Chapter 56
luna
“I cannot believe it was so easy and that it took us so long to come up with it.”
“It was the best of both worlds,” Dirks said, leaning back in the passenger seat, his hand on my thigh as we pulled into the narrow drive that led to my small guesthouse.
“I’m happy to be home.”
“Yeah, Luna girl. Me, too.”
I leaned back against the headrest, staring out the windshield at Nova’s porch light glowing against the evening sky. My body ached with exhaustion, but it was the kind of bone-deep tired that came with finally laying something heavy down.
“I’m glad we stayed in that town last night.” I slid my eyes over to his. “I’m even more glad we’re back. It’s only been a day since you signed, but it feels like forever ago.”
He gave me a small, crooked smile but didn’t say anything. He never bragged, never asked for credit. That was Dirks—steady as the ground beneath me, even when it shook.
I reached across the console, my hand finding his jaw and turning him toward me. “Thank you. For what you did, for stepping in when I couldn’t. You’ve always been my steady. Always what I needed.”
His throat worked, Adam’s apple bobbing as he brought his hand up to cover mine. We sat like that in the driveway, the car engine ticking as it cooled, neither of us in a hurry to move.
Headlights swept across the driveway, and a dark car pulled near ours. My throat went dry. My pulse shot straight up.
“He’s here.”
My hand flew to the door handle, then I froze, nerves buzzing so loud they drowned out everything else.
“Go talk to him, Luna girl.” His blue eyes held mine, unwavering. “I’ll go hang out with Ollie and Nova. This one’s yours.”
My breath came fast, but I nodded, clutching his hand like it was the last solid thing before the storm.
“Go,” he repeated, giving me the faintest smile, the kind that said he’d be steady no matter what waited outside.
Jer leaned against the hood of his car with his arms folded as he waited.
The light caught the ink that climbed his throat, curling around the base of his neck.
My gaze drifted lower to his jorts. God, only he could pull those off, denim cutting high enough that the tattoos on his thigh were fully on display, bold lines twisting over skin I knew too well.
“Hi,” I whispered, my voice so small it almost got lost in the hum of cicadas.
He shook his head, and a beat later, he closed the distance between us, walking toward me until I was wrapped in his arms.
“I-I didn’t know.”
“How would you?” I whispered back.
He slid his hands down until they found mine. “I should have known. I should have put it together. Luna—”
I shook my head sharply, cutting him off before the guilt could eat him alive, and pressed my palms to his chest. “No. What you gave me is my life back. You gave me permission to be safe in my sexuality. You showed me that if someone controls you, it doesn’t have to be like he did. What you gave me is priceless.”
“But I’m an asshole. I’ve been so hot and cold. I’ve been—”
“You’ve been scared because I harbored a secret I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
“Luna . . . ” His thumb trembled as it brushed my cheek, hesitant, almost afraid to touch me at all.
My throat worked as I swallowed, every word catching like barbed wire. “Jer, I never told you because I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”
“There’s nothing—nothing—you could tell me that would make me look at you as anything but mine.” He hesitated before asking, “Can I show you something?”
“Please . . . show me. Do you want to go inside?”
“Absolutely not,” he said firmly, shaking his head.
He slipped his hand from mine as he strode toward his car parked in the driveway. He leaned into the passenger side, riffling through a pile of envelopes before pulling one out. When he turned back to me, the paper looked worn, folded too many times.
We stepped onto the porch together, the wood creaking, and he handed it over, his hands trembling.
“What is this?” My brows furrowed as I unfolded it, scanning the bold print.
I blinked hard, rereading, as if my mind was tricking me.
Donation Confirmation
Prevent Child Abuse America Project: $300,000
Foster Kids of America Initiative: $300,000
Both lines bore the same words beneath them: In honor of Luna Pierson
My chest squeezed so tight I could barely breathe. “Jer . . . ” My voice broke on his name as my fingers trembled over the ink. “You— this is . . . ”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jorts, shoulders hunching like he was embarrassed.
“After everything was finalized with Arthur’s house, every penny from that land deal went here.
To places that could actually make a difference.
In your name, Luna girl. Because that’s what you deserved all along. Not secrets. Not pain. A legacy.”
Tears blurred the words on the page, spilling faster than I could catch them. “You did this . . . for me?”
“For you. Always for you.”
“But your debt? How could you—”
“I’ve got a job with Ledger. I start in a month. Working with kids . . . doing something real. I’ll save up, I’ll figure it out. This was never about me. It was about you.”
I shook my head, clutching the paper tighter against my chest. “I cannot accept this. I can’t— Jer, it’s too much.”
“You have to.” He cupped my face. “You have to, because it’s already done. It’s yours. Your name’s on it. This is me, this is what I can give you.”
The sob that tore through me sounded like anger and heartbreak tangled together. “Why are we like this? Why are we always so hot and cold? Why can’t it ever just stay good between us?”
“Because we’re scared. Because we’ve been broken so many times we don’t know how to exist without the cracks showing. But maybe—” His thumb brushed the tears on my cheek. “Maybe this time we stop running from it.”
The first time Arthur touched me like that, the world stopped making sense.
I remembered every second of it in sickening detail—the way the floorboards creaked when the door closed behind him, the way the smell of whiskey clung to his breath, him pressing me down when I tried to wriggle away.
His voice telling me not to make a sound.
And then nothing but pain—stretching, tearing, burning pain that made my lungs seize in my chest.
When it was over, he left like it was nothing.
Like he hadn’t just shattered me into a girl I wouldn’t recognize in the mirror anymore.
The room—the special room he said was mine—felt like a cage closing in, so I stumbled out into the night air, clutching the torn strap of my nightgown.
My legs wouldn’t move right. My skin burned all over. I couldn’t even cry properly.
The cornfields behind the house stretched wide and endless.
I pushed myself between them until the world blurred.
The dirt was cool when I fell to my knees.
I dug my fingers into it, wishing I could bury myself whole.
The damp earth smeared across my palms, but nothing could scrub him off me.
Nothing could undo what had just been done.
“Luna?”
The sound of my name snapped me upright. My chest seized with panic—I thought it was him coming back—but then I saw a boy’s silhouette in the moonlight. Skinny, small. Messy black hair sticking up, like he’d been tossing in bed.
Jer.
He stopped when he saw me on the ground. I tried to hide my face, tried to curl in tighter, but he was already moving toward me.
He didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t ask why my dress was torn or why my legs were shaking or why I looked like I’d just been split in two.
“Hey,” he said softly, dropping into the dirt beside me.
His voice cracked, the way it always did when he was nervous, but his hand—small and awkward—reached out anyway. He hesitated only a second before pulling me against him.
I collapsed into his chest, my face soaking his shirt, the sobs tearing through me now that someone was holding me. His arms were bony, not strong enough to stop anything, but he held me like he would’ve fought off the whole damn world if he had to.
“You’re okay,” he whispered, rocking us both even though he was trembling himself. “You’re okay. I got you.”
I wanted to scream that I wasn’t okay. That I was ruined. That something had been stolen from me that I’d never get back. Yet, all I could do was cling to him, the one piece of safety in a night that had left me wrecked.
“You’re my best friend.”
I tilted my head up, and he was looking at me like I was something precious. Like he didn’t see the dirt or the tears or the brokenness. Like he didn’t see what Arthur had done to me.
He saw me.
I curled tighter into his chest, letting his warmth anchor me while my body shook itself to exhaustion. I fell asleep in his arms in that field, his shirt damp with my tears, his small body curled protectively around mine.
He never knew what really happened that night. He couldn’t. But he gave me something Arthur could never touch. Jer gave me safety.