Prologue / Chapter 1

Catching the Moon

Book 2 of Chasing the Moon

Playlist::::

Diet Pepsi — Addison Rae

Apt — ROSE feat. Bruno Mars

Shut Out of Paradise - SLO

False God - Taylor swift

Lofticries - Purity Ring

Bad Dreams — Teddy Swims

Good Luck, Babe! — Chappell Roan

Spitting off the Edge of the World— Yeah Yeah Yeahs feat. Perfume Genius

Ticky Ticky Bum Bum - Sunchaser

Teeth — Mallrat

Confidence - Ocean Alley (sped up)

Vroom Vroom — Charli xcx

Hurts so Good - Astrid S

The Wreck - Delta Spirit

Bed Chem — Sabrina Carpenter

Mood x Ms. Jackson - Sickick remix

Peaches x What’s Luv - Sickick remix

Levels - Avicii

Die with a Smile — Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars

Slide Away - Miley Cyrus

Atomised— Laura Welsh

Give Me More Time — Markus Hughes

Birds of a Feather — Billie Eilish

Too Sweet — Hozier

Jj + E — Vittorio Grasso

Savage — I, Us , & We

Nothings Gonna Hurt You Baby —Cigarettes After Sex

Messy — Lola Young

No Ordinary - Labrinth

I Found — Amber Run

Prologue

When you’re little, and you’re trying to imagine what your life will be like growing up, you only ever imagine the good things. No one tells you about the dark scary parts.. about the first boy you ever loved, how he’d abuse you then let his friends abuse you too; they wouldn’t tell you that your dad would feel so guilty about it.. that he would overdose and you would be the one to find him.

Then… you would never know about your second love.. the real one..and how he would save you from your past, save you from your present, he would even save you from his own brother. And right after he patched your heart back together, he would turn around and smash it into a million pieces.

Would you even want to know all these things… probably not. But Emerson wished she had.. maybe she could’ve spared herself a little bit of heartbreak.

Chapter 1

Em

Em was in her dance studio at her house. She was practicing a new routine for the upcoming competition she was in with her team at Tush. She had missed the last one, because she was recovering from a horrible wreck. For this next one.. she was doing two dances. One dance was a solo, and the other was with her group.

She was actually sweating. She had been in here for hours now, dancing out all her feelings and heartache. But it wasn’t working. As tired as she was, she was still so hurt and angry. She went over and restarted the song.. determined to keep it up as long as possible.

For her solo, she was dancing to the song Diet Pepsi. It was kind of a weird name for a song but .. she loved how sensual it was. It gave her all the feels and she loved the routine she had built around it.

Maria, the owner of Tush, and instructor … who also happened to be one of her bests friend’s mom…. let them pick the song and choreograph their own dance for solos. Then Maria did everything for the group dance. Em was excited about it….. she didn’t care what anyone said that song was a banger.

She had just gotten started when her brother, Sawyer, came into the studio. He looked at her with his arms crossed, an annoyed look on his face. To be only seven years old, the kid could give you a hell of a mean look.

“Emerson!” He yelled at her.

“ I am trying my best to watch ‘Little House on the Prairie’. It’s the Christmas one.. where they all tell stories of Christmas past. And I’m having trouble hearing my girl Laura. Do you know how loud your music is??”

Em walked over and shut off the song.

“Sorry Saw but I’ve got to get this routine down. Why can’t you watch your girlfriend in your bedroom?”

“Because sister .. the living room tv is ten times bigger!” He said to her, like he couldn’t understand what she was thinking to suggest such a thing.

“Can’t you go practice in the basement? And whyyyy do you keep playing that same song with the thirsty girl?” Saw wanted to know.

“Thirsty girl?” Em said.

“Yes she keeps talking about wanting a drink of Diet Pepsi. Surely she knows Coke is better?”

“Oh ma geez Sawyer. Okay I’ll take a break until your show goes off.. deal?”

Sawyer smiled. Em walked by him and ruffled his hair.

“Hey! Easy on the goods woman!” He called after her.

“Oh and Em? Watching them eat stew or whatever the hell it is they ate back in the days of old is makin my tummy rumble with hunger. Can we order something?”

Em smiled at her brother. Their mom was working again so she would be in charge of supper.

She went to the kitchen and grabbed the pizza menu to order takeout. Once she had finished that she was on her way to shower when her phone buzzed.

She looked down and saw it was Mickey, one of her best friends calling.

She probably wanted all the details of what had been going on the past several days. Their school let out for two weeks for Thanksgiving. And Mickey had gone out of town last week to visit relatives. This coming up week was Thanksgiving. She had planned on cooking and having a huge Friendsgiving….. but she didn’t know if she had it in her to do that now.

“Hey Mick..” she said as she picked up the phone.

“I go out of town for a few days and everything goes to shit. I’m coming over.”

“Okay I’ll see you…..” Em didn’t get to finish because Mickey had already hung up. She’s a no nonsense kind of gal.

A few minutes later the doorbell rang. The pizza guy was standing there.. but so was Mickey. She had the pizzas in her hand.

“See dude? I told you I know her.” Mickey said as she walked in.

Em paid the guy then gave Sawyer some pizza and a drink. She got plates and drinks out for her and Mickey.

“Ok. Before we start eating. Give me the deets.” Mickey said.

Mickey had of course heard the first part of what happened already. The part where her mom had announced she had been dating.. and was now engaged to Quinn’s dad.

Quinn…. who she was completely head over heels for. Quinn … who she was in love with, and him .. her. Quinn .. who had bullied her when she first moved here, then later ended up saving her from herself.

“So after that day.. we didn’t even talk much I think we were both in shock.” Em said, referring to the day when they’d gotten the big news.

“You know the bad thing.. no the worse thing?? They want to get married like now.. like in a couple of weeks! They’ve only been engaged a minute. And even worse.. mom wants them to move in with us, before the holidays.”

Mickey was shaking her head. She had forgone the ‘wait to eat the pizza until they’d talked’ idea because she was steadily munching down… and already on her second piece.

“That’s fucked.” She said.

“Yeah. It’s so fucked. It’s so beyond fucking fucked that I don’t even know what to do with it.” Em told her.

“So what does he say about all this?” Mickey asked.

Em got quiet for a moment. Then she continued:

“So for the next couple of days actually we barely spoke. Any of us I mean. Quinn barely spoke to me, I barely spoke to him.. I didn’t speak at all to my mom. She really shocked the shit out of me with this.”

Mickey shook her head in agreement… picking up her third piece of pizza.

“So when we finally did talk……. “ Em couldn’t find the words she needed.

“Basically he doesn’t want to be with me now.”

Mickey spat out her pizza.

“What??!” She said.

“He said it’s too complicated. And we can’t be together… because he’s gonna be my stepbrother.”