Chapter 41
IVY
It just comes up.
I’m not trying to tell him anything. But once again—as tends to happen around Soren—things I’ve not shared with many people spring to the surface. Then they burst free, gasping for air, as if they’ve been waiting behind a trapdoor for this moment.
We’re sitting together, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him against me, his hand resting lightly at my waist, moving absentmindedly like it’s something he does without thinking now.
And I’m talking. Just filling the quiet. “There was this moment,” I say, not even sure why I picked this one, “when I finally got my real birth certificate.” My voice feels distant to me, like I’m listening instead of choosing the words. “And then I found her. My birth mother.”
His hand stills for a fraction of a second, then resumes. “Did you?”
I nod slightly, then laugh. “It didn’t take me long. And it made me feel like a true detective. Poring over microfiches at the library. Calling countrywomen’s associations. Giving just enough to lead to the next call.”
He smiles faintly. “Okay, Sherlock Holmes. I see you.”
I grin, but quickly my expression grows solemn as I get to the next part of the story.
Remembering how it ends. “At first, she was really nice. Like, unexpectedly nice. Excited to hear from me, even. Said she’d been waiting for me ever since my twentieth birthday, because she knew that’s when I’d have access to my real birth certificate.
That she’d told her family about me. Her husband and her kids, who I guess are my half-siblings. ” I let out a small breath.
“I remember thinking—this is it. This is how it’s supposed to go. I was so happy that I wasn’t some dark secret, that she seemed to be happy to hear from me. It gave me this hope that she wanted me to be involved in her life—to be part of a real family.”
I grow wistful, remembering the way those early moments felt.
“It was so crazy… I fantasized about this big reunion where they’d welcome me with open arms. Where I’d be invited to family dinners and vacations.
That they’d expect me to be there for holidays, and form close bonds with my siblings.
Finally, I’d belong. And the craziest part was…
there were finally people who looked like me!
Everyone else looks like their families, and finally I would, too!
”Something tight pulls in my chest as I recall what happened next, and how swiftly things changed.
“Everything was going well. But then one day, what felt like out of the blue, she sent me an email.” I don’t look at him.
I can’t. Not when I’m about to reveal my greatest shame.
“She told me I was the result of an attack—just like that. It happened at a party. She said he tried to do it again the next day, but she managed to get away.” The words feel flat coming out.
Like I’ve said them before, and they’ve lost their edges from being repeated too many times.
But that’s just from the torture of replaying them over and over in my head.
He frowns, his brows knitting together. “She… emailed you that?”
I nod. “Yeah. I remember it coming through in the middle of the day. I was really excited to hear from her, and then when I read it… not so much.” I pause. “Even though I guess it was important for me to know.”
Until he asked that simple question, I hadn’t really registered how strange that was. How callous, casually informing me by electronic mail that I was the product of a rape.
That maybe that was a conversation that would have been better had in person, or at least over the phone where I could hear her voice. Her tone.
Instead, I remember sitting there—at work of all places—learning that I came into the world out of an act of hatred and control.
I remember being frozen at the time, plastering on a fake smile while I got up to get ready for my next meeting.
Keeping this bombshell to myself for the rest of the day until I could finally get home and let it process just a little.
“I found him, too,” I add, quieter now. “Tracked him down online.”
“Oh wow,” he exhales. “Did you reach out?”
I nod. “Yes. I couldn’t help myself. I believed her—but I needed to know. I needed to see what he’d say—what he was willing to share.”
He waits patiently, not pushing me to continue.
Memories flash back—his incoming messages, referring to his time in that small town as “water under the bridge”. Seeming a little shocked when I just came out and said it—that I thought he might be my father.
“It was weird. Once I confronted him, he asked for a picture.” My fingers curl slightly in my lap. I remember the way my stomach curdled when I saw his request. Like he wanted some kind of creepy souvenir of my birthmother. Wanted a creepy souvenir of me.
“Oh wow,” he lets out a long breath. “What happened next?” He leans forward, his hand on mine. “Did you send a picture?”
“I found one of my birth mother from closer to that time. I figured there was distance between her and that photo.” I frown, my stomach churning.
“I still feel guilty for sending it, but I wanted to send something. I didn’t want to share anything current, of her or me.
And I thought that seeing her might lead him to confess or something.
” Sheepish, I shake my head. “But after I sent the picture, he just disappeared. Never heard from him again.”
A small shrug.
“Just… stopped responding. I tried again a couple of times to see if he’d answer—if maybe he just missed the photo or my subsequent messages.
But he went radio silent.” I let out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh.
“I mean—I guess it makes sense. Not exactly something you want to deal with. Especially when you think you got away scot-free for all this time. Goodness knows how many other women he did this to. How many other children he brought into the world this way.”
Silence settles for a second.
I expect Soren to say something reassuring. Something normal. He doesn’t.
Finally, he speaks, his hand squeezing mine. “That wasn’t normal.”
I glance at him. “What?”
His gaze is steady. Focused in a way that makes it hard to look away. “That wasn’t yours to handle. Especially alone.”
