She turned around and there was Aaron, he looked like a kid seeing Santa. He ran over to Luna, even though she knew she needed to go to class but she was tempted to skip this class because they were going to watch a movie, that’s what she heard from other kids from the earlier classes.
“LUNA!! You guys looked adorable together especially because I know the full story with you both. Doesn’t explain why you skipped lunch, aren’t you hungry? Want me to grab you something?” Luna didn’t know what else to do, she gave Aaron a hug.
“Thank you for being my big brother this year. I appreciate it so much.” She could hear his heart beats going through drummer boy speed to a slow song speed. She knew she caught him off guard but he hugged her back. She looked up at him in mid hug, she wanted to see his face because he felt like he was going to cry, he was crying. She knew that he needed to hear that line but she didn’t know how badly. He didn’t want to let her go, but Luna wanted to say something else.
“Aaron, you don’t always have to be the tough guy. Fun fact about girls, we like knowing that our guys have feelings and aren’t afraid to cry. If you ever need to just talk everything out, you know where my door is. Even if my parents are home, you can ask for me and I will come outside to talk with you. Okay?” He was smiling ear to ear, his eyes glistened with the tears forming in his eyes. She hugged him again and said into his chest “it’s okay to cry.” He hugged her tighter and whispered, “thank you for seeing the good in me.” He let Luna go and acted like nothing happened. She was officially skipping class and she didn’t care.
“Don’t you have class?” He noticed that the halls were completely empty even for the last day of school.
“I do, but I don’t want to leave you alone.” Luna could tell that Aaron needed her more than he was letting on. She walked toward the locker rooms to do a lap around the school so he could just talk it out.
“Let’s go, we are going to talk about you. Not me, you. Where do you want to start?” He looked scared to talk about his own life that didn’t make him look like a clown.
“Can we start this tomorrow, when summer is starting and people don’t see me cry?” He had a point, but she didn’t want him to forget to do it. She knew that Kennedy was going to be going to her summer program near the school, she also knew she wasn’t doing much this summer. She didn’t have any plans with her dad and since she hadn’t seen him for several months, she wasn’t caring anymore.
“Fine, tomorrow come over to my place and we are going to talk about a bunch of stuff.” She was inviting him over but they were going to stay outside because of Chewie and because she knew she wasn’t allowed to invite boys over with no one home.
“You sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble with your parents, from what I have seen you are scared of your mom.”
“We don’t talk about that, all I am focusing on is you because something is up with you and I hate that you want me to talk to you about my problems but here you are hiding things from your little sister.”
“What if I was trying to protect you from these kinds of issues?”
“Tough! I can take care of myself, I’ve been doing okay before you came into the picture.” Luna said that with a giant smile to make him laugh, he smirked but he still looked concerned to tell her anything.
“Why do I get the feeling this is bigger than you?”
“I think my parents are planning on getting a divorce…and I think it’s my fault.” This was probably the one thing that Luna didn’t know how to help someone through. She had her mom with Marc for as long as she could remember, and her dad was such a jerk with women that he couldn’t get one to marry him to then divorce him after realizing they married a jerk. She had to think a bit before saying something very rude.
“Aaron, I don’t think it’s your fault. I know that I am not the best person because I have 2 parents, but I know that people get divorced because they don’t love each other anymore. I think your parents love each other but not the way that they used to. I think you and Derek should talk with them about it so you guys know what’s going on.” WOW! Smart words from his little sister.
“I am just worried if it is true, like I make the joke that if it happens then we get 2 Christmas' and birthdays, but when I thought a little more about it; I got worried about who would I stay with? When would I see the other parent? Would Derek and I split up and live with different parents?” All completely valid feelings that Luna actually understood.
“That I get, I thought having 2 split parents would be okay but I fight with my step dad because I remind him constantly that he isn’t my dad. I do feel bad about that, but it happens in the heat of the fight. I don’t think your parents are going to split you and Derek up, I think they would want you guys to stay together until it comes time for college. Who knows where Derek would want to go. You will probably speak to the other parent as much as they want to speak, they will have their moments where they don’t want to hear about life with the parent you live with because it might make them miserable. Before you jump the gun, ask your parents because it might just be a bad fight that will get resolved over a lovely dinner. Okay?” Okay, Luna did expose herself a bit more than she thought but she knew that he wouldn’t use that against her. She did wish that she did apologize to Marc every time she said that he wasn’t her dad but she knew that saying sorry after saying it several times would be meaningless.
“Wow, maybe you’re right Luna. I just needed to get it out of my chest. I can’t deal with the idea of my parents getting divorce. Also, I’m sorry you have to deal with all that, you don’t look like you go through a lot of family drama.” As much as she hated that horrible truth, he wasn’t wrong, she had a lot of family drama and she wasn’t ashamed to say it out loud. She was ready to go home and cry because she just kept having the emotional roller coaster kind of day.
“No one ever knows about my family drama until I make a bad joke or say an out there kind of remark. I keep my family drama to myself because I don’t want a pity party and I never want my friends dealing with a pity party as well.”
“Okay, so note to self: never have a pity party around Luna.”
“You got that right!” They were both laughing and having fun. She didn’t want Aaron to be alone in this situation, she understood where he was coming from. They both decided it was time to start heading toward their last classes because she didn’t want to miss science class with Oliver. She wanted to check on him, he was so sad that she couldn’t help but worry about him during the summer. What would he be doing? Who is he going to hang out with? More like that, she couldn’t stop thinking about him and worse wishing that she could spend time with him during the summer without family in the way or worse school.
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