Chapter 4

The drive to school was mostly just filled with singing along to Luna’s drive playlist and car dancing until A.J started growing silent then fidgeting before finally her hand shot out to turn off the stereo. Luna didn’t even cough in protest, choosing instead to wait for the blond to speak her piece.

“So ... I’m not the only one that thought that was fucking weird right?” A.J’s gaze stayed strained ahead but her body shifted nervously about. “I’m mean ... she’s been acting weird for a couple of days now. Tense, yah know? But ... that was just so fucking...” she seemed at a loss for a synonym and yet didn’t want to repeat herself so Luna piped up.

“Fascinating.” Her friend shot her a look and snorted under her breath.

“Yeah. Fucking fascinating. That was totally the word I was looking for.” With a roll of her eyes, she slumped back and huffed. It took another minute or so of thought before Luna spoke again.

“My mom has been acting strangely too. She keeps vacillating between giving me these searching stares one moment and then not even being able to meet my eyes in the next. And ... she just looks so depressed lately. Like something is really weighing on her. It ... it was the same look your mother was just giving me.” She glanced at her friend to watch her reaction then focused back on the stop lights ahead of them.

“You don’t think they had a fight do you?” When all Luna did was roll her eyes and snort, her friend nodded. “Yeah, me neither but what else would make them both act like that?” neither one seemed to have an answer so for the time the subject was dropped and the music was turned back on and the volume turned way up, as if to drown out their uncomfortable thoughts.

A.J reached over again and turned down the music. “Hey, Luna?”

“Yeah, Sis?”

“What does ‘Vacillating’ mean?”

“Huh? Oh ... It means to waver back and forth.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The next second the music was back up and bumping.

When they finally reached the school, it was easy to see that first lunch was in session. The seniors were fleeing to their cars to get food off of school grounds and the other students were milling about in the outside seating areas attached to the cafeteria.

Luna parked in the shade cast by the schools building and sat for a moment, spellbound by the amount of people swarming around the school. Panic rose in her throat and tasted of bile and her hands clenched around the steering wheel but just like that the feeling was gone and replaced by the same calm that filled her when sipping the tea Maria made. With the panic gone, she was left feeling exhausted before even stepping from the car. Her breathing was slowly getting back to normal when A.J’s hand hovered over her own on the steering wheel, not touching but being in her view.

When she looked over at her friend, a snort broke out from her throat in a painful way that just made her start laughing harder. A.J’s contorted face went back to her normal cheek splitting grin as they both relaxed back into the seats. It wasn’t until Luna was reaching back for her bag that A.J’s face became grave and she grabbed Luna’s wrist.

“We don’t have to do this. We can turn right back around and go somewhere safe.” Her friend’s serious expression as she leaned in loser coupled with the tight grip she had on Luna’s arm made Luna’s skin start to crawl and the panic rose to grip her chest again. There was a long frozen moment before the edges of A.J’s lips started to quiver up and her next words came out on the bark of a concealed laugh “because we both know Mama Brandon is gunna interrogate the shit out of us when we get in there.” A.J forced her voice as deep as it could go and even slipped in a great of impression of his southern drawl yet still gave it a feminine lilt “‘oh Luna You didn’t write! You didn’t call! You could have been dead and I wouldn’t have known! Oh, sorry pipsque-ugh I mean A.J, I didn’t see you down there. Did you actually shrink over the summer?”

By the end Luna was chuckling as she reached for their bags and shoved A.J’s into her hand then pointed her arm to the school. “March, Pipsqueak” said Luna, copying the exaggerated drawl and gently turned A’J and leaned over her to open up the passenger-side door. Her friend stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry before bouncing from the car and dancing up the steps, singing to the last song the car played.

Luna reluctantly followed behind, tugging down on the sleeves of her shirt when eyes turned automatically to A.J then slid over to her before they turned back to each other, then the gossip mills were at it again. She only caught snippets but each one felt like paper cuts all over, causing her to flinch and shrink into herself.

“Yeah it was a terrible break...”

“ ... know she just went after her for her money”

“ ... in all that black. She probably tried to drink her blood or...”

“I heard that Luna hit her and so Malissa broke up with her” This had Luna freezing in place as her eyes got hot and started watering and rage made her heart clench as her hands fisted at her side. Her breathing quickened its pace and the world around her seemed to blur at the edges. ‘I’m going to scream’ she thought with astonishment. ‘I’m going to scream and cry and I haven’t even gotten to the front of The GoddAMN DOOR!’

But just as suddenly as the whispering started it all fell deathly quiet other than the groups of people that hadn’t been paying attention in the first place and wouldn’t have cared if they had been. A large hand waved in front of Luna’s eyes and her vision came back into focus on Brandon then shot to look behind him where Drake stood and then behind him to where a good portion of the rest of the football team stood. All of them where either smiling at her or giving hard glares to the people who were paying too much attention to her.