Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
And her hair—oh wow, her hair floats around her soft face, the tendrils whirling into flying saucers and comets and crescent moons and hearts. I’ve never seen anything this stunning or this beautiful, and I wonder if she might be…could this girl be me? Involuntary tears leak and one drips on the page.
“No, no,” I panic, the wet droplet bleeding the pen around her eye. “Shit.” Gently, I dab at the paper, but her eye is already smudged. She looks horrible now. Pain is an unwelcome companion in my life, something I find myself bumping into, and now it’s sitting on my chest.
I keep patting at the wet blotch, but another tear soaks the paper. Shit. I rub my watery eyes with a harsh hand. Then I hear the patter of footsteps outside the room—I’m in Donnelly’s room.
I not only have his sketchbook in my clutch, but I never put back his daily planner. Frantic, I tuck the notebook under my butt like contraband.
The door swings open.
Donnelly goes still, hand on the knob. He peers backwards, and I catch a glimpse of the towering Moretti brothers passing through the hall behind him. Right as Thatcher and Banks nearly lock eyes with me, Donnelly steps further inside and shuts the door.
“They’re just grabbing some things,” he says, scanning me and my suspicious self. “They aren’t spending the night yet.”
I nod, unable to move off his notebook. “Cool.”
“You going through my stuff?” He doesn’t sound upset at all.
He should be.
Then again, he’s a little difficult to read at first glance. Maybe inside he’s soul-crushed thinking about how Variant Luna is a shitty version of his perfect Original Luna. Jealousy is growing like thorny vines in my body, and how can I be jealous of myself? This is so, so screwy.
“I messed up your drawing.” I cop to the mistake because it’s the right thing to do, and I hold up the sketchbook, opened to the smudged girl.
Donnelly comes forward, his stride so unencumbered, and his nearness skips my pulse. He takes the sketchbook and looks. Disappointment isn’t on his face, but he hasn’t pulled away from the drawing either.
“With my tears,” I murmur. “I ruined her.”
“Nah,” he breathes, studying the page. “You made her better.” He flashes the sketch to me.
She seems worse off. “Her eyelashes are blobs now.”
“‘Cause she’d been crying,” he says like it makes perfect sense, and he does make perfect sense to me. He spins the sketch back to himself. “Sad tears?”
“Overwhelmed,” I tell him softly. “I thought the drawing was very beautiful.” I hesitate to ask, so I say, “Whoever the girl is, you made her look out-of-this-world extraordinary.”
His lips begin to rise. “You are, Luna.”
Brightness explodes in my body, an inward radiance that I haven’t ever felt before, not to this degree. He’s making me feel overpowered. An OP character in the novel of my life. And despite all of that, it’s hard to agree with him. “The Luna you know was extra spectacular, and I’m not sure she would’ve gone through your things.”
At this, I unearth the daily planner from beneath my butt.
I hold it out in confession. “I didn’t read too much of it.”
Donnelly squats down to me, still wearing the kyber crystal necklace. Like me, he was brought a new set of clothes at the hospital (tattered jeans and a black long-sleeve tee), and he showered there too. As he reaches for the notebook, eucalyptus soap permeates off him, but I also smell his natural musk. It’s a heady, dizzying scent, and I find myself inhaling deeper.
He eyes the doodled cover. “You gifted this to me a while back.”
“She gifted it to you.”
His face pinches in pain. “You are her.”
Am I? “I don’t even know who I become in the three years I missed.” It’s frustrating, and the pestering, annoying emotion won’t go away.
He sets aside the sketchbook and planner. “You don’t think you’ll remember?” He doesn’t seem shocked.
“Was your Luna a cynic too?”
“Cynical, yeah. Pessimistic, sometimes. But you wanted so fucking badly to believe. Mostly in aliens.”
I smile a little.
“And yourself,” he adds, “and in us.” He tips his head, catching my gaze. “You were still adamant that the world was shit and people sucked.”
Sounds like me. I ease. “You don’t think the world is shit?”
“The world can be shit.” He sits with me, his arms hanging on his knees. “But living in it can also be amazing. Like ate the best ham hoagie of your life amazing, danced your heart out at 3 a.m. amazing, kissed an alien and shot to the moon amazing.”
I glance at his lips, butterflies swarming me. “You’ve communed with the extraterrestrial?”
“Just one.” He’s looking at me. “And she’s the prettiest alien I’ve ever seen.”
“Wannabe alien,” I correct.
“Sad alien,” he amends, his tone flirty. I bite the corner of my lip, smiling more, especially as he sweeps my features. He nods to me. “I think you’ve crashed on my planet this time.”