Chapter 5: What Mothers Know
The stairs creaked under her weight.
Luna froze mid-step, one foot hovering over the third tread from the top, her hand wrapped around the banister like it might anchor her to invisibility. The house was too quiet. No television murmur from the living room. No clatter of dishes from the kitchen.
Just silence.
And then—
"I made coffee."
Her mother's voice drifted up from the kitchen, calm and even, the way she spoke to patients before delivering bad news. Luna closed her eyes. Considered her options. She could pretend she hadn't heard. Could slip into her room and lock the door. Could—
"Leah. Come down here."
Full name. Never a good sign.
Luna descended the stairs slowly, her fingers still curled around the banister, her socked feet padding against the hardwood. She'd kicked off her sneakers at the door—a lifetime of habit—and now she wished she'd kept them on. Wished she'd had something to do with her hands. Wished she'd taken five minutes to brush her hair, to wipe the smudged mascara from under her eyes, to look less like someone who'd spent the night doing exactly what she'd spent the night doing.
Her mother sat at the kitchen table.
The kitchen was small and warm—yellow walls, white cabinets, a ceramic bowl of lemons that had been there so long they'd petrified into decorations. Dr. Amara Hartley had a mug of coffee in front of her, steam curling up in lazy spirals, and a tablet open to what looked like patient charts. She'd been here a while. The coffee was half-gone. The charts had been scrolled through.
She took in her daughter.
Luna felt the assessment like a physical touch. The hoodie. The bare legs. The hair. The hickeys she'd forgotten about until this exact moment, blooming purple on her collarbone like evidence at a crime scene.
"That's not Priya's hoodie," her mother said.
Luna said nothing.
"It's not yours either."
Silence.
"Is it?"
"No," Luna said. Her voice came out small. Rusty from sleep and other things.
Her mother nodded slowly. Took a sip of coffee. Set the mug down with deliberate care.
"I'm not going to interrogate you," she said. "I'm not going to yell. I'm not going to tell you you're grounded, because you're twenty-two and that would be absurd." She paused. "But I am going to ask you one question, and I want you to look at me when you answer."
Luna looked at her.
"Are you okay?"
It was not the question she'd expected.
She'd been bracing for the Spanish Inquisition. Who is he? Where did you meet him? Do you know how dangerous it is to go home with strangers? Do you know what could have happened?
But her mother—Dr. Hartley, who had spent thirty years in emergency medicine, who had seen the worst of what people did to each other—just asked if she was okay.
And somehow that was worse.
"I'm okay," Luna said. Her throat felt tight. "I'm fine."
"Because you look—" Her mother stopped. Started again. "You look happy. And tired. And like you haven't slept. But mostly happy."
Luna didn't know what to say to that.
"I haven't seen you look happy like that in a long time," her mother said. "Not since—" She didn't finish the sentence.
They both knew.
"Mom—"
"I'm not asking for details." Her mother pushed back from the table, stood, crossed to the sink. Dumped out the rest of her coffee with a splash that echoed in the quiet kitchen. "I don't want to know his name. I don't want to know if he's a student or a—" She paused, considered. "Whatever else he might be. I don't want to know."
"Okay."
"But I do want to say something."
Luna waited.
Her mother turned. Leaned against the counter. Folded her arms. Looked at her daughter with an expression Luna couldn't quite read—something between love and fear and a kind of fierce, protective anger that had nothing to do with the present moment.
"After Ethan," her mother said carefully, "I was scared."
Luna flinched. The name was a slap she hadn't braced for.
"Not because he hurt you. He did, and I wanted to—" Her mother stopped. Breathed. "I wanted to do things that would have required your father's security clearance to cover up."
"Mom."
"I'm serious. But I didn't. Because you asked me not to. Because you said you needed to handle it yourself."
Luna remembered. The nights she'd spent crying in her room, refusing to let anyone in. The way she'd insisted she was fine, that she didn't need help, that she could put herself back together without anyone's hands but her own.
"You were so closed off," her mother said. "For so long. You stopped going out. Stopped seeing friends. Stopped—" She gestured vaguely at the house around them. "Existing except in little spaces. Your room. Your computer. The kitchen when everyone else was asleep."
"I was just—"
"I know what it was." Her mother's voice was gentle but firm. "I'm a doctor, Leah. I know what trauma looks like. I know what depression looks like. And I watched you carry both of them around for a year and a half without asking for help because you were too scared to trust anyone."
Luna's eyes burned.
"I wanted to fix it. That's what I do. I fix things. But I couldn't fix this. I couldn't fix you. So I waited. And I watched. And I hoped."
