Chapter 22 #2
They weren’t full of memories. More like echoes. Feelings. Sensations. Familiar and foreign all at once.
I didn’t know if they were real. I didn’t know if they belonged to me. But they tugged at something deep inside, something I hadn’t felt in years.
And that scared me almost as much as it comforted me.
I shifted, pulling back just enough to see his face. I needed to look at him. I needed to read him. Needed to understand that he wanted from me, because everything he’d said felt too real and too far away at the same time.
His expression was soft. Not expectant. Not demanding. Just…. there. Steady and watching me like he was trying to make sure I wasn’t overwhelmed.
But that only confused me more.
I didn’t know about this Alpha. Not the way his story suggested. Not in the way that made my chest ache with something I couldn’t name. and yet…. those flashes…. those tiny impossible pieces of memory…felt like they belonged to me.
I didn’t know what that meant.
My gaze flickered over his features, searching for any sign of what he wanted. Was he asking me to step into that memory?
“I…” my voice cracked and I hated how small it sounded. “I don’t understand.”
I didn’t know if I meant the story, the memories, or the way Evander looked at me like I mattered.
Maybe all of it.
I held his gaze anyways, even though it made my heart pound. Even though I felt like I was standing on the edge of something I couldn’t see.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” I whispered, the truth trembling out of me before I could stop it. “And I don’t know why that story feels like mine. I’ve never gone camping.”
At least that I could remember.
I didn’t pull away, even though every instinct told me to do so.
“I remember a little boy who did.” He still looked at me as though I was that boy.
“I…. Do you want me….to be that boy, then, for you Sir?”
For a moment, Evander held his breath, then let it out in a gush, as though he himself didn’t know how to answer that.
“Let me show you something.” He patted my legs, a silent hint that I should stand.
I slid off his lap, and my knees threatened to give out for a moment. Instead, I forced my feet to hold me as Evander rose. I steadied myself with a breath and took a single step back.
He adjusted the blanket around my shoulders, making sure the softness stayed wrapped around me before he turned towards his bedroom.
A room I hadn’t stepped into.
“You can follow,” he said over his shoulder. “Or stay right there. Either choice works for me.”
My feet moved before my mind caught up. Not a step of confidence, but more like gravity. Like something in me led me towards him without permission.
I held the blanket around my shoulders as I took one slow step, then another. Each one felt like walking through water, heavy with instinct and memory I couldn’t name.
Evander didn’t look back right away. He didn’t check to see if I was following. He just walked with a quiet certainty of someone who trusted that I’d make my own choice.
But when I crossed that threshold of the living room and his room, he paused. He didn’t turn fully, just enough that I could see the edge of his profile. Evander didn’t say anything before disappearing into what I assumed was a closet.
The air felt different as I stepped further into the room. It was warmer and smelt exactly like the Alpha himself did.
The walls were deep, saturated green. The kind of green you only see when you’re standing under a canopy of pines, where the light filtered through in muted, softened shades.
It wasn’t a large room, but it felt enclosed in a comforting way.
The bedding was dark too, charcoal and moss, layered in thick heavy fabrics that looked like they could swallow sound. The comforter had a subtle texture almost like canvas worn smoothly by years of use. The pillows were mismatched in shades of forest and earth.
A single lamp glowed in the corner, its light warm and low, casting shadows that looked like branches swaying across the walls.
There were no pictures, no clutter. Just a few things that felt deliberately chosen. Like a wooden nightstand, scary and old. Like a small, carved figure wolf.
It didn’t look like a bedroom meant to impress. It looked like a cozy getaway, and I already loved it in the few seconds I got to stand there.
It reminded me of freedom, or at least what I thought it felt like.
And standing here, wrapped in a blanket, I felt something tug at me, that same sense of familiarity I couldn’t place. Like I’d slept in a room this color once but couldn’t place it.
My room before Lockswell had been cream. I remember that. Cream and filled with toys and a few books glowing in the dark stars on the ceiling.
Taking the room in, I didn’t notice right away when Evander came out of the closet.
He crossed the room with a steadiness that made the shadows shift across the deep green walls, then crouched beside the wooden nightstand.
The drawer slipped open with a soft scrape, the sound oddly loud in the quiet.
