Dear Nobody,
I can hear my brother downstairs making a drug deal. I don't think that he knows that I'm home because I came in pretty late last night and he was asleep, so he probably thinks that I just didn't come home at all last night. He doesn't like to do his drug business when I'm at home, I've noticed. I don't know if it's because there is a slight part of Nathan that cares about me or if he doesn't want me to know too much because he thinks that I'll nark on him or try to steal his business or something. Caring brother or paranoid business man? I say both. Either way, I don't want him to get mad at me so I'll have to stay in bed until that other guy leaves. It might take a while but I'll keep you updated.
Meanwhile, let me tell you about the night that I had last night. It wasn't anything special, but I went over to the Ronlux building and got drunk off of our asses and broke stuff. A typical Friday night for us so like I said, nothing special. I have five close friends that I kind of do everything with and I know that I've talked about them before, but let me explain them to you in depth while I wait for my brother's drug deal to finish downstairs.
Cece. The artist. She always has her sketch book with her, scribbling down new sketches with her pencil with the chewed ends because when she gets frustrated, she'll chew on the eraser part of the pencil. She carries an extra eraser around in her pocket so that she doesn't have to use the saliva ridden pink one that's stuck to the end of her drawing pencil. She's one of the more quiet people in our group because she's always focused on her drawings. Her favorite time to draw is when she's tripping on acid, because then it looks like the drawing is literally coming to life and the lines have a life of their own. That's what she says anyway. I think that she just likes acid.
Tasha. The good kid. She has a really long backstory that really helps explain her but I'll spare you the details. Basically, her mother was in a really abusive relationship and out of this relationship popped out Tasha and her little brother, but when Tasha was five and her brother was just born, Tasha's mother got out of the relationship but she had no money because she had no job so they ended up here. Ever since, her mom has been trying her best to get them out of this place but it's so far been unsuccessful. So Tasha is a really good kid (as far as good kids go around here, which isn't saying much), she gets good grades, and she creates her own clothes out of the ratty old crap that she can afford with the minimum wage she makes bagging groceries at the Walmart down the street. She paints her nails, whines when she scuffs her shoes, but she's still great. She's very caring about all of us, kind of like the nurturer in the group.
Faith. The thief. She doesn't steal from us, but she does steal from just about everybody else. Stores, people on the street, people at our school, teachers, just anybody that she can screw over. She's scary good at pick pocketing, which is her second specialty right behind shoplifting. She's scary manipulative too, but I know the real her, we all know the real her. Most people at school have caught on to what she does when she gets too close, and so most of the school really doesn't like her. People actually ask me why I'm friends with her, and it's because I know that she isn't like that when nobody's around. She's really funny and strong and although very crass (although aren't we all?), she's very compassionate too.
And then the guys.
Jules. The bodyguard. He's impressively strong and he has a tendency to take care of us. Not only by protecting us against getting mugged on the streets, but he also brings us all the drugs that we could ever need in our lifetime. Alcohol, weed, and the other really terrible drugs that we shouldn't be trying at all but don't really give a shit about. I don't know how he gets all of the stuff that he gets, but he never asks for money for it, he just bring it to the Ronlux building and we all lose our shit together. Jules, I think, is the only way that any of us girls maintain any sense of safety in this fucked up city. I mean, I can hold my own when it comes to girls but if I'm at a party and a guy is trying to force himself on me but I've already had too much to drink, I'd be absolutely doomed without Jules there. He's like the overprotective brother that I never had.
And then there's Grey. The flirt. That's the best way that I can describe Grey but it doesn't even begin to explain him. He's an asshole, but we're still friends with him because he's most of the time not an asshole around us. He's arrogant, childish, and erratic. But he's also honest, funny, smart, and he cares a whole hell of a lot about his friends. Even after the worst of days either at school or at our separate jobs, Grey always has a stupid way of making us laugh. Especially me. But then, the second after the mood improves, he'll start slithering, making a move to grope my chest or something and it'll piss me off again. With Grey, you can have the best of times but you also have to deal with the worst. But for the most part, it's worth it, because he's a great final part to our group of six friends.
