Becoming the Luna Chapter 37

So first h-he took to a pet shop." I start softly, swirling the atballs in my glass bowl around.

I feel my mom staring at . "Suzy's place?" She asks with a frown in her voice.

"You know her?" I whip my head up.

She just gives a look. "I've lived here for nearly eighteen years, why won't I?"

I avert my face. "But I didn't."

"Because you don't really get around, you should you know." She says seriously, intensely struggling to get spaghetti and atballs on the poor chopsticks at the sa ti. "You spend a lot of ti inside, that's while you're the color of pasty bread."

I just give her a look. "This is payback for calling your eyes big, isn't it?"

She actually manages to look shocked. "What? No, it couldn't be. You literally told to diet to reduce my big eyes, my coback is going to be more savage than that, trust . Besides your eyes are bigger." She states then sniggers. "It was even worse when you were a toddler, at first glance the only thing to see was your eyes." She teases, laughing hard at the mory.

"Mom?" I whine. "Stop picking on ." I reach forward and yank a lock of her hair.

She just laughs harder. "You'd do that too when I was too caught up wondering just where your saucer like eyes ca from and you needed my attention."

I just cover my face with both hands, scared that my next words will be fuel for whatever path she's raging on.

"Wait, that's true, it has been a while." She says getting up abruptly.

I frown. "What has been a while?" But she has already stopped listening to .

"I can't believe I haven't even showed Dale yet, I need to get that picture out of the attic too." She mumbles to herself, darting out of the kitchen.

I just stare at the spot she disappeared from, is she about to do what I think she is?

"Co baby!" I hear her excited voice from the living room and my anxiety mounts. "Co see your baby pictures, oh! You're so adorable! How did you manage to get to hide all this"

I tune her out, groaning in frustration. My life is on the brink of ending again - I know how long it took to persuade her to hide all those embarrassing pictures, especially the one that shows getting married to Virgil.

I groan again and get up to clear the table, my mom isn't coming back that's for sure and the thought of those pictures seeing the light of day again is enough to make lose my appetite.

"Mom, please don't." I half beg, when I co in to see my mom struggling to find the perfect spot for the wedding picture.

"Don't what?" She asks absently, struggling with the huge fra.

I just slowly collapse on the ground and roll around a bit in frustration. "Hide those pictures, they're devasting." I wail, sprawled on my back on the rug.

She moves towards just so that I can see her creepy smirk. "Devastatingly aweso right." She nods slowly, that disturbing smile still on her face.

I just give her a blank look before throwing my legs and arms around again, my mom didn't comprehend the word embarrassnt in relation to but I might be able to use Virgil to get her to hide at least this one.

"Virgil is probably going to get embarrassed by that picture, mom." I say with as much seriousness I can inflect in my voice, sitting up.

My mom pauses her acrobatics with the picture fra to look at and a shard of hope passes through . "You really think so?" She worries, a furrow in her brow and I wonder just what it was with Virgil that made every female specie like him unnecessarily.

I stand up, braver now that I had a good card to play. "Yes Mom, he's already eighteen now, of course he's be embarrassed." I layer it on thick, just in case she manages to convince herself otherwise.

"Oh dear." She murmurs softly. "You could be right." She continues in that sa soft voice. "Then I should just put this picture awa sike!" She snickers at , continuing the task of finding the perfect place to drop the picture so that it would catch the most light and attract the most attention.

"Virgil asked about the picture." She tells proudly with an irritatingly smug look on her face. "He wanted to know why I hid it."

"Oh no." I whisper, sliding to the ground again.

Two things, Virgil rembers the picture??

He asked about it??!

He wants it back out??!!

Okay, that's three but right now I'm having a mini ntal breakdown as I watch my mom duitifully go around the living room to spread the way too many picture fras of in life ending scenes.

Like the one where I running in diapers and my mom is chasing after to put clothes on , Aunt Candy had taken that one and it was her screensaver for a long while.

Or the one Shana and Virgil were pulling both my arms with mutinous expression on their baby faces, I think they had both been six and I five but I look like I was at least three years younger and my mom wasn't exaggerating about my eyes.

"Mom our house is going to look like an art gallery." I say in a blank voice, already giving up, she wasn't listening to anymore so anything I say to her to convince her to pack up the embarrassing pictures would just bounce off her serious expression.

She paused again at this, she had been trying to balance a picture on a hanging piece. "It would?" She says in a doubtful voice.

"Of course!" I throw my hands up.

"Oh." She says contritely, stepping down from the side table she had got on. "I'll make a photo gallery tomorrow." She says with sudden inspiration.

I sigh forlornly, I might have gotten her to stop painting the living room with embarrassing mories of but I haven't been able to dissuade her fully.

"Now let's go through the photo albums." She says seriously, bustling towards the pile of albums arranged in a box.

"Don't you want to hear how my date went?" I throw out, needing to distract her from going through the endless pages of similar pictures and run the risk of her finding another dangerous one to go enlarge and fra.

She takes the bait and back away from the boxes. "That's true, I almost forgot." She says, settling on an empty couch that's not infested with polaroids. "Co sit on mommy's lap." She invites and I go over determined to keep her away from the photo albums.

I sit on her legs facing her, my knees on either side of the couch and she wraps her arms around - it helps that I'm small enough for this position to be comfortable for the both of us. I sigh into the warmth and comfort of her arms, resting my head on her chest.

"I'm listening." She says gently, carding her fingers through my tied up hair, her hands get tangled so she loosens the scrunchie to better tangle up my hair.

I sigh again and close my eyes, starting the story from the very beginning with my mom humming at the right tis, she laughs at my reactions to the puppies then get worried about the panic attack.

Her hands are still in my hair and the repetitive movents start to lull into a doze.

I tell her about the drive and how Dale carried through all of it, then the park but and I pause after the scene where we ate

"He kissed you? She prompts and my eyes fly open.

"How did you know?" I gasp a little, did Dale tell her or Shana or Virgil? No. Did Dale even tell Virgil or Shana? I shake my head, none were looking like possible options.

"Nope." She closes her eyes and rests her cheek on the top of my curls. "I just knew."

I close my eyes too, did I ever ntion that I love my mom?

"So how was it?" She asks in a mischievous voice.

"Mom?" I complain.

"What? My first kiss was horrible." She shudders lightly. "Matt might have been the cutest boy in the ninth grade but the moron didn't know what to do with his mouth"

"Mom!" I cut her off before she goes into the grueso details of her first kiss.

"So." She prompts.

I shrug. "I don't know, I an I don't have anything else to compare with it but if that's how kisses feel then novels aren't able to capture how it feels." I say quietly.

My mom makes a small sound and hugs tighter. "I love you baby."

I smile softly, closing my eyes again. "Love you too Mom."