She stepped closer. Cupped Luna's face in her hands. Her palms were warm. Her wedding ring was cool against Luna's cheek.
"I was scared you'd never let anyone close again," she said quietly. "That you'd decided you were better off alone. That something—someone—had broken the part of you that knew how to hope."
A tear slipped down Luna's face. Her mother caught it with her thumb.
"And then you went out last night. You called me and said you were going to be home late. You sounded nervous. Excited. Alive." She smiled. "I didn't care who you were with or what you were doing. I just cared that you were doing something."
Luna's voice cracked. "Mom—"
"He better be good to you."
"What?"
"Whoever he is." Her mother's eyes hardened just slightly. "He has to be good to you. Because if he's not—" She released Luna's face, stepped back. Adjusted her watch. Looking, suddenly, exactly like the woman who had raised a soldier's daughter. "Well. You know your father."
Luna laughed wetly. "That's not funny."
"It's a little funny."
The pager on her mother's hip went off.
Not a subtle buzz. Not a quiet notification. A full, high-pitched shriek that cut through the kitchen like a scalpel. Her mother looked down at it. Her expression shifted—the doctor stepped forward, the mother stepped back.
"I have to go," she said. "Emergency. Patient. There's a—" She was already moving, grabbing her bag off the hook by the door. "I'll be home late. There's food in the fridge. Don't wait up."
"Mom—"
Her mother paused. Hand on the doorframe. Turned back.
"I love you," she said. "And I'm glad you're happy. Whatever that means. Whoever that's with."
Then she was gone.
The front door clicked shut. The lock turned. The sound of her car starting—the old sedan she refused to replace—rumbled down the driveway and faded.
Luna stood in the kitchen for a long moment.
The coffee mug was still on the table. The tablet was still open. The half-drunk cup had a ring of brown at the bottom.
She picked up the mug. Washed it. Dried it. Put it back in the cabinet.
It was the least she could do.
---
Her room was exactly how she'd left it.
Pink walls. Fairy lights strung across the ceiling in loops and spirals, plugged in and glowing soft and warm. Her desk was buried under sketches—half-finished character designs, a rough landscape she'd been working on for weeks, a pile of wrappers from protein bars she'd been eating instead of actual meals. Her laptop was open, still humming, screen dark. Her bed was unmade.
The hoodie she was wearing—Leo's hoodie—still smelled like him. Like engine oil and something clean, like soap and something underneath it that was just him. She pulled the collar up to her nose and breathed.
Then she called Priya.
The phone rang twice. Three times. On the fourth, it picked up.
"Okay," Priya said, before Luna could say anything. "I've been waiting for you to call for twenty-four hours. I was about to send out a search party. I was about to call the police. I was—"
"Priya."
"—about to call your mom, which would have been awkward because I've never actually met her, I've only seen her from that time we—"
"Priya!"
"What?"
Luna flopped onto her bed. Stared at the ceiling. The fairy lights blurred in and out of focus.
"I slept with him."
Silence.
Then a scream.
It was so loud that Luna had to pull the phone away from her ear, hold it at arm's length, wait for the noise to subside. She could hear Priya jumping around on the other end—the thud of feet, the rattle of something falling over, a muffled curse.
"PRIYA."
"Sorry. Sorry. I just—" More jumping. "I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT. When you left the bar with him, I was like, that girl is going to—"
"Okay, okay, calm down."
"I will not calm down. This is the most exciting thing that's happened to you in two years. I am allowed to be excited." A pause. "Wait. Wait. Did you say 'slept with him'? Past tense? Did you leave?"
"No."
"You didn't leave?"
"I left. This morning. But—" Luna closed her eyes. The memory was right there, just under the surface. His mouth on her neck. His hands on her hips. The way the counter had rattled against the cabinets with every thrust. "Priya, I—"
"You what?"
"I slept with him more than once."
Another scream. This one was almost a shriek. Luna held the phone away again, waited, brought it back.
"Priya, you're going to blow out your vocal cords."
"I don't care. I'm so proud of you. I'm so, so proud of you." Priya's voice had shifted—still bright, still excited, but with something softer underneath it. "You know that, right? This is huge. You didn't just go home with a guy. You stayed."
Luna's throat tightened.
"I stayed," she said.
"Tell me everything."
So she did.
Most of it.
She left out the part where she'd cried. Where she'd woken up screaming from a nightmare she still couldn't fully remember. Where he'd held her in the dark and told her it was okay. That felt too fragile, too private. Like something that would break if she put it into words.
She also left out the part about the kitchen counter. And the biting. And the way he'd looked at her when he came.
But Priya knew her too well.
"There's something you're not telling me," she said.
