“Luna?” The old wooden stairs creaked and moaned as my mom came down the steps.
I set my mug on the coffee table and ran around the couch just as her foot made it to the floor. I wrapped her small frame in a tight hug, and tears burned my eyes. It had been too long since I had seen her, and now that I was here, I knew that living in Boston was the wrong thing to do. I shouldn’t have ever left.
I ran for the wrong reasons when I should have stayed for the right ones.
“Where is my Star?” My dad called out after me, his loud feet pounding on the steps like a giant. He never called me Luna. He thought it was funny to call me a star that surrounded the moon. I loved it and I never wanted it to change. It was our thing and it meant everything to me.
“I’m right here,” I said, still keeping a tight hold on mom. She was so small and skinny, always had been. If I ever wanted to know what I would look like when I aged, all I would have to do is look at my mom.
We were practically twins, except she had a bit more gray in her brown curly hair and wrinkles on her face. While she had brown eyes, I had inherited my dad’s green eyes, the only thing that told the world we were related in some way.
“There’s my girl,” he said, yanking me away from my mom’s arms.
I buried my nose in his chest and inhaled, tears stinging my eyes when I felt how much skinnier he was. He smelled sick, not like the usual bar of soap, but like a hospital. I tightened my arms around him, and the first tear fell.
“Oh, I’ll be alright, sweetie. I’ll be alright,” he comforted me when I should have been the one comforting him.
“You don’t feel like it,” I said, wiping my nose on the front of his shirt.
He leaned back. “Did you just wipe your nose on me?” His smile was telling, reminding him of all the times I did that as a child if I had to guess.
“No?” I grinned, and his big hands came up and wiped my tears away. He was the only man in my life that never disappointed me.
“It’s so good to have you home, honey,” my mom said, running her fingers through my hair. “You look too skinny. Were you eating in Boston? That’s okay; I’ll fix that. I’ll make some breakfast, come on.”
“I ate,” I weakly argued because my diet consisted of cereal and noodles. What were even vegetables?
Dad chuckled. “Come on, sweetie, let’s go upstairs, and you can tell us all about this last year.”
With his hand in the middle of my back, he guided me up the steps, and for the first time since I dreaded coming back to Camden, I finally felt at home.
And that was something Easton could never take away from me. He was just a boy, he wasn’t my entire life, and now that I was here with my mom and dad, I realized just how short life could be.
Tomorrow, I’d go to Lowe’s and pick up some supplies to redecorate my room and start living again.
“Hey, dad?” I asked as we made our way to the top of the stairs.
He wheezed, leaning against the wall after shutting the door to the basement.
“Dad! Are you ok?”
“Fine, just need a minute to catch my breath. I’m alright; I’m alright. Stop fussing.” He pushed off the wall with his foot and beads of sweat shined on his forehead when mom turned on the kitchen light.
“You don’t look alright.”
“It’s the medication,” he said.
Right. It couldn’t be the cancer making him feel like crap.
Tears threatened my eyes again, and the thought of living life without my dad seemed more real every second I was at home. His skin was clammy, and his cheeks sunken in, but he hadn’t lost his hair yet. It was only a matter of time though.
“What did you need, sweetie?” he asked just as a coughing fit hit him and mom rushed to get him a glass of water. When she set the glass down in front of him, she petted his back with long strokes, and he sighed before taking a long gulp of the icy liquid. “That’s better.”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to go to Lowe’s to help me with a project. I wanted to redo my room. I don’t want to push you though.”
“Are you kidding?” He lit up like a Christmas tree. “I’d love to go and help you with your room. That Zac needs to go. He drives me nuts,” he grumbled. “But your mother wouldn’t let me take down the posters.”
“Oh, James. They are just posters,” my mom said with a roll of her eyes and a tilt of her lips.