return • theo raeken [2]

fifteen. all my exes live in texas

third person

THE WIND WHIPS THROUGH the jacket she is wearing as she drives down the highway on her newly bought old motorcycle.  Luna had dipped into the fund meant for her college tuition to spend on the one seat motorcycle so that she could leave the truck with Charlie.  She kept her promise in taking off to Texas a few days after graduation.  Charlie was not happy whatsoever when she broke the news to him.

"You don't need to prove yourself to him," Charlie had said, he was talking about their father.

Luna had calmly replied, "I'm not proving anything to him.  I'm going there and I'm going to show him he was wrong about me.  He can do what he wants with the information."

Charlie sighed, "I just don't understand the need to this."

"You're right, Charlie.  You don't.  You didn't spend most of your life in this house all by yourself taking care of everything without the help of mom and dad.  Blaming yourself for years for something you didn't do.  I'm going to show him that he was wrong for what he did.  Him and mom."

"Luna—"

"And besides, somebody's gotta go rescue Jonah and Asher."

After a long talk, Charlie still wasn't okay with it but he decided to not be angry about it anymore. He finally understood her need to do it and knew that if anyone could get their brothers out of there, it was her.

She told the pack she was leaving only to make sure they knew where she was and what she was doing. She didn't want them to think she was slipping back into her old ways of separating herself from them. But she hadn't spoken to Theo before she left and that meant he didn't know that she wasn't in California anymore. It's not like Luna didn't want to tell him. She just didn't know how to. She didn't know how to talk to him now that they weren't facing impending doom, and she wasn't sure how he would react to her telling him she was leaving. Would he have wanted to come with her? She wanted to do this on her own, and she knew she wouldn't have been able to turn him down if he asked to come with her.

Now, Luna is parked at the end of the drive to her family's ranch with her journal sitting in front of her on the gas tank of her motorcycle. She scribbles words on the page of her thoughts and feelings. Even though Theo is a living, breathing person again, she still writes to him in her journal. She got so used to it when he wasn't around that it became second nature for her to want to share her life with him. Luna just wishes that she could do that in person.

Movement in the far distance near the house catches Luna's eye, and she puts the journal back in her bag that's attached to the side of her bike. She starts the bike up and dirt billows behind her as she drives up the driveway. Her heart is beating faster as she approaches a man who was carrying a couple of pails of water that stopped when he heard her start her bike. She wasn't sure how her brothers were going to react to seeing her. Were they brainwashed by their father and turned against her? Had their heart hardened in all the time they have been gone? Would they be happy to see her even for a moment?

Luna can tell the man standing a few yards away is Jonah, her older middle brother. He's standing there, studying her. She can smell from beneath her helmet that he can tell that he knows her, but it's been too long that he's not familiar with the scent she's giving off. Luna turns off her bike and swings her leg over it to get off the bike. She carefully lifts the helmet off her head and places it on her seat. Her eyes meet Jonah's and there's a look of surprise as he sees her for the first time in ten years. The blue haired girl bites her bottom lip as she studies her brother.

"Luna?" Jonah asks, and he drops the pails of water to quickly walk towards her.

Luna prepares herself for an attack, but the only attack she received was the tightest hug she's had in her life. Her shoulders drop as she relaxes into the hug and wraps her arms around him to return the tightness. She tries to keep her emotions in check enough to not let tears fall down her face. For a few moments they just stood there in each other's embrace before Jonah lets her go to hold her at arm's length.