"What? No."
"You're lying. Your voice does this thing when you're lying. It gets all—careful. Like you're measuring out the truth."
"I don't do that."
"You absolutely do that." A pause. "Did you do something weird? Is his dick weird?"
Luna barked out a laugh. "Oh my God."
"Is it small? You can tell me. I'll support you emotionally."
"It's not—" Luna pressed a hand to her face. "It's not weird. Or small. It's—"
"Big?"
"Priya."
"I'm taking that as a yes."
Luna wanted to sink into the mattress and never resurface. But she was also grinning. Grinning like an idiot. Grinning like a girl who had spent the last eighteen months building walls around herself and had just watched someone walk straight through them.
"He's a pilot," she said.
Silence.
Then: "Like a plane pilot?"
"Yes."
"In the Air Force?"
"Yes."
"Like your dad?"
"Don't."
"I'm not judging!" Priya was laughing now, the sound tinny and bright through the phone. "I'm just saying. You went from zero to Air Force pilot in one night. That's a hell of a leap."
"I know."
"Does he have dog tags?"
"Maybe," she said.
"You're blushing. I can hear you blushing."
"You can't hear blushing."
"I can. It's a gift."
Luna rolled onto her stomach. Grabbed her pillow. Hugged it to her chest.
"His name is Leo," she said quietly.
"Leo." Priya tested the name like a new flavor. "Leo. I like it. It's short. Punchy. Masculine."
"You're ridiculous."
"I'm practical. What does he do besides fly planes?"
"He—" Luna thought about it. "I don't actually know. We didn't talk about that. We talked about my stuff."
"Your stuff?"
"Streaming. Art. My parents."
"He asked about your streaming?"
"He asked to see it."
Another silence. This one was different.
Priya's voice, when she spoke again, was softer. "He asked to see your channel?"
"Yeah."
"On his own?"
"Yeah."
"Luna."
"What?"
"That's—" Priya paused. "You know that's a big deal, right? Most guys don't care about that stuff. They just want to—"
"I know."
"He actually wanted to see it? Like, wasn't pretending?"
"He watched it. He said I was the same person on and off screen." The words came out before she could stop them. Raw and real and embarrassing. "He said I wasn't fake."
Priya didn't say anything.
Then, quietly: "That's the nicest thing I've ever heard."
"I know."
"I hate him."
"You don't."
"I do. I hate him because he's setting a standard I'm going to have to compare everyone to." A pause. "But also I'm so happy for you I could cry."
Luna laughed. It came out watery.
"Don't cry."
"I'm not. I'm—" A wet sniff. "I'm just emotional. This is a big deal. You know it's a big deal, right?"
"I know."
"After Ethan—"
"I know, Priya."
"No, listen. After Ethan, I thought—" Priya stopped. Started again. "I thought you were done. Not just with dating. With—letting people in. I thought he broke something in you that wasn't going to heal."
Luna closed her eyes. The fairy lights glowed behind her eyelids.
"I thought so too," she admitted.
"But it's healing?"
"I don't know." A honesty she hadn't meant to give. "It's—he makes me feel like it could. Like maybe I'm not as broken as I thought."
Priya was quiet for a long moment.
"Okay," she said finally. "Okay. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to keep talking to this pilot. You're going to see him again. And then you're going to call me the second you get home and tell me everything, and I mean everything, including the weird stuff."
"That seems like a lot of rules."
"I'm your best friend. I get to make rules."
Luna smiled. "Fine."
"Good." A pause. "I love you, you know."
"I know."
"Say it back."
"I love you too."
"Good. Now go—I don't know. Take a shower. Eat something. You smell like sex through the phone."
"You can't smell through the phone."
"I can smell through the phone."
They hung up.
Luna lay on her bed for a while. Staring at the ceiling. Listening to the silence of the house settling around her.
Then she reached for her phone.
Leo's contact was still there. Right at the top of her recent messages. She'd saved his number last night—or this morning, technically—and hadn't deleted it. Hadn't even considered deleting it.
She opened the conversation.
Stared at the cursor.
Typed: Hey.
Deleted it.
Typed: I had a good time last night.
Deleted it.
Typed: Sorry if this is weird. I just wanted to—
Deleted it.
Stared at the empty message box.
Her heart was beating too fast. She could feel it in her throat. In her fingertips. This was stupid. She wasn't a teenager. She didn't need to agonize over a text.
But she was. And she did.
Because the last time she'd texted a boy first, it had been Ethan. And he had taken her eagerness and used it as a leash. Had made her feel like wanting him was a weakness, like needing anything from anyone was a flaw. Had trained her to wait for him to reach out first, because that was the only way to know he actually wanted her.