He hesitated, just long enough for me to feel it, before reaching inside.
When he stood again, he held a small stack of photos. Not glossy and new, but old ones. Ones that had worn edges; corners softened by years of being handled.
He didn’t hand them to me. Instead, he stepped closer, stopping just without reach, giving me every chance to step back if I needed to.
I didn’t.
Hours ago, I would have, but my feet were glued to the floor, and for once not out of fear.
“These are only a few memories I have captured. Mom has boxes in her attic, but these I may have stolen from her years ago. They are reminders that hope wasn’t lost.”
He turned the top photo towards me.
A little boy with messy hair, a stuffed fox tucked under one arm, and smiling up at the camera like the world was simple. His eyes, dull with the age of the colors, had to have been bright at one time.
Besides the small boy was another. Evander. A much younger version. He was soft around the edges, hair slightly longer and a bit gangly. But his eyes were the same as they are now. Deep brown, all seeing, and filled with a sort of patience that I never knew existed before now.
His head rested atop the smaller boy’s.
He lifted the next photo, revealing another moment captured in time.
The same small boy curled up against Evander’s side under a blanket.
“I want you to see what I remember.” His voice didn’t shake; something in it felt like it could.
“And I want you to know you don’t have to remember it for it to be real. I can remember it for the both of us.”
The next picture was different. Just a simple candid shot that was taken in the woods. A little boy was curled up in Evander’s lap, head tucked under his chin, small hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt like he was afraid he’d disappear if he dared to let go.
Evander, who had to be maybe twelve, had one hand wrapped around the boy’s back; the other hand resting protectively over those tiny, clenched fingers. His expression wasn’t playful or proud. It was…watchful. Protective. Like he’d been keeping something away.
My stomach dropped.
The Alpha looked at me, not the photo.
“This was a night you got scared,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t sleep unless I held you. We were camping, sharing a tent since you insisted on it. I wasn’t in bed yet, and you came out crying because you dreamed you got lost.”
I still have those dreams. I didn’t say it though, my eyes were blinking back tears. Because this wasn’t possible. None of this was possible.
I wasn’t that boy. I couldn’t be that boy.
Evander hesitated before showing the next one.
This wasn’t cute, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t something family framed that I knew of. It was real.
The little boy was sitting on a fallen log in the woods, knees pulled up tight to his chest. His face was blotchy from crying, eyes red, cheeks streaked with dirt. His small hands were around a stuffed fox, clinging to it like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
But the revealing part wasn’t the boy with crazy hair and sad blue eyes. It was Evander.
He was kneeling in front of him, hands cupping the boy’s face with a tenderness that didn’t match his age. His forehead rested against the boy’s, eyes closed, like he was trying to breathe calmly into him.
And on Evander’s cheek was a fresh scratch. Thin, but catchable in the camera lens.
“You were upset at me for getting in a fight with a friend. You were beside yourself, afraid I was going to die from a tiny little scratch I got. My friend at the time thought I was stupid for wanting to hang out with a kid instead of him. So, I punched him, and he tackled me to the ground.”
The words were spoken half fondly, half sad, like he’d do it again in a heartbeat if given the chance.
Evander slid the picture to the bottom of the stack, revealing the next one.
This one was bright. Not in color but feeling alone.
The boy, a bit younger than the others, was laughing. Head tipped back, eyes squinted shut, mouth open in a grin so wide it looked like it belonged to a child who never known fear. His cheeks were flushed, hair sticking up in every direction like he’d been outside for hours, sweaty from the heat.
He was holding a small grasp of blue flowers in his right hand.
The next photo was almost the exact same, except for the boy’s bright blue eyes looking right at the camera, a wide smile and a dusting of freckles on his nose.
“I got a new camera, and you insisted I had to have some shots of you first. But you were a menace and didn’t want to pose. More interested in picking every blue flower you saw.” ?
“Because it matched my eyes.” I whispered the words, not realizing they snuck out. I was more focused on keeping my hands to myself, desperate to snatch the pile of pictures from Evander.
“That’s right." I glanced up, seeing his brown ones looking at me with hope and fear mixed together. “You always had to pick the blue ones.”