Forbidden Love

32

Luna

Five minutes into eating and no one has said a word. We're all just looking at each other awkwardly. I give the best version of a smile I can manage but it's just plain weird. My family dinners are nothing like this. If JJ isn't talking up the table, my dad is asking about our day, or Corey is arguing over his seat with Joseph. We're close, but I can't say the same about the Gray's.

"So, Luna," Mrs. Gray finally cuts the tension. My head shoots up. "What have you been up to? Last time I really saw you, you were nine if I remember correctly."

The last time I saw her, I was a freshman in high school. Corey, Joseph, JJ, and I were hiding in the back. She was too busy crying and clutching on to her husband to remember seeing me there. I'm not about to bring that up though.

Funerals are hard as is, but a funeral for your own son...it seems impossible to get through. Yet here she is, here they all are. Sure, they're awkward and uncomfortable, but they're a family despite everything.

"Nothing much," Aside from caring for my mother. "Just getting through high school like every other teenager in the world," I smile and take a sip of my water. Jaxon's mom starts talking about how the times have changed since she was in high school, and her husband agrees with her.

"Any plans for the future?" Mr. Gray asks me.

"I want to become a teacher, but I also want to publish a novel."

"Publishing can be a long road. I have a friend who's a part time author." Mr. Gray tells me. "You have goals though. I admire that. I would suggest focusing on the teacher part."

Mrs. Gray nods. "You have taught Jaxon really well these past couple of weeks."

"Thank you," I give them a polite smile. "But I don't think the teacher thing will be in the cards for me any time soon."

"Why not?" Jaxon asks, surprising both his parents and me. He hasn't said a word this entire dinner.

"College for four kids is pretty expensive," I say it lightly, but I feel the weight of it. I've been trying to push it back, but it keeps coming up. My dad works a lot, but between my mom's health bills, her private nurse, Rose Thorn Academy's tuition for four kids, and the house bills...we're already stretching ourselves thin. We barely have money to buy a sandwich let alone pay for college. The care facility Dad was talking about would be a lot less expensive than the private nurse, but I'm not going to trade my mother for college.

No way.

"I'm sure it'll all work itself out." I add just so the silence will go away.

"Jaxon, what about you, son? What have you got for the future?" Mr. Gray looks over to Jaxon.

"I was thinking of the FBI." Jaxon holds his head up with his arm. His sarcasm is dripping from his posture, but his tone...I think he's serious about it.

His dad shakes his head. "Can we have a genuine conversation for once? You need to actually get places in life instead of living off of your mother and I forever."

Jaxon's jaw clenches, his eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth to say something, but I grab his hand. I don't know why my brain decided to go for it, but I did. Jaxon pauses and looks over at me. I give him a reassuring smile and take a bite of my spaghetti.

Mr. Gray switches the conversation to how his day at work went and we all pretend to listen. I'm too focused on my hand in Jaxon's, on the way he grips me like life support, and on the way his gaze doesn't leave me for the next ten minutes.

"Do you think your siblings will want any?" Mrs. Gray asks when she starts cleaning up the plates. I help her by bringing Jaxon's and mine, meaning I have to let him go.

"They'll be fine. They should've already eaten by now."

"Will you tell Corey we say hi? And that he's welcome here anytime? It gets pretty quiet around the house," She admits and my heart aches for her. No matter how much pressure they put on Jaxon to better himself, I can tell she loves her youngest son very much and that she misses her eldest. I wonder why she doesn't know that he and Corey aren't friends and haven't been for years.

"No one comes around?" I ask her, mostly to make conversation, but partly because I'm confused. Jaxon strikes me as the one who would host the football team at his house. Not because of his conversation skills—that are lacking in more ways than one—but because of his connections.

"Paxton Carter comes around the most, do you know him?" I nod and she continues, "When Jaxon left Paxton came around a lot. He sometimes slept in Jaxon's room. I felt bad for the kid, but it was nice having someone around the house." She smiles fondly thinking about Paxton. "Between me and you, I don't think Jaxon told him he was coming back. Paxton came to the house like usual and nearly trampled me to get to Jaxon when I told him. You should've seen his face. My heart breaks just thinking about it."

"Are you serious?" My eyes widen as I hand her the plates. "But they're best friends." I do realize that I'm gossiping with Jaxon's mother, but the fact that she's saying anything shows that she really needed to let it out. I'd rather her tell me than a stranger.

And it's kind of fun. Bonding with her.

"I think Jaxon didn't want anything tying him down here. I know he wants to go back to Canada. He misses his cousin and his aunt and uncle." Her eyes fall for only a minute before she gives me a smile. I see the tears start to form on her beautiful face. She resembles Jaxon in so many ways. "I'm glad he's back. No matter what he tells you."

"He doesn't say anything bad," I assure her. "He loves you in his own way."

Her smile is gentle and loving. A mom smile. She touches my cheek with her wet dish hand and sighs. "I'm glad he has you."

I want to correct her and tell her he doesn't have me, but I refrain and just give her a smile back. Spending time with her makes me miss my mom more than anything. I miss the motherly advice. I realized that it wasn't just the loss of my mother's life that hurts, but it's the loss of the unlived life I could have had. All the late-night gossip, the tears on her shoulder, and the laughs. She won't see me go to prom, or graduate high school, or even go to college. She won't get to witness the person she and Dad raised me to be. At least the mother I used to know. She's changed, this disease has stripped her of who she is. I want to have a normal life with my mother.

And Jaxon has that.

They aren't perfect, but they're here. I think we expect parents to be made of something solid. We assume they have everything together and when they don't, we act like they're the worst people in the world. Somewhere along the way—between the band-aid applying and the graduation party—we forget that they are us twenty years in the future. There isn't some magical age where a person just becomes perfect. Parents are humans, imperfect and all. They deserve the benefit of the doubt just like they give us.

Tears threaten to pour out of my eyes, but I push them back as fast as they try to come.