There was nothing I wanted more than to avoid the Cole residence until I flew back to Boon, but I couldn’t deny Rosie.
In her defense, she had pointed out in a text message that Knight wasn’t going to be home. I felt stupidly grateful. Rosie’s only request had been that I bring a blank notebook and a pen.
I showed up at her doorstep at six in the evening, wondering if Knight was with Poppy, then reminding myself I wasn’t supposed to care. Lev led me to Rosie’s bedroom upstairs. The Coles’ mansion was a nod to everything soft and southern. The furniture was classily upholstered or painted khaki and beige, with iron and crystal chandeliers everywhere, a vintage pottery collection, and ivy covering the courtyard walls.
As I moved down the vast hallway, a nurse brushed past me, making a quick dash downstairs while rummaging in her bag. My heart twisted in pain. I wondered what it felt like to be just a job for some people.
People who were in charge of your fragile life.
I pushed the bedroom door ajar. Rosie sat on the throne of her bed, looking like death.
I took a step back as I absorbed the image of her gaunt figure and braced against the wall. I’d seen her on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but she’d been wrapped in luxurious gowns and well-tailored coats that had hidden how thin she was. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes rimmed with dark shadows. She motioned to me with her clubbed finger, holding a piece of used tissue.
“My darling girl.” She smiled through what I could see was great pain.
Gingerly, I stepped into her realm, forcing myself to return a beaming smile. I was so wrapped inside my own heartbreak, I hadn’t fully considered what Knight had had to deal with in my absence.
His mother was dying. That was the blunt, awful truth.
Rosie patted the space at the foot of her bed, and I perched on it, my eyes never leaving hers. She had all kinds of machines hooked up on her nightstand, and an emergency button installed on the wall.
You have a nurse, I wanted to scream, to sob and collapse into her arms. You never had a nurse before.
But I’d die before making it more difficult for her.
“How are you?” I asked instead.
“I’m going through menopause.” She stared skyward. Tears began to pool in her eyes.
I didn’t know what to do. What to say. I hadn’t been expecting that to come out of her mouth. Foolish and self-centered as I was, I thought she wanted to talk to me about Knight, about our obviously strained relationship.
“I’m too young for menopause.”
Rosie wasn’t one to dwell in self-pity, and she’d never once complained about her illness, so I wondered why menopause was the tipping point.
I put my hand on hers. Squeezed. “It’s okay.” Was it, though? “Does Dean know?” I searched her soft eyes.
She shuddered in a breath, nodding and wiping her tears with the tattered tissue, leaving clouds of it on her damp face. “Yes, but I don’t talk to him about it. I don’t talk to any of them about those things. I’m strong for my boys. But sometimes…” She bit her lower lip, her teeth shaking against it to the rhythm of her sobs. “Sometimes I need to break, too.”
“You can always break with me.” I held myself together with everything I had, willing myself not to cry. “Tell me how I can help.”
I meant it with a ferocity I didn’t know I could feel. I wanted Rosie to get better, even if it was obvious she couldn’t. She’d always been there for me—taking Knight and me on playdates and getting me out of my out-of-his-wits, then-single, father’s hands. She’d gifted me special editions of her favorite books on my birthdays—the number of books equal to the age I was celebrating—because she knew I valued her literary opinion. Growing up, when I’d had no clue what to do with my hair, she and Emilia—Vaughn’s mother—had learned how to braid it because they knew how much I hated going in for an appointment with a stranger.
When Edie had stepped into the picture and took over, Rosie still came to braid my hair every few weeks, just to keep seeing me. “Havana Twist or Cornrows?” she’d ask. I’d always signed cornrows. “Good girl. That’s the only thing I know how to do.”
“Luna…” Rosie held my hand now. She stared at our laced fingers like she was committing the image to memory, before it was too late.
I tried stopping the shudders rippling through my body, the tears that demanded to come out. How come my parents hadn’t told me it was this bad? But of course they hadn’t. I’d been so busy on me-me-me island, I never bothered to sail to other territories and check in on her. Sure, I’d asked. But why hadn’t I called? Why hadn’t I done more?
“I’m not sure how long I have,” she admitted, “and I need your help regarding a few crucial matters.”
I already hated the sound of this, because I knew whatever she was going to ask me to do would break my heart, and that I was going to do it without fail. Because she wasn’t being melodramatic. She was dying.
I nodded.
“I need you to be there for Knight, even when he pushes you away. And he will push you away. He will do anything he can to make sure you don’t see him break. But he will break—in outstanding fashion, as he does everything else,” she chuckled the words.
Yes. I rubbed my thumb along her hand, back and forth. This one was easy. “Even if he pushes me away. Even if he refuses it. I will always be here for him.”
“When the time comes,” she said, flipping my hand over and staring at my palm contemplatively, “I want you to give him and Lev something very important. Something I want us to make together. Paid work, of course. And we don’t have much time. It will require some writing from you.”
“Writing?”
“You are a writer, are you not?” She smirked.
I wanted to be. I didn’t know if I had it in me. But what better excuse to try—and to fail—than honoring Rosie’s request?
“Anything,” I stressed. “I’ll do anything for you.”
“It will require some back and forth emails. We don’t have much time. It will be intense. Will it interrupt your studies?” Her expression turned cloudy.
“Anything, anything, anything.” I shook my head, almost violently, squeezing my eyes shut. The hell with my studying. “What more? Tell me. Please. I’ll do it.”
“My final request is somewhat controversial, but important nonetheless. I want you to do something very special for me, Luna. Something I can’t ask from my sons for obvious reasons, but it would break my heart to know this wish was not fulfilled.”
My heart was about to explode. I held my breath.
“I want you to make sure Dean moves on. He is far too young not to experience love again. He is far too beautiful, inside and out, not to be admired. I know my husband. He wants to be a martyr. To show me that he cares, that I was—am, am—” She coughed again, her voice strained. “—the only person for him. But it’s a title I never claimed. I know his love for me is the Big Bang. I don’t mind him settling on another quiet planet afterwards. He needs to move on, Luna.”
Dumbfounded, I blinked. Up until now, I’d agreed to do things that were up to me. I could fulfill this mysterious writing project, even if I had to spend sleepless nights and drop out of school. I would be there for Knight, even if he kicked me out, demeaned me, and fought against my attempts to make amends. But how could I convince my godfather, my dad’s best friend, to fall in love again after losing his wife?
Rosie saw the doubt on my face and brought my hand to her beating heart. It beat so slow, I could barely feel its faint pulse.
“It’s very easy, really. I know the way. Grab your notebook. I’m going to give you the play-by-play of how this is going to happen.”
I took out the notebook and my seahorse pen, and I started writing.
“You’re coming with, Saint Luna, and I really don’t care that you’d rather skin a live elephant. It’s about making a statement.” Daria flung her lush, blonde hair back, applying another layer of shiny lip gloss in front of my mirror.
New Year’s Eve was my idea of hell, especially if it was celebrated with a wild party.
I was still shocked that Daria was here to begin with. In my house. In my room. Daria and I had never been close. I was too shy to try; she was too exasperated with my general weirdness to understand. We’d reached some kind of understanding when she moved away, but I still treaded lightly around her like she was a magical unicorn: with equal measures of fear and respect.
“Team Daria, woot woot.” April pumped her fist from the monitor of my MacBook, on Skype. It felt surreal, having two genuine girlfriends. Not that they replaced the hole Knight had left in his wake. It was a different kind of friendship—less intense, but entertaining all the same.
“So what’s the plan?” April leaned forward, her gaze following Daria around my room, star-struck.
I couldn’t blame her. Some girls were born to rule the world. Daria was painfully clearly one of them.
Daria plopped on the chair in front of my MacBook. “We go to the party, Knight sees Luna looking like a million bucks, and he dumps the English tart.”
“That’s not nice,” I pointed out, shifting inside the red skater dress Daria had handed to me and insisted I wear.
“Oh my Marx, who claimed to be nice?” Daria stared at me, horrified. “What a mediocre goal to have in life.”
April gave us two thumbs-up, nodding. “Yeah, dude, this chick is your ex’s current girlfriend. You’re not supposed to protect her. Why did you two break up, anyway? You never even said.”
“Break up?” Daria lifted a perfectly plucked eyebrow.
No. No, no, no. I’d totally forgotten I’d told April this little white lie to cover for the fact that I was an emotional mess when I arrived at Boon.
Daria swiveled her head to me, screwing her pouty lips into a scowl. I thought of signing to April that Daria didn’t know. Daria would get the hint. She wouldn’t rat me out. But it didn’t feel okay to lie to April anymore. She was a friend now.
“I’m sorry,” I signed, my shoulders sagging. I really was.
April shook her head. “It’s okay. We’ll talk about it when we get back to Boon. Break a leg, Lu.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Oh, and Lu?” April smiled, just as I was about to close the MacBook. “You’re not the girl I met the first day we arrived at Boon. You’re much stronger. Make sure he knows that.”
