Go ahead and talk

Did anyone really care about her summer?

Luna was frustrated about not keeping in contact with Essie. Not even Syreeta. Yes, she'd said she would write while away at camp, but she didn't. And she didn't know where to start now. Things had changed.

It all began with the family reunion with Zac's family. She'd gone to Chicago with him because, he was her boyfriend.

And then they slept together. Well, his Dad had a room for Zac and evidently assumed that it would be no big deal. Weren't they sleeping together?

Now when she looked back on their whole relationship it must have been a facade of some kind. It was weird now.

It wasn't suppose to be, but she just couldn't handle it, and by the time summer camp started at the lake, they were over.

"I don't know what went wrong." She found herself talking to Syreeta in her room.

"Well, that is a lot of pressure." Syreeta looked at her as if she understood.

"So..so are you and Clive.."

"No." Syreeta squinted a grin. "Look, don't be sad about Zac, OK. I mean, he should have understood if..if you didn't want too..you know..have sex."

"So, I guess your summer was pretty awesome." Luna looked grim as if everyone had someone, but her.

"I dunno. It was..different." She mentioned Van and the shooting. "I didn't see anything. I just heard the shot."

A shiver went through Luna, who squeezed her eyes shut remembering the phone call while at camp.

"His mom called me..to tell me.." Luna could barely breathe as she thought about his mother sobbing. "She..she still thought I was seeing Van."

Syreeta put her arm around Luna's shoulder. Luna really did need a shoulder to cry on.

Luna knew she needed to shut up. Stop talking about what was on her mind. She couldn't bare to let Syreeta know she'd done something meaningless this summer with someone, who wasn't Zac.