My chest tightens slightly. “I mean—it wasn’t great,” I say, shrugging again. “But people go through worse. It’s just—”
“You’re minimizing it. Don’t do that.” His voice doesn’t rise. Doesn’t sharpen. It just cuts, firm.
I frown slightly. “I’m not minimizing it. I’m just being realistic.”
His hand shifts at my waist. “You reached out to someone who abandoned you,” he says quietly.
“Not just anyone, either—your biological mother. The person who gave birth to you. The person you’re supposed to have the closest bond with in the world.
” He pauses. “And then, when she finally told you the truth, she left you alone with it. To absorb all by yourself. And without giving you the dignity of being there to answer questions. To make you feel less alone.”
My breath catches slightly. “That’s not—she just needed space. It was probably hard for her—”
I can’t explain why I jump to defending her. I’m sure I’ve thought about it, but it’s been pushed down so far for so many years that it almost feels like I’m talking about somebody else.
His grip tightens. Just slightly. Enough to interrupt me. “You’re protecting her.”
I feel it in my chest. A flicker of something I don’t like. “That’s not what I’m doing,” I say, my voice rising without intention.
His thumb moves slowly against my side. Grounding. “You learned how to survive it,” he continues. “That’s different from it being okay.”
My thoughts stall. Because that sounds right. And I don’t like that it does. “I handled it,” I say after a second, my chin jutting upward. “I’m fine.” I feel my body brace, then. Stubborn. Proud.
He leans in slightly. Closer.
My body reacts before I can stop it, so sensitive to the way his cedar wood scent infiltrates my space. Feeding on his proximity the way it always does when it comes to Soren.
“That’s what you had to tell yourself. To survive it. To get through it alone.” His voice is lower now. Closer. Like he’s speaking directly into something under the surface instead of to me. “You don’t have to do that anymore. Not with me.”
Something shifts, and it’s subtle but real. Like a fragment I’ve been holding in place loosens.
My breath comes out uneven. “I’m not broken.”
It’s not like he said I was, or implied it in any way.
But it’s a history I’ve sat with for a long time, a word that’s been bandied around in my presence and out of earshot but later reported back.
“I like the broken ones,” a disgusting piece of shit I once dated was heard to say.
“I wish my son could just be with someone normal,” another boyfriend’s mother had said, knowing a fraction of what I’d been through.
I flinch. The memories are crushing, telling Soren this story having apparently brought back a flurry of unpleasant flashbacks all triggering the same core wound.
“I know.” His hand slides slightly higher along my waist. Pulling me closer. “You adapted. That’s not weakness.”
The word sits differently.
My chest tightens again. Because that reframes everything. Not weakness. Not failure. Something else.
Yet I’m tired of being this way. Always referred to as strong. Resilient. Now adaptable. I’m tired of being those things, because it’s a burden. Because it boosts me up for being stronger than I should have ever needed to be, and praises me for enduring more than anyone should ever have to.
“You were alone. You shouldn’t have been. You won’t be again.”
My throat feels dry. I don’t remember the last time someone said that like it mattered. Like it was something that shouldn’t have happened.
I always just accepted it as my lot in life. To face the hardest parts by myself. We all die alone, after all. Why not start now?
“That’s just how it was,” I say, hurried, but it doesn’t sound as solid or certain as it used to.
His hand comes up, his fingers brushing lightly against my jaw, turning my face toward him. “Look at me, Ivy.”
I do. I don’t even think about it.
“You don’t belong in that version of your life anymore.”
My breath catches. Because he says it like it’s already true. Like it’s already done, and there’s no going back to it.
“You don’t have to survive things like that on your own anymore.”
The words settle deep—too deep. Because part of me desperately wants that to be true. Even if I don’t fully believe it. Even if I don’t understand what it means.
My thoughts feel slower and less certain. Like something I’ve always taken for granted is being fundamentally rearranged by someone I haven’t even known for that long.
“You’re my stray now.” His hand slides into my hair, possessive. “And I’m never going to let you go.”
Something in my chest flips. I should push that. I should question it.
But I don’t.
Because the way he’s looking at me—like he sees everything I just said differently than I do—makes my version feel incomplete. Like I missed something really important all along.
My gaze drops slightly, my thoughts turning inward, replaying everything I just told him.
The phone calls. The email. The silence after.
The way I handled it. The way I explained it to myself.
The way it had the butterfly effect, causing ripples outward that impacted my life in so many different ways, my core identity sitting at the root of it all.
My understanding of what this all meant felt solid before, a convincing narrative I’d built up in my head and put on replay without even realizing it.
But suddenly, it doesn’t anymore. It feels edited. Like I took something sharp and filed it down until I could live with it, or blunted my emotions to it through some kind of self-inflicted exposure therapy.
And now, I’m no longer sure what it actually looked like to begin with. Where the truth ended and the story I told myself took over.
That realization settles slowly.
Uncomfortable.
Unsteady.
And when I lean back into him, it happens without hesitation.
Without thought.
Like my body already knows where to go when everything else starts shifting.
And that feels more certain than anything else right now.