She pressed her thumb to the screen.
Typed: I had a good time last night. Hope you're not dead from whatever your commander did to you.
Sent it before she could think.
Then she threw the phone onto the bed like it had burned her.
It landed on the pillow. Screen up. Innocent. Waiting.
She didn't look at it.
She got up. Took a shower. Let the water run hot enough to turn her skin pink. Washed her hair. Washed her face. Washed away the smell of his sheets and his skin and the kitchen counter.
When she came back to the bed, wrapped in a towel, wet hair dripping down her back, she looked.
No reply.
Of course.
He was at work. He'd told her—briefly, in between scraping eggs into the sink—that he had to go to the base. That his commander was going to kill him. He was probably getting chewed out right now. Or in a briefing. Or in a plane.
She pulled on underwear. An oversized t-shirt. The hoodie—Leo's hoodie—because it was the only clean thing she had that didn't feel like armor.
She didn't look at her phone again.
She opened her laptop instead. Pulled up her stream schedule. Answered some emails. Responded to a sponsorship offer.
An hour passed. Two.
Her phone buzzed.
She grabbed it so fast she nearly dropped it.
Leo: Sorry for the delay. Reyes made me run laps for an hour. My legs are jelly and I'm pretty sure I'm going to die.
Then: But yes. I had a good time too. Good enough that I want to do it again.
Then: Are you free Friday?
Luna's chest did something warm and stupid.
She typed back: I might be. Depends on what you're offering.
His reply came almost instantly.
Leo: Dinner. My place. I'll cook.
Luna: You burned eggs this morning.
Leo: I'll order takeout.
Luna: That's more believable.
Leo: I want to see you.
Luna stared at those words for a long time.
I want to see you.
Simple. Direct. No games.
She typed: I want to see you too.
Sent it.
Then she sat there, phone in hand, heart hammering, grinning like an idiot at absolutely nothing.
Friday. Friday. Friday.
Four days.
She could wait four days.
She had to.
---
The phone buzzed again.
She looked down. Expecting another message from Leo. Another joke. Another promise.
Instead, it was a selfie.
Leo, in what she recognized as a flight suit—the olive green fabric unzipped to the middle of his chest, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Dog tags hanging against his collarbone. His hair was messy, like he'd been running his hands through it. And that grin. That stupid, infuriating, devastating grin.
The caption: Lunch break. Thinking about you.
Luna's breath caught in her throat.
She looked at the photo for a long time. At the way the flight suit fit him. At the dog tags resting against his skin. At the grin that promised things she couldn't think about while her mother might come home at any moment.
She locked her bedroom door.
Then she lay back on the bed. Phone in one hand. The other hand trailing slowly down her stomach.
She thought about his mouth. His hands. The way he'd looked at her when she came—like she was something worth holding onto.
She thought about Friday. About dinner. About what would happen after dinner.
Her hand slid lower.
She took her time. No rush. No rush at all. Just the slow build of pressure, the image of him behind her eyelids, the memory of his voice in her ear.
By the time she finished, she was trembling. Breathing hard. Her t-shirt was soaked with sweat.
She lay there for a while. Staring at the ceiling. Letting her heartbeat slow down.
Then she got up.
Pulled off the t-shirt. Pulled off the underwear. Stood in front of the mirror in just the hoodie.
It was too big. It hung off her shoulders, fell past her thighs. But she could still see herself underneath it—her legs, her collarbone, the curve of her waist.
She thought about how she'd looked at him this morning. How unguarded she'd been. How he'd seen her with no makeup and messy hair and morning breath, and he'd still looked at her like—
She pulled the hoodie up. Just to her ribs. Just enough to expose her stomach. Her skin was pale in the morning light. Her nipples were hard under the thin fabric of the hoodie.
She took a photo.
Not a good one. Not a posed one. Just her—messy and real and more vulnerable than she'd ever let anyone see.
Then she sent it.
Before she could think. Before she could chicken out. Before the voice in her head that sounded like Ethan could tell her she was being too much, wanting too much, showing too much.
His response came three minutes later.
Leo: Fuck.
Leo: You're going to kill me.
Leo: I'm in a briefing. I can't be looking at this in a briefing.
Leo: Friday. I'm going to do things to you on Friday. Things that I can't write down because there are three other pilots sitting next to me.
Leo: I'm going to take my time with you. I'm going to make you feel so good you forget your own name.
Leo: I'm going to make you come so hard you see stars.
Leo: And then I'm going to do it again.
Luna pressed her thighs together.
Already aching.
Already counting down the hours until Friday.