Chapter 30
THIRTY
Honey
Gryff charges off and a field of butterflies starts flying around in my belly. He’s gone to find Dad. Does that mean what I think it means? After all the tension and the curious looks Mom is casting us I know I have to fess up.
I glance up at Mom guiltily as I finish my full recap of the last couple weeks, sans a few of the more intimate details she probably doesn’t need to know about, like that moment in the hardware store and the time in the tent.
OK, so it’s more like the CliffsNotes version. I’m still worried about her reaction.
“I swear I didn’t mean to, and I was being careful. I was. But he promised me I wasn’t hurting him.”
She’s quiet for such a long time that I begin wringing my hands in my lap. “Say something?”
Mom opens her mouth to answer when the back door bangs, and we both jump off Gryff's couch with a gasp.
“Gryff?” I call out.
There’s no answer.
I don’t have shifter senses, but I’m immediately on edge. Something isn’t right here. What if it’s someone else—one of the monsters who wanted Gryff arrested? My heart swoops into my stomach, but when we rush to the window, we see no one in the yard and there’s no trace of anyone in the house.
“I’m going to check on Dad,” I shout to Mom, who is checking in the kitchen cupboard as if an intruder might have snuck in there to raid the peanut butter jar.
“Not without me you’re not. Are you crazy?” We hurry out of the house and across the property to the back fence, on edge the entire time.
The garage door is open, and as we approach I hear someone talking—no, one person muttering.
Poor Dad. When we hurry in we find him pacing in front of the shelf of metal fixtures, counting under his breath.
“Oh, Bill, what happened?”
Dad doesn’t answer. Instead he increases the volume of his counting, his restless footsteps growing faster.
Mom and I make the same practiced motion at exactly the same time, pressing our lips together around our questions and falling silent.
After a few moments, Dad lets out a sigh of relief. “I’ve been debating with myself about what to do because I made a promise and I think I have to break it, but I hate breaking promises.”
“OK. Do you think someone is in danger?”
Dad reaches into his pocket, and I know his fingers are searching for the nut and bolt he keeps there. “Obviously I can’t say for sure, but yes. I think so, yes.”
“Then I think it’s OK to break a promise, don’t you?” Mom says gently.
My heart lurches into my throat, making me feel nauseous. “Where’s Gryff?” I whisper.
Dad finally turns around, and his face is contorted with worry. “He left. Said he’s not coming back. He said a lot of other things that I’m still processing, but it’s that last that worries me. What does that mean? Not coming back?”
“He was very upset after the festival,” Mom says. “I think it was all a bit much. But left? You mean left town? There was some heated talk, but you know how people are. It was just talk.”
“Left town?” My throat is all tight and my hands are tight fists at my sides.
If Gryff leaves and never comes back I’ll never get to see him again, just when I was starting to hope there might be something more than a temporary arrangement between us.
Just when I’d built up the courage to confess to my parents.
But I don’t think leaving town is enough to make my dad’s face blotchy and red, to make him agonize this badly over the choice of whether to tell us or not. “Dad, is that what he meant? He’s leaving town?”
Dad reaches for my hands, and suddenly he’s all blurry as I blink back tears. “Honey, I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes living with what war does to a person is almost as bad as fighting in one in the first place.”
Oh god. I swallow razor blades, and Mom comes in close beside me to pat my shoulder, and it’s all too much.
The rest of my confession bursts from me like an overfull dam being released.
“No! He can’t do that. I won’t let him. Gryff’s not supposed to kill himself because he’s supposed to be here.
With me.” The explosive energy peters out, and my voice gets very small, but I persist. “Someone told me something today. Something about soul mates—or fated mates—something I hadn’t thought of before because I keep trying to think of myself as human.
And humans don’t have fated mates. I’ve wanted to be human for so long.
I wanted to be like you. To be easy to be around.
But I’ve been a monster all along, and I can’t deny that anymore. ”
“Oh, Honey.” Mom squeezes my shoulder. “It never mattered to us. You’re always just our daughter. No matter what you are.”
Dad nods and I feel the truth of it, but I also need them to understand.
“No, listen. I’ve been fighting it when I should have been exploring it.
Understanding it. And I realized today that being a monster comes with one very big advantage.
One thing that might offset all the difficulties I’ve had to face all my life.
Because being a monster means maybe I do have a fated mate—a soul mate. And I think that’s Gryff.”
I look between them, expecting horror, outrage.
Instead a look passes between them, and it’s like a move in a dance they’ve practiced so many times each one knows exactly what the other is thinking.
Dad lifts a brow. Mom gives a tiny nod, and then they both turn to me with the same calm smile.
“Of course he is, love. If half the things you told me are true, then I’m sure of it.
I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks I’m not watching, and if he can look at you like that and keep his wits, then he’s exactly what you need. ”
Mom’s speech is not making my whole crying situation any better. I look over at Dad nervously. He’s been very quiet while Mom and I spoke, which is not unusual, but I need to know what he’s thinking too.
“Huh,” he says thoughtfully. “Well that explains a lot.”
“Dad! You can’t just say something like that. What does it explain?”
His brows lift. “Well Gryff came in here all serious, apologizing to me like he’d stolen my box of rare hinges and sold it for scrap.”
I laugh because only Dad would find a way to bring hinges into this. “Then you’re not angry?”
Again, Mom does the talking for both of them. “Of course we’re not angry. We want you to be happy, Honey. For the first time since you were little you finally seem happy. Well, seemed happy. But how do we help you? Bill, how do we find him?”
Dad considers. “There is a place I know we went fishing a few times. It’s as good a place to start looking as any. If I know Gryff, he’ll have gone into the woods.”
I pull out my phone. “Can you show me on a map?”
Dad just scoffs. “Honey Bee, I’ll drive you out there. Let me get my keys.”