Page 48 of Loving Luna

I stared at her, blinking furiously. “You’re asking unfair questions,” I griped. “Ones it seems like you already know the answer to.”

Maureen seemed to press back a smile. “I do already know the answer. I’m just waiting for you to catch up with me.” Her thumb swiped across my face, catching a falling tear. “Come on, let’s hear it. Do you think that when the inevitable happens, whether it’s fifty minutes from now or fifty years, you’ll think ‘oh thank god I protected myself from that pain, and didn’t give myself time to make more memories with him’?”

I sniffled again, grabbing a fresh tissue. “You don’t play fair,” I griped.

Maureen simply nodded. “I’m still waiting for an answer.”

“It…” I drew a deep breath and paused to give myself a moment to really absorb her question and all the possible answers. It only took me a second to realize there really was onlyone. “I love him,” I breathed. “Not just that, but I’m in love with him. Maybe I always have been.”

Maureen smiled, like she expected me to be excited about this recent development. I spiraled instead.

“Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit.” My gaze searched the room. What was I looking for? A paper bag to breathe into? It wouldn’t have helped. “What was I thinking? Letting myself fall in love? I knew it was a mistake. I knew it would only end in hurt!” I jumped to my feet and began to pace in front of her. “Maybe… maybe there’s some sort of way to like… deprogram it from my brain somehow?”

Maureen grabbed my hand as I paced by, stopping me in my tracks. “You know, for a psychology student, you really can be dense sometimes when it comes to your own feelings. Reprogramming your brain? Really?”

I sank onto the couch beside her once more, leaned my elbows on my knees and buried my face in my hands.

“Luna!” Maureen peeled my hands away from my face and tilted my chin up. “Luna! You’re in love! This isn’t something to spiral about. This is wonderful! We should be celebrating.”

I stared blankly up at her. “I’m gonna get hurt.”

“Yeah. Probably. More than once. Love hurts sometimes. Luna, weren’t you listening? Not just to me, but to yourself?”

I shook my head. I had been… but… apparently we weren’t on the same page.

“You will hurt when Drake dies, no matter what. Aside from you finally admitting you love him, that you’re in love with him, he’s been your best friend for years. He knows you better than probably anyone else at the Ranch. Even if you never spoke to him again, it would still hurt when he died. But, what you could do, instead of living in fear of something that might not happen for another fifty or more years, is decide to make the most ofevery second you have, because you know how precious those seconds really are.”

And then, as if a second dam broke, her words truly sunk in. The weight of them was a burden and a relief all at once. “Ooohhh,” I breathed. “God, I’m an idiot.” I rose to my feet again, and pulled up my panties, letting my skirt fall to cover them. My ass burned, but the anvil on my chest was starting to feel more like a small dog.

“You’re not an idiot,” Maureen scolded. “You’ve had a hard week, and you’re not one who is…” She pursed her lips together, seeming to choose her words carefully. “You’re not always one who is the best at processing her emotions.” She smiled kindly. “Sometimes you just need a little nudge in the right direction.”

“Yeah, by way of my ass,” I scoffed, just getting angrier with myself. How stupid was it that I’d needed someone to whale on my backside, just so I’d know what I was thinking?

“By way of your ass,” Maureen agreed cheerfully, as if my admitting that wasn’t at all problematic. She squeezed my hand. “Good thing you live here at the Ranch, a place full of people more than willing to give that nudge whenever you need it. There are plenty of people just like you, and plenty more who’d kill to be in your shoes.”

She was right, I realized. Again. Which meant that I was wrong. Again. I was just on a roll today with all my stupid wrongness.

As if I’d spoken my frustration out loud, Maureen cocked a brow, aiming a bossy look in my direction. “I can almost hear you mean-wording yourself. You need to give yourself some grace,” she scolded. “You know, that thing you seem to have for everyone but yourself…”

“Why do you know me so well?” I grumbled.

My friend just smiled. “As well as you think I know you, Drake knows you even better,” she reminded me gently. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

And that, I realized, was the million-dollar question. What was I going to do about it?

As if he could read my mind, my phone chirped. Without thinking, I pulled it out of my purse and glanced down at the screen to see a text from Drake.

Babygirl… Where are you?

“I… snuck out in the middle of the night,” I admitted, looking up at my friend. I mean, not like the middle of the night but like four in the morning while everyone was still asleep.

“And I take it you didn’t leave Drake a note?” Maureen questioned, tilting her head in the direction of my phone. “That him?”

I nodded.

“He upset?”

“Stupid question,” I retorted. “His dad just died, of course he’s upset.”

---