We're kind of dysfunctional but we've been through a lot together and people can say a lot of shit about us, but we take care of each other. We're actually meeting up again tonight after my shift at the library. And my mom still hasn't come back from her 'trip' to wherever she went, so we might come back to the house and see what kind of terrible party Nathan is throwing, which he definitely will because like I said, he does that every weekend if Mom isn't home.
Anyway, I just heard somebody leave the apartment downstairs so I think that I'm in the clear. I'm going to go now. I'll talk to you later. And I hope that you have a great day.
Included picture: My new window art.
Sincerely,
Luna Rose
I put everything in the envelope, seal it, stamp it, and put the regular address on the front before I go into the bathroom and take a shower. Brushing my hair and teeth afterward before I go back into my room and get dressed for work. I work at the local library because it's close-ish to my house, meaning I can walk there, and it's a nice place to work. Like the rest of this stupid city, it's incredibly crappy. The books are molding, the rats are eating through the bottom shelf books, and the people who don't return their books don't get fined because we don't have the time to nag them enough to get them to return them, so our books rapidly go missing.
But I like working there because on my downtime, I get to read as much as I want without actually buying the books that I want to read because I can't afford them.
"I thought that you went out," Nathan tells me when I get downstairs to grab something to eat before I leave.
"I did. I came back early this morning," I explain to him. "Have you heard from Mom?"
"Nope," He plops down on the couch and turns on the TV to watch whatever channels the satellite can pick up.
"She should be home by now."
"You're worried?" He asks me, raising his eyebrows.
"No," I refute, finding an almost-rotten banana on top of the fridge so I grab that and I head for the door. "I'm just saying that it's been a week already."
"Maybe she's not even coming back this time at all," He offers tauntingly. "You never know, we may never even see her again."
"That's not funny."
"Don't be such a little bitch, Luna," Nathan laughs at me as I'm leaving out the front door. "And calm the fuck down."
I pinch my lips together, not saying anything, and I escape the apartment, shutting the door behind me as I go down the dirty hallway of the complex before going down two flights of stairs and then out the front door.
The library is about a twenty minute walk from my house and the whole time, I've got my key chain in my hand that contains a bunch of useless keys and some pepper spray. Although it's unlikely that anybody will try to attack me right now because it's so goddamn cold outside.
I'm only wearing leggings to guard my thin legs from the cold wind but I'm wearing three layers on top so I snuggle my arms into myself and walk fast to get out of the cold as fast as possible. I'm wearing a Coca-Cola t-shirt that's gray with a red Coke logo on the front. Over top of that, I'm wearing a red and black plaid button up long sleeve shirt. Hiding both of those shirts, I'm wearing a zipped up black and white lettermen jacket.
About once a month, I go with Faith in her mom's beat up minivan and we drive up to North Dublin, which is the suburban area about twenty minutes outside of the city and we go to North Dublin High School right before school starts and we walk into the school looking like NDHS students and we raid their lost & found box for lost clothes, sunglasses, winter items. Just anything that we can find that we can use. The secretary at that school will just give us the box and she'll get back to her job so she doesn't even pay attention when we shove about half of the contents of the box into our bags.
Anyway, that's how I got this lettermen jacket. I had to rip off the last name, Ashford, from the back of the jacket and I also took off the sports symbols that included tennis and softball so that it just looks like a plain lettermen jacket. It still smells like moldy roses, which I blame on this Ashford girl's perfume, but it's really warm and so I hide my face from the wind using the collar of the jacket.
I make it to the library in fifteen minutes due to my speed walking in the cold weather and I hang up my jacket in the back room before clocking in.
Mrs. Wilcox is the boss librarian, if that's even a thing, and she's behind the desk typing something but she takes a minute to turn and tell me that my job today will be restocking the shelves with returned books. With the heat on so high in the building (how can they afford that?), I take off my plaid button up only half an hour into working and tie the sleeves around my waist and continue shelving the soggy books on their appropriate shelves.
