Pieces [Wattpad's Editor's Choice]

37: mUsClE mEmOrY

"I'm not going."

"Luna." I hardened my tone. Be firm. Don't back down. Even though deep down, my stomach churned and my fingertips tingled like I OD'd on espresso. I refused to drop to my knees like last time and hang on to her like a child denied of putting a screwdriver in a light-socket. "We're graduating in two months. It'll be the last we attend-and my first, actually."

Luna sketched in her notebook, legs crossed, as she balanced in the window sill of our dorm. She wore gray pajama shorts, a plain white t-shirt, and some purple LA Laker slippers. The moon glowed from our window and not a single light on campus lit the night. People were either 1) already out of town, or 2) resting up for tomorrow night's rager. I, on the other hand, still hadn't changed out of Luna's leather skirt or the holographic top.

"Frannie, darling." Luna mocked my firm tone, also making me sound sorta pouty. She even jutted out her bottom lip. "You can't make me."

Don't whine. My throat screamed for a tantrum, but I subdued it. You're in college now, Francine. "What's so important that you can't accompany me tomorrow night?"

"Packing. I'm going home for break."

"No."

She looked up from her sketch. "No?"

"You're coming with me." I went to our closet and threw open the door. The left side was mine, the right was hers. The colors in my closet were harsher, with reds and blacks and I had hangers sticking out everywhere, clothes falling off them. Luna's clothes were lighter, calmer, with some had stripes and pastel patterns, organized by color, sleeve, and pant-length.

I started sifting through her side.

"Picking clothes from my closet isn't going to make me say yes."

A skirt? A dress? We were seniors. Comfort was probably more logical. These denim high-waisted shorts? This faded-purple corset? Her peach slippers?

I accidentally knocked several clothes from their hangers as I sorted through.

"You should really be taking your clothes from the closet and stuffing them into your suitcase," she said casually.

I grabbed one of her blue rompers with a mesh flower skirt hanging from the hips. Cute. I turned and held it up. "This is cute."

She lifted her eyes but continued sketching. "Oh, that's what I wore sophomore year when Dravin Nichols and I fucked in the closet of our woodshop class." Her eyes dropped back to her sketchbook. "Make sure all tools are unplugged before plugging in some of your own."

Ew. I quickly hung it back up.

And...sophomore year? Of high school or college?

"I don't even wanna go home for break. All I see is more tension with Mom and Phil and comparisons and forced family pictures where we all look like we're from different magazine pages who were just pasted into the shot." I plopped onto the floor in front of the closet and stuck my temple against the door. "Then they're gonna ask about our love lives and I'm gonna tell them that Phil's cheating on his girlfriend and he's gonna tell Mom I was on Tinder and I'll end up crying over my Unclaimed Lover."

All I heard was Luna's gentle pencil strokes on paper. She must've been shading something. After blowing on the paper, she said, "Jayda dumped your brother, Frannie."

"She did?"

"Yeah. We've gone to lunch a few times, you know, the times you've been hunting for Double A Douchebag? That's when she told me." More pencil strokes. "Jayda said Phil flakes on her often. He's always working or occupied with 'private projects' he won't detail for her. I guess it sounds like cheating, but Jayda says he just has too many other things on his plate."