13. Theo
Theo
The care package arrives two days after lunch, after I’ve counted the hours twice, once by the clock on the wall and once by how many times I’ve taken Calliope’s hair tie out of my hoodie pocket, pressed it to my nose, and put it back before someone can come in and see what I stole.
It’s black elastic, stretched a little, with three pale strands of her hair caught in the band.
Honeyed pear and vanilla tea cling to it beneath the Bellwether Center’s lemon-clean air, faint enough that I have to breathe carefully and strong enough that my body turns toward it every time the hallway gets too loud.
I took it from the table at the faculty café while Sloane was answering the server and Calliope was looking down at her tea.
I knew it belonged to her the second I saw it beside her napkin.
I knew I should leave it where it was. Then Sloane’s phone lit with Garrett’s name, Calliope moved one inch away from me, and my hand closed around the hair tie before I could make myself ask for anything I was already afraid of losing.
Now it lives in my pocket. I touch it during breakfast when the dining room gets crowded and again in group orientation when someone drops a binder and three Omegas flinch at once.
I touch it when Andrea walks past without looking into my room.
I touch it when I remember Calliope holding a fry between her fingers and waiting for me to choose whether I wanted it.
My mouth still remembers the salt. My body remembers the brush of her fingertips against my wrist while she wiped honey mustard from my thumb.
The memory that makes me close my eyes is the kiss, the small press of my mouth to hers before I knew I was brave enough to do it, and Sloane’s purr rolling across the booth afterward, holding the air still while I waited for someone to tell me I’d done something wrong.
Calliope didn’t tell me that. She said hi.
A knock sounds against my door just as I fold the hair tie back into my fist. I push it into my hoodie pocket before the handle turns, then sit straighter on the edge of the bed with my feet flat on the floor.
Counselor Miller steps in with a white Bellwether tote hanging from her hand, my name printed on the tag in black marker.
She sets the tote on the foot of my bed instead of handing it to me. “This is one of the next steps,” she says, keeping her voice low enough that it doesn’t scrape over my skin. “Approved scent orientation. The Crane pack sent a few things from the house.”
My hand closes around the hair tie inside my pocket. Miller’s eyes flick there, but she doesn’t ask what I’m holding, and that makes it easier to keep breathing.
“You can open it alone, or I can stay,” she says.
I look at the tote, then at the chair by the desk, then back at the tote. My fingers lift from my pocket long enough to tap the blanket beside me.
Miller sits in the chair and sets her tablet facedown on her lap. She doesn’t touch the tote. She doesn’t tell me to begin. She only waits while I reach for the handles and pull the bag closer.
The first thing inside is folded so neatly I know it belongs to Garrett before I bring it to my face.
Cold mint and polished leather rise from the dark cloth, clean and controlled, the scent of the man whose name sits at the top of every page in my placement file.
My shoulders lower around it because this scent has a place in every rule I’ve been taught to trust. Head Alpha.
Main contact. The name Bellwether uses when they need an answer.
I hold the shirt in my lap for a moment, then set it beside me on the quilt and reach back into the tote.
The next item is larger, packed without the same careful folds.
Sloane’s hoodie takes up half the bag, dark fabric worn at the cuffs and heavy with smoked cedar and brown sugar.
The scent comes up fast enough that my breath catches, and I press the sleeve against my mouth before I can stop myself.
Miller stays quiet while I breathe into the fabric.
Sloane’s scent feels like the café table and the kitchen island and the way he kept his hands where I could see them even though I could feel how badly he wanted to reach.
It feels like the purr that moved under my skin after I kissed Calliope, the one that said I was still allowed to sit there with my shoulder against hers.
I keep the hoodie against my face until my lungs stop trying to climb out of my chest.
Idris’s sweater is folded beneath it, heavier than the rest. Black tea and rain sit deep in the knit, cool at first, then broad enough that my spine straightens while I hold it.
It doesn’t pull me forward the way Sloane’s scent does.
It gives me a line to rest against. I think of Idris in the kitchen, hand braced on the chair, telling Andrea they had to be careful before anyone pushed me too far.
There’s a small packet tucked into the sleeve.
