I acted.
That difference matters, even if my body is currently trying to argue otherwise. I was not deceived. I was not coerced. I was not spared the knowledge of what I was choosing. Whatever this becomes, it does not get to rewrite that truth.
I didn’t inherit a curse. I didn’t stumble into someone else’s ruin. I made a decision, fully awake, fully myself.
If there are consequences, they belong to that choice. Mine to examine. Mine to manage. Mine to name, when and if I’m ready.
Tragedy requires inevitability. This isn’t that.
Not yet.
Chapter 11
Dinner and a chat
Lenzin
Despite the delays, we get home to an empty house.
That, at least, is normal. They’ve only been here a week, and we’ve already been gone most of it. No patterns yet. No expectations. Just overlap where it happens.
The Puck Pad is quiet in the way it usually is mid-afternoon. No toys underfoot, no cartoon noise bleeding through walls. Hank drops his bag by the door and checks the fridge on reflex.
“Bookstore shift,” he says.
“Makes sense.”
He then holds out his phone, and I see a picture of Lucy in what seems to be a lengthy text thread with Hildy. “She said she gets out at 5:30. Probably home thirty minutes to an hour later.”
I don’t respond, because if I do, I know it will come out cunty, and not just the normal aloof asshole they are used to. Hell, I’m not used to it either, but right now, I am pissed that Hank and Hildy are clearly growing close.
“You good?” He asks, sounding a slight bit amused.
“Always,” I lie as I grab a box of pasta from the pantry.
Chicken, pasta, vegetables, something simple. I chop.
“I’m heading out later,” Hank says eventually. “Staying with Bernie for a few days.”
I nod. “Figured.”
“I wanted to wait till Lucy got back.”
“Of course you did.”
He grins, unapologetic.
I cook in silence as he goes to pack a bag.
“Hello!” Lucy shouts the instant she’s over the threshold. She’s still in her winter coat, the sleeves too long, face half covered because she’s all zipped up. She’s dragging a rolling backpack, which she promptly abandons in the middle of the living room.
Hank is on her level before I can even turn around. He crouches, arms wide, and she barrels into him like a missile, all momentum and warmth. He lifts her up, spinning her once, and she giggles, shrill and contagious.
“Hank,” she says, as if the word itself is a reward. “You’re here!”
“You are too,” he replies. “I thought you would forget about us.”
She shakes her head, red curls bouncing. “Never.”
