Lincoln had managed to get at least one of his objectives: get his sisters to stop trying to seduce him. It was good to be able to be around the house and do his usual activities without one of them (sometimes several) trying to get his attention. It seems that Sam's arrival on his life was a good thing after all. You may be wondering how the sisters feel, specially Luna. Well, let's answer this with another question: How would you feel if your best friend, your band mate, your ex girlfriend, one of the most important people in your life, had now turned into your biggest threat?
There was a moment when Luna fell in love with Sam, and they even dated for a while. It all happened when the siblings sent the letters to their respective love interests. But... let's say that things didn't work out they way they expected. Since this all was new to them they didn't know how to deal with their arguments; both their personalities were so similar in the fact that they never gave a step back when they had something to do or say, and this clash began to create problems within the band. There were fights, there were harsh words, the band almost broke apart because none of them wanted to admit their wrongs. But in the end they came to the conclusion that there couldn't be a relationship and a band at the same time. After some time they resolved their differences, and remained best friends; at first Luna still had some feelings for her, but with time those feelings faded away, leaving nothing but a good friendship.
This was the reason why she was the most affected of them all.
Currently, the Loud family, along with Sam, were at the table eating Lynn's famous food. All the sisters did their best to put a smile, but Luna was having some troubles with it.
No... she thought. She didn't betray me. She did not have a way to know that I'm in love with Lincoln. Besides...he's my brother, and those feelings are wrong.
Luna was playing with the piece of chicken on her plate, cutting pieces of the meat and revolting them with the mashed potatoes. She and I are good friends, and it shouldn't bother me that they are dating. But I'm still failing to understand how did it all happened...
"I don't mean to sound rude, but I'm still having some troubles trying to understand how you to began dating." Rita said.
"Come on, honey," Lynn Sr. commented. "If they don't want to talk about it right now we shouldn't..."
"No." Sam interrupted. "It's ok, sir. It all began with a letter I received one day, the sender was 'L. Loud'."
It felt like a bucket of ice cold water followed by a hard slap across the face. Luna finally joined the points.
It was her letter.
"I must admit that...I've been watching him for quite a while now," Sam said with embarrassment. "Every time I saw you I felt something I couldn't identify. Every time I came to jam with Luna and the bandI would steal a quick glance at you, but I didn't have the courage to talk to you. I must admit that when I received the letter I thought it was some kind of prank, but felt brave and called him, we went out a couple of times until he finally asked me the question."
Luna tried to held her poker face as hard as she could, but every word of her best friend felt like a punch right to the gut. She brought up her phone to pretend she was looking at something, but in reality she was digging her nails on her tight so hard some blood came out of the marks.
"I honestly thought that you were a nice man; I saw all the times you helped not only your sisters, but everyone who needed you." She took his hand. "Now that I know you better, I'm sure you're the kindest person in the world."
Just by seeing her grabbing his hand, feeling his warm touch was enough to make them rage; they were surprised they hadn't shredded that girl to pieces already.
So that's how things happened... Luna thought. My letter, the letter I sent to make Lincoln jealous...was the thing that made them be together...
Luna couldn't help to clench her fist under the table. It was already bad to know that her best friend and ex girlfriend was dating her brother, the guy that she was in love with. But knowing that she was the one who caused all that made it worse. She wanted to leave, she wished that the ground below her would tear open and swallow her into a bottomless pit where she could live the rest of her life in solitude without having to see them again, without having to deal with the pain of two wounds in her heart. But as much as she wanted to disappear, how could she explain herself? She was barely holding her tears.
The other sisters, specifically Lori, Lynn and Lucy could only imagine how their sister must feel; they all sent letters as well (though they didn't work), but seeing how Luna's letter not only didn't work, but it also backfired so bad... they were speechless.
