La Luna | JJ Maybank

Five

The morning after the night at the beach was too chaotic for Luna Andrews. She woke up in a flush and felt so suffocated in her blankets she had to run outside in order to breathe properly. The hangover didn't help- the morning headache heightened more than it would usually be. She was fine though, and that morning was a lot better than others she'd experienced. She had sat in the open kitchen eating her cereal as per usual, but it took the sound of Topper's voice echoing around the house after an early-morning argument with his mom for her to remember the previous nights events.

Her cousin was nearly shot, by the one person she had thought was nicer than the others on the island. Perhaps JJ wasn't the person she'd thought him to be. But then again it was her cousin who had tried to drown someone. That wasn't like Topper- perhaps he wasn't the person she'd thought him to be either. God everyone was so confusing, or was she just different? At least she knew Sarah wouldn't pull some crazy act and disappear on her.

Luna didn't do much that day. She walked to the closest shoreline with her camera and wandered along by herself. When she returned for dinner, they ate in silence. Her aunt was nattering on about some random work promotion thing, but neither teen addressed each other. A thick tension lay between them, and whilst they were perhaps still both shaken up from the fight, Luna couldn't figure out why Topper was annoyed at her.

Yes maybe she drank a little too much, but that had never been reason for them to fall out before. At one point she figured maybe she was just overthinking and it was just her cousin trying to avoid conversation about the other night, but when she kept catching him glaring at her she knew something else was up. Was she a bad person for not knowing what she'd done?

Not wanting to keep going along with this weird behavior, she decided the next day to confront Topper. He had just got home again, after spending yet another day out with his friends or Sarah or whatever he disappeared to do. Luna knew the best time to catch him was now, or he'd vanish to his room and she wouldn't see him for hours.

"Topper!" She shouted. He was walking through the door, and Luna watched his body visibly tense up. She herself hurried down the stairs so they were both stood in the doorway. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"Uh, I'm not?" The blonde boy replied snarkily.

"Yes you are Topp, don't lie." The brunette deadpanned him, moving to block his path as he tried to walk around her. "Is it because you're scared I'm gonna tell your mom you almost drowned someone?"

The blonde boy scoffed. "Are you forgetting the part where I was almost shot?"

"No of course not- do you know how scared I was? But ultimately Topp, you were this close to killing him."

"He would have been fine, Luna, just a bit of fun." Her cousin rolled his eyes. "Until his stupid friend tried to kill me."

"Why are you blaming everyone but yourself? Okay I get it was bad and all but you punched that guy first. I'm sure JJ was just scared too, I doubt he'd have actually pulled the trigger. What I don't get is what this has to do with me?"

Topper seemed to laugh darkly. "You're on a first term basis with him now?"

"What?" Luna scrunched her nose in confusion.

"You and JJ." He replied now looking her dead in the eyes.

"Topper what are you on about?" She truly did have no clue what this had to do with anything.

"JJ, Moony." This time when Topper spoke it was loud and harsh. He was almost yelling. "You and the pogues. What, are you lot 'friends' now?"