But underneath all of that, buried deeper than I wanted to admit, I cried because I was tired. Exhausted down to my bones from always being the one left behind. From people choosing to leave. From feeling alone even when I was surrounded by others.
My parents had left me. My grandparents had died and left me. Now Mal had dragged me to another world where I was completely isolated and apparently he might have a fiancée waiting in the wings.
Everyone left eventually. Everyone.
The sobs continued until my body physically couldn’t produce more tears. My eyes were swollen. My head was pounding with a vicious headache. I rolled onto my back with effort and stared up at the ceiling. The carved beams running across it. The way the firelight created patterns on the stone that shifted and changed.
What was I supposed to do now? Just stay here in this castle? Play queen to a wolf king? Pretend I belonged in this world?
I wanted to go home. Back to my bookstore with its familiar smell of old paper and coffee. My apartment above it with the creaky floors and the shower that never got quite hot enough. My friends who texted me memes and showed up with wine when I needed them.
My life.
But the portal was unstable. And Mal had a kingdom to secure before he could leave. And I was stuck here in this beautiful prison with nowhere to go.
My eyes grew heavy despite the turmoil in my chest. The exhaustion of the day caught up with me all at once. I fell asleep still wearing my clothes. Still lying on top of the covers. Too tired and too emotionally wrung out to care about comfort.
***
I was seven years old.
Standing in the driveway of my grandparents’ house, clutching my stuffed rabbit and watching my mother’s car pull away.
“Mama!” I screamed. “Mama, come back! Please come back!”
But the car kept driving. Didn’t even slow down. Just disappeared around the corner and took my world with it.
“She’ll be back, sweetheart,” my grandmother said behind me. Her hand was on my shoulder but it felt too light and uncertain. “She just needs some time.”
But I knew. Even at seven, I knew.
She wasn’t coming back.
Days turned into weeks and I kept asking when Mama was coming home. Kept leaving my favorite toys by the door so she’d see them when she arrived. Kept drawing pictures for her that my grandmother pinned to the fridge with a sad smile.
Weeks turned into months and my grandmother stopped making promises. Started using phrases about “your father’s choices” and “sometimes adults make mistakes” that I didn’t understand but felt heavy anyway.
Eventually I stopped asking because the answer was always the same non-answer that made my grandmother’s eyes go shiny.
They weren’t coming back. Mama had left me with her parents and never looked back. Papa was in jail for things I wasn’t old enough to understand but was old enough to know were bad.
I cried every night for a year. Quiet sobs into my pillow so my grandparents wouldn’t hear and feel worse than they already did. Whimpering for parents who didn’t want me enough to stay. Who’d decided I was too much trouble or too much responsibility or just too much.
My heart broke in a way that never fully healed. A crack formed that ran through the center of me and never quite closed no matter how much my grandparents loved me. Because their love couldn’t fill the space left by the people who were supposed to love me first and chose not to.
I was seven again. Standing in that driveway. Feeling that crack widen with each second the car didn’t come back. Feeling myself splinter into pieces that I’d spend the rest of my life trying to hold together.
Then someone hugged me from behind. Strong arms wrapping around my small body. A solid presence at my back.
“Shh, shh, little mate. I’ve got you.”
The voice was wrong for the memory, too deep and grown up. But it felt right somehow. Safe in a way nothing else did.
I kept crying but the arms held tighter. The voice kept murmuring comfort.
My eyes blinked open slowly as the sobs continued. My head was pounding viciously. My heart was squeezing from the nightmare that wasn’t really a nightmare but a memory I couldn’t escape.
A thick, familiarly inked arm was draped over my waist. A warm, huge body was pressed against my back, solid and real in a way the dream hadn’t been.
