Page 47 of Fat Arranged Mate
She waits, not pushing but not retreating either. The silence between us shifts, becoming an invitation rather than a barrier.
"Before my parents died, I was different," I continue, the words emerging unfamiliar after years of silence. "More like Ethan, actually. Optimistic. Quick to laugh."
"What happened to them?" Her question carries no demands, only gentle curiosity.
"Hunter ambush." The words still taste bitter, even after a decade. "They went for an early morning run in wolf form. Never came back."
She makes a soft sound of understanding, her hand finding mine beneath the blankets in a gesture that feels surprisingly natural.
"I was eighteen," I continue. "Ethan was six. Old enough to remember them, young enough to still need... everything."
"You raised him."
"Tried to." My throat tightens unexpectedly. "Did my best. Maybe not good enough, in the end."
Her fingers squeeze mine, offering comfort I don't deserve but accept anyway. "I'm sure you were exactly what he needed."
"What about you?" I ask, needing to shift focus away from memories too sharp to handle. "Before Cheslem corrupted, what was your childhood like?"
She's quiet so long I think she might not answer. When she does, her voice carries the distance of someone retrieving something long stored away.
"Simple," she says finally. "Ordinary, sometimes. My mother kept a garden, I remember. Vegetables, mostly, but flowers too. She let me help plant the seedlings every spring. It all feels distant now.”
I can picture it—a younger Sera with dirt-smudged cheeks, carefully placing seeds in freshly turned earth.
"My father taught music in the human school one town over," she continues. "He had to hide what he was, of course, but he loved the work. Came home every day with stories about his students. He never got to teach me the piano.”
"You’d be good at music," I say without thinking.
She twists slightly to look at me, surprise evident in her expression. "How would you know that?"
"Just a guess," I murmur, embarrassed by the slip. "You seem like someone who’d be good at music.”
I hardly know what I’m saying. I feel drunk, somehow. I feel out of control of my own mouth.
The storm outside intensifies, a particularly violent gust rattling the windows in their frames. Sera startles slightly, pressing closer against me in instinctive response. My arm tightens around her waist, protective without conscious intent.
"We lost it so gradually," she says after a moment, voice barely audible above the rain. "The normality. The safety. First came the restrictions—where we could go, who we could talk to. Then the rituals, small at first. By the time we recognized the danger, it was too late."
"You survived," I remind her. "When many others didn't."
"Sometimes survival feels like its own kind of failure." The admission carries the weight of long-held guilt. "Watching others break while you remain hidden, protected. I watched people die. You can’t ever be proud of that.”
"That wasn't your choice," I say, unexpected fierceness coloring my tone. "You were a child."
"So was Ethan."
The simple statement lands like a physical blow. I stiffen, every muscle suddenly rigid with tension.
"That was different," I say, voice dropping dangerously low.
"Was it?" She turns fully in my arms now, facing me, close enough that I can feel her breath against my skin. "Children caught in violence they didn't create—how is that different?"
"Because I should have protected him," I snap, the words escaping before I can contain them. "I should have seen the danger coming. Should have been faster, stronger, more vigilant."
"Like I should have fought back at Cheslem?" Her eyes hold mine, unflinching in the candlelight. "Like I should have found some way to stop what was happening, even as a child?"
The parallel strikes too close to truths I've buried beneath years of anger and purpose. I look away, unable to hold her gaze.
