THE LUNA CHOOSING GAME - Season 5 Episode 5

Back in my room, I immediately set Julian to work on his assigned task: teaching Elva more magic tricks. This time he had a pack of playing cards and started to show Elva how to shuffle them. Elva’s tiny hands could hardly wrap around the deck. When she tried to shuffle like he showed her, it made a big mess.

Elva looked at the mess nervously at first, then her wide eyes found Julian’s. She probably expected him to yell at her.

Instead, he just laughed. “We’ll work on that.”

Seeing his bright smile and laugh, Elva immediately mimicked it, until they both were a giggling mess in a sea of cards.

I couldn’t help but feel warmth watching them. It was nice to see so many people I care about making each other happy.

I wondered if some of my hostility was related to the changes in Julian. He was usually so confident and charismatic, but put him in the room with Bridget, he shifted into a shy schoolboy. It was pretty alarming..

To see him shift back just as easily gave me a sense of relief.

Elva and Julian played with the cards for a while. Julian correctly guessed Elva’s chosen card every time. Elva made a mess of the deck every time she tried to cut it. It was chaos and fun, and when it was over, I felt a little sad that it had ended

so soon.

Julian left Elva for a moment. She was busying trying to flip the cards between her fingers like Julian could do, but of course, her small fingers struggled to grip the cards, let alone turn them.

Julian came to join me instead. I was sitting at a small table with a cup of coffee, not doing much of anything. Julian took the open seat beside me.

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“Something’s bothering you,” he said.

I hated how transparent I’was, that everyone who cared about me could see straight through me as if I was made of glass.

Still, I thought Bridget might be too sensitive a subject. Julian would likely only deny he acted differently around her. Or worse, he would clam up and stop talking to me altogether. Julian’s feelings for Bridget ran deeply, in ways I didn’t truly understand since I didn’t know the full story.

But, with a laundry list of things that were bothering me, it wasn’t difficult to

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“I’m nervous about the upcoming event,” I said.

“The stage play?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure I would make a convincing actress.” I was very bad at hiding my true thoughts, for instance. Or my true emotions.

“Oh, it’s not that hard,” Julian said. “The only thing you have to do is not care a tiny bit about what anyone else thinks.”

I laughed. “You make that sound so easy.”

“Isn’t it?” Julian grinned.

I groaned good-naturedly. “No!”

“Here, come here, I’ll show you.”.

Julian stood from his chair and I stood too. He walked closer to me.

“We don’t have the script yet, but consider this. A man, much like me, comes walking into your life with no right to be there, and you want to tell me off. How would you do it?”

I rolled my eyes.

“There!” he said, pointing. “That’s perfect.”

“I’m rolling my eyes at you, Julian, not at the character you are trying to play.”

“Same difference,” he said.

“No it’s not!” I laughed.

“It is if you imagine I’m the one doing it.”

“You are ridiculous,” I said. “This is never going to work.”

“Humor me.”

Julian continued his lesson for a while yet, though as we spent more time laughing than we did any actual training, while Julian shot off totally useless phrases like, “Be the person you need to be,” and, “Acting is like dancing.”

Whatever that meant.