La Luna | JJ Maybank

Four

"No hurry up, move the branch dumbass."

The storm had bought a wave of destruction upon the islanders of the outer banks, there seemed to be very little area that wasn't effected. The Thornton property had luckily only faced minor damage, with a few collapsed trees and some wrecked garden furniture they had forgotten to bring inside. Obviously the power was out like the rest of the island, and the entirety of the garden had been scattered with random debris.

They had woken up to this mess, so Luna was expecting a day full of clearing away. Her and Topper had began after breakfast mainly by just moving any small branches or wreckage into one big pile that they could move later. The girl had actually sort of enjoyed tidying up, apart from her cousin occasionally barking out orders. She had woken up to the loud voices of him and his mother arguing which was never fun for any of them, and was definitely the cause of his bad mood.

"Are you okay Topp?" Luna asked gently whilst kicking a few twigs toward the pile. He looked up at his cousin with slight confusion, he obviously hadn't been expecting the question.

"Yeah I'm fine." He shrugged nonchalantly.

"With your mom I mean." The brunette violently threw a stick at a bird that was trying to inch closer to the chips they had out on the table to snack on.

Topper stopped and turned to her. "I'm just so sick of her treating me like shit. She blames me for everything that goes wrong even if I have nothing to do with it and acts like I'm some personal butler."

"You definitely aren't-"

"I know I'm not," He snapped. "But she certainly thinks so. She treats you more like her child than me and before you say anything I know that's not your fault but god it makes me so mad."

Luna watched him turn away. She couldn't tell if he was crying but she knew he wouldn't want her pointing that out. "Your mom does love you Topp."

The boy just scoffed from where he was. He almost said something, but stopped when he saw his mother walking out of the house towards them. Instead a quiet 'speak of the devil' was muttered under his breath.

"What are you two doing?" The woman wasn't angry or anything, instead seeming almost distressed.

"In case you hadn't noticed there was a hurricane." Topper retorted with a voice laced with sarcasm.

"Topper," She looked at him sternly causing him to scoff yet again and turn back round so he wasn't facing his mom. "I was just gonna say I've hired people to fix all this, I don't know why you're wasting your energy."

This time Luna wanted to scoff. Of course her aunt had hire other people to get stuff done. The more she spoke to her aunt the more she realized money meant a lot to the woman and she would happily use it as a status symbol. Cynthia certainly wasn't like her own mother, or at least not anymore. She held her tongue though. She knew she should be grateful and appreciative or her aunt. Besides she had worked for her money. It was just hard when she knew that the people coming to sort out their home will also have to sort out their own homes.

"Oh thank you auntie, but it is okay. We're doing pretty well."

"Nonsense you've been out all morning and we're still standing in a dump." That was perhaps a little harsh. She could see why Topper felt unappreciated and discontented. "Plus they're setting up the generators this afternoon anyway."

"Guess we're not needed then." Luna tried to laugh to lesson the growing tension. It obviously didn't work. "Could me and Topper maybe go out for a bit if you've got everything sorted?"