dethroned

One last time I went to see luna. Without tucker this time

I rang her doorbell and her dad eyed me up and down before turning and screaming her name.
She wasn’t angry anymore, she just had this resigned air

We sat on the front steps looking at the late afternoon sunshine until at last she said
“I’m leaving.”

I stared at her through my hair, trying to decipher that.

“my parents…insisted on a drug test. They started asking these questions about my friends, my schoolwork, boys. I’ve done the one thing they’ve found inexcusable.”

“I know,” I said softly. “did they want to…what. Get you help?”

“My god” she said. “I don’t need help.”

I let that hang. “Luna. Your friendships are breaking down. You lash out. You party. It affects your schoolwork. You stopped caring about your future. And I genuinely think you might be a chameleon.”

“A chameleon?”

“who are you, Luna? You change your personality for fun. I can’t find you in all the bells and whistles.”

“I hate you, jenny.” She said, but without heat. I shrugged.

There was nothing left to say. We had a shared past, but it was suddenly clear she wasn’t interested in more. With badly disguised longing she asked about Tucker.

She’s enrolled in some boarding school for troubled teen girls. Reform school, except you’re not supposed to call it that anymore. It’s in upstate New York, with the cows and the horses and Republicans. She’ll probably hate it there. She’ll probably start an uprising. Or she’ll become a sheep.

Is this what a fall looks like? I thought I’d feel better about it. Where’s my closure?

[picture from here.]