That day, Luna’s father picked her up from school and when she entered the house, she didn’t see Brooklyn or her mother, but Chance was there, sitting on the sofa. Luna breathed in hardly, and only let the breath out when her realized that she has been standing still in front of the doorway for a few seconds.

“Oh, hi, Luna,” Chance said to her, “I’m just staying here for dinner today.”

Luna was only just aware that Brooklyn was sitting beside him, snuggling close to him, “Oh, umm, cool,” Luna replied and headed into her room.

She sat onto her seat and opened her laptop, but she just stared at it blankly, thinking. She didn’t know what she was thinking about, but she was not in the mood of doing any work.

Luna hoped that Brooklyn had forgotten what she had told her before, that she had a crush on Chance. However, Brooklyn wasn’t the kind of person who would forget those kinds of things easily. The best prospect Luna had was that Brooklyn didn’t tell Chance about it, but if she did tell him, which was a possibility, things would be so awkward for Luna.

Luna imagined Brooklyn and Chance laughing at her behind her back, how Luna thought that Chance might like her. Brooklyn was her sister after all, she should care about Luna’s feelings, but turns out that she didn’t, at least not above her own.

Luna often fantasize of achieving something incredible, perhaps discovering a gift in herself, and show Brooklyn what she is capable of, and make her ashamed of herself. Luna have always liked people looking up at her, like her classmates do because she is nice and has good grades, but her family’s opinion was more important to her.

Luna never told anyone, and never even dared to think about it often, but occasionally, she fantasizes about what life would be like if Brooklyn was dead. It’s not that Luna wanted her dead, but she wanted her to not have existed, at least not as her sister. Then her parents would not say, “Well Brooklyn did better than you when she was your age,” or the sort.

Luna started working on her science workbook for the week-end homework, and soon, her parents called her for dinner.

“Coming,” Luna sighed and stood up.

While washing her hands in front of the mirror, she smiled gloomily at her reflection. Despite the fact that no matter how much effort she put into her looks, she could never exceed Brooklyn; Luna tried her best and it wasn’t bad, at least not compared to average girls.

She sat down on a chair beside the dining table beside Brooklyn. Chance was at the other side of Brooklyn, but Luna didn’t even care to look at him. The couple couldn’t stop talking to each other while eating, and Luna was left alone, lonelier than she had ever been.

Luna tried to gulp up the food in her plate as politely as possible, taking large bites but not too large. Due to the effort, she finished her dinner before the others. Then, she laid her plate into the sink and headed back into her room once more.

Luna didn’t mind listening to the conversation between Brooklyn and Chance, probably “teenager stuff” that she wouldn’t be interested in.

After mere minutes, Luna started to hear Brooklyn giggling as she entered her room with Chance. They slammed the door shut and Luna didn’t mind what they were up to.

About an hour passed by before Brooklyn and Chance came out of the room and Chance left for home. Brooklyn and her parents waved good-bye to him while Luna stayed in her room and shouted “Bye!” as loudly as she could, just to avoid seeing Chance’s face.

Luna sighed once more, Chance was something that she could never have…

Just then, Luna’s phone lighted up and rang “ding” for several times straight. Lazily, Luna reached for her phone and picked it up. Those several texts were from Vivian and they went like this:

aaa

aaa

LUNA

AFLAKJDANLADF

LUUUUNAAA

BALAGABALAPANABAHAGAHALAYAGAGA

afjasdanajfjfk

Luna blinked a few times, trying to seek a reasonable explanation for Vivian’s craziness when Vivian continued to spam her phone. After spamming for another couple of minutes, Vivian said:

HE ASKED ME OUT!

WAWAWA

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT

BUT

HE

DID

HELP

Wowww, really? That’s great! Luna texted back.

Vivian sent over a screenshot of a few texts between her and Ethan. Vivian had said that she wanted to know him better, then Ethan asked her if she would like to go to the mall on Friday after school.

Wow, congrats, Vivian :D

Luna should be feeling happy for her friend, but in her heart, there was only sourness and bitterness. Vivian valued Ethan’s fondness more than Luna’s, and she would probably cast Luna aside for Ethan.

Even though she longed for a boyfriend to be on the same line as her classmates, Luna doesn’t seem to see any good in the boys she knew. Except for Chance. She has waited long enough for someone to come to her, but it was no use. Luna had to seek the opportunity herself, but she still doesn’t know where to start.

In the books and movies that Luna knows of, there was always a serendipity, and the couple would understand each other so easily. In real life, there was no such coincidence, and it’s always so difficult to find a the perfect opportunity. In fact, there was no perfect opportunity or perfect couple in real life.

In Luna’s life, everything floods in without order, and that’s what makes her mad most of all. She could not control the emotions she feel, the jealousy she had to her friends, and the pain she have suffered because of Chance…

She tried to tell her friends about it but couldn’t open up herself. All her friends likes her the way she was, sweet and joyful all the time, although no one knew it was only the facade.

