The Next Luna

Prelude

*****Trigger warning. This book contains mental and physical abuse, a*******n, and r**e, only for mature readers.

June

I was so scared that I was right. My best friend had even noticed over the weekend and made me take a test. With her mom sitting with us, we waited impatiently for the results. I couldn’t go to my parents. They would be so angry. They had told me not to see Jack, he was older than I was, and my father didn’t like him. He didn’t live in town. He lived outside of town with several other families. My father said the whole lot of them were crazy. The whole town was convinced they were some sort of cult, but there was nothing to support that theory. Nobody knew much about the group. But Jack was always so sweet and kind. I loved him from the first day I saw him. To prove that the group's children were not being harmed in any way, they had agreed to send them to the school in town instead of homeschooling the children a few years ago. So when school started back up after winter break, in walked several new students, all of them strangely good-looking. Jack was among them. He was older than me, but we didn’t care.

Our eyes met, and it was like there was no one but us in the whole world. By the end of the day, he had found a way to speak with me and ask me out. Since then, we have been inseparable. But now, with the end of school being near and he was set to graduate, I was worried he would leave me behind. And now, the test was positive. What would we do? Would he want to keep the baby? Would he insist on me getting rid of it? My world was spinning around me already, and I was so nervous while waiting for him to show up before school. We always meet before school out by the football field. It was the last day of school, and then it would be harder to see each other over the summer, but we always found a way. My father didn’t like Jack and always made it hard over the summer, but we had our ways.

I paced back and forth as I went over different ways on how to tell him. My best friend Kiera and her mom said that no matter what, they were there for me. Kiera’s mom Sandra had been a single mom and had also been a young mom, so she knew what it was like. She worked her tail off her whole life to make a good life for her and Kiera. Then she had met her husband Frank, who loved both of them. He had even adopted Keira as his own. He made sure both of them had everything they ever wanted, and Sandra was able to work from home running her own babysitting business so she could be home when Keira got home from school. She was like a second mother to me, and I trusted her with all my heart and found I could go to her with things I knew my mom would freak out about. Knowing I wouldn’t be alone wasn’t enough to make me feel better about this, though. I had to know Jack would be there for this baby and me. I had to know he truly loved me and wouldn’t leave us. Even though I was scared out of my mind, there was no doubt in my mind, that I could give this baby up. It was mine, no matter what. Movement caught my attention, so I stopped my pacing and looked over to my right. A smile spread across my face as I watched Jack walk over to me. But the closer he got, my smile started to fade. He hadn’t come alone today. He always came alone. A small group of his friends stood back far enough they wouldn’t be able to hear us talking but close enough to watch us. Their eyes were on me as they stood there.

A shiver ran up my spine. They all looked mean, especially the one named Grayson. He seemed to be the one all of the kids from Jack’s group listened to without question. He could be mean as hell and didn’t seem to respond well when someone told him what to do. Pulling my focus away from the small group that stood back behind Jack, I focused on him as he stopped in front of me. There was no expression on his face. He normally looked so happy to see me, something was wrong. “June, we need to talk.” He glanced back at his friends behind him for a moment drawing my attention back to them just in time to see Grayson nod his head at him as though he had given Jack one of his orders he tended to do with all the kids from the group. I turned back to Jack, catching a glimpse of sadness on his face before all emotion was wiped from his face. “June, we can’t see each other anymore. It would be best if you moved on. I won’t be back in town again after today. “ I shook my head, “What are you talking about?” My hands shot to my stomach, oh god. This couldn’t be happening. “It’s not safe for us to be together. I can’t do this anymore.” Our attentions were pulled away from each other by Grayson, who had moved a few feet closer. “Jack, we have to go.” Jack nodded and turned back to me, “I’m sorry, this is for your own good, June.” With that, he turned and left. I tried calling him back, but he didn’t even turn around. I fell to the ground holding my stomach, hugging myself as though I would fall apart if I hadn’t. I don’t know how long I sat like that crying before Kiera came looking for me. But that's how she found me. She kneeled down next to me. “June, what happened?” I shook my head, “he broke up with me.” I wailed as the tears fell harder and faster down my face. “WHAT? YOU TELL HIM….AND HE BREAKS UP WITH YOU. I WILL KILL HIM.” She started to stand back up, but I grabbed her arm, stopping her. I shook my head while trying to calm down enough to speak again. She waited but looked as though she was ready to kill someone. “I….I….I didn’t……I didn’t tell him.” Her anger seemed to dissipate as confusion filled her face, but she kneeled back down next to me. “June, what happened?”

It took me a few more minutes before I calmed down enough to answer her. “He showed up with a small group of the guys from the compound outside of town. They stood back over there while he walked over and told me we couldn’t be together anymore. He told me to move on. He said it wasn’t safe for us to be together, and he wouldn’t be back in town after today. That’s when Grayson broke off from the group and told him it was time to go. He didn’t even question it like they always do when Grayson says something. He simply turned and walked away like I meant nothing to him. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him. I tried to call him back, but it was like he couldn’t hear me. He just kept walking.” The tears that had slowed started falling faster again as Kiera wrapped her arms around me and hugged me. “Oh June, it will be ok. We will figure this out together.”

****

Seventeen years later and Kiera’s words that day had been the truth. It hadn’t been easy, and my parents had reacted the way I had expected. I had been given the option to abort my baby or get out of their house. My father said he would not have any daughter of his have a baby with one of those ingrates. He screamed for hours about how he couldn’t believe I had done something so stupid. I chose that night to leave, only packing what would fit in my backpack. Sandra had taken me in and made sure I finished school. The whole family had made sure I felt like part of their family. I loved them for it, and the day Kiera left for college was one of the saddest days of my life, but I was happy for her at the same time. She went on to meet her husband, and even though she never moved back, we stayed in touch over the years. By the time my little Zoey turned ten, Sandra had become a widow and moved away so she could live closer to Kiera and her new baby. I again was saddened to see yet another person I loved so much leave but knew it was Kiera’s turn to have her mother’s help. I was still a single mother, but Zoey and I made for an amazing team and had our routine down. I felt bad for having to work more than one job to keep us above water, but she was a good kid. She was so smart and independent. I felt bad we couldn’t do much over the summers like everyone else, but she always seemed happy with the little things we could do. This year would be different, though. I had saved up every penny I could over the last year, and this year we would be taking a trip and seeing everything she wanted. We would stop and see all the things that weren’t even on her list of stops along the path we had marked on the map. Zoey had even taken on a part-time job after school this year and saved up every penny she earned so we could make this happen. This would be the last summer before her senior year of high school, and I was dead set on making it memorable. My boss at the dinner had even allowed me to cut out early today so I could be home when Zoey got home from school, and we could head out tonight.