Communication cards, fresh and laminated, held together by a silver ring.
Yellow. Green. Red. White. The yellow one makes my throat tighten, but it also makes the room feel less closed, so I slide the ring around my thumb and let the cards rest against my palm.
The last thing in the tote is a scarf.
Blue.
My fingers stop on the fabric. For a second, all I can do is stare at the folded edge and the loose thread near one corner. Then honeyed pear and vanilla tea slip into the air, softer than the Alphas and quieter than the rest, and my body bends toward it before I decide to move.
Calliope’s scent rises from something I’m allowed to hold.
The scarf has been folded into the tote and sent through the proper hands, but the hair tie in my pocket is something I took because I didn’t know how to leave the café with empty hands.
I lift the scarf carefully, afraid too much pressure will make the scent disappear faster.
It smells like the space beside her throat and the cardigan sleeve I held in the kitchen, like the faculty café when she sat next to me and fed me fries from her fingers.
It smells cleaner than the hair tie, less tangled in the sharpness of my own panic, but it’s still hers, and my eyes burn before I get the fabric all the way to my face.
“That one came from Calliope,” Miller says, as if I might need the words to believe what my body already knows.
I nod into the scarf.
“She sent a note too.” Miller reaches into the side pocket of the tote and pulls out a folded card. She looks at the front, then holds it out to me without opening it. “You don’t have to read it now.”
The card has my name on it in careful handwriting.
Theo.
I run my thumb over the letters until they blur. Then I open it.
I left the plant book in the sunroom. The dramatic one is still alive. — Calliope
A sound comes out of me, too small to be a laugh and too rough to be anything else.
I press the card to the scarf, then hold both against my chest while the room shifts around me.
The white walls are still white. The floor still smells like lemon cleaner.
Somewhere down the hall, a cart wheel squeaks at the same place it always does, but the tote is open on my bed, and the house feels closer than it did this morning.
Miller’s face warms when I look up. “After scent orientation, you’re allowed one pack call. You don’t have to use it, but most Omegas find it helpful before final placement.”
My fingers tighten around the scarf.
“The approved number is in your packet,” she says, reaching for the folder on my desk and opening it to the front page. “The primary contact is Alpha Crane.”
Garrett’s number sits beneath his name in clean black type.
I’ve seen it before on the file Andrea carried into the kitchen and on the packet Miller reviewed after lunch.
I don’t have Calliope’s number. I don’t have Sloane’s or Idris’s.
I have the pack contact Bellwether gives me, and the pack contact is the man whose shirt is folded beside me, cold mint and polished leather sitting close enough to count as safe.
The resident phone is in the small call room beside the counselor station.
Miller carries the tote for me because my arms are full of Sloane’s hoodie, Idris’s sweater, and Calliope’s scarf.
Garrett’s shirt stays folded on top, and the communication cards knock lightly against my wrist with each step.
Inside the call room, Miller sets the tote on the chair beside me, then stands near the door with her tablet held against her hip. She doesn’t hover over the phone. She gives me room to lift the receiver myself.
My fingers shake when I dial.
Garrett answers on the third ring. “Theo?”
My throat closes around the shape of nothing. I curl one hand into Calliope’s scarf and press the receiver harder to my ear.
“You got the package,” he says, and there’s pleasure in his voice. “Good.”
I nod, then remember he can’t see me. My mouth opens, but the sound doesn’t come.
“That’s all right,” Garrett says. “You don’t need to force words for me.”
The scarf twists in my fist. Honeyed pear and vanilla tea rise beneath my chin, and I close my eyes while the receiver warms against my ear.
“We want you here,” Garrett says. He gives the words time to settle before continuing.
“Your room is ready. The linens were washed without scent. There are extra blankets in the lower drawer because Sloane said the room looked too bare, and Idris had the lamp changed because the first bulb was too harsh.”
My eyes sting as I press Calliope’s card against my chest, over the place her name is written.
The call room smells like lemon cleaner and plastic, but for a second, the house sits over it: Sloane’s hoodie in my lap, Idris’s sweater against my arm, Garrett’s voice in my ear, Calliope’s scarf caught between my fingