Misfits Like Us (Like Us #11)(127)
I’m hardly breathing as I click into the article.
Glazing over the words, I scroll down to the comments section, and panic courses through me in shockwaves.
I can’t believe people like this shit. It’s perverted.
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The tentacle went inside her jfc. This girl needs help.
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Dude, if she’s not a sex addict, then I’m Hercules.
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I really, really, really hope her parents have her in therapy.
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We all knew she was a freaky slut like her mom.
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Luna Hale smells like hot dog water.
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What a weirdo.
I can’t read through the flood of tears built in my eyes. Staggered breath wheezes inside my lungs.
“Luna,” Farrow says quietly, standing near me. He slowly shuts my laptop and he’s speaking more hushed to my brother, who’s also on his feet.
Tears suddenly spring forth, and before I bury my face into my T-shirt, Sulli calls out, “Here, Luna.” She waves a box of tissues, and with the strength of an Olympian, she accidentally chucks it at my face.
The box pelts me in the cheek.
“Oh fuck, fuck. I’m so fucking sorry,” she curses, near tears too. Hormones and all. “I’m really fucking sorry.”
We’re friends, and I love Sulli—and I just start laughing and crying uncontrollable tears. “Someone said I smell like hot dog water.”
“Someone said I smelled like hot dog water too,” Sulli laughs with me while she’s crying.
I laugh harder. “We both smell like hot dog water.”
She snorts into more laughter, and the tears start to dry between our giggles. Once the sound fades, we share a quieter smile.
“Awe Loo-nee!” Ripley suddenly runs with his little legs towards me, trying to say Auntie Luna. I like how he says my name.
Farrow does a double-take, seeing his son, and then eyes Moffy. “Did you let him out of his crib?”
“No, I thought you did.” Before Maximoff can go scoop up their son, I extend my arms to my cute nephew.
He hesitates, always a little tentative.
Baby snuggles are the best, but they only exist for a finite amount of time. They’re gone before a blink, turning into preteen coldshoulders and hopefully teenage hugs. I know this through my little siblings. Xander. Kinney.
“Climb aboard.” I pat my lap.
He grins, then tries to climb up. I help my nephew.
“He’s not even two,” Maximoff says to Farrow. “How’d he climb out?”
Farrow shakes his head, combing a hand through his hair. “We’ll get him a new bed.”
“Baby Ripley is a strong one,” I say quietly to him.
“Of Hale stock,” Donnelly calls out, and that really gets to me. Farrow and Donnelly exchange a look I can’t decipher, and I sniff back emotion, watching how my nephew clutches on to my fingers with his little hands.
“Luna,” Moffy says. “Uncle Garrison wants to talk to you.” He hands me the phone.
He tells me to open Fictitious. He tells me to save any stories that I don’t want to lose onto a flash drive. He tells me to print them if I’m not comfortable with saving to an external hard drive.
I tell him I’ve printed everything already, but I’m worried about having a flash drive. Of losing it. I don’t trust myself anymore.
“Some screenshots might float around,” he says, “but for the most part, it’ll all be gone. If you want to ensure it won’t pop up again, I can go ahead and deactivate your account and make sure there’s no backup. It’ll be like you never posted anything, anywhere.”
I skim my profile.
43 fics.
Some have been scrapped after a couple chapters. A lot never gained traction. Others are still ongoing. My longest has over a million words written. The Thebulan saga. It’s messy and covers multiple generations and planets. Something I started when I was little, but I can see the progress of my writing from then to now.
It used to only have a handful of views.
Since the username leak, that one has over 20k. I don’t click into the comments.
But I do check out the comment section of a lesser known work. Radiance Space Corps. It’s so old.
Someone wrote, Love this! Please continue!!! I totally need more!
I click into another work with only two comments.
You write the BEST Marvel fanfic. I <3 Star-Lord.
Gah, I have to have the next part! When’s it coming out??
It reminds me why I started posting on Fictitious in the first place. The little nudges of encouragements were everything to me. I breathe in. “There’s no way to recover it, if it’s gone?” I ask Uncle Garrison.
“No, it’ll be wiped.”
I’ll lose all the good, happy, kind things people said over the years. The things that made me want to continue on. To keep going. To never give up what I loved, what made me happy.
Preserving the good means leaving myself more vulnerable to things I’m not ready to combat. I don’t feel equipped for it, so with heaviness inside me, I whisper, “Delete it. Delete it all.”