"I'm not leaving until you talk to me, Luna." Don't ask me how I know she's in there, I just do. I can sense her sadness radiating from the other side of the wall. I can smell the tears that are falling down her face right now. "Please, Luna. I'm not leaving."
Her curtain rips back, and there she stands. Her black hair sticks to her wet cheeks, and the small amount of mascara I wish she wouldn't wear runs down her face in dark rivers. "What do you want, Roman?" she asks, her voice clogged with tears.
"I don't like Cindy," I emphasize.
She rolls her eyes, the whites of them bloodshot and watery. "Quit lying to me."
"I’m not!" I shout, but her voice is muffled through the closed window. "Open your window so your mom or dad don't come see what's wrong."
She looks over her shoulder, gnawing on her lip a moment before turning back to me.
"Open your window, Luna. Right now."
She does as I ask, raising her window up only an inch. I push it up the rest of the way, bending down so I can slide inside. Her room smells salty, like it's full of her tears. "Stop crying," I groan, hating this feeling in my chest. Like it's shredding apart in a meat grinder. I can't take it anymore.
Her ballet slippers hang on her wall on a hook, and the rest of her walls are filled with pictures of me, Nora, and her family. Some ballet artwork also decorates her walls, but the focus is me and her.
It'salwaysbeen me and her.
Without a second thought, I grab her arms and pull her to me. "I don't like her, and I never will like her. You don't have to worry about her. Not now. Not ever." I punch each word out with so much certainty her face freezes. She stares up at me, trying to decipher the realness of my words.
"I'm being honest with you. I promise."
Her face crumbles, lines forming in her eyes and forehead. Her body shudders as she takes a deep breath. She falls into me, her body sinking against mine. "I don't want to lose you," she whispers.
"You'll never lose me. Never," I mumble against her head.
Because I'll never let her go.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Luna
"Hey, Luna." I look up, seeing Travis staring at me from my table in the library. School started a few months ago, and as much as I hate being here without Roman, I just tell myself I have one more year to get through and then I'll be with him again.
Jealousy gnaws at my insides just thinking of him at the high school by himself. Imagining Cindy talking to him, flirting with him.
Ugh.
"Luna?" Travis asks again, adjusting the books in his arms. His letterman jacket is blue and yellow as it sits on his chest. Being on the football team, he's handsome and one of the guys in my grade that all the girls have a crush on.
Except me.
The library is quiet, and it smells like old books. The one place I like to be in school. My favorite place.
"I'm sorry, what?" I look up at him, setting my pencil down inside my notebook and closing it. It has a huge lump in it, the cover tilted halfway toward the ceiling.
I'm supposed to be studying for my upcoming math test, but I've been drowning in thoughts of Roman. I'm pathetic, but my life is consumed by him, and it has been since I was a child.
"I asked if you wanted to go to the winter carnival with me."
I blink at him, not sure where this is even coming from. I don't think I've ever really spoken with him before unless we were working together on a school project or something. He's never just searched me out for no reason, so I'm kind of wondering why he suddenly wants to take me to the school dance.
"Wait, what?" I let out a small chuckle. "Where is this coming from?"
The librarian gives me a harsh look, and Travis quickly slinks into the chair beside me, his knees knocking against mine. He leans forward, the smell of minty gum coming off his breath. He smiles with his perfectly straight teeth that had braces removed from them this last summer, and it’s infectious with the dimple in his cheek. It has me instantly smiling back at him.
"It's not a new thing. I've always wanted to ask you out. I've just never had the chance," he says.