I wake up every day with a splitting headache, and Snow shows up patiently at the stairs outside my room, as if he knows the exact moment I’m suffering.
I never go out to him again. I don’t thank him, don’t even acknowledge him. The bastard doesn’t deserve it.
I also stop going down for meals.
For the first week, Jordan brings them up to me.
He doesn’t ask anything, nobody does. I guess everybody knows. Lake comes one day, but I bury myself in bed and don’t respond to his gentle questions.
One week goes by, and I just… exist, quietly missing those days from before.
Before Theo arrived.
Snow’s melody that returns every morning is the only sweet reminder of the innocence that was lost, and the one thing soothing me now, getting me through one more day.
Then, one day my package finally arrives.
Inside is a device that measures… veradiol levels.
I know that with True Mates, separation makes the stress hormone unique to them spike fast. Sensitive devices can detect the rise in just two hours of separation. Even the cheapest paper tests light up after one day apart, because the levels climb pretty high by then.
Of course, I order the best, most sensitive commercial device I can get my hands on. It has to be flawless, unquestionable.
I unpack it, prick my finger with the tiny lancet on the glucometer-like tool, and wait.
It beeps.
I lower my eyes to the screen.
What?
Wait…
Veradiol level: 0 ng/mL.
The fuck?!
The sight makes me sway. Darkness closes in at the edges of my vision.
What’s going on?
Not even 0.1 ng/mL.
Zero.
What about my horrible pain, the suffering, my head almost splitting in half?
I prick my finger again.
And again.
I pick another device from the same package, yes, I ordered a few models just to be sure.
I spend the next hour pricking myself like a madman, over and over again, checking on a few different devices.
Zero.
ZERO.
