Chapter 14 #2
“Is this okay?” I asked him as I grabbed the broccoli out of the microwave to chop it up and add to the mac and cheese.
His gaze roamed over the meal. “Grandma used to make this when I was little.”
I couldn’t help my smile. Would he freak out if I told him I saw her ghost? I swallowed the comment. “Yeah, it’s one of Grandpa’s favorites. I make it for him all the time. It’s a little ordinary…”
“No. It’s great,” Ivan said. “Shifter variants need a lot of protein.”
“The brats are turkey cheddar. And the mac and cheese is made from chickpeas. High protein and fiber. I’ve adjusted the recipes a little as I make them for Grandpa all the time. He’s supposed to have lower fat and sodium, but it all tastes good, I promise.”
“Sounds good,” Ivan said. “I, uh… don’t like a lot of red meat, anyway.”
Was that unusual for a shifter? I didn’t want to ask and make him uncomfortable.
“I’ll make up the couch as soon as we’re done with dinner.
You’re probably exhausted. Can you give me a list of things you might need?
I don’t know if those guys packed everything.
” I really hoped he hadn’t left anything important behind at our parent’s house.
When I’d been cast out, my dad had thrown all my stuff in a bonfire out back.
As if destroying everything I’d ever touched could somehow cleanse the fact that I existed from their lives.
“I think I have everything,” Ivan said, sitting down on the couch. “My phone isn’t working.” Peanut Butter immediately launched into his lap.
“He likes you,” I said as I stirred the broccoli into our mac and cheese and cut up the brats. “I’ll get you a new phone tomorrow, if that’s okay.” Neither of us pointed out that our parents had likely cut his service the moment he’d left the house.
Ivan petted PB without comment, his eyelids drooping. The poor kid looked exhausted. I filled up a plate for him and walked it over.
“Eat before you pass out, please.”
He took the plate and I returned to the kitchen.
Ivan got up and sat at the small two-seater table.
I joined him, passing over a glass of ice water.
We ate in silence, which was only slightly awkward as I had questions, and felt like he did too, but I thought we both needed a break from difficult memories.
He cleared his plate pretty fast, and I got up to refill it.
He blinked at me, as though not used to getting more food.
I tried to ignore how painfully thin he was.
Had they kept food from him, or was it because his variance ate through everything?
As he ate, I made up the couch, adding pillows and blankets. Ivan ate every bite, clearing his plate without protest, nodding off a few times to be jolted awake by Peanut Butter begging for bits of cheese.
“Get some sleep,” I told Ivan, as I finished cleaning up the dishes. “I’ll leave my door open in case you need me.”
“What about school?” Ivan asked.
“Is there a test or something coming up that you need to be there for? I can drop you off before work tomorrow.”
“It’s a private school,” Ivan said.
“Oh.” Could I afford to send him to a private school? Was it a special variant one?
“I don’t want to go back. They hate me there.”
“Then you don’t have to go back. We can sign you up for one of those online homeschool things, or find one near here, or something.”
His gaze followed me as I finished in the kitchen, wary. I knew that look, as I’d lived it myself, and saw it all the time when I volunteered at the women’s shelter.
“Ivan… I don’t have all the answers. I’m sorry about that. But we’ll figure it out.”
“I could stay with Grandpa.”
“You can’t. His place doesn’t allow kids, and his neighbors are always in his business.” I had been thinking for the past year or two that I needed to buy a house. Maybe this was a sign that it was time to head in that direction.
“Should I have gone with that guy?”
“No,” I said instantly. Not that I knew anything about Xavier and what he might do for shifter variants. “I don’t know much about him, but I can sense something strange.” Powerful, and damn near terrifying.
“His power was soothing,” Ivan said quietly as he settled onto the couch. “Like he promised something I was missing.”
That sounded a lot like mind control, which freaked me out. “Might be better to stay away from him. I met a vampire today who could control my mind. That guy seemed powerful enough to do stuff like that too.”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” Ivan whispered into the cocoon of blankets he wound himself into, making my stomach flip over with an all too familiar fear.
“You’re not,” I said. “Mom and Dad were great at making me feel like everything I did, like just my existence, created all this trouble for them. But neither of us asked to be here. It was their job to take care of us. They failed, not us. You are not a burden. Will it be easy? I don’t know, honestly.
Nothing in life is easy, even picking what to eat for dinner most days is a chore.
But we’ll figure it out together, okay?”
He was silent for a long time, then finally said, “Okay.”
“Sleep. Everything always looks better when we’re not tired.” I turned out the lights, leaving a nightlight in the bathroom and dragging all my stuff to my room. As tired as I was, I thought it might be a while before I fell asleep myself, but it was fine.