𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 ♡︎ 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗶 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘁𝘆

𝟖

Luna lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind was running wild with thousands of different thoughts. Why was Steven acting differently? Does Conrad have an ulterior motive? Was it a good idea to come here for the summer?

She was sending herself into a spiral and the only way she knew how to stop it was to call the one person who truly understood her.

"Mum—I've had such a weird day."

Heather could tell straight away that there was something wrong, the excitement she saw in her daughter's eyes had gone. "What happened, darling?"

"I don't even know...Steven has been acting weird all day. I'll hold my hands up and admit that I 'ditched' him for a few hours today when I went exploring—"

Heather chuckled, slightly shaking her head. "By exploring, do you mean sneaking off to have a smoke?"

Luna waved her hands in dismissal. "That's not the point. He completely ignored me for some random girl he'd only just met at the bonfire and then snapped at me when I tried to calm him down because he was being way too harsh with his sister. Oh—and he didn't even tell me that he had agreed to work over the summer, so we won't even be able to hang out as much as we had planned to. And then there's the whole Conrad situation—"

"Conrad?"

"Yes, Conrad, keep up. He's one of the brothers that I told you about. He's been making extremely flirty comments towards me, and when I forgot my medication earlier he seemed genuinely concerned—"

"You forgot your medication?"

"— but he has a girlfriend. I feel like I'm completely out of my depth and I've only been here one day. If the rest of the summer is like this, it's going to kill me."

Luna took a deep breath as she finished her rant, instantly feeling better after getting everything off her chest. However, her mother wasn't amused with her final comments. "Let's not joke about you dying. I think you should come home, it's sounds extremely stressful and nowhere near as relaxing as you said it would be."

"Mum—"

The sound of hushed yelling halted her sentence. 'Not again' she thought as she sneaked over to the door, phone still in hand as she attempted to listen into the conversation. "What's going on?" Heather asked.

"I'm going to have to go."

"Luna—" she quickly hung up the phone and made her way to the top of the stairs. She couldn't see anything, but she could hear several voices going back and forth with each other.

"Keep your voice down. Susannah and Luna are fast asleep, and you—" Laurel pointed at her son, "—shouldn't have let her come home on her own," she yelled.

"Well, I wasn't yelling, you-you-you were," Steven stuttered.

"Just so you know, Laurel, I didn't drink tonight—I was the DD, I swear," Jeremiah explained.

Luna peered her head around the corner, trying to get a view of what was going on but all she could see was Conrad practically passed out on a chair in the hallway. "You're the oldest, what the hell has gotten into you?" Laurel questioned, staring directly at him; he was in no fit state to formulate any kind of response.

"And when did you leave the house without telling anybody? And what in the world are you wearing?" It was now Belly's turn to be questioned as her mother looked her outfit up and down in disappointment. Luna, however, thought it was a really cute body-con dress; it was certainly less revealing than the one she wore.

"It's Taylor's. And why am I the only one who's not allowed to go out?"

"It's not that you're not allowed, it's that you should have told us you were going. How did you even get there?" Laurel sighed.

"I walked," Belly deadpanned.

"Jesus. You know better than to walk that far down the beach alone late at night," Laurel stated. Luna completely understood where she was coming from. She had felt nervous getting a taxi home alone, never mind walking.

"Can you stop treating me like a kid?" Belly demanded.

"If you want to be treated like an adult, you need to act like one," Laurel told her.

"Then maybe you guys should, too." Everyone looked surprised at Conrad's comment. It was obvious that he was done with the conversation and just wanted to be able to nurse his inevitable hangover. 

"What does that mean?" Laurel asked, offended. Conrad shrugged his shoulders, dismissing her question. He turned his head away from her, looking towards the stairs. Luna panicked and quickly tiptoed back upstairs; it felt like she was eavesdropping on a very personal family conversation.

♡︎

A few moments passed and silence fell upon the house. It was now like it was empty. 'Finally, some sleep,' she thought as she tucked herself into bed and pulled the covers over her head. "Luna?" a voice questioned.

"Yeah?" she responded, keeping her head under the covers in hopes that the person would leave her alone. It wasn't that she was being rude...she just really wanted her sleep.

"Can I stay with you tonight? I had a massive argument with my mum and I don't want to be alone." Luna sighed as she pulled the covers back and turned to her doorway, seeing a very sad-looking Belly leant against the frame.

"Come here," Luna smiled, patting the space next to her. Even though they didn't hang out that much, there was a mutual understanding that they would care for each other as family. Belly let out a sigh of relief and quickly hurried into the bed.

"Thank you—and I appreciate you trying to stick up for me at the beach. I'm sorry if I caused any problems between you and Steven."

"Don't worry about that. He was in the wrong and if he has any sense at all, he will apologise to both of us in the morning. Let's get some sleep, tomorrow is a new day," Luna stated. 'I do sound like a middle-aged mum' she thought.

"Goodnight, Luna," Belly said.

"Goodnight."