And if she doesn’t choose me… I don’t know what I’ll do.
“Gavin…” she says again, when I don’t reply.
“It’s okay, Luna,” I tell her, feeling so empty inside that I’m not sure I have the energy to keep carrying on this conversation. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I start up my truck, needing to escape.
“It’s not okay. You’re upset.”
I take a deep breath.
“You’re going to have to tell them soon, Luna. It won’t be long until we graduate.”
“I will tell them, I promise. I just… I can’t do it right now, Gavin. I can’t. We have to wait.”
“What will waiting change?”
“Well for one, I’ll be eighteen. They can’t truly tell me who I can see and who I can’t when that happens.”
“There’s not that big a difference between eighteen and seventeen, Luna.”
“Gavin, I promise. Just give me until my birthday please? That’s not that far away.”
“Be honest with me, Luna. Are you really planning on leaving Stone Lake with me?” She swallows, I can see the movement of her throat. I see the bleakness in her eyes, and it feels like I’ve been sucker punched. “You’re not planning on leaving at all, are you, Luna? It’s all just been some make-believe fantasy in your head,” I mutter, shifting my truck into gear.
“It’s not! You don’t know what might happen. Maybe once we tell my father that we’re together and that’s not changing. He might accept you. He might accept us. There’s a chance, you know.”
“There’s zero chance in that happening, Moonbeam.”
“It could, Gavin,” she pleads desperately, and I close my eyes against the grief I see on her face. Atticus is right, I’m already causing her heartache and I never wanted to do that.
“Luna, let’s pretend for a moment that he does. He’s okay with us dating, okay with us moving in together, all of it. I still have to leave Stone Lake. I have to get away from my father, from Atticus. I’ll still be leaving.”
“Gavin—”
“I’m asking if you will, Luna? Will you be leaving? Will you leave with me and live the life we’ve talked about?”
“I told you I would,” she murmurs.
“You have. I’m just not sure I believe it.”
“If leaving Stone Lake is the only way to be with you,” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“I will leave and not look back. I’d choose you over everything, Gavin. I promise you, I’d always choose you over all of them.” I let her words wash over me. In the back of my mind there’s still that doubt, but I do my best to push it aside. “I love you,” she adds, leaning in so her head rests against mine, her fingers brushing against my skin.
“I love you too, Luna,” I promise, whispering in her ear, then I kiss her lips lightly.
“Go into the school and see what your Dad wants. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“We’re okay?” she asks.
“We’re okay,” I assure her, praying that it’s true.
She gives me another brief kiss and with a sad smile, I pull away.
When I look in my rearview mirror, I see Luna standing there. She watches me for a minute then enters the school.
Going to her father… As I’m driving away.
I hope that’s not how it’s always doomed to be…
Chapter Thirty Eight
Luna
“Dad? What are you doing here?” I ask him, breathless because I ran up the stairs to the school entrance.
I’m fighting tears, too. I’m sure that doesn’t help. Gavin might have said we were okay, but I saw the bleakness on his face. I put that look there. I know he can tell that I don’t really want to leave Stone Lake. At the same time, I can’t stop myself from hoping that I’m worrying over nothing. I have this fantasy in my head, that something happens and magically my parents will love Gavin as much as I do, and my Dad will offer him a job or help him to get training to be a cop here in Stone Lake and it will all work out. I can keep Gavin and stay in the place I love.
After the conversation I had with Gavin, that seems even more impossible now…
“I came to pick my girl up and drive her home.”
“Oh, I was planning on hitching a ride with Jules…”
“I have something I want to talk over with you, Luna.”
All of the sudden, a chill moves over me. Can they know about me and Gavin? Dad’s face has a look on it that I’ve never seen before. Even when he and Mom are fighting there’s a softness on his face when he talks to me. That’s definitely not there right now. Right now, he seems remote and sad.
He seems really sad.
“Uh… just let me get my things from my locker,” I whisper.
I leave him standing there and go to my locker to grab what I need to take home for the weekend. I was hoping I’d be able to spend tomorrow at Jules since it’s Saturday. The look on Dad’s face makes me wonder if that’s going to be an option.