The beach house where Daria threw the party belonged to one of her rich friends and sat on Huntington Beach. The owners were two architects who lived in Europe half the year. It looked like an elaborate fishbowl. The floors and walls were all made of glass. You could see the blond sand and tranquil ocean under your feet. The living room, huge and mostly empty, spilled onto a large deck with crystal bannisters. The only proof people inhabited the carefully designed space was the second floor I’d caught a glimpse of when we parked. There was some light furniture scattered around there.
Who could live in such a place?
“Stephannie!” Daria squealed as she hugged a girl who looked like the dark-haired version of her. They held each other for what seemed to be a century before disconnecting. Daria introduced us and told Stephannie (who pointed out that her name was spelled with a double N. Why couldn’t rich people just let normal names be?) that I couldn’t talk, but I could hear and text, waving it off like it was hardly an issue.
And so, Stephannie didn’t treat it as one. It was definitely refreshing.
“Where is Penn?” I asked Daria as we wandered to the deck, where she began arranging drinks on a long table.
She tossed her glossy hair, her signature move. “Oh, trying on suits with his friends in New York. He’s taking the wedding thing uber seriously.” She rolled her eyes, laughing.
“Don’t you?” I panicked. One thing we could credit our parents for—they sure gave us good examples of how successful, happy marriages should look.
Daria shrugged, pouring champagne into tall, thin glasses with a precise accuracy that would make an AA counselor flinch. “I take the marriage seriously. The wedding? Not so much.”
My eyes raked over her face, searching for clues. Daria was one of the most materialistic people I knew, so hearing her say that surprised me.
She put the empty bottle of champagne on the table, popping open a new one.
“Look…” She turned to me. “When you find the one, all the other details blur together. I don’t know what I want to wear when I wed him. I don’t know what my hair is going to look like, or how many guests I want to invite, or if I want a beach wedding, or one in a fancy hotel, or to elope in Vegas. All I know is that I want to be with Penn. Every hour. Every day. Every year. And that’s enough for me. It’s more than enough. It’s everything. Don’t you feel like that about Knight?” She cocked her head.
I wasn’t so sure anymore. Our relationship was such a mess. He was torn apart by his mother’s situation and me sleeping with someone else, and I was scrambling to become normal, finally out of my parents’ nest, with banged-up wings and frayed feathers. We both had so much going on. Communicating effectively was not our strong point these days.
An hour later, the place was jam-packed. Vaughn came with a bunch of his artsy friends, skulking in the corner of the room. They looked much older and terribly worldly. Knight walked in with Poppy on his arm. She wore a canary yellow mini dress and a sweet smile. They were talking and laughing.
They looked happy.
Genuinely happy. I didn’t know what had happened between the day before Christmas, at the shelter, and now. But whatever it was, they seemed to have overcome it. Overcome me. Maybe I needn’t fulfill Rosie’s wish after all. Maybe Poppy would be there to pick up the pieces so I didn’t have to.
So I didn’t get to.
“Don’t look at him, and definitely don’t say hello,” Daria warned fiercely when she saw me looking.
I cradled my glass of champagne and glared at the wall. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t one to play games. Then again, Daria was now blissfully engaged to a guy who’d once made a promise to ruin her life and hated her guts but now adored the ground her fancy heels walked upon. I was morbidly single. She obviously had game, and I could use a few pointers.
Hours dragged. Music played. People laughed. When it became apparent that Knight and Poppy weren’t going to acknowledge us, too engrossed in their own little universe, Daria dragged me to the dance floor and convinced me to shake my butt. It was nearing midnight, and the acute sense of time running out slammed into me.
“The plan isn’t working,” I complained to Daria as she twerked against my thigh, throwing her head back and forth to “Lollipop” by Lil Wayne. I felt like a broken Cinderella. My carriage was going to turn into a pumpkin soon, only this was not a fairytale—more like a Halloween nightmare. I hated that Knight could see what I said if he wanted to. Even from across the room.
“Honey, making a guy jealous is like getting a fine ass. You have to work hard for it.” She waved me off, twirling in place and sipping on her champagne. “Act like you don’t care.”
“I do care.”
“Ugh, I know. Which is so awful, isn’t it? Guys are trash.”
We danced until my feet screamed in agony, threatening to fall off. The entire party seemed to pour itself onto the deck for the ten-second countdown welcoming the next year. Everyone stared at the dusky sky, dotted with stars, holding their drinks. I realized to my horror that, other than myself and Daria, everybody was hugging a significant other they could kiss. Jesus Christ. How had I not noticed it before? We were going to look so pathetic.
