Page 69 of Serpentine Valentine
“You knew,” I whispered.
I’d read enough books about heartbreak and listened to enough songs, but I’d never truly known what they meant when they referred to it until then. My heart very honestly felt as if it was about to shatter. The anvil of truth had knocked into it with such force I lost my breath. My hand clamped over my breast as if I could catch the pieces as they started to break off painfully inside me like shards of glass.
“Mom,” I whispered. “How could you let this happen?”
“The girls were compensated for what happened to them,” she gritted out. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“What, so they were given hush money?” My stomach cramped so hard I folded in half over it. “Jesus.”
“This stays between us, Luna. I’m your mother, and you owe me your loyalty.”
My laughter tasted as bitter as poison on my tongue. “No, no, I don’t. You just threatened to kick me out of the house because I wanted to be friends with a girl whose very existence threatens you. Well, guess what, Mom? Lex has already taught me more about integrity and being true to myself than you ever did. So if you want to give me an ultimatum, fine. You just made the choice disgustingly easy. At this point, I’d choose anyone over you.”
I turned on my heel to walk away from her, going to the door to the staircase leading to my basement suite.
“If you leave, Luna, you won’t be welcomed back,” Mom warned me, stalking after me so she could loom in the opendoorway, the light at her back making her all black with shadow.
“Okay,” I said even though my heart was still breaking off piece by piece, and I just wanted to go to a cool, dark corner and cry. “Bye, Mom.”
When she slammed the door on me, I didn’t even flinch.
I packed some clothes and toiletries into a suitcase and then, because I couldn’t part with them, I put my favorite books into another one.
It was only when I closed the door behind me, laden with suitcases, my book bag, and the remnants of a broken heart for the mother I’d always loved, that I realized I didn’t have a single clue where to go now.
I could have goneto Haley’s place. She had been my best friend since twelfth grade, and she always had my back. But she lived in a cramped apartment with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend. I could have gone to Pierce’s, but I was insecure about the news of my bisexuality inevitably reaching his ears. Of course, I’d come out to him already, but I wasn’t sure what he would think about my relationship with Lex, and I couldn’t bear to be questioned about things I didn’t have the answers to.
So I went back to Charity Lane.
Or maybe all of those things were just excuses, and I wanted to go back there. I liked the creaky, character-filled house. I liked the Gorgon sisters with their easy repartee and quirky, sassy kindness.
And I liked Lex most of all.
Still, I hesitated on the landing outside the front door that had a new wreath on it, this one made of little pumpkins because Halloween was just ten days away. I didn’t know what Lex would do or say when she opened the door to find me with suitcases and no place to stay.
I wouldn’t know until I took another risk in a long lineup of risks for a Sunday and knocked on the door.
So I did.
A moment later, it swung inward to reveal Lex. Her hair was piled on top of her head and secured with a plaid scrunchy, thick curls dangling down her neck and framing her beautiful face. She was wearing the same sweater as this morning, but she’d put on a short velvet black skirt and dark tights. There was a half-eaten fig in one hand and an old copy of Sylvia Plath’sThe Bell Jarstill open and raised as if she’d been reading as she walked to answer the door.
She was so achingly lovely, I forgot everything as I drank her in.
“Lux?” she said, cocking her head to the side. “Did you borrow more than my sweater this morning, and I didn’t notice?”
I looked dumbly down at my suitcases, and everything surged back into my brain. I swayed a little under the force of it. Lex stepped forward instantly, steadying my elbow with a frown.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but a sob burst forth instead.
“Hey, hey,” Lex murmured, wrapping me up in a hug that smelled of dark earth and crushed violets. “What happened?”
I just pressed my nose into her throat, into the same place I’d sucked a hickey last night where a tattooed snake kissed her pulse point, and I wept.
Lex held me, murmuring little platitudes into my ear. Eventually, when I shivered as the wind picked up and whipped dead leaves around our feet, she pulled away to unpeel my grip from the suitcase handles so she could drag them inside herself. Once that was done, she pulled me by the hand into the hall and closed the door behind her.
Grace and Effie stood in the hall, watching us with worried eyes, but Lex only shook her head and led me past them up the stairs to her attic bedroom. She had been studying on her messy bed, but she moved everything aside and then pressed my wooden body onto the mattress.
