All Along | ✓

Chapter Twenty-Eight

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"You walked into my life like you had always lived there, like my heart was a home built just for you."

- a. r. asher

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Luna's POV

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Instead of going back to my apartment after my second day of work, I head straight to my parents' house. If there's one person who can talk me through my thoughts and help me make sense of what's going on in my life, it's my mother.

The heavy weight of guilt has sat with me ever since last night at Oli's work. I don't like lying, but I lied straight to my best friends face when I told him I no longer needed him. It had to be done. What was the alternative? Admitting that I'm not as strong and independent as I say I am? Becoming dependent on him? Then he gets a girlfriend and where does that leave me? Alone. Again.

But I haven't been able to get his face out of my mind. The look of pure devastation he wore when I said I didn't need him anymore. I didn't think it would hurt him so much. But it did. He hardly spoke to me the rest of the night. We finished our food and I made some excuse for having to get home early, high tailing it out of there as quick as I could.

It broke my heart to tell him I don't need him. Because I do. I do and I hate it. Because in every aspect of my life, I handle being alone just fine. I often prefer it, in fact. I'm independent and I can make my own decisions. But having to constantly do that is tiring. So yes, after all these years, Oli's still the person I run to, the person I want to cry to.

And he might be fine with that now, but not for long. Who needs a clingy best friend weighing you down when you're trying to live your life and find yourself a girlfriend? Oli doesn't need that. And I can survive just fine pretending that I don't need him.

Mom notices something as wrong as soon as I walk in the door. She ushers Dad into the kitchen to finish making dinner while she guides me into the living room to talk. Once we're sitting side-by-side on the couch, she levels me with a knowing stare.

"Is the job not going well?" She asks softly, taking my hands in hers and holding them in my lap.

"It's fine. Hard work, but I'm enjoying it." I tell her with an honest smile.

She tilts her head, "Then what's got you looking so defeated, my love? What's weighing on you?"

It takes me a few minutes to gather my thoughts into coherent words. "Mom, what did you think when I first became friends with Oli?" I ask her quietly.

She frowns at me. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's not exactly a conventional friendship - it never was. What were your thoughts on us being friends when I was a kid?"

She thinks about it for a moment before telling me, "I'll be honest, I was hesitant about Oli at first. I had no idea what he had been through before Claire and Zoey adopted him - what kind of trauma he had lived through. That has a lasting impact on a person, and it influences their behaviours. So naturally, I was weary." Her eyes find mine as she smiles. "But the second he walked into the house with you crying in his arms, I knew I could trust him. I knew I could trust him to be careful with you."

"How did you know?" I ask, my chest sinking at the memory of that day. For more reasons than one. I was terrified when I almost ran out onto the road. But that was the day I found him. I had never felt so safe as I did when I was in his arms.