I didn’t answer immediately, not exactly surprised by the request but not exactly ready for it either. “Why’s that, buddy?”
“I know Junior means I’m named after you, but Benny sounds better. More, uhm, I…”
“More like me?”
“Yeah. Daddy. I wanna be more like you.”
My insecurity flared so hot, I was surprised I wasn’t actually radiating heat, but I squashed it down. I had my issues, yeah, but my son didn’t deserve to have them projected onto him in the middle of the night.
“Thank you, buddy. But you should always try to be more like yourself, because let me tell you, you’re incredible.”
“I’m okay,” he murmured, tucking his head into his chest like kids sometimes did when they were being bashful. God, he really reminded me of his mother sometimes. “I’m gonna pick out a book. Do you wanna go brush your teefs?”
“Teeth, Ju-Benny.”
“I know, I know. But teefs is more fun to say.”
He had a point.
I ruffled his hair and set him on his feet. He went to his crammed bookshelf while I headed to the bathroom. While I went about my nightly hygiene, which I only managed to do in order to be a good example to my kids, I made the mistake of looking in the mirror.
Who was the man staring right back at me? Not to echo a certain Disney warrior, but what I saw there was so different than how I envisioned myself. In my head, I still looked to be in my twenties. I was a shifter, after all, which meant I didn’t age nearly as fast as humans. But the man in the mirror lookedweary.He had bags under his red eyes, mussed hair, and he’d dropped quite a bit of his muscle from his glory days.
“Ugh.” I splashed water across the mirror so I wouldn’t have to look at myself anymore.
I finished up, then headed to my room, where Benny was already settling into my bed. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to picture my wife there, a smile on her face as she held out her hand for the book.
We’d had our futures stolen from us. Ripped right out of our hands with no remorse or warning.
I supposed I had to decide if I deserved a chance at a new one.
FIFTEEN
GISELLE
Breaking the Cycle
I had a lot to think about.
As expected, I’d collapsed into my bed without so much as taking my stockings off, so exhausted that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I slept for a century, but I was only unconscious for six hours until my bladder very insistently roused me from my slumber.
I hadn’t gone through my normal bathroom routine before bedtime, and I was getting to that age where sleeping through the night was largely affected by whether I needed to pee or not. Grumbling to myself, I went to the bathroom, did my business, washed my face, then chugged three glasses of cold water. The water tasted like ambrosia, an elixir to my body. It felt like someone had run over me with a steamroller, hung me out on a drying line on a particularly windy day, then inflated me back to normal but with only ash for bones.
Not exactly a great way to start the weekend.
Nevertheless, I peeled the rest of my nice clothes off and tossed them on the chair at my desk. Definitely not hanging up where they should be, but at least it wasn’t the floor.
And then I went to bed again.
Cue another six hours where I was completely dead to the world. In any other situation that might have been alarming, and I would have been upset with myself for going so long without ingesting any calories, but I felt rejuvenated when I woke up again.
The rest of the weekend was strange, to say the least. Maybe an hour or two after I had made the transition from conked-out zombie to barely functional human being, I’d checked my phone. I had a text from Ben. Honestly, I was surprised he reached out at all. It had been pretty ballsy and assumptive to say what I had about a second date but I wanted him to know I wasn’t ready to close the book on us yet. Something, I didn’t know what, drew me to him.
Yeah, there was the basic attraction, but it went beyond that. While I truly loved my family and my class, and I had a lovely connection with them, sometimes it felt like I was so alone. Like I was walking around with an open chasm in my chest that no one else could see or understand. And for some reason, it felt like Bencouldsee it, and maybe that was because he had one of his own.
I texted him back, telling him I was fine, then asked how he was holding up. We had a very brief conversation about how the previous night seemed like a dream, then wished each other well.
I’d been tempted to call him and beg for more information, more of his time, but I knew better. I needed to examine how I truly felt, and he needed space to recover.
