Maybe they do. Maybe that’s what normal looks like.
I find Luna exactly where she said she’d be: the campus coffee shop, tucked into a corner booth with her laptop open and textbooks spread around her like a fortress. She’s wearing an oversized State sweatshirt, her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, and she’s got that focused expression she gets when she’s deep in study mode, brow furrowed, bottom lip caught between her teeth.
She’s beautiful in a fresh-faced, nineteen-year-old way. Dark hair like our mother’s, but her features are all her father’s —delicate bone structure, wide-set eyes, the pretty that photographs well. We don’t look alike, not really. Half-sistersfrom Mom’s two marriages, seventeen years apart. Different fathers, different bloodlines.
That difference saved her life.
Mom never made it past forty-nine, dying when Luna was two and I was nineteen. Car accident. Quick and brutal and completely devastatingly normal.
No angels. No sins. No supernatural bullshit.
Just bad luck and a drunk driver and grief that carves you hollow.
I raised Luna after that. Dropped out of college, got a job, figured out how to be a parent when I was barely more than a kid myself. Gramms helped financially, at least, but the day-to-day stuff was all me. Diapers and tantrums and homework and the slow, terrifying realization that I was responsible for keeping another human being alive.
And I did it. Kept her fed, kept her safe, kept her in school and out of trouble. Put her through seventeen years of normal childhood while I was learning to eat sins and break contracts and survive in a world she didn’t even know existed.
Worth it. Every sleepless night, every missed opportunity, every sacrifice, worth it to see her here, safe and whole, studying whatever the hell she wants just because she loves it.
I just have to make sure the world doesn’t find out about her first.
“Raven!” Luna looks up, her face breaking into a smile that makes my chest tight. She waves me over, already closing her laptop. “You came! You said you couldn’t.”
“Changed my mind.” I slide into the booth across from her, setting my coffee down. The shop is loud, with espresso machines hissing, music playing overhead, the constant chatter of students, but our corner feels oddly private. “How’s the studying going?”
“Ugh.” She makes a face, gestures at the textbooks. “Organic chemistry is killing me. I swear, every time I think I understand electron configurations, my brain just nopes out.”
“You’ll get it. You always do.”
“You have more faith in me than I do.” She takes a sip of her coffee, something with whipped cream and caramel drizzle that’s more dessert than beverage, and studies me. “You look tired.”
“Work’s been busy.”
“You always say that.” Her tone is gentle, concerned. “Are you taking care of yourself? Eating actual meals? Sleeping?”
The irony of my nineteen-year-old sister asking if I’m taking care of myself isn’t lost on me. But that’s always been our dynamic. I raised her, but she worries about me with the fierce protectiveness of someone who knows what it’s like to lose a parent.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Promise.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it go. That’s Luna. She’ll push, but only so far. She respects boundaries, even when she shouldn’t.
“So,” she says, leaning forward with a grin which makes her look younger. “I wanted to tell you about this guy in my bio lab.”
“The one from your text?”
“Yes!” Her eyes light up, and she launches into the story. His name is Ethan, and he’s pre-med, and he’s funny and smart and apparently helped her understand cellular respiration last week.
I listen, watching her face as she talks. The way her hands move when she’s excited, the way she laughs at herself when she realizes she’s rambling. She’s so alive, so present, so beautifully, achingly normal.
This is what I’m protecting.
Not just her life, but this, the ability to get excited about boys in bio lab, to stress about organic chemistry, to exist in a worldwhere the biggest dangers are bad grades and awkward first dates.
“...and then he asked if I wanted to study together sometime, and I said yes, but now I’m freaking out because what if he meant it as a date and I’m supposed to dress up or something?” Luna pauses, looking at me expectantly. “What do you think?”
I blink, realizing I missed part of the story. “What do I think about what?”
“Were you even listening?” But she’s smiling, not annoyed.
