Dear Nobody,

I've dealt with muggers before, I've been in fist fights with other girls mostly because they think that I stole their boyfriends, I've fended off some of my mom's perverted boyfriends, I've walked through my neighborhood at night. My point is that I've been through some scary things in my life, but I've never been as scared as I was last night.

I woke up in the middle of the night with David's hand down my pants and he wasn't going to take no for an answer. Nothing happened though, I somehow got away from him but I had to spend the night downstairs on the couch but I didn't sleep because I was shaking with fear the whole time and I couldn't even close my eyes. When David came downstairs, I hid in the kitchen until he left the apartment. The moment that he left was the first time that I could breathe since I woke up this morning.

Now, I've gotten dressed and I'm hiding out in the Ronlux building until my friends wake up and get their messages. Hopefully, they are willing to skip school so that they can meet me here because I'm going to lose my mind if I'm alone for much longer. I can't stop reliving what happened last night and I don't have enough weed to last me all day. That's the only thing that's kind of calming me down right now. It's not like school matters to any of us anyway, so I'm sure that they won't have a problem with this.

I've never been so afraid. In my own house, nonetheless, and I don't know what I'm going to do. David shouldn't be living in the apartment for much longer but until his relationship with my mother ends, I don't know how I'm going to survive.

I'll let you know if I figure it out though.

Picture included: A corner of the Ronlux basement- I will sleep here until David is gone if I have to.

Sincerely,
Luna Rose

I put the letter and picture in the envelope before sealing it and putting it into my bag but now that I've written a letter and I've smoked as much as my head can take, I don't know how else I'm going to be able to cope with this whole David thing. Writing and smoking are really the only two ways that I cope with anything really, and now I have nothing to do in this disgusting basement except to wait for somebody else to show up. It probably won't make me feel better but at least it'll get my mind off of it for a little while.

Without anything else to do, I just start pacing back and forth around the basement. I tell myself to toughen up because this probably isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me and worse things will definitely happen to me in the future. I have to get over this.

But something about this makes it different than anything else that I've ever felt. I feel like David took my body away from me, even just barely but it makes me feel like my body isn't even mine. Granted, I don't treat it so well as it is but it's still mine, and I get to choose who does or does not get to touch it. I don't have much, but I do have power over my own body. But... if I don't have that then what do I have at all? The answer that I'm looking for is nothing. I have nothing.

I flash back to last night and I can almost feel David's hand rubbing against my bare skin and a disgusted shiver runs down my spine. I try to push it out of my mind but I can't stop remembering how forceful he was and how terrified I was that I wasn't going to be able to stop him. Helpless and terrified are two things that I hate feeling, as I'm sure most people do. But I've never felt so helpless and terrified at the same time, and those feelings still haven't faded.

I'm almost about to start crying again, I can feel it bubbling in my throat, but when I hear a creak on the stairs over to the right, I cough to cover up the first sob and then stand up straight. No crying here, I don't cry at all ever.

Looking to the stairs, I see that it's Jules coming down the stairs and when he sees me, he gives me a little frown as he's stepping closer to me and analyzing my appearance.

"I got your message," He states.

"Good. Thanks for coming over," I mumble, leaning against the cinder block wall and then I start sliding down until my ass hits the cement floor. I close my eyes and let out a long exhale.

"What's going on? You seemed freaked out," Jules sits down beside me and looks toward me with a concerned look in his eyes. It instantly makes me feel better. Even though I'm not going to explain to Jules how I'm feeling torn to shreds right now, I know that I'm not completely alone. He's here. He cares. I'm not alone and that's more than I could ever ask for.

"David's a fucking creep," I tell him, looking forward to see my hands trembling in front of me, which they've been doing all night and morning and I haven't figured out how to get them to stop. I thought that the weed would help but I'm about as high as a kite right now and they're still shaking like there's an earthquake shaking in my chest.

"Yeah. You've known this for a while now," He reminds me. "Why is this suddenly so upsetting to you?"

I don't really know how to answer that question so I just turn to look at Jules while I try to consider my response but after I turn, Jules' expression changes to a wide-eyed shocked type of look. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I ask him slowly.

"Well, you have a really noticeable black eye that I didn't know that you had," He tells me, leaning closer to me as if to get a better look at my supposed black eye. "Did David do that?"

"It's possible."

"Have you been hit in the face by more than one thing since yesterday?" He wonders with raised eyebrows.

"Nope. Just one," I confirm, swallowing hard to open up my throat some more so that I can keep breathing because even though Jules is here and I feel a little better, it's still kind of hard for me to breathe right now.

"And what was that?"

"David's hand," I admit, looking down at the cement ground and scuffing my shoes around because I feel like I shouldn't be talking about this with Jules. It's not like he doesn't have his own problems to deal with or anything, because I know that he does have problems of his own and that he doesn't need to be dealing with mine too just because I can't really figure out how to get it together right now.

