"Thanks for coming," he says quietly, and I catch how his shoulders slump slightly when he pulls back. The cheerful front is for my mother's benefit. He's worried.
"The surgery's tomorrow morning," I tell him, keeping my voice low while my mother argues with Rae about whether she can wear her own pajamas instead of the hospital gown.
"Good. She needs it fixed properly." He glances at her, and decades of marriage shows in the fond exasperation on his face. "How'd you convince her?"
"Mentioned the harvest festival baking competition."
"Ah. Smart. Did she actually agree to it? Or did she just stop arguing?"
"The latter," I admit.
"Better than nothing." He hands me one of the coffees. Black, no sugar. He remembers. "Listen, about getting her home after?—"
"I can stay," I offer, though the words feel strange in my mouth. I don'tstay. I visit, I check in, I maintain the careful distance that keeps everyone safe from what I really am. But the omega with the ocean eyes and the scent that calls to me like a siren's song is five hours away, and I need to figure out my next move anyway.
"You sure? I know you've got the season starting and?—"
"It's fine."
David studies me for a moment, and I wonder what he sees. The dangerous half-feral thing he agreed to take in and decided he loved? The adoptive son he tried to shape into something better? Or just another disappointment in a long line of them?
"You're a good son," he says finally, and something in my chest tightens uncomfortably.
No, I'm really not.
But I let him believe it because that's what you do when people love you despite having every reason not to. You let them keep their illusions.
Movement in the hallway catches my attention. Someone lingering too long outside the door, their shadow moving across the floor in a way that makes my spine straighten. My body shifts automatically, angling so I can see both the door and my mother, keeping the wall at my back.
The fluorescent lights flicker, and for a moment, I'm not in Northwyke Hospital. I'm in a group home hallway that smells like piss and mildew, watching shadows move in ways that mean someone's about to get hurt. The walls are closer, dingier,and there's laughter from somewhere down the hall, angry and vicious and?—
Mom's loud hyena cackle snaps me back.
The hallway is bright and clean. The shadow belongs to the mustached security guard doing rounds, not some predator looking for an easy target. My family hasn't noticed my brief departure from reality, too busy laughing at some family joke now that the nursing staff have left for a few minutes.
Finn's face is the exact shade of a ripe tomato. I'm assuming he's the subject of whatever has our mother, Caleb, and even Rae in stitches.
"It's astarfish," Finn hisses through his teeth. "I wouldn't bring you a… a freaking butthole balloon!"
Caleb chokes on a laugh. "'Butthole balloon' sounds a hell of a lot more profane," he manages to croak, wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. "Just say asshole. Your students can't hear you, you can say whatever the fuck you want.
Finn's face somehow turns even redder. "Okay, well, either way, it's a starfish."
Our mother lets out another cackle. "Let's call a vote. Val, what do you think? Asshole or starfish?"
I glance at the balloon, at my laughing family, at Finn's beet red face, and shrug my shoulders.
"An exit wound."
That sends them into the biggest laughing fit at all. Even David. And I watch them like I always do. Like an anthropologist studying a culture he can never fully understand. These peoplewho hug without thinking, who laugh at stupid jokes, who love unconditionally.
These people who saw a feral fourteen-year-old with too much anger and not enough trust and said, "Yes, this one. This is our son."
I'll never be what they deserve. I know that. I'm too sharp around the edges, too calculating, too much of a predator pretending to be domesticated.
But I might love them.
As much as something like me is capable of love, anyway.
