Page 26 of The Howl
Like my mom had ruined my dad. My heart ached for him and all that he had suffered. All that he still suffered. I remembered the day Mom showed up at our door to take me back. Dad had taken one look at her and had fallen to his knees. The things he’d said...begged to do to her...still made me flush. The deeply religious man who’d raised me had vanished between one heartbeat and the next.
Mom had laid a gentle hand on his head and told me to pack my bags quickly. I could still picture them like that. Her standing over him as he slumped forward on his knees, his hands clutching her glittery skirt. But mostly, I remembered how my mom had so calmly told me that the longer we lingered, the more he would suffer.
She’d been wrong. It hadn’t been the time I’d taken to pack that caused his suffering but how long she’d stayed with him in the first place.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned off the water. I couldn’t change the past or what I was. But I could choose how to live, and I refused to be like my mother.
* * *
I smoothedmy hands over my dress. The T-shirt under the strappy dress made me look like an ill-dressed orphan. I hated looking that way but refused to wear anything more revealing on a feeding day.
Adira wouldn’t like it, but hopefully, whatever had distracted her enough today to keep her from appearing and teleporting me back to school would also keep her equally preoccupied during dinner so she wouldn’t notice.
My phone rang just as I started for the bedroom door, and I paused to answer it.
“Where’s the seventies porn background music?” Megan asked.
“What? Ew! Why would you say that?”
She laughed.
“I figured Adira would have converted you by now.”
“She’s been surprisingly quiet today.”
Megan made a non-committal noise.
“So, I have some interesting news,” she said.
“You solved the case?”
“No, I saw my mom today,” she said.
Megan’s estranged mother had left Megan in Uttira with no information about who or what she was. While Megan had found her mom’s phone number just before leaving for New York, her mom had been less than helpful, yet again. She hadn’t cared that Megan’s powers were going haywire. She’d refused to talk to her about any of it when Megan had called.
“No way. Did she tell you what’s going on?” I asked.
“Yep. Apparently, Oanen and I can’t be together because griffins have boy baby chickens and furies have girls with anger issues. According to her, we won’t mix.”
My mouth dropped open for a second, and I felt so angry on Megan’s behalf. Her mom wasn’t very nice. Couldn’t she see her daughter needed her?
“While she might be right about the past,” I said, “who’s to say what will happen with you and Oanen? I don’t think a griffin and fury pairing has ever been done before. At least not in written history.”
“I just wish she didn’t try so hard to be a pain in my ass, you know?”
I did know, and I wished my friend was close enough for a hug so I could relieve her of the negative emotions she carried.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t a pleasant reunion,” I said instead.
“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess. She looked exactly the same. But, this time when I saw her, I realized just how much I didn’t know about her, other than her taste in men. Back then, I thought she was just a regular, human gold digger, you know?”
Her impression hit a little too close to home.
“My mom’s motto is usually the richer, the better,” I said.
“Usually?”
“Apparently, my dad was an exception.” My old resentment resurfaced. “His devotion tasted sweeter because it had never been given to any mortal before. Only to one of the gods.”