The dinner eventually came to an end; the sisters had to endure with a smile to hear their brother saying sweet love words, but instead of being meant to someone of them, they were for the girl that took him away from them. They all felt as prisoners of their own emotions, being forced to fake smiles to avoid raising suspects; they didn't want to ruin the mood, their parents seemed to like Sam and she seemed to like them. Besides...they couldn't ruin this for Lincoln. Even when he had found happiness with another girl, even when it killed them on the inside, they couldn't just take that away from him.
As the clock marked the 23:50 hours, Sam had to leave the Loud house to return home; her parents only allowed her to be out until midnight, and Lincoln promised them to take her home in time. As she excused herself from the table, Lynn Sr. and Rita offered to take her home in Vanzilla, but Lincoln quickly interrupted, saying that he wanted to walk her home himself. Seeing that Sam supported the idea, the Loud parents didn't complained.
As the pair of lovers disappeared in the darkness of the night, the parents went to their room; after all the things they had to do they were prepared to call it a day. The sisters, however, remained in the living room for a few minutes more. They were silent, nobody wanted to say a word; they were felt so defeated that not even Lori, the elder sister, the one who had more experience, could come up with something to cheer them up.
Eventually they followed with the example of their parents and decided to go to their rooms; was it tiredness or they just wanted to lay and forget? They didn't care. All the sisters left except for Luna, who said that she wanted to blow some steam and jam a little bit in the garage.
The sisters wanted her to go with them, but they understood that maybe this was too much for her too process, and playing music was her way to cope; they all had their own ways to deal with emotional pain: Lynn kicked a soccer ball against a wall that Lana had built for that specific purpose; before that, she used to kick the ball against the house, but that would usually result in several windows broken. The latter would spend time with their animals; if she ever felt down, her animals would (ironically) warm her heart and help her get through it. Lucy loved to express her feelings through poems and writing; good or bad, she loved to ink the papers with a little piece of her soul.
These were just some examples. Luna had her own coping mechanism; she'd either write a song, listen to some good ol' heavy metal or she'd play it herself. This last option worked the best. Luan, her closest sister, told her that she'd wait for her in their room. Luna agreed before leaving for the garage.
Once inside she made sure to lock the door. She flipped the switch and the light turned on, illuminating the place and revealing several instruments with which she created beautiful melodies. Hundreds of good memories came to her mind, some of them were of her playing alone, others playing with her band, and even when she treasured them dearly, the ones she loved the most were when she played just with Sam. She felt that, even when they were just friends, they had a special connection; Luna considered her as another sister, one whit whom she shared other things in common than just blood. Sam knew her very well, at one point Luna even thought that Sam knew her much better than Luan, her roommate.
But even when those were happy memories of better times, the reality was pretty different. The feeling of betrayal stung her heart so hard she could barely feel any other thing. Why things had to be this way? Of all the possibilities that could've happened, life had to fuck with her and not only make her fall in love with her own brother, but also make her best friend, her almost sister, fall in love with him and actually become his girlfriend.
What hurt the most was that it was her fault, had she sent the letter to another person she'd still had that little possibility of being with Lincoln. But now all hope was lost.
Luna had been bottling up her feelings for quite too much. How else would life fuck with her? How else would God make her existence more miserable for the sake of his amusement? How else...
Her phone vibrated as the sound of a notification was heard. Luna took it out and checked what was it. As she opened her instagram app she felt a mixture of surprise and anger building up inside her. It was a photo, a photo that Sam had uploaded. It was her with Lincoln, he was giving her a kiss on the cheek as she smiled warmly.
Gripping tight her phone she began to tremble. This was the spark needed to ignite a rampage of anger inside her. She screamed at the top of her lungs, falling on her knees as she took some air to scream a little more. If it wasn't that the garage was made sound proof (after the complain of several neighbours), the family would've probably heard her.