At school the day after, Vivian was smiling from the moment she entered the campus. She was so warm and passionate about everything and during class, she didn’t doze off at all and tried to answer every question the teacher asked.

It was break time, and Vivian was humming while taking out her books from her locker. Luna eyed her from a distance and spotted Ethan walking towards her. Vivian had her back against him and didn’t see him coming. After she straightened up her books, Vivian turned around and was facing Ethan.

“Hi,” He greeted her with a cheeky smile.

Vivian blushed slightly, “Hey, you really scared me.”

“That’s what I wanted, where are you going to for your next class?”

“Oh, it’s science, on the third floor, what about you?”

“I’m going to history, it’s on the second floor, but I can walk with you there.”

“Sure,” Vivian said as they turned around and walked up the stairs.

Luna grabbed her books and headed upstairs with the back staircase, and met Audrey on the way.

“Hi, Luna,” she said.

“Hey,” Luna replied while catching up with her on the stairs.

“I heard that Vivian got a boyfriend?” Audrey asked.

“Oh yes, he’s called Ethan, in Class 3.”

Audrey exclaimed, “Oh! It’s him! I think I know him, he’s in my French club, he’s really nice.”

“Really? Well, I’ve never actually talked to him before, but good to know,” Luna replied, “So he speaks French? That’s pretty cool.”

“Yes, Vivian deserves someone cool, doesn’t she?” Audrey smiled.

“Yeah,” Luna agreed as the two walked into the classroom and sat next to each other, leaving a vacant seat for Vivian.

Right before the bell rang for the start of class, Vivian rushed into the classroom, took a scan all around it, and noticed the seat beside Luna, where she had left for her. Vivian laid down her books on the desk and slightly adjusted her seat.

“Hi,” Vivian said under her breath as she opened her science textbook to the chapter where they had left off during the last class.

A few moments later, Mrs Peters entered the classroom and clapped her hands once, “Alright class, so we’ll begin today’s class on the relationships between different species in the ecosystem, please turn your textbooks to page 253 and read the objectives on your own.”

Luna turned her textbook to page 253. At the top of the page, there was a photo of a forest with some logs and fungus on the ground.

Below the photo, there were a few bullet points with the lesson objectives, Luna skimmed through them took a long yawn inside her head.

“So, there are three types of relationships, or symbiosis between different species, they are mutualism…”

Luna flipped through the pages of her textbook and read the points, they were basically common sense, coated with fancy vocabulary. She turned to her right and noticed that Vivian was smiling and doodling on her textbook. Luna was curious about what she was doodling, but it was way too obvious for her to just poke her head in, so Luna started doing the exercises on the textbook.

When Luna have reached the end-of-lesson questions, Mrs Peters asked the class, “Well, hence its name, the infection of parasites is a type of parasitism, but can anyone give me another example?”

No one answered her for a few seconds and Mrs Peters said, “Vivian, can you think of another example of parasitism?”

Vivian’s head shot up from her textbook, “Oh, emm…”

“Fleas,” Luna whispered, trying not to move her mouth.

“Fleas,” she whispered again, slightly louder.

Vivian responded, “I guess, fleas?”

“Yes, thank you,” Mrs Peters said as she continued the class.

“Thanks,” Vivian muttered to Luna as she continued to doodle on the page of her textbook.

A few hours later, without taking notice of the time, the bell rang for lunch. Luna knew that Vivian would want to sit with Ethan, and decided not to bring up the topic.

Luna walked to the cafeteria with Audrey, Selena, and a few other girls in her class and sat with them. Some minutes later, she spotted Vivian at another table with Ethan, Melissa, and Sophie. Then, Luna quickly moved away her glance in case she gets eye contact with one of them.

“Oh by the way, this is my best friend Luna, I think that you know her, right?” Luna heard Vivian’s voice above her head.

She turned around and saw Vivian and Ethan, “Oh, hi, umm, I’m Luna,” she replied.

“Hi, I think you often come to our classroom, do you?” Ethan asked, “You’re friends with Melissa and Sophie, right?”

Luna tried to act friendly to him,”Yep, you’re right,” after that, she turned back towards her friends and continued eating.

During recess, Luna hang out with her friends at the side of the soccer field and just chatted about random topics. She doesn’t feel really lonely without Vivian, but still felt like something was missing. Luna hoped that the feeling would soon fade away once she’s used to it.

Everything happened so fast that day, somehow the world moved on without Luna, and all that she could hope for is to catch up with it and with everyone else.

After a couple of weeks have passed on, there was nothing special going on between Vivian and Ethan, and Luna simply accepted the fact that Vivian wasn’t spending so much time with her anymore.