It's not the most exciting job but it is a job and it's better than working at a fast food restaurant cleaning grease out of my ears like Cece and Jules. I have a crappy iPod that I found in the North Dublin lost & found once, so I use that to listen to music as I'm shelving the books. Although most of the music is crappy, Jules showed me how to illegally download music onto said crappy iPod so now I try to put some good music on it whenever I have some down time at work and can get to one of the old computers.
"Hey, Luna," I hear Mrs. Wilcox call my name through the music in the ear buds that I found with the iPod and so I take the ear buds out and leave the cart full of returned books to go up to the front desk.
"Yeah, what's up?" I ask.
"I was just notified that the Metropolitan Division Libraries are holding a scholarship competition," She informs me, looking at the computer so it looks like she's reading an email or something. "You could probably win up to ten grand for college and I'm ordering an application for you."
"Oh. That's not necessary," I tell her. "I'm not going to college."
"Really?" She looks up at me from her thin rimmed glasses and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes grow deeper. "Why not? You're very bright, Luna."
I offer her a polite smile. "Thanks but there's just no way. I can't even afford community college. Even with a generous scholarship like that, I wouldn't be able to do it."
"Well, your grades are good, aren't they?" She wonders. "You can apply for more scholarships, and they'll rack up, kiddo. Just because you grew up in a not-so-great environment doesn't mean that you can't do something with your life."
"Can I get back to work now?"
"No. I'm going to keep searching for scholarships for you, and you'll keep applying for them and then you'll earn a butt load of money and then you'll go to college because you're smart and you can do it and I believe in you," She informs me, typing something at her computer.
"Nobody's going to pick me for scholarships," I warn her. "I'm honored that you believe in me, but really nobody else does."
"I guess we'll see," She sings at me before glancing up at me, still typing. "Alright. Now you can get to work."
"Yes, ma'am," I mumble, turning away from the older middle aged woman to return to the book cart so that I can continue my job for the next few hours.
When my shift is over, I put on my plaid shirt back on and then grab my lettermen jacket from the back before saying goodbye to the man that's now working the front desk since Mrs. Wilcox got off about an hour before I did.
Walking back home is just as painfully cold as walking to work so I speed walk all the way to my house and because it's dark out now, I can't take the alley short cut that I took to the library so the walk home is even longer. Once I do get to the apartment building, I don't actually go into the building, I turn to the right and go into the Ronlux building where my friends should already be waiting for me.
The doors are supposed to be boarded up, so I have to climb through one of the windows that Jules and Grey had been able to smash the wood off of. Once I'm through the window, I walk through the old reception area to the small door behind the desk that leads to the basement. It's kind of hard to see because obviously, the electricity doesn't work but I know the building pretty well so getting to the basement isn't the problem. The problem with coming into the Ronlux building in the dark is being so silent that I can hear if anybody else is in the building. Homeless people can be very mean and angry.
I stay silent, only hearing the creak of the floor boards until I get to the basement door and go downstairs. I can already hear my friends talking downstairs with some music going but not too loud so that it doesn't disturb the hobos that are probably lurking upstairs.
"Jules, it pains me to be friends with somebody as incredibly stupid as yourself," I hear Tasha saying as I approach the group in the only well-lit part of the basement thanks to battery operated flashlights and lanterns that we stash down here.
"What did Jules do?" I interrupt, taking my lettermen jacket off. It's still really cold down here though, so I keep my plaid button up on.
"He's going out with Riley Marcus tomorrow," Cece explains. "Let's play a game where we list all of the reasons why that is a bad idea."
"Ah, this sounds like fun," Jules mumbles sarcastically. I sit down in one of the fold up chairs that we have down here and join the lumpy circle that my friends had formed with their chairs with a lantern and a bong sitting in the center.
"One. She's a horrible person," Tasha starts.
"She had an abortion over the summer," Faith adds. "That's two."
"How would you know that?" Jules asks me with raised eyebrows.