She got up quickly and threw her phone so hard against a wall that the screen got cracked pretty bad and it shut down. She got up and put both hands on a desk nearby, breathing heavily and leaving nail marks over the wood. It didn't take her too much no notice something, an object that rested in the middle of the desk right in front of her with pencils and pens around. It was a notebook, one that meant a lot to her because it contained the lyrics of some of the songs she had written; some of them were dedicated to Sam, from the time when they were dating, and the most recent ones were dedicated to Lincoln, her brother, her inspiration. Right now they were nothing but a reminder of something that was never meant to be, a fantasy which she fed with false hopes that ended up shattering like glass and brought her back to the crude, sad reality. She took the notebook, giving it a last glance with empty eyes before rip the pages one for one, making sure to shred them as well. She wanted to forget, she wanted to wake up from this nightmare and realize that Lincoln still was single and wasn't dating her best friend.
Each piece of hard work, each piece of her heart that she printed in the sheets was destroyed in seconds. She didn't care, all she wanted was to end with the pain.
But the notebook wasn't enough. She looked around, seeing only her instruments; she wanted to destroy them so bad, but one small, rational part of hers prevented her from doing it, she had spent thousands of dollars in them, it wouldn't solve anything. At least until she saw it...a purple guitar with white details and her name engraved on the arm. It was a gift that Sam had made her for her birthday about two years ago; it was one of her most treasured possessions. Right now, it was nothing but a representation of what could've gone and went wrong. That small piece of rationality in her was bent as an idea crossed her mind. Luna walked over there and grabbed the instrument, taking it from the tripod and holding it with both hands; she took one good look at it, remembering all the songs she composed and played on it, all the concerts she gave and the beautiful melodies she and Sam jammed together. It did nothing but increase her rage.
Luna proceeded to grab it from the arm, lift it over her head as a single tear rolled from her eye, and smashed it as hard as she could against the floor. It took her a couple of rage filled attempts, but eventually the poor guitar gave up. Pieces of the body flew all over the place, the strings loosened when the bridge separated from the body, and finally the arm broke in half. Several hundreds of dollars, and what mattered the most, a piece with an immense sentimental value, gone within a free seconds.
She admired the massacre, the pieces of wood scattered around the floor, the broken body, the piece of the arm that rested in her hand...
Maybe it was that her heart was going really fast, but her head began to spin. Realizing that she wasn't feeling good, she walked towards the door getting a hold of the wall to avoid falling, turned off the lights and closed the garage. She didn't even bother in cleaning up after her mess, she didn't care anyways.
Luna managed to make it inside the house. The lights were off and the sound of snores could be heard from the second floor. She didn't immediately walked up the stairs; she was tired, and wanted to rest a bit. She sat on the sofa, taking her shoes off and resting her head on the palm of her hand. A lot of what she felt was blown out in the garage, but still she felt that she needed to do something else...
At that precise moment, her brother entered the house after walking his girlfriend home. A print of lipstick was on his neck and he reeked with the smell of a strange new perfume. He didn't immediately saw her, the white-haired man untucked his shirt and unbuttoned the sleeves. He was happy, his date went as intended, his parents loved his girlfriend, his sisters, though wounded, acted nicely towards her...nothing could ruin that day.
But all the good things must come to an end. He felt a strange sensation, as if he was being observed. The living room was still dark, but he could clearly see someone sitting at the sofa. If his sight didn't fail him, it was...
"Luna?" he asked. "Why are you still awake?"
He didn't get an answer.
"Luna?"
Again, silence.
Realizing this was gonna last a while, he decided to sit on the couch. Maybe this was the best opportunity to leave things clear once and for all. "Listen, if you think I brought her home to rub salt on the wound that's not the case. And I didn't do it for revenge either." He said. "I guess it was you who sent that letter, am I wrong?"
Luna shook her head.
"Sam thinks that it was me who sent the letter, and I don't think that she'll react good if she finds out that the letter was fake and just an attempt to make me jealous."
Luna didn't react to his words, but decided to break her silence. "H-How did..."
