The Luna Legacy - Genesis

Chapter 2 - Alex

After I disclosed to Alex about what was happening at home with Natalia and Giorgio, he told me to leave, but I couldn't leave without the kids.  Giorgio was a dangerous drug kingpin, that the FBI was keeping a close tab on.  Alex promised that he would help us to get away and that's when we started planning our escape. 

I have become accustomed to him always being there after my brother died. Even when my mother fell ill, he would attend my school functions throughout high school. He was also listed as my guardian on my college registration forms. I could always depend on him and to date he has never disappointed me whenever I needed him to be there.

He would sometimes spend hours on the phone with me listening to me vent about any major or insignificant thing that was going on in my life at the time. A professor I didn't like, a course that was too hard, how much I hated Giorgio.

Alex has been our family friend, since he and my brother Jake met in elementary school, and they had remained best friends ever since. 

Growing up, he was a nerdy kid or as he likes to call it, an "intellectual badass". According to Natalia, Alex was average Joe when he was younger. Then by the time he turned sixteen he became all muscles and aesthetically pleasing to the female eyes. From a young age Alex was solving hard math problems way above his grade level. In high school he was voted leader of their math club where every other member was at least two years his senior.  

Alex and Jake were like Yin and yang when they were growing up and they both even attended Boston college.  Being an over achiever, he attained his bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice while still in high school. Then went on to Boston College where he did his master's degree in Political Science and a PHD in Psychology. 

My brother went on to join the army, Alex became an FBI agent.  They wanted to fight for the little man, to fight for the weak and protect them. I on the other hand choose to study law, criminal law to be specific, not because I wanted to fight for the little guys but because I wanted to punish the bad ones.

This isn't how my life was meant to turn out, I was meant to be the best prosecutor there has ever been. Harvard was supposed to be my Hogwarts and I was supposed to become the wizard of prosecuting criminals. Just like the one I am currently running from.  They say that 'there is nowhere you can be that is not where you are meant to be', I guess I will test that theory.

Natalia was 17 and I was almost 13 years old when my brother died. It's still vivid in my memory the day that the notification officers showed up at the door. The high pitch squeal that my mother made when they told her the devastating news, jolted me out of bed, that morning.

I remember how I peeked out the door of the bedroom that I shared with Sophie, and I saw the officers holding mom. She was inconsolable and I knew that cry my mother made could only have come from a mother who had lost her child. I knew my brother was no longer on this plane.

My sisters Alex and I honor Jake's memory every year on his birthday. In one of our many conversations about him, Alex told us the story of when they were kids, and they would investigate crimes in the neighborhood.  Just like the hardy boys, in fact they each owned a copy of the Hardy Boys Detective's handbook. After studying the book, they were convinced that they were the cleverest detectives ever.

They became a two-men detective team, he said everyone knew them in the neighborhood.  If the crime happened in Bretton Woods, you can be assured, they were on the case.  

"We would go around asking people questions and even go as far as to the police station enquiring about cases.  Wanting to know if the police had any suspects and sharing with the police our theories of the motives for the crimes committed.  The police would always humor us since Jake's dad was a police officer and my uncle was the sheriff of our town" Alex told us. It was the funniest story I have ever heard.

Their best times were spent doing ride along with the real police, it was something that they did every summer, and they loved it.  They trained with the police officers' youth club one summer and the rest was history, you couldn't tell them there weren't real detectives.

Dad didn't mind, he thought it was the youthful exuberance of a young boy, but mom hated it.  She would always encourage Jake and Alex to discontinue going around asking people questions about crimes.   That they should leave it to the real police, but the boys were convinced that they were real detectives.  Fast forward twelve years later my brother a fallen veteran and Alex currently works as an FBI Special Agent. 

Alex is from a family of service members, his uncle was sheriff for our little town, his older brother Navy Seal.  Alex's little sister Isabelle, Izzy for short, studied Medicine at NYU and currently does her residency at NYU Hospital.  Her mission is to become a doctor without borders. Izzy is a few years younger that Alex, but she treats him like she was the older one.  Always calling to check up on him and giving him life advice. 

I have always admired the close relationship that Alex share with his siblings.  it's how I wished the relationship with my siblings would be, had life been kinder.  Except one is dead, and the other is trapped in an abusive relationship that she is afraid to leave.  The one sibling that I still have I will love and protect her until my last days on this earth.  I can only hope and pray one day Natalia will find the courage to reclaim her freedom.

After Jake died, when both my parents died, Alex became my older brother, he looked out for us throughout the toughest years of our lives.  Including the years with one of the most toxic humans that ever-existed, Giorgio Berlusconi.  Alex always made sure I was "fine".  Normal people would ask, "are you ok"? Alex always asked me, "are you fine?"

With all the changes that life has forced on me, my relationship with Alex has always remained constant. Our friendship is never changing, just like these feelings that I have harbored for him all these years. Alex was my first and only crush, my feelings for him is deep-seated into every fiber of my being.  I get anxious whenever I am going to see him and when I am with him, I want the moment to last forever.

There was a time when, I thought that he liked me in the same way that I did him. However, he never showed the kind of interest that I so desperately wanted him to show me. I let myself believe that our age difference was the deterrent for him. 

He was almost ten years older than I was, but I didn't care, I knew his heart and I wanted it, I wanted him.  However, when I turned eighteen, that Christmas he introduced me to his girlfriend.  Alex started acting madly in love with Michelle Holmes, and it broke my heart, it shattered my soul.  I didn't speak to him for months after, but I couldn't stay mad at him forever.

Michelle was one of the most beautiful women I ever met, I could see why he would choose her.  She wasn't that much older than I was, and that made the whole thing harder for me.  Since, I always thought he may have considered me too young, I resented her for it.   I didn't like her not one bit not after she took the only thing in my life that ever-made sense. 

I told myself that there was no way I could have had any semblance of a normal relationship anyway.  The fact that my life was so complicated maybe Alex having someone else was what he deserved, someone who he could have a chance at real happiness with.  That wouldn't be me, I always knew I was going to run away from all this.  The only thing that changed was that my sister Natalia isn't running away with me too.