"Do you know where he is right now?" He wonders, his voice snippy and tight now which is how he sounds when he gets angry. I love how protective he is of me, and of all of our friends, but I don't want him to get into trouble just for me. I know that he doesn't care and that it wouldn't be the first time that he's been arrested, but I'd feel guilty if he got charged for assault or attempted murder for me.

"Don't worry about it," I assure him. "Nathan said that he'd kick his ass. Granted, after he said that, he went upstairs and fell asleep, so I'm not sure that he intends on following through with that. It's okay though, I'll deal with it."

"You can't trust Nathan to do anything," Jules tells me and that almost makes me laugh, but the pit in the bottom of my stomach is preventing me from doing so. "And you also can't prevent me from protecting you, because that's kind of my job."

"It's not your job," I deny. "I don't hang out with you just because you're seriously terrifying to most people. You're actually kind of cool to hang out with. And you drug me up, so that's nice of you. But mostly your personality."

"That's nice of you. I'm still going to kick his ass though," He says.

"You can do that if you want," I appease him. "What I'm really looking for though, is a place to stay until David's out of the picture."

"Yeah, sure. You got it, kiddo," Jules assures me, wrapping his arm around my waist and then I lean over and lean my head on his shoulder. "I know that it doesn't always feel like it, but we are going to make it out of this alive. I swear to God, I'll make sure of that."

I offer him the faintest of smiles. "My hero."

"As always," He says jokingly.

"And what's with that kiddo bullshit?" I wonder, feeling David floating out of my mind now. The sinking feeling in my stomach is still there and I don't feel too much better but just what I expected to happen is happening, and I'm getting my mind off of the issue. "You're a year older than me, that's it."

"Kiddo," Jules repeats. "Where's everybody else?"

"I don't know. I called everybody," I say with a small shrug. "They either aren't awake yet or they went to school."

"I'll call Grey," He offers, pulling his cell phone out of his jeans pocket.

"Call the girls first," I say quickly, thinking of the idea of Grey being here to try and soothe me and how much I don't want that right now. "Grey will just try to fuck me because he thinks that his dick solves all problems and I don't want to deal with that right now."

"Wait, it doesn't solve all problems?" He wonders sarcastically.

"You know, it might, I'm not sure. Next time he's horny, you can suck his dick and then let me know how many of your problems disappear," I offer Jules with a bitter eye roll.

"That sounds like the best idea you've ever had," Jules tells me, laughing a little bit.

"That's insulting to my idea-making skills," I mumble. "But this one must be in my top five. It sure would save me a lot of penis breath."

"That's not a real thing."

"It is a real thing," I assure Jules. "And it's disgusting."

"You're disgusting."

"I'm honest," I assure him. "Girls just don't talk about it with guys because it makes them feel weird."

"So I'm not a guy now?"

I just shrug at him. "No, you are. But you're not a guy that I'm blowing, so it doesn't matter. I mean, you don't kiss a girl after she's gone down on you, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"That's because she has penis breath," I inform him. "Come on, Jules, how have you gone through so much of life without knowing basic blow job knowledge?"

"I have absolutely no idea," He tsks himself just as there's another set of footsteps coming down the stairs and then Cece is coming into view.

"What's the emergency?" She asks, glancing between Jules and me for an answer. She looks a little uneasy, as if she's confused as to why it's just me and Jules in the basement and it makes me wonder if she thinks that something is going on between us. I know that she has a thing for Jules because of her super-secret drawing from a few nights ago but she does a very good job at hiding it and she doesn't know that I know but I've decided to pretend like I don't even know because it's too much drama for me. I hope that she doesn't actually think that there's something going on between me and Jules though. She should know better than that.

"David," I mutter, not wanting to talk about it again. I just want to hang out with my friends and to get my mind off of what happened last night.

"Gave her a black eye," Jules adds, motioning toward my face as if she didn't know where my eyes were.

"Oh my god," She sighs, walking closer to me to inspect the bruised eye. It doesn't hurt at all and to be honest, I wouldn't have known that it was bruised if Jules didn't just tell me about it because it doesn't feel any different or swollen or anything. "That's terrible, Luna."

"Yeah. But it's okay because Jules is going to kick his ass later," I tell her with a small little shrug. After the initial shock, she calms down and her level of alertness soothes, her shoulders slump a little more into a normal state and she sits down on the floor across from me and Jules.

"She's just going to need to couch surf until David gets himself murdered," Jules says.

"Well, no. I'm going to be couch surfing until David moves out of the apartment. You cannot 'get yourself murdered' and just because he's disgusting doesn't mean that you won't go to jail for murdering him," I inform Jules just to make sure that in the eye of the law, murder is rarely ever an okay thing to do.

"Right, I know that, I'm just saying that he deserves it. And if anybody did murder him, that'd be pretty great," He explains.

"I kind of agree, I just want to make it clear that that person should not be- and will not be- you," I say. "You have to promise me that you're not going to commit murder."

"I promise that I won't murder David, Luna," Jules assures me and I find it suspicious that he mentions David by name instead of just saying that he won't murder anybody, but I leave it alone and ignore the chilling foreshadowing that may be going on right now.

