The corners of Axon’s mouth turned up in a teasing smile. “Well, thank you.”
“No, not like that,” I laughed. “I mean they carry a lot of shame over what happened. You don’t.”
Axon shrugged his shoulders. “My mother is still alive. That is not true for most of them. I blamed myself in the beginning, like the rest of them, but after many moons of my parents assuring me that I was not to blame for the death of so many, I started to believe them.”
I could see that. Drondia and Karo were very kind and patient parents. They treated Axon like the grown male that he was, but also made it clear that they were there for him if he ever needed them. It was nice.
They were both very kind to all of us humans as well. Karo still held knitting lessons in the evenings for anyone who wanted guidance and Drondia was a very sweet soul who made you feel loved every time you spoke with her.
“You have good parents,” I agreed.
“Did you have good parents?” Axon asked.
A twinge of sadness hit my soul. I did have good parents. My mom was an executive assistant and my dad was an accountant. We lived a simple but happy life in the suburbs. I tried not to think about them. All it did was bring me pain.
“Yeah, they were good people.” I didn’t really want to talk about that right now.
“The vegetables are done. How’s the meat looking?” I looked over at the fire to see beautifully browned meat.
“It’s done too.”
We ate lunch near the entrance to the cave and watched the rain fall. It was nice. I loved watching it rain from our covered porch back home, and this was very similar.
I looked over at Axon, who wore a serene expression. It struck me as unfair that he was helping me, but he had his own struggles too. He might lumines one day. Maybe I could help him too.
“I know touching me sends you into a bit of a sensory overload, and you said it wasn’t like that with the others, but I’ve never seen you touch anyone else before. When you bump into the other women, does their touch affect you?”
“A little. I don’t like being touched. When you touch me, it feels like too much of a good thing. When anyone else touches me, it feels abrasive and irritating.”
“Maybe I could help you like you’re helping me. You might lumines one day too, right? Maybe if I can desensitize you to my touch, you’ll be able to touch anyone without any issues.”
Axon swallowed hard and nervously ran his hand through his short hair. “Okay, that sounds good to me.”
I scooted a bit closer to him and strategized how to go about this.
“I can imagine your mate might want to hold your hand. Maybe we can start with that.”
Axon nodded his head in agreement.
“Okay, why don’t you hold up your hand like this?”
I held out my hand palm up.
“We can start by putting our fingers together and go from there.”
“Okay,” Axon obediently held out his hand just like I showed him.
Little by little, I slowly inched my hand closer to his until our fingertips were touching.
Axon winced and pressed his other hand firmly into the moss-covered floor.
“Are you okay?” I didn’t want to continue if he wasn’t comfortable with it.
“Yes, please keep going,” he said through gritted teeth.
I pressed in further until all of our fingers were touching, but not our palms. Axon’s tail thumped the floor furiously as if it were an uncontrollable reaction. His wincing had not stopped, and now his eyes were shut tight as if he were fighting against pain.
I pulled back and Axon nearly fell to the ground as he took multiple deep breaths one after the other.
