Day of Christmas Eve came, Luna was feeling extra sad. She didn’t want to get up to walk Chewie, she asked Marc if he could walk him because she wasn’t feeling good. Since Marc was more sympathetic than her mom, the moment Marc said yes and took Chewie out her mom came in to tell Luna to get out of bed. Luna understood that she couldn’t stay in bed, but she didn’t want to leave her bed. She was thinking about how she was supposed to be at her dad’s, like she wished more than anything to have a Christmas with both her parents without having to hear them fight or have to deal with nonstop drama. She got up and looked in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself but she didn’t care. She fixed her hair to her mom’s standard which was brushed, combed back into a tight ponytail and her bangs straight down.
Luna went to the kitchen to show her mom that she knows how to look presentable even though she didn’t want to be.
“That actually looks good, good job.”
“Thanks. I am going to be in my room if you need me.” She knew that her mom could tell that something was wrong but she didn’t care enough. She wanted to be back in school, she wanted to be with her friends again. She just didn’t want to be with family today.
She went on her computer to see what everyone was doing these past few days, Aaron and Derek added her on Facebook. She saw a couple of photos that her dad posted. He was with grandma.
He was in New York.
Her dad took her home so he could go up to New York to see grandma, she felt her heart break. Why didn’t he want to take her too? She didn’t know what to do. She went back to the living room and hugged her mom.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dad is in New York with grandma. He took me home so he could go away.”
“What? How did you find out about that?” Hearing that, Luna stopped hugging her mom and looked at her with pure shock.
“You knew? I found out from Facebook, not even by you.” Pain was showing through her voice.
“He told me when he told me he was bringing you home early. I told him that he could take you, but he couldn’t afford both you and him round trip.”
“Then he could have told me that he was going to see grandma, I would have been excited to see grandma too. I could have seen abuela too, but no one talks to me about anything.”
“Luna, he couldn’t pay for both of you. I told him that you could go, but he said money was tight.”
“Money was tight but he still took a trip to New York.” Luna was fuming. She went back to the computer and wrote in the comments, ‘Say hi to grandma for me.’
The rest of the day was quiet, her mom told Marc everything and they both kept their distance from Luna. Luna stayed on the computer the rest of the day, just listening to music on YouTube. She didn’t know why, but her brain kept telling her to listen to all sad songs. She just focused on that, she stayed off of Facebook the rest of the day because she knew she would react horribly if her dad responded with a rude response or worse. Day turned to night, Luna hardly ate the entire day. She actually ate dinner with her family.
“So who is ready to open a present tonight?” Oh right, they were doing that. She didn’t want to spend that much time with her family, nothing personal to them. Kennedy was so excited because she didn’t know about the early Christmas present. After dinner, they all sat in the living room on the cold leather couch. She was looking at the couch that Chewie destroyed with his nails. She looked at the tv with a daze as if nothing was real anymore for her.
“Alright Luna, do you have a preference for what present you want to open?”
“Not really, but thank you for asking.” Marc handed her a medium sized box with little Santa Claus’ on the wrapping paper with the writing “from us to Luna” which meant it was from mom and Marc. Kennedy got her present, it was a small box. She ripped it open for it to be a little toy that she wanted for awhile. Luna opened her and it was a Nintendo Wii. She was actually happy to get something video game based, because she wanted to get more into games but she didn’t want them to worry about it. She asked for the Wii kind of, because she said how much she wanted one, one time in Best Buy. She talked about how she could play so many things but also because they could all play a game together. They got her a multiplayer game, Super Mario for Wii.
“Thank you so much, I love it!” She meant it.
“We are glad you like it, we saw how much you wanted one in Best Buy. We looked into it, and we said that we can get that for you.” That makes it seem like they might not have had enough to buy it, which again. Luna didn’t ask for it for Christmas, she just brought up how much she wanted one. She wasn’t going to make it a big deal.
“Can we set it up and play it?”
“I don’t see why not, sure.” Marc set it up on the tv and she was excited about it. She needed some happiness and right now Marc was the only one being nice to her, he was the only one that didn’t make her feel like a 5 year old that needed to be protected nonstop.
Everyone got a chance to play every time someone died, Kennedy would die immediately unlike all of us, so we would give her another shot but she would die again so we couldn’t help but laugh. Her mom looked at her and she could see that Luna was still upset with her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I knew you would get upset but I didn’t think you would get this upset about it.”
“It’s fine, I just wish he told me first. I wish he could have said, look money is tight but I am going up to see grandma. I can give you a call when I am up there so you can tell her how much you miss her. I wish he said that, but he didn’t. He said nothing close to that.” Luna focused on the game as she kept looking at Chewie who was sleeping on her thigh. The rest of the night was calming, sad but calming. She looked out the window to look at the stars, but she saw nothing.
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