"So you plan on murdering somebody else?" Cece wonders, catching onto what I also caught onto and she raises her blonde eyebrows at Jules.

He just shrugs nonchalantly. "You never know. But probably not, I just don't want to make any promises that I don't know for sure that I can keep. I'm just going to stay on the safe side."

"You've never broken a promise?" She asks him, her blue eyes narrowing on him to intimidate him into answering her question truthfully.

He shrugs again. "Not that I can think of. Anyway, I texted Tasha and Faith but neither one of them are picking up. My vote is that Tasha went to school and Faith is picking something up at the store before coming over, just to cheer you up."

"So she probably got caught being a thief so instead of being here, she's actually in mall jail or something just because she wanted to cheer me up with a new purse or something," I explain with a shake of my head because I know that if Jules is right and that she really went to the store, then she definitely isn't planning on paying for any of it.

"Oh, you know that Faith never gets caught," Cece tells me with a shake of her head. "She'll be fine."

"That's a good point," I confirm.

"What about Grey?" She then wonders, realizing that Jules didn't mention him at all.

"Luna doesn't want him here," He explains.

"Really? Is something going on between you and Grey?" She asks and I hear her voice heighten in pitch just a little bit, which goes back to the whole suspicion that she came in with about me being in the basement alone with Jules.

"No, not really. I called him when I called all of you last night, so he still might show up. I just don't want him trying to make me 'feel better' because that's the only way that he tries to cheer me up and I'm just not in the mood," I tell her with a small shrug. "Grey is just a lot to deal with, I guess."

"You two are so incredibly complicated," Cece decides, shaking her head in disapproval.

"No we aren't," I disagree. "It's very simple, it just gets to be too much sometimes. Anyway, do we have plans for Thanksgiving this year?"

"Not that I know of. Your mom isn't going to do anything?" Jules asks me curiously.

"I don't think that she even knows that it's November to be honest," I mumble. "We don't have to do anything, I was just curious. It isn't a big deal but I could go for some ham or something."

"They make turkey at Thanksgiving, dumbass," Cece informs me with a light laugh.

"Some people make ham too," I defend even though I have no idea how Thanksgiving is supposed to go. Just, in the movies it looks like there's ham too with the turkey. It's just a big poultry day but with a big focus on turkey. My mom used to do Thanksgiving but she always burnt the turkey and ended up crying into the stuffing so I stopped reminding her of the holiday and she stopped trying to cook a family feast because we all knew that it just wasn't going to end well. I think that the only holiday that my mom still tries to celebrate is new years and that's only because everybody is almost as drunk as she is so she can have a good time.

"Okay, well I think that Tasha is doing the family dinner thing so maybe she can bring you some leftovers from her family gathering," She says with a small shrug. "Thanksgiving is so stupid though because it's celebrating the pilgrims for discovering this land but they didn't discover it. They found it but they weren't the first founders, they just decided that they wanted it so they killed off a whole population and claimed it as their own. We're thanking our ancestors for genocide."

"That's a really positive way of looking at this holiday, Cece," Jules tells her sarcastically and I can't help but laugh just a little bit. "I think most people just use it as a day to be grateful though."

"Sure but if you're really grateful, then you should be saying thank you all year round, you shouldn't need a holiday to tell you to use your manners. It's just stupid," She mumbles her hatred for this holiday. "What it really is, is commercialism."

"You're using some big words here," I say, pointing at her face. "And I'm too high to really understand the words that are coming out of your mouth anymore."

"You're ridiculous," She shakes her head at me.

A little while after that, Faith shows up and just as expected, she's bearing a brand new scarf to help cheer me up. It helps. Being with my friends always helps, no matter what's going on. Even if I'm in a good mood, just being with my friends makes it better. They always know how to cheer me up without actually talking about the thing that's upsetting me.

That's why we're all such good friends because we know exactly how to make each other happy, even in the worst situations. And unlike sex or drugs, this good feeling lasts much longer than a few hours. It might not be euphoric or blissful, but it is long-lasting and memorable.

I don't think that I would have survived this long in this city without my friends around to keep me stable through all of the bullshit that has been thrown my way. They don't know as much about me as the letters do, but they do know a whole lot, just like I know a lot about them too. Jules' lives on his own, Cece's dad is a terrible alcoholic, Tasha's mom and Faith's dad are always working too hard to actually be home at all, and Grey lives with his grandma, who is always out gambling. We are each other's families. We don't ever talk about it because we're not sentimental people, but we all know that it's true.

So if I have to give thanks in a few days for this corrupt holiday, I would not be thankful for my mother or my brother or my fortune or my absolute good luck. I would be thankful for my friends, my real family, for always being there for me. For being the only reason that I'm still functioning without folding into myself and becoming a mental case.

I would be thankful for my friends. But since this holiday is only set up to celebrate the Native American genocide and insincere gratitude, I guess that I'll keep my thanks to myself. Just like I always do because we just aren't sentimental people anyway.