My eyes flick up to hers, but then she adds, more gently,
“Funny thing is, when we took the cat to the vet two days later, it was confirmed that it was in pain, it had Cancer. He wasn’t being cruel—he was being honest. We had to put the cat down a few days later.”
She watches me closely now. I know what she’s searching for. That flicker of judgment. Discomfort. Fear. Something in my expression that might tell her I’ve changed how I see him.
But I haven’t.
Because none of these shocks me, it only folds into the truth I already know about Alex: that he feels things differently, sharply, sometimes backwards. But he feels it in his own way.
When she doesn’t find anything in my face, her eyes soften. A small smile tugs at her lips, and then she leans forward slightly, her voice lowering, like she’s about to share something sacred.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
I give her a curious nod.
“Alex called me the night he first saw you.”
My eyes widen.He… did?
She nods like she heard my question.
“I was halfway across the world at the time. He called out of nowhere and said, ‘Mom, I saw someone.’” She mimics his voice with a teasing grin, but then her expression turns quiet again. “He didn’t even know your name. Just said you had this look in your eyes. Said you saw him—even though he wasn’t even sure how. He said he’d never felt anything like it. That it had scared him.”
My breath hitches, scared him?
I open my notebook with shaky hands, scribbling fast:
Why was he scared?
I hold it up, she reads it, her gaze lingering on my trembling fingers before she looks back into my eyes, her expression softening into something quieter. She leans back slightly in her chair, fingers interlacing in her lap as if she’s holding something fragile there, like the truth might shatter if spoken too quickly.
“When he called me that night,” she says gently, “his voice didn’t sound like his. Not the version of him the world sees.Not the cold, calculated man most people can’t read. No… He sounded young. Like the boy I used to hold when he couldn’t sleep.”
She glances at the garden as if drawing strength from it, then looks back at me.
“He told me he saw someone and didn’t know why it mattered so much. He said, ‘Mom, I need him.’”
She pauses, letting the words sink in.
“He said, ‘I don’t understand what I feel right now, but I want to keep him. Protect him, make him mine.”
My breath catches.
Davika smiles faintly, but her eyes shine with something heavier now—something more maternal, knowing.
“He doesn’t understand that what he felt that night was love. He’s never really understood it. To him, love wasn’t gentle. Growing up, I tried to show him as much love as possible, but the impact his father and grandfather had on him made him feel it was distant, conditional, and transactional. But that night, he felt something he couldn’t control. Something pure. And it terrified him.”
I stare at her, throat tight, heart stumbling in my chest.
Love? Does Alex love me? Is that what he feels towards me?
She leans in slightly, her voice barely above a whisper, but it’s steady and unwavering.
“Alex isn’t afraid of pain, Lucas. He’s lived with it for so long that it’s become part of his bones. What scares him… is wanting something he doesn’t understand. Something he can’t control, can’t command, can’t buy, Something that could leave.”
She pauses, studying my face, her hand reaching across the table to rest over mine with quiet warmth.
“You were the first person who made him want softness. Not because you gave it easily, but because it lived in you like light. And for someone like Alex, who’s been taught to usestrength like a weapon, wanting something so gentle, something that could slip through his fingers if he held it too tight… that terrified him.”
