close is that she’s never seen me as the poor, disadvantaged kid that came from a broken home. To her, I was always just the kid that helped her when she was scared of heights and drew her pictures. The friend she clung to every summer, and wrote sweet letters to every year in between.
And while now, her eyes definitely mist over as I continue unloading on her, I see no sign of that dreaded pity. Instead, her glassy eyes stare hard at me as if she’s not entirely surprised, but feels for me nonetheless. She’s a loving and caring person, and her empathy is to be expected. But that absence of pity is what makes her the Luna I love.
“You want to know that ever since he broke my arm when I was seven, my grandfather became my guardian and has had to hide me from him while he cruised in and out of jails and rehab centers?!” I persist, still looking for that look. At this point, one might think I’m actually hoping for it so I have an excuse to detach. I’ve loved Luna so much all these years, and right now the possibility of her seeing me as anything other than the Kaleb she knows is screaming in my face.
“I want to know you, Kaleb!” She leans forward as if to physically help get her point across.
“You do know me,” I gesture at my chest, willing her to see. She knows me, she does. She doesn’t have to know the ugly parts too, does she?
“I know camp you,” she argues, “while you know almost everything about me! Don’t you understand how vulnerable that makes me feel – especially after that switch got flipped tonight?”
I don’t have an answer, but I choose to smolder back at her instead of admit it.
“Yes, it sounds like you had a shitty start to life and mine can’t compare to that, but it wasn’t perfect!”
“Is that so?” I snidely throw back.
“It is! But none of what’s happened to either of us matters! At least, it shouldn’t!”
“Easy for you to say, your dad chose you, while mine saw me as a punching bag,” I cynically mutter, trying not to wince at the acid in my own voice. “Then you got raised in a loving, well-off home, so excuse me if I don’t want to sing and dance about my tragic past,” I impart in a mocking tone while I feel the alcohol start to make my temper hot.
“You’re leaving out one important detail, you fucking dick,” she shoots back menacingly. Guess I’m seeing something other than camp Luna as well. “The fact that my dad didn’t come into my life until I was nine! What the hell do you think was happening before that? I was raised by a single mother who juggled a job that barely paid the bills, raising me all by herself, and fighting addiction!”
Okay, damn. That was one hell of a bomb she dropped on me, and yet here I stand, with what should be a comfortable buzz (far from it), looking unfazed because that’s what I do best… just like Luna said.
“Yeah,” she nods, pinning me with more of her fiery gaze, and I can almost see her inward struggle to keep the tear that pools in her eye from falling. “I know a thing about addiction myself, seeing as how both of my biological parents live with it. The jackass that got my mother pregnant left her as soon as he heard about me.”
The things I’m hearing from her knock me sideways as I think about what life might have been like for her before she met me. But my ego still won’t give in. “Wow,” is my impressive retort when I finally find my tongue. “Look who’s also been holding back her not so pretty past.” I lift a scrutinizing eyebrow at her. “And here you’re trying to make me feel like shit because I didn’t let you in on mine.”
“I’m giving you shit for not letting me in on anything,” she clarifies. “I never said you had to tell me all your sorrows, but I at least let you see me! You’ve never had to question anything in regards to how I feel. You get to ask anything you want in our stupid little game because I choose to let you, and I answer you with a truth every time. Anything you’ve ever wanted to know, you’ve asked and I’ve told you.” Her voice is weakening, the fight going out of her. The only problem is I’m too buzzed to do what her Kaleb would do, which is take her in my arms and tell her she’s still a tough cookie.