She just shrugs at him as I'm adjusting myself to sit criss cross in the chair and then I lean forward and grab the large bong. "I know people."
"She probably has a points system set up with the STD clinic," Cece adds. "So that's three."
"That's really mean," Jules defends. "And it's not like I asked her to be my girlfriend, alright? She's hot and I haven't gotten laid in a long time. So unless one of you want to step up to the plate, you're going to have to let me have this one."
"I don't care who you have sex with," I decide, passing the bong around after I lit it and took a puff of it. "Just don't get her pregnant and for your sake, don't get infected with anything."
"Noted," He confirms. "I'll be fine."
"Well. Okay, but for the record, I don't approve," Tasha mumbles. "And I think that it's disgusting."
"Jeez, go easy on the guy," Grey defends Jules with a light laugh as he takes his turn with the bong. "Riley is kinda hot. If I was desperate, I'd do her too."
"I wouldn't say that I'm desperate," Jules says.
"If you're willing to fuck Riley Marcus, you are desperate," Faith says with a disappointed shake of her head. "But you go ahead and go for it, buddy."
"I will, thank you for the permission," He chuckles, taking the bong for a second hit and then I take it from him to get another one as well. "Are we going to Luna's house tonight?"
"Nathan's probably throwing a party," I tell them. "So we can go crash it if you guys want to. Frosty's been especially creepy lately though so I don't know if that's an awesome idea."
"Well he won't try anything with Jules there," Cece adds and she's right because one time, Frosty tried to push himself onto Tasha and then Jules almost broke his jaw, so whenever Jules is around Frosty doesn't ever mess with me or my friends.
"Hey, I can be intimidating too," Grey protests.
"Yes, you can be, but you aren't," I tell him, rolling my eyes at him with a small laugh. "The last time Frosty tried to touch my boob, you just laughed, told him my bra size, and then got him another beer while I fought him off by myself. So yeah, if I had to choose a bodyguard between you and Jules, it's going to be Jules every single time."
"Okay but that's not my fault. You have amazing boobs," He insists. "But if he started really messing with you, I would have kicked his ass."
"You would not have, you would have joined in," I refute, taking the bong again as I'm starting to feel the effects of the weed. I can feel the usual tingling sensation starting in my fingers and it rides up my arms to my chest and starts to warm my whole body.
"That's going a bit far," Grey defends, standing up from his seat and he starts walking over to me. "Even though you wish that I would join in."
"I don't wish that," I argue with a loud laugh. "Because for me to wish that, it would mean that I would wish to have a threesome with you and Frosty, which would mean that I want to have sex with Frosty, which I really, really don't."
"So you're saying that you want to have sex with me?" He wonders, raising his eyebrows at me just as he takes the bong from my hands and hands it to Faith before he steps even closer to me and he starts straddling me on the chair.
With another loud laugh, I shake my head at him. "You repulse me, Grey," I say but he knows that I'm just joking.
"You two need to get a room before we all vomit," Faith mumbles as Grey starts to dramatically dry hump me and I can't help but laugh again because I know that he's just teasing me and it's not actually for perverted reasons. To make it funnier, I start making loud moaning noises and I shout Grey's name just to make everybody feel a bit more awkward.
"You know, that would be funny," Faith speaks up. "If you guys haven't actually hooked up. But you have. A lot. And that makes this weird."
"Yeah, that was really hard to watch," Jules agrees with Faith as Grey climbs off of me again, kisses my cheek, and then goes back to his own seat.
Cece starts sketching in her notebook, holding a flashlight in her left hand and drawing with her pencil. "I have the weirdest friends ever," She mumbles.
I grin at her, taking another hit from the bong. "I know. Aren't you just the luckiest gal around?"
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What do you think so far?!
I'm going to update whenever the Blue Jackets win a game (nhl hockey) so probably about once or twice a week.
And the dedication goes to slytherinprincess29 because her favorite character so far is Jules!
Thanks for reading, I hope you like the new story <3