All right, I thought for certain I’d let loose enough that it wouldn’t happen again for at least another year.
But I felt it.
I was going to cry again.
“Chin up,” she bit. “Don’t let him see you cry.”
“I’m not about to cry for him,” I retorted. “I’m about to cry because I’m worried I’ve been a shit sister, and that sucks.”
She sat back. “You haven’t been a shit sister.”
I sniffled. “I haven’t?”
“Oh my God, Luna, I’m on a date, and I think I like him,” she snapped. “Don’t make this about you.”
Ah.
There was the Dream I knew.
Because there I was, on a date with my grown sister because she asked me to be there as a buffer. But I’d had it out with two of the people I loved the most in all the world the day before, and they, and most everyone else I loved, was across the room, avoiding me. And still, I was sitting right there, for her, and somehow, this was about me.
After another sniffle, I grinned.
She rolled her eyes.
Someone said into the microphone, “This is a request, and I’m supposed to say this song is from the room to the moon…”
I lost focus on the short, revelatory conversation with my sister and my head whipped toward the stage to see a dude standing at the microphone who I’d seen at that club before. He was one of the few with talent.
And I also knew what “from the room to the moon” meant.
Knox (Chambers: room) to me (Luna: moon).
“…whatever that means,” the guy went on. “But it’s a kickass song, so here goes.”
It was then, the dreamy intro to 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” started.
The second it did, every inch of me petrified.
Even so, each velvet-vicious word of that song penetrated my defense, embedding themselves in my flesh in a manner they were destined to leave ugly scars.
“Is this—?” Dream spat from my side.
But she cut her own self off, and suddenly, I was up, because my sister had firm hold on my hand and she’d dragged me out of my chair.
She then dragged me to the DJ guy who cued up the songs. There was a discussion going on between them, during which I vaguely heard the DJ guy say, “That’s fucked up. Sure, she can jump the list. I’ll cue it up.”
But I only vaguely heard that because I was staring across the room at Knox, who was no longer ignoring me. Instead, he was staring right back, all the while “I’m Not in Love” kept assaulting me.
He wasn’t singing it, but they were his words, his message, his arrows, his punctures, the emotional blood I was bleeding was all his.
I tore my gaze from him to also vaguely notice all the AAHS seemed wildly uncomfortable with this, though Tex was slowly bopping his head to the wistful flow of the song, eyes glued to the singer, Nancy seemed troubled, and Tito’s sunglasses were aimed right at me.
“She’s up,” I heard when the song ended.
“Go,” Dream ordered, but she didn’t wait for me to go, where, at that moment, I wasn’t sure.
Until she shoved me up the stairs to the stage so hard, I had no choice but to scramble up them and nearly run into the guy who was coming down.
