They flew for quite a while before he finally stopped. She landed next to him and turned back into her human form, pulling her hair back and waiting for him to lose his cool.
“It's funny, you know, I kind of had this weird feeling toward Ethen. He kept making me feel like I wanted children. That's crazy, isn't it? Of all the kids, he's the one that I started to connect with.”
“It's not crazy at all. You guys are quite a bit alike. He already looks like you when he makes certain expressions.”
“I didn't see that. It was more of a personality than anything else.”
“Well, he works hard and never gives up. That's a bit like you.”
“Yeah.”
They were both quiet for several moments and Mallory waited for him to say something else. She was smoothing tiny pieces of her hair, the ones that had gotten free from her ponytail. Mallory had to do something with her hands, she was too nervous to do anything else.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know why I didn't tell you. I was in the middle of leaving my promised, which was not as easy as you may think. My family was not happy about it. They turned their back on me and I basically had to leave the area. I had to go hide with the humans because Balthazar swore that he would never rest, knowing that I was out there with someone else. He was convinced that I was leaving him for someone else. Then I got pregnant, and of course, that's what he thought.
“He threatened you?”
She waved him off like he was being silly.
“Many times. It doesn't matter, though. He didn't find me and there's nothing they can do, if he can't get his hands on me.”
“So where have you been all this time?”
She looked away. “Here and there.”
“Why did you come here? You had to have known that I would find out. You put him in my Academy.”
“It was also the Academy that I went to. I have my own ties to this place.”
“So, you bringing him here had nothing to do with me? How did you not even tell me that I had a son to begin with?”
He kept coming back to the same question, and she knew that it was the one he was tied up on. Undoubtedly, it was the one that he should be hung up on. She should have told him. Mallory knew as much, but in the end, she figured that she was going to get some anger out of him. That was expected and as scary as she imagined it would be.
“Of course, it had something to do with you. I guess I wanted him to be in your life and for you to be in his, even if neither one of you knew about each other.”
Vincent shook his head. It seemed like anything she said wasn't going to be enough. He was so mad at her. It was like steam was practically coming out of his head. How was she supposed to explain herself? There was no explaining it. He scared her, freaked her out. She had a lot of mixed emotions when it came to him.
“I just can't believe you wouldn't tell me.”
“I was your student. We were only together one time. You hated me because of Balthazar. You are a lot older than me. Need I go on? Do you really need me to list off all of the reasons why it wouldn’t have worked out and it was impossible?”
His eyes closed like he was in pain, and frustration was written all over his face.
“I just can't believe this.”
“I'm sorry that you found out this way.”
“I'm not! I doubt I would have found out anything. You would have never told me.”
“I would have, eventually. There were many times that I wanted to. I hope that you can believe me because it's true. I wanted to so many times, I just didn’t know how to come out and say it. The longer it went on, us seeing each other, the more impossible it seemed. I knew that you would get mad.”
He looked at her as if she were someone that he didn't even know. Mallory was trying to make it all better. She wanted to explain herself, but there really was no way to. She had made her decision and it had hurt him. It had also hurt Ethen. All because she was afraid of the conversation that they were having that very moment.
In her defense, it was pretty bad.
“So, what are we going to do about this?”
