It’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m his chosen son. Not a bastard, lik
e the Watsons who are running around this same town, or the other boy, another bastard son he once mentioned when he was well into his cups. I’m the one he kept by his side, in his house, at his workshop. The only one he gave his name to. I’m the only official son of Jasper Jones.
He needs me ready to run the show one day. He needs me strong enough.
The boy is finally allowed to leave, and I turn when the gang starts whistling and calling out in the lines of “Hey, Looney! Looney Tunes!”
Luna.
Before I say anything, the gang is all over her, calling her all sorts of names, advancing on her like a cloud of wasps, hungry for her reaction.
“Nutjob Tunes!” someone calls out. “Fat-ass!”
She doesn’t disappoint. She steps back, paling, looking for a way out. Cute little thing, her nose always buried in books, those wide green eyes often unfocused as she goes by, lost in thought. A good student, doing her homework, knowing stuff. I bet her parents love the hell out of her.
“Ugly bitch,” I say, and she flinches as if I yelled it out loud.
She heard me.
It hurt her.
Good.
Someone grabs her backpack, pulls it off her, empties her books out all over the floor. She fights to get it back and she’s shoved away roughly. She stumbles but doesn’t fall. She waits until the guys have had their fill of throwing her books about, of calling her stupid names and making faces at her.
After they’ve returned to me, she goes down on her knees to gather her things. I pretend not to observe her, instead I pretend to listen to whatever bullshit one of the guys is talking to me about, some nonsense about his sister and a junkie from Kansas City.
But I’m keeping her at the periphery of my vision, and when she finally stands up and lifts her head, I see her face clearly.
She has tears standing on her lashes, crystal drops, but the look she shoots me is defiant. Without a word, without a gesture, it’s as if she flips me off.
It makes me feel good.
And at the same time, sick. Physically sick, with bile rising in my throat. What the fuck? Why does it sting like this? Why can’t I take pleasure in her fear, like I do with everyone else’s?
Luna isn’t weak, like everyone else, I realized then. She doesn’t need this violence, like me, to find her strength. She’s beautiful. She’s strong. She’s perfect as she is.
That defiant streak... That resilience. Always getting back up, gathering her torn books, gathering her pride around her. Never speaking. Never letting those tears fall. As time passed, it made me angrier, that she should be so strong. And I hated myself even more for trying to destroy her.
I thought I could never break her.
I thought I could never break, either.
I was wrong on both accounts.
CHAPTER FOUR- LUNA
Clever rhymes with never
Day after day, month after month, I go through the same ritual at school, and in town: Ross Jones’ gang teasing me, pushing me about, calling me names and bodyshaming me.
For some time, I thought I could take it, live with it. Ignore it and go on as if nothing was wrong. I’m strong. I always thought I’m confident enough. I may not be a supermodel, but I’m not ugly. I may not be a genius, but I’m clever. I read a lot, I know a lot. My grades are pretty good, my life is okay. My dad and my brother love me, and I have a great aunt and cousins. I may not have any real friends right now, but that’s probably because I’ve pushed them all away. Between the divorce, Mom’s vanishing act, and the bullying, I’ve turned into a bit of a hermit.
Still. I always thought I wasn’t the kind of person bullying could break. No idea what sort of person I thought that would be. The breaking kind, I guess. Someone weak, not me.
Never me.
But like water eats at rocks, eroding them, wearing them down to sand, my resistance has worn thin, my armor is full of holes. Every mean insult, every shove and seemingly random hit, trips me up and bogs me down even more. I heard Chinese torture is like that, wearing down the prisoner little by little. Who knows if it’s true?