warnings; mentions of underage substance use, emotional abuse, smacking
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Seventeen-year-old Luna Collins was a conundrum to both sides of the island. To her friends, she was an absolute peach and had a heart made of pure gold. To the rest of the island's inhabitants, she was as close to the antichrist as one got. Luna tended to be wildly protective over those she cared about, which was good for them. Her short fuse on the other hand was not so much, as that fuse tended to burn faster when someone hurt her people.
Or insulted them.
Or looked at them wrong.
Or really did anything Luna didn't like.
Luna's short fuse got her into many situations, most of which she fought her way out of. The number of fights the girl had been in rivaled JJ's, but unlike JJ, Luna never started her fights, she just ended them. While Luna rarely took her father's advice, the words, "You don't start it, but you sure as hell finish it, or you go down trying," seemed like some pretty solid advice. Unlike the next sentence that usually spilled from his mouth, "And if I heard you got in a fight, and you stood there and took a beating, I'll be next in line to take a swing at you."
So yeah, safe to say, Luna didn't really take most of his words seriously.
Thankfully, her father had never really laid a hand on her, other than the occasional smack for not listening, but that was just punishment that she had deserved, right? All parents hit their kids when they misbehaved, don't they? That's just how it was, and Luna knew that. You misbehave, you get smacked. Anyway, the smacking stopped around the time Luna became a teenager.
For years, Luna did everything she could to make her father proud, and sometimes she thought she had finally accomplished it, only to realize it was a ploy to brag to his friends. A way for him to look good, not her. Luna would have done anything to hear those words from his mouth, and for him to truly and sincerely mean them. Luna gave up on having a normal life for him. She didn't go out with friends, but stayed in and studied or did extra credit assignments. She rarely did anything that seemed unladylike, such as pigging out on food, being loud, or wearing anything other than dresses or skirts. Everything in her closet was simple and modest, and the girl wore no makeup and got no piercings, no matter how badly she wanted to.
Then he died.
As morbid as it may sound, Luna was relieved he was gone. It felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulder and she could finally breathe. There was a sense of freedom running through her veins, and she was addicted to it. Luna was only fifteen years old, but she felt like she'd lived a lifetime and wasted it all trying to impress a man who was supposed to love her unconditionally. Too bad she realized she missed the terms and conditions of his love until it was too late.
Luna's mother, Eloise, also found a new sense of freedom, one where a loveless marriage could no longer control her. So, the two of them did everything they once wished they could have done. Eloise cut and dyed her hair, and even started wearing red lipstick. She watched not only herself but her daughter get weighed down by his expectations, by high society's expectations in a place that was supposed to be safe for them- their home. So, the mother decided it was high time to make her daughter happy. So, both of the Collins women started on their long journey of recovery only days after the man had been buried.
