So where is the baby that my mother was pregnant with in her journal? Because there’s no way that baby could be me. I assumed it was when I first read her diary, but now I don’t think that’s possible.
Did they lose the baby? Do I have a sibling out there somewhere? No, that can’t be right, why would they raise me and not that child? My parents may have been a lot of things, but they loved me. They wouldn’t have abandoned me for anything, and I don’t see them doing that to any child they had.
My mother’s face from my dream memory of the night she died surfaces in my mind. The way the moon lit up her face, and the shadows tried to hide the sadness in her eyes. I can’t even imagine what she went through in life. The running, the possible loss of a child, the struggle to keep me and our family safe, just to lose in the end.
Tears quietly drip down my face. I feel so sad for her. So sad for everything she had to face. She tried to tell me goodbye, to prepare me for her loss and leave me with words she hoped would comfort me in the future. I just didn’t realize that until now.
I swipe at my cheeks. I haven’t cried over my parents in over a decade at least. It was hard for me at first to understand and accept that I wouldn’t see them again. That there wouldn’t be any more hugs, kisses, and cuddles from my mommy. No more lessons, bear hugs, and wrestling with my dad. It was tough, but eventually life without them was all that I knew. I accepted it and had no choice but to move forward.
So it surprises me that right now, I feel something inside of me splinter, and all kinds of memories and sadness come seeping out of the cracks. I shove the blanket against my face and mourn. I grieve for all the times it would have been nice to have them. The times I needed the kind of affection and softness only a loving mother can give. Or the guidance and strength that my father always had at the ready. I feel the echo of my mother’s lips against my head. Hear her soothing voice as she tells me that she loves me and that she’s sorry. And that fractures me even more, because I’m old enough to now understand how heart-wrenching that must have been for her.
I sit in my anguish and watch the fire until it’s nothing but embers. I watch their red glow as I try to convince myself that maybe I would have ended up here even if they were still alive. It’s possible that I could have grown up my whole life knowing what I was and what I could do, and by trickery or choice, I would have found that gate anyway. I tell myself there’s no point in blaming or trying to make sense of it all, because in the end, it doesn’t matter.
I’m here.
Does understanding the catalysts behind why change anything? No. Regardless of how or why, I’m still sitting in a cave, needing more sleep, while the soft breaths and sounds of deep sleep float all around me.
Treno suddenly snore-snorts and rolls over onto his side. I watch him settle back down in his sleep, and I begin to wonder if he’ll ever be able to forgive me. Before I saw his outrage with my own eyes, I would have thought the angry gene skipped him and that his brother got the gryphon’s share. He’s always seemed so chill before. But now, I don’t know what to think. He hasn’t left, but maybe having nowhere to go has more to do with that than I do.
A small voice in my head argues that he has to forgive me sometime, we’re mates. But the more I examine that thought, the more I doubt it. Mates. What the fuck does that even mean? I know plenty of married people out there who don’t like each other. And yeah, yeah, yeah, mates are supposed to be different, some biological and magical thing that sparks up and then fucks with your destiny, but look how well that’s going for me so far.
Looks like destiny knows me about as well as I know the gryphons I’m tied to for the rest of my life. I sigh and rub at the ache that’s rippling through my chest and throat. My eyes land on the dark corner that soft snores are steadily flowing out of. I don’t even know what to make ofhim. I legitimately believed that the next time I saw Zeph, he’d try to kill me. Instead, he crashes through a ceiling and saves my life. Has he forgiven me for what happened in my room? Have I forgiven him?
I run frustrated fingers through my hair. So much damn forgiveness, and lack thereof, just floating around. Everyone in here needs it, no one seems to be in a hurry to give it, and our futures are kind of riding on it. Forgiveness, I dub thee a powerful and elusive little bitch. My thoughts wander to the vault I currently have locked up and chained in my center.
Pigeon.
How long do I plan to stay mad at her? Yeah, she fucked up, but who hasn’t at this point? She did sort of try to fill me in...sometimes...when she wanted to, and if I had been really paying attention to what was going on around me, maybe I could have made the connections. That thought sends a new wave of frustration through me. I shouldn’t have had to be stumbling around in the dark though; she should have tried harder to explain things to me. She should have had my back.
We’ve practically been at odds since we first discovered that we had wings. I yelled at Zeph earlier that being his mate should have earned me some benefit of the doubt, but I realize in this moment that I haven’t given that to Pigeon at all. One thing after another has caused resentment to build, and it’s clearly not one-sided.
We’re supposed to be one, but we can’t even get on the same page about most anything. There’s no trust, no respect, and no understanding. No wonder everything is so fucked up. We’ve tried. I think back to the training we were doing together when we were in Kestrel City. We were working to physically sort out the differences and transitions between me and Pigeon. But then Treno dropped the mate bomb, and I shut Pigeon out.
I locked her away as though my feelings and needs were more important than hers, and now here we are. Pieces of what we should be. We should have been training our bodies and figuring out how to trust and rely on each other. I thought we were, Pigeon probably did too, but our efforts to rely on one another were tenuous, and the wounds we both had inflicted before by not being there when we needed it were still fresh.
I don’t want to hate her anymore. I don’t want to be at odds with the other part of my being. I can’t do anything that needs to be done without her. I don’t want to, and that means that we need to figure some shit out.
I start removing chains from the outside of the vault that I’ve shut Pigeon in. I think about what I want to say and how I’m going to say it as I work to gain access to the vault door. I need Pigeon to know that we have to be a team. Anything else just isn’t going to work. We have to trust each other. Rely on each other. We need to get on the same page about all this mate shit and not hide vital information from each other.
She needs to know that I messed up too. I didn’t listen. I didn’t try to understand what she needed from me, what drove her instincts. I was so wrapped up in my head and focused on what I wanted that I didn’t take the time to really get to know her, to learn about the gryphon that’s as much a part of me as...well, I am.
I unlock the vault door and shove it open. I expect Pigeon to be there waiting inside, ready to come out and have the heart-to-heart that we’re in such desperate need of, or maybe try to bitch me out, but there’s nothing there.
I’m surrounded by black silence.
“Pidge?”I call out hesitantly.
Nothing.
“I was hoping we could talk.”
My heart starts to pick up its pace, and I’m suddenly reminded of all the years I thought I was a latent. How horrible it felt to have my animal trapped inside of me with no way to get out. I felt incomplete, like I was defective. I was only a shard of what I could have been, and knowing that was devastating and felt completely wrong.
And now here I’ve gone and shut her off deliberately. More guilt pools in my gut. I don’t want Pigeon, or me, to ever feel that way again. But all I sense right now is the heavy, shame-riddled beat of my heart.
Did I hurt her?
Fuck...could she be lost again, like she was before?