"How did I find out? It was easy, you all do it all the time." he replied, letting out a sigh. "I thought on rejecting her, but...truth is, I really fell in love with her. I'm really sorry to tell you this, Luna, but it's over."
Lincoln got up from the couch and began to walk towards the stairs. He was about to go up; he was tired and wanted to sleep. But a single question coming from her sister stopped him.
"L-Lincoln, how could you?"
Lincoln turned around to answer her question, but was surprised by a pair of lips that clashed against his. This took him by surprise; his body was unable to move, he couldn't do anything to stop her since his brain was still trying to process what was happening. As the kiss took a more heated turn, Luna introduced her tongue inside his mouth, fighting his own as they swirled in a forbidden dance. Lincoln felt his body getting more hot, his face was red and a drop of sweat formed on his forehead. Without realizing, he was starting to give in to her intentions.
Regaining his composure, he took her by the shoulders and pushed her away. He saw her eyes, he saw a spark inside them, a spark that he knew he ignited a long time ago, a spark that he hoped faded as time passed. He wanted them to forget him, to fall for other guy or girl and make their own life. But that look in her eyes, her red cheeks and the sweat forming on her forehead told him that it wouldn't be possible.
"I'm sorry, Luna," he said. "This won't change anything."
In her eyes he could see something fading; it wasn't that spark, it was their light. "P-Please, Lincoln..." she said. "I love you...don't leave me..."
Hurting his sister this much was really killing him. All his life he made the impossible to make them happy, he tried to be the best brother and do what was best for them. But sometimes, the best thing wasn't what they wanted, but what they needed.
"I'm sorry Luna, I can't." Lincoln said, letting out a heavy sigh. "Please forgive me."
Lincoln turned away and climbed the stairs. A single tear fell from his eye, he knew this would hurt; not only Luna, but also himself. That part that wanted to give in, that part that told him to accept their feelings, even though when all odd were against them, that very small part hurt like hell. But he had to endure it, for his own good, for his sisters, and for Sam.
Luna shattered like a fragile piece of glass that was thrown against the floor. She fell apart, landing on her knees and letting her tears run free. This couldn't be happening, this was a bad dream, this wasn't true!
What am I now? she thought. Outside her ability to play music, she didn't really stand out at all; Sam, too, was damn good with music, but she also had a nice body, she had enjoyed it herself several times in the past when they were a couple. She had a very nice personality that attracted people around her; Luna honestly didn't think that she had something to compete against her, she felt like a sunflower, plain and common, and Sam was a rose, beautiful and majestic. It didn't bother her in the past, but now that Lincoln had chosen the blonde over her...it hurt, it made her feel ugly, insignificant, like a cheap copy, and Sam was the original. Seeing that Lincoln had chosen Sam over her, the girl that knew him very well, the one he had grown up with, made her feel like she wasn't enough for him, like she lacked something. She hated herself.
This wasn't the first time. Several times in the past she had been the backup plan, the extra tire, the second option. It's not the first time where she likes a guy that is in love with someone else and when he gets rejected he goes to her; there had been guys who wanted to date her sisters, and when they were rejected they'd just try another girl. Guess who was picked at last. How do you think that made her feel?
Suicidal thoughts crossed her mind; she felt like there wasn't anything worth living for. She was in love with her brother, the kindest guy she has ever meet, and he ended up choosing her best friend.
But she lacked the courage to end her own life, she knew she'd never have the courage to put the muzzle of a gun against the roof of her mouth or jumping from the top of a building towards the hard pavement.
Luna got on her feet and climbed the stairs. She was tired, this day has been so full of crap it had take it's toll on her. She wanted to sleep, and if she had any luck she would never wake up. She wanted so desperately to convince herself that this was just a bad dream, but it was reality, she had to suck it and swallow, and carry on with her life.
Even when the other sisters were asleep, Luna knew that they all knew what this all meant; the fight was over, they had been defeated.
They had lost Lincoln forever.