12. Luna
12
LUNA
Three weeks of feeling hollow. Three weeks of sending Chance, another one of my dad’s employees, to fill out purchase orders at Brent’s farm. Three weeks of telling my dad ‘no’ when he asked me to go back to Luscious Acres to make amends.
“He has been asking for you!” he tells me. “We can still make this work!”
“We? We can still make what work?”
“He is clearly in love with you, Luna,” my dad hisses back, pacing behind his desk. “You will go back there and tell him that you are sorry. That everything is fine between you too, and you will earn back his trust–”
“No!” I bellow. “I’m not going to spy for you!”
Coffee splashes across the wall as my dad hurls his mug in anger and advances on me. His jaw is tense and quivering, like a dog ready to bite.
“Do you have any idea how royally you fucked this up?” my dad screams at me. Hearing what happened between Brent and me and has caused him to go ballistic. “I sent you there to work for me! Not to let your hormones get the best of you!”
“Gee, Dad,” I reply as I lean against the door jamb in his office, watching him have a tantrum. Maybe he should get his hormones checked. “Thanks for the sympathy for your one and only daughter.”
“Oh, I send you there with one simple purpose, and you go and whore yourself out for him, and I’m supposed to have sympathy for you?!” he shouts back, throwing back a shot of his Macallan single malt whiskey. “You’ve fucked us!”
“Us?” I ask. “No, Dad. You fucked you. Since clearly all I was in this company was a pretty little sexy thing to be dangled in front of your business rival!”
I storm out before he can respond. My maroon Camry is in the parking lot. It somehow manages to start on the first try, and I speed as fast as I can out into the middle of nowhere.
I have no idea where I’m was going. I just know I need to be as far away as I can from the great businessman, Jeff Fairley.
I brace myself against the wall to keep myself from falling back and landing in the toilet. Not only would that totally mess up Emily’s skin-tight blue dress she’s loaned me for tonight, but it would also be beyond disgusting.
I lean forward and turn the water on and wet my fingertips and flick just a tiny bit of water in my eyes. I don’t know if someone spiked my last drink or what, but my vision is blurring, and everywhere I walk, the ground feels like Jell-O. It’s a miracle I haven’t busted my ass in the last ten minutes.
My heart is also pounding inside my ribcage like a foreign object. Kabam! Kabam! Kabam!
This was Emily’s idea–coming to the party tonight. She says I’ve been ‘depressed, whiney, and a total bore to be around’ for the last three weeks. She says that I need to get out of the dorm room, get around some boys, and have a good time.
While I don’t agree with all of her criticism, I did agree that I’ve been cooped up in the dorm for far too long. So I accepted her invitation, and here I am, at her friend’s-friend’s party pretending like getting out and getting drunk and shaking my ass is something I do all the time.
“Luna, are you in there?” Emily pounds on the bathroom door. “Kate said she saw you go in there. Are you okay?”
“Fine!” I lie back. “No, I’m not fine. I feel like I’m gonna die.”
“Like you’re what? I’m coming in! Hope you’re decent!”
The door opens, and Emily barges in, our mutual friend, Kate, hot on her heels. Emily comes over to my side and instantly grimaces.
“Ooh, you don’t look so hot.”
“Gee, thanks,” I groan.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she replies. “I meant, you look like you’re about to throw up.”
“Did you throw up already?” Kate asks. I shake my head. “Well, you might consider just pulling the trigger and getting it over with. It will help.”
“No. I don’t need to. I’m fine.”
“Maybe some water,” Emily suggests. “Kate, can you find a water bottle for her? Unopened?”
“B-r-b,” Kate replies, making herself scarce.
My pulse thuds in my ears. I lean against the cool tile wall, which sort of helps relieve some of the nausea in my stomach.
“Jesus, Luna. I knew you were still upset over Mr. Hotstuff, but you can’t go so hard on your first party in forever. You’re not a drinker!”
I shake my head. “Some asshole must have spiked my last drink. It just came out of nowhere…”
“No one spiked your drink, girl,” Emily laughs. “You just haven’t eaten all day, and you’ve been pounding vodka like a sorority girl. It comes out of nowhere. Trust me.”
A slimy feeling washes over either side of my tongue. And then I feel it: the feeling every girl who’s overestimated how much she can drink knows. That terrible feeling at the back of your throat warning you that there’s no coming back now.
“Oh God,” I choke. “Look out!”
I nearly shove Emily off her feet as I push past her to the toilet and squat down, vomiting up my shrimp Pad Thai from dinner. Like the wonderful friend she is, she grabs my hair and holds it back for me.
Right at that moment, for some reason, the most insane thought enters my mind.
Just imagine if Brent saw you like this . What would he think?
I hear the sound of heels clipping behind me and look back to see Kate standing in the doorway, a can of Liquid Death in her hand. Doing her best not to look grossed out, she waves it and smiles.
“I found some water.”
“Thank you,” I reply, taking it from her and taking a swig to wash my mouth out. Then I gulp down half the can like I’m one of the guys out there chugging a beer to show off.
“Feeling better?” Emily asks.
“Slightly,” I groan.
“Um, Luna?” Katie asks, her voice soft and hesitant. “That guy you were…kinda-sorta dating. He had brown hair, right?”
Every muscle in my body goes tense immediately. Adrenaline can apparently have a sobering effect because I feel a rush as it surges through me and can suddenly see much straighter. I stand and look right at her.
“Yes. Why?”
Emily frowns at Katie, then looks over at me and then back at Katie, who pulls her phone from her purse. Slowly, she unlocks it and looks at the screen, then over at me.
“There’s a guy out there who is definitely not a UVM student. He’s–well he’s good-looking, and I heard him talking to this girl about the amazing cream his farm produces.”
My heart skips at least two beats, and I have to steady myself against the wall.
It can’t be. Why would Brent be at a UVM dorm party? How would he even get in? The only girl he knows here is me, and I didn’t invite him.
“I took a picture of him with my phone,” Kate says. “Is this him?”
She turns the screen to me, and for a second, I can’t even look. I feel like if it is him, I’m going to explode like a bomb and kill every single person at this party. Or if that doesn’t happen, I’m at least going to take Kate’s phone and smash it into pieces and then break down here in this disgusting bathroom.
But finally, I manage to glance down at the screen. And what do I see?
Brent, standing there grinning amidst the college crowd, talking with some girl who has her back to the camera.
All of a sudden, I feel like throwing up again.
“Son of a…”
“That piece of shit,” Emily growls. “Don’t worry, Luna. I’ll handle this–”
She starts to race off, but I stop her. “No. Don’t. This is something I need to do myself.”