He opened his arms, ready for the big hug he was expecting. Of course, Luna was happy to see her father, but she didn’t want to be with him during this week. She just wanted to stay home and relax in her room. As she hugs her father, she could tell there was something bothering him. Which meant a serious adult conversation on the ride to his place. It always killed her inside, because she didn’t understand the adult conversations. All she did was nod and agree with him. Whenever she put in her opinion, he would condescend her for being too young to understand grown up issues.
As they were on the road, the air felt thick. Luna felt like she could barely breathe. She opened the window, but it made no difference. All it did was make it harder for her to hear her father. “Luna, I want you to know that I am going to change my ways.” Great, it’s going to be the “I’m changing my ways for you,” now she could already bet right now that this line is going to last until she leaves and then he is going to resort back to his old ways of lying and making excuses about everything. She didn’t let this conversation mess with her head.
All Luna wanted to do was be with Laurissa and Sammy; she wanted to tell them about everything that was going on in her life. She wanted to tell them about how she didn’t get into the talent show because she sang a male singer's song and that she ended up working on the curtains. She wanted to tell Laurissa only about how she told Oliver that she had a huge crush on him and that he felt the same way. Luna knew she would be just as happy as she was. As she was hearing her father, she was already done with the week more than anything; she was ready to go to bed. Luna practically blocked out her father’s entire speech on how he was going to be a better father and how he was going to value her opinions. It was the same lines from three years ago before meeting Raina. She didn’t want to believe anything he said until he truly showed it.
As she slowly started listening back to the conversation, she heard him talking about her little graduation from fifth grade. She immediately came back into the conversation.
“You’re coming to my graduation?” She didn’t want to make it obvious that she wasn’t listening until now, but she could feel herself shaking.
“Yes, Luna. If you were listening to me, you would have heard me talking about how I am going to your graduation and how I wanted to buy your outfit for the day.” Luna wasn’t ready for this idea of her father meeting Oliver, or worse… What could he say to Oliver to ruin everything that she had worked toward? She knew she loved Oliver more than she has loved any celebrity in the world.
“Wow, that’s great. Are you bringing anyone, or is it just you?”
“I was planning to go alone, should I bring someone with me? Maybe I should bring Laurissa and Sammy if they’re free.” Hopefully, one of them will be free to save her from the amount of humiliation that was going to be springing across her life.
“That’s a great idea. You should make sure that you aren’t alone during my graduation because you wouldn’t be able to take photos with me, you’d be taking photos of me.” Stay smooth Luna, you are almost at the finish line for convincing him to bring someone you know and trust with your life. Now, the question is, who will she beg to go with him? She might ask Laurissa personally because she knows she wouldn’t make a scene if she introduced them to Oliver, because if it was Sammy, he would turn into the only dad saying, “what are your intentions with my little girl?,” and she would have to explain that Sammy isn’t her real dad and then explain to her father what was going on in this moment. Laurissa would probably make inside jokes only we knew, but she wouldn’t attack Oliver with a million questions and comments about him. She would just want to get to know him like a normal person.
While on the highway, she couldn’t recognize the area they were in. She felt more lost than when she started on this car ride. Luna wanted to ask where they were, but for some odd reason, she couldn’t find herself to ask him where they were going. All she could hear was wind and Bohemian Rhapsody. She couldn’t help but want to scream her voice out just to be heard, but she knew that wouldn’t be the case. She could barely hear her own thoughts. All it sounded like was loud noises in 4K.
She built up enough energy to scream, “WHERE ARE WE GOING?”
“Going to get your sister from her she-devil of a mother. I told you we were going to get her on the phone the other day. How could you forget that, Luna? Don’t you want to see your sister?” In Luna’s eyes, she remembers that call, but not the way her father remembers it. She remembers him telling her he is still unemployed, and that he is lucky that he doesn’t have to pay for specific things, thanks to Laurissa. She doesn’t know her sister like that, which made things more difficult because that meant that she had to fake her emotions… again.
