DISCONTINUED

Chapter 49

Luna sat slouched down in her seat, her head leaning against the window and her eyes closed, listening to music. The steady vibrations of the bus and its frequent gentle jostling threatened to lull her to sleep. She'd gotten up relatively early - at least early for her - that morning to make a trip all the way across town to pick up some stuff that she'd ordered and now she was making her way home.

Bo would have come with her, and she certainly would have welcomed his company, but unfortunately, he'd made plans to go fishing today. She smiled to herself as she remembered how Bo had made a point of making sure that her and Olivia weren't planning on floating any more mannequins down the river when he'd told them of his plans for the day.

She shook her head and breathed a sigh of relief. Man, that whole thing was crazy, but it could have been so, so much worse. She was glad that they could joke about it now. But mostly she was glad to have her friend back. Honestly, she didn't know what she'd do if anything ever happened to Bo or Olivia.

The stuff that she'd ordered and picked up were things she needed for a present she was making. Well, a present she was going to try to make at least, for Olivia's birthday. She wouldn't exactly call herself crafty, so this was pretty much a first for her. In fact, ironically, it was Olivia who was the artsy one, and she'd routinely made fun of any and all of Luna's "artistic endeavors", rare as they were, over the years. But an idea had come to Luna that she was pretty proud of, and it didn't seem to be overly ambitious, so she was really hoping that she'd be able to pull it together the way she imagined it in her head.

To be honest, it was the kind of thing that Olivia herself or even Bo would normally do, and it was the kind of thing that she would have typically mocked them for doing. She wasn't quite ready to admit it yet, but she was definitely feeling more sentimental these days. Almost losing one of her best friends had made her appreciate both of them more than she ever had before. She knew she was lucky to have them, and she was going to try to do her best to not take them for granted.

Olivia's 17th birthday certainly wasn't an event to dread. Unlike Luna and Bo and just about every other kid she knew, Olivia wouldn't be receiving any DoD notice, so for her, turning 17 was nothing to be feared or anxious about.

Luna knew that she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't at all envious of Olivia. That just made logical sense, given, you know... the basic instinct for self-preservation that, according to what she learned in her Biology class, all living organisms share. I mean, if, as Mr. Sierra had taught her, a single-celled bacteria was going to fight to survive, she wasn't about to apologize or feel badly for wishing she wasn't basically living on death row.

She would never, ever accept that Olivia or anyone like her could ever know what it was like for the rest of them, not in the least. And Olivia had some time ago wisely stopped trying to suggest that she did, because Luna had demanded it. Luna had also made it very clear that she never ever wanted to hear Olivia say that she wished that she was like them. That was just stupid. She wouldn't wish this on anyone.

But she wasn't mad at Olivia anymore. She could honestly say that. In fact, she was almost happy for her. No. She was. She was happy for her. And she was really, really glad to have her friend back.

She felt someone sit down on the seat next to her and, taking a quick glance, noticed an older man smiling at her. As she was closing her eyes again, she thought she saw the man saying something to her. Really? she thought, eyes still closed. I have headphones on... isn't that pretty much the universal code for 'thanks, but I'd rather not talk right now'? She was pretty sure that the man was actually talking to her, but she couldn't hear what he was saying over the music playing in her headphones. And of course the man wouldn't know that she could hear him at all, so she decided she'd just keep her eyes closed and ignore him.