Well, maybe not Daria. Daria had a famous fiancé with NFL plans in his future and an engagement ring any girl would murder for. Yup. This sounded like a classic me problem.
I spotted Knight and Poppy standing in the far corner of the area, his head bent as she whispered into his ear. A shudder ran through my spine like an earthquake. The countdown started. I couldn’t unglue my eyes from them, even though I knew I should. That the entire point of being there was showing Knight I didn’t care.
“Ten!”
“Look at me, Luna. Not at them.” Daria snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“Nine!”
“Jesus, Saint Lu. He wants you to react this way!”
“Eight!”
“Luna.”
“Seven!”
“Luuuuuuunaaaa!”
“Six!”
“Don’t make me do something crazy.”
“Five!”
“Bitch, you’re more basic than an android.”
“Four!”
“Last warning, Rexroth.”
“Three!”
“You asked for it.”
“Two!”
“Actually, I always wanted to know…”
“One!”
I didn’t have time to catch Knight dipping his head farther down to kiss Poppy. Daria clasped my chin, tilted my head in her direction, and pressed her lips against mine as claps and shouts erupted around us, fireworks exploding in the air and in the pit of my stomach. Her soft, warm lips crashed into mine, the flavor of her watermelon lip gloss invading my mouth. I groaned, not used to the pliability of kissing a girl. Or kissing, in general. The only boys I’d ever kissed were Knight and Josh. And Vaughn, I guess, if you could count it.
God, why wasn’t I stopping this? I let Daria deepen our kiss, my eyelids dropping shut of their own accord. She felt surprisingly good, and not just physically, which I guess was expected. When her tongue slid past my lips, I knew the shouts and barks around us were because of us. We had an audience. Daria always had an audience. Only tonight, she’d decided to put me in the spotlight to make a point.
I reciprocated, tonguing her mouth, shuddering at how hot and sweet the kiss was. I realized I’d changed. I was no longer the girl who hid behind her parents, and Knight, and Vaughn. I had desires. I was real. I was whole.
With and without Knight, I was complete.
Daria had stolen the attention from Knight—my attention from Knight—and forced him to pay attention to me. A genius move, if I really thought about it. Maybe that’s why I cupped one of her cheeks as our tongues danced together, my eyes still closed, and felt both of us smiling into that kiss. A smile that spoke a thousand words we never said to each other:
Thank you for having my back.
Thank you for tonight.
Thank you for being the wonderful, crazy, ruthless you.
“All right, show’s fucking over,” a gruff voice grumbled, and I felt the fabric of my dress pulled back.
I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Knight. Daria grinned my way, arching an I-told-you eyebrow. Her lips were swollen, pink, and puffy. Her normally perfect hair a tangled, sexy mess. God. We’d full-blown made out. I could still feel my heavy-lidded eyes and my pulse dancing across my lips.
I waved Knight off, giving Daria a hug. She squeaked in my arms, and we both shared a giggle. This was about friendship, not some stupid gay attention moment.
Knight tugged me away again, gatekeeper that he was.
“Luna,” he seethed.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Daria rolled her eyes. “Not everything’s about you, Cole. Although, I guess she’s Saint Luna no more, huh?” Daria winked, ignoring the death glare Poppy tried to spear her with.
It was like Daria had injected some of her personality into me with that kiss. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the alcohol, or perhaps the attention and the way I was really growing tired of Knight refusing to let me move on, while parading his girlfriend in front of me. In all probability, it was all of the above that made me do what I did.
I rolled my eyes, opened my mouth, and spat out actual words in front of everyone.
“You’re not the boss of me! Not even a colleague. Not even an employee. Barely an acquaintance.” A ruthless smile blossomed on my lips.
Daria sucked in a shocked breath. Knight stumbled back, pain written all over his beautiful face. Most of the nearby partygoers didn’t know I couldn’t speak, didn’t know the significance of what I’d just done, so they just stared on, ready for some blood to be shed.
“When did you become such a bitch?” Knight narrowed his eyes at me.
Finally. Finally, we were doing what we should have done years ago: deal with our emotions. Let the anger, frustration, and lust out. Stop tiptoeing around one another, pretending like nothing had happened, when so much had.
We’d fallen in love.
We’d fallen in lust.
We’d broken each other’s trust.
I smirked the patronizing smirk he’d taught me very well as I strutted my way to the door. I flipped him the finger without looking back to watch his reaction.
“Since you made me one, KJC.”