“Oh, right! It must have slipped my mind thinking about all the school work and homework I had piled up.” Nice white lie. Now, Luna really knew she was digging herself a hole to become a pathological liar later on in life. She knew that if she told her father she forgot because she didn’t care, it would be a whole lecture on ‘she’s my sister and I should love her unconditionally and that I should get to know her’ Luna knew the lecture because she got the same lines repeatedly when it came to every new girlfriend and their daughters. She stuck with that lie for the rest of the car ride.
As we made our way to this strange apartment complex, she could see her little sister with Lucas. Her body froze. She felt paralyzed from the legs up. She didn’t want to move. In her head, she thought, if she can’t see him, he can’t see her. As they stopped, her father got out of the car to take Paige from Lucas. The minute he let go of Paige, Lucas came over to the window that was wide open. Luna could barely think, she couldn’t breathe. He tried giving her a hug, but it was an awkward encounter. He whispered in her ear, “I miss you and your body.” She had to hold her tongue and her tears. She wanted to be somewhere safe again. At that moment, she wanted to be with Oliver. She knew Oliver would protect her, no matter what.
She rushed her father to finish putting her sister into the car seat, but her father was taking longer than usual. She was getting scared about her own safety and mental health. Lucas kept trying to touch her hand, but she kept pulling away from him. She moved to the driver's seat just to get away from him. She was getting more uncomfortable about the situation they placed her in. Luna was hyperventilating a bit because she couldn’t let all the hard work she had done with the past few months go down the drain in the matter of minutes. She had to remember all the accomplishments she did from the summer to that moment.
“You ready to go Luna?” Her father said to her as he was standing at the driver’s seat door. She didn’t realize that he was done with putting Paige into her car seat.
“Born ready! Are you ready?” She wanted to leave more than anything. She didn’t want to come back to this area ever again.
“Move back to your seat so then we can head back. Make sure you say bye to Lucas.”
“Okay, bye.” She just wanted to get out of that location faster than light. Just like that, they were back on the road. She was looking at Paige from the sun visor and she could tell that she knew nothing about her. She didn’t understand what was the big thing about her. Then again, Luna didn’t understand people’s infatuation with babies. All she knew was that she didn’t care about Paige as much as her father wanted her to be. She knew nothing about her. She found out she existed only a couple of months ago from the she-devil. In Luna’s eyes, she didn’t particularly like Paige, because she took her father away from her. She knew Paige had nothing to do with it, but she knew she wasn’t a fan of hers.
“Luna, talk to her. Tell her who you are as a person.” What could Luna say at this moment? Paige looked to be a year old. What is she going to say back? ‘Hey, you’re my big sister. Protect me with your life.’ No, she’s going to cry and be annoying. She knows that much because she remembered when she had to deal with all of that, with Kennedy being one-year-old. She remembered staying up with her parents because of Kennedy’s crying. She remembered dealing with hearing all the screams for attention. For Kennedy she wanted a sister because it took the attention away from Luna’s actions, but she didn’t want a sister because she already had zero attention from her father.
“Hi Paige. I’m your sister.” She didn’t know what else to say. She felt like she was talking to a brick wall that drools and cries. She wanted to just get to Laurissa’s place. She was shaking subtly because she didn’t want her father questioning what was wrong with her. She stayed as still as she could, which was hard for her. She thought the best way to not think about it was to blast the music that was playing in the car and just sing all the songs until she was at Laurissa’s. As she was singing, she could tell that she wanted to cry her heart out. Next thing she knew, they were pulling into the new house… apartment; she couldn’t tell the difference because it was all his, but no one could live on the first floor. She never understood how he got to live right behind Laurissa’s place, but she would not question it since she could use that time with her father, with her godmother instead. She looked at her father, and it was almost as if he read her mind because he said, “Yes, you can go to her house. I’m going to bring everything upstairs and change Paige. Behave.”
Comments