“It’s fine,” Luna said. “You can spend the night with her. I’ll be okay. Really.”
“Are you sure?” Dan asked again.
“Honestly. Honestly,” Luna said. “Please. You’re beginning to sound like my mother. I’m a big girl now. I can sleep alone.”
“Okay,” Dan said. “You know I love you.”
“Yes, I know you love me and I love you, too. Very much. Now go and enjoy yourself.”
Dan gave Luna a big hug and left.
Luna sighed and found her way up to her room.
She stopped off at the bathroom along the way. She used the composting toilet and brushed and flossed her teeth.
She went into her room and unrolled the sheet, fluffed one of the pillows, took off her clothes, and crawled into the bed. She took a book off of the nightstand and started to read.
“Honestly,” she muttered once more to herself. She read for maybe ten minutes and then turned off the light.
She rolled over on her side. She turned one way. She turned the other way. Then she turned back again.
She must have tossed and turned for forty-five minutes before she fell asleep. But then she slept and slept soundly.
*
Luna was watching her mother and Nancy trying to bake a pie but the oven wouldn’t work. Her father tried to fix when Dan came in and…
Luna woke up with a start. She had to pee. She reached over but she was the only one in the bed. It took her a moment to remember that Dan was sleeping elsewhere.
Slightly disoriented, she got up and went to the bathroom. On the way back she passed a clock in the hallway that said it was 3:33.
She tried to settle back in but she started wondering how Dan was doing. She remembered how friendly he used to be with Sal and tried to figure out how things had gotten so bad between them that they had trouble being in a room together.
She also started thinking about Sally and Bobby and wondered what it would be like to have an annoying younger brother--or to have any siblings at all. Was it good that she was an only child? Would it be better or worse to have brothers and sisters?
She thought about the couple of nights that she spent with Viv. She realized that she enjoyed them and thought that maybe she should ask Viv to spend the night with her again. She also thought about Cat and Blue Sky and wondered what it would be like to spend the night with either of them. She felt guilty that she still thought of them as gendered although she’d been very careful not to use pronouns when referring to either of them, although she had slipped once recently with Cat.
She started thinking about the new BBAAers. It was good having someone as experienced on the team as Bob but she wondered if he was intimidating to the other folks on the farming crew. She wondered how Angel was adjusting. She thought about Winter and Birch working together on mushrooms and herbs and wondered if she was giving them too much freedom.
Then she started thinking about Dan again. She hoped he was having a good time, but maybe not too good a time. Luna realized that she was hoping that Dan would be back with her tomorrow night.
She decided to stop thinking about Dan and thought about how well the farm was doing. She realized that they had been so busy this year that they had never had a spring concert. Then for some reason she started wondering how the chickens were doing.
Next thing she knew she was wondering how Dan was doing. She didn’t want to admit that she missed him but she was really hoping he’d be back with her…
It was almost six o’clock when she fell back to sleep and then she was woken at six thirty by Viv.
“Sorry, Luna,” she said. “You said to wake you so we could get an early start on the crops.”
“Yeah,” Luna said. “I know, I know.”
She staggered down to breakfast. Dan was there fixing his cereal.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Fine,” Luna said. “No problems.”
“Good,” Dan said. “She just asked if I could sleep with her again tonight. You don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” said Luna with a sigh.
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