“You feel so good,” Poppy moaned into Knight’s mouth.

I shivered. I wanted to throw up. I needed to throw up. God, make it stop. They couldn’t do this. It was wrong on so many levels. He didn’t love her. He cheated on her. With me.

“I want you inside me.” She rolled her hips toward him again, and I didn’t dare look down and see him bare, aligning himself with her.

“Sunshine,” he croaked.

Of course—the sun was stronger, bigger, and more important than the moon.

Knowing when to accept defeat, I’d learned, was an art. Giving up too fast was cowardly. But not giving up when all the signs pointed to long-lasting heartache was dangerous, too.

I could no longer afford to put my heart on the line.

Once upon a time, Knight had been my protector.

But nowadays? Nowadays, he was the very thing I needed protection from.

And the person to shield me from him was myself.

Years of being noiseless had taught me how to slip into places without making a sound. I could be eerily quiet. The irony was, the same silence that had helped me go up undetected also helped me climb down from that tree without making a sound. When my feet hit the soft ground, I wobbled to the farthest corner I could find, deep in the woods, and threw up against a tree trunk, ripping chipped bark off of it with my fingers.

I didn’t stop until my stomach was empty and my fingernails were gone.

Knight (Two days ago): When are you leaving 4 Boon?

Knight (Two days ago): Sup with you, L?

Knight (One day ago): Someone call ghostbusters, Moonshine just learned how to ghost.

Knight (One day ago): *insert five emojis of a ghost*

Knight (Three hours ago): Your dad just told me you flew to Boon yesterday. What the fuck? Are we playing this game again?

Knight (Three hours ago): Fuck you, Luna. Fuck you.

I hadn’t meant to pick up her call.

Unfortunately, life was hell-bent on fucking me in the ass, sans lube, the day I answered.

And in the great scheme of things, did it really matter?

Also, at least Dixie was alive. Val wasn’t.

Also, I was in no position to make a decision about my next meal, let alone my long-lost biological mother.

Also, was this an earthquake, or had I really drunk enough to make the world spin like the teacups in Disneyland?

Mom had been taken to the hospital again, and after spending two nights in a row under harsh florescent lights watching her wasting away, I took the Aston Martin for a ride. So far, so normal—only I did it with a bottle of my old, destructive friend, Jack Daniels.

The bottle was empty by the time I reached the beach.

It was cold, windy, and well past ten at night. I was pretty much alone, which was a relief and a lonesome curse. I threw the bottle into the ocean and screamed at the endless horizon until my lungs burned. How tauntingly beautiful and deceiving the world could be. With its palm trees and stupid oceans and Spanish villas and poisonous women who look like Nymphs rising from the water.

Woman. Not plural. Just the one.

I told myself the drinking problem I was unabashedly flirting with had nothing to do with Luna and everything to do with Mom. But that was bullshit, even to my own ears. First of all, I wasn’t flirting with the problem anymore. I’d moved in with the bitch, and put a ring on it.

Second, it had everything to do with Luna. Everything.

Fucking Luna, who’d just bailed.

Fucking Luna, who always went hot and cold on my ass, and I kept on coming back for more. After screwing FUCKING JOSH. After kissing Vaughn. And Daria, too. Shit, why was I so happy she’d let me finger her cunt? She’d probably seen more dicks than a public urinal.

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Collapsing on the sand like a sack of bricks, I held my phone in front of my face, scrolling the contacts. I didn’t want to talk to Vaughn, and Hunter was a shitbag. The rest of my friends were dumbasses with first-world problems and couldn’t relate to me if they had a fucking brain transplant. Dad had enough on his shit plate, and anyway, we still weren’t really talking. My aunts Emilia and Melody were at the hospital, fussing over Mom, and I wasn’t sure how much Trent and Edie knew about what was going down with Luna and me, so it felt awkward to cry in their laps.

My screen flashed with an image of a bull’s head and read Deadbeat Dixie. The bull’s head was my own personal sick joke. Because it was the shape of a uterus, and that’s what she was for me—a hub for nine months until she spat me out and gave me away.

There wasn’t even an inch of me that wanted to answer her, but I still did, because I was too alone not to accept the love of those I hated.

“Hello? Knight? You there?” she asked frantically, the desperation in her voice telling me I wasn’t the only one surprised I’d picked up.

The wind beat against her receiver, and I could hear she was outdoors.

I grinned, even though I’d never been so sad in my entire miserable life.

“Knight? Are you okay?”

No answer.

“Baby, tell me where you are.”

“What do you care?” I hiccupped. “You live in fucking Texas. Does it matter if I’m stuck in a sewer? You can’t do shit about it,” I taunted.

“Honey…”

“Honey,” I mimicked, letting out a wretched laugh, rolling in the sand. I bet it wasn’t a pretty sight. My grown-ass, six-foot-three quarterback figure drunkenly rolling on the beach like a whale trying to find its way home. For some reason, I still had the phone to my ear.

“Knight, listen…” She hesitated.

“Now’s not the time for dramatic pauses. Kind of in the middle of being shitfaced here, and not really in the mood for coaxing your ass.”

“I’m here.” I heard her swallow.

“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “Talking about my feelings is low on my to-do list, Dick—can I call you Dick? Seems fitting.”

“No, Knight. I mean literally here.”

Godfuckingdammit, is anyone ever going to use that word correctly?

“Huh?”

“I’m here. In California. In Todos Santos. Where are you?”

“Why?” My voice suddenly sounded sober, but that was about the extent of it.

It just surprised me was all. I hadn’t known she was planning another visit so soon.

“The thing is…I kind of…well…” She sighed.

Please, God, I hoped she hadn’t gotten knocked up again, by someone local this time. Life was too short to deal with random half-siblings, and my life was doing a fine job being a train wreck without any added drama.

“I never left,” she finished.

“You stayed here through Christmas and New Year’s?”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. I didn’t even know why I was laughing.

“Yes,” Dixie said seriously. “You looked like you could use someone, so I wanted to make myself available to you. Where are you?”

“I…” I looked around me before remembering I didn’t need a savior. Especially in the form of Dixie.

“Where?” she repeated.

“Nah. I think I’m good.” My smirk was back.

“Knight,” she warned.

“Aw. Look at you. Playing the doting parent and shit. Did you read a book about parenting? Bet you’re an expert now, huh?”