Page 11 of Love the Way You Lion
When I blink back to now, Sari is still sobbing, so I walk over to get my abandoned coffee. Setting the cup on the counter with a soft clink, I wait. It’s clear as crystal—no one here gives a damn about what the ordeal is doing to me, emotionally or physically. They care even less for my wee mage, and their indifference is even more cutting. She needs a mama who is healthy and thriving—things I can barely guarantee, while under the crushing weight of shared sorrow and personal depletion.
Grief has turned this place into a vacuum, and I’m caught in its pull, unable to escape. I’m running on empty. Even so, I’m expected to be the rock for everyone else to cling to. Even rocks erode under the relentless tide of despair, and I’m no exception. I have to figure out how to get out of here before there’s nothing left.
Clasping my hand with a grip born of desperation, Sari anchors herself to me. “I wouldn’t have survived the funeral without you, Deli.”
‘I know that, but it doesn’t mean I’m bound to stay here until your wound is healed’ is what I want to say. But I can’t, because she looks so incredibly pitiful and my heart is treacherous. It doesn’t want me to ignore someone in need, although I believe it’s slightly disingenuous.
If only I could slip away for a hunt—the night air on my face, the thrill of the chase restoring some semblance of life to my drained spirit—I’d be able to refresh myself. My body aches for the release, to tear through the forest and allow my primal nature to overtake the suffocating civility of these walls. I’d get to see my other mates, to share in their strength and solace, to intertwine our energies and find balance once again.
Sari’s grasp is unyielding; she needs me here, tethered to her side. It pains me, this inability to step away, even for a moment, to tend to my own battered soul. I can hold my grief at bay, lock it away until the time comes for my private mourning within the sacred circle of stones that awaits me at home. But not for much longer, I fear. The energy drain is eating me alive.
“Please stay,” she murmurs, a tremor in her voice pulling me back from the edge of my own dark thoughts.
“Okay,” I reply, the word a promise I’m not sure I have the strength to keep. But for the bond that connected us all to Wilde, I’ll try. I will stay, even as the vital essence within me cries out for respite, for the chance to grieve and heal in my time, in my way.
Why can’t she see that she’s hurting me? Or if she does, why doesn’t she care?
Hours later,I jolt back to reality from the dream I was having. I don’t remember getting to a place to lie down, nor falling asleep, but I suppose my body simply gave out. It was bound to happen, and as I look around, I remember the images from the dream as if they’re still happening.
Taurus’ aura crackles with a dark energy that could ignite the very air around him, his eyes smoldering embers of barely restrained fury. His towering frame looms in the room's corner, his presence like a thundercloud ready to burst. The tension stretches between us, a tangible force that seems to resonate with the silent cacophony of his thoughts—thoughts that scream for action, thoughts that whisper of the violence he is so close to unleashing.
“Did you hear me, Deli?” Sari’s voice cuts through the charged atmosphere. “I was talking to you!”
I turn towards her slowly, the weight of her need heavy. Blinking rapidly, I fight to surface from the mire of my thoughts. The world around me is a blur of muted colors and soft sounds, all overshadowed by the weight of exhaustion that presses down on my shoulders. “Um, sorry. I didn’t. What were we talking about?” My voice sounds distant, even to my own ears.
“I said that Amanda and Belle are coming back soon.”
Her words break through the haze, and I cling to them, allowing their significance to keep me in the present. Amanda and Belle—names that evoked images of faces framed by fake sorrow and pretend pain whenever people were watching, but hatred at me when they were not. Their arrival will change the atmosphere, add new layers to the complex tapestry of emotions already hanging heavy in the air.
Bad ones—at least, for me.
I nod, acknowledging her statement with a small tilt of my head, even as my mind races to prepare for what their presence would entail. “Oh, that’s nice. Will they be helping us sort out some stuff?” The question is rhetorical, a thin veil for the irritation that scratches at my insides like thorns. The two of them haven’t lifted a finger once the entire time I’ve been here, and they aren’t likely to now. This is theater for them, and they’re using it to makethemselves look good rather than actually help Sari do shit that will let me fucking leave.
Across the room, Sari clutches a pillow to her chest like a barricade against the world. Her eyes, red-rimmed and hollow, shift away from mine, avoiding the question. She knows they didn’t do shit and that they both dislike me—Belle, more than Amanda—because of her coaching. But she wants me to be overjoyed that she’s getting more ‘support’, so she’s acting like it’s a great thing.
I exhale slowly, watching her. I’ve been trying to steer her toward packing away Wilde’s belongings for days. Books he’d read aloud to her, journals filled with his thoughts, scattered mementos—they’re everywhere and it’s a constant reminder of loss. They turn the house into a mausoleum instead of a place where life can someday resume.
Yet no one, not even her housemates, will stand up and agree with my very logical suggestion that we get it out of her sight.
“Maybe we can start with the living room? Just the books and...” My voice trails off as she tightens her grip on the pillow, her knuckles whitening. The refusal is clear, silent, but as solid as the surrounding walls. “I think it will help to make the house not feel… like it’s missing something.”
It frustrates me deeply, this self-inflicted stagnation. Every item she leaves untouched is another shackle holding her to a past that will not return. Comforting her has become a cycle of soothing words and supportive silences, but beneath it all simmers a growing anger—and anger at being trapped in a loop of sorrow that refuses to break.
“Noooooo!” Sari’s voice cracks like thin ice beneath the weight of her words. “I’m not ready for that. I may never be ready for that.”
A tightness constricts my chest, my breath caught in the vice of frustration and duty. The tick of the clock gets louder in the silence that follows, marking each second that drags us further away from the world outside this room. I feel the heat of my pent-up fury simmering just below the surface, a dangerous current threatening to break through my composure. The edges of my vision blur as I fight the urge to lash out against the invisible chains holding us both hostage to her sorrow. My feet shift beneath me, the carpet fibers twisting under my toes as if they too are complicit in this standstill.
I’m teetering on the brink, the precipice of my patience crumbling with each passing moment. I hear the echo of my heart beating, a drum of war against the siege of grief. The notion of escape is a siren call, tantalizing in its promise of freedom from this cycle of despair. The door, not ten paces away, is an exit from this purgatory of mourning, but it feels like it’s miles away.
“Deep breath,” I murmur to myself, a silent incantation to calm the storm within. But even as I draw air into my lungs, I know it’s a hollow gesture. The resolve that fortified me is fracturing, fissures spreading through the stoic facade I maintained since the beginning of this ordeal.
Yet, I remain motionless as my desire for flight wars with the gravity that holds me steadfastly to Sari’s side. Her pain is a tangible thing, and leaving her feels akin to abandoning a wounded ally on the battlefield. But I can’t help but wonder how long before the caretaker crumbles under the weight she bears.
Her eyes are imploring, insistent, and I see the tremor in her hands as she clasps them together. The air in the room feels saturated with the unspoken words that hang between us. “It’s important, this meeting. We all need to talk.”
The finality in Sari’s voice is a steel trap, snapping shut on any thoughts of escape. There’s a resigned weight to my shoulders as I nod, the muscles tensing with a weariness that goes beyond physical exhaustion. With each passing moment, the walls of the house seem to inch closer, the space growing smaller, more suffocating.
“Okay. But if you don’t mind, I might pop by my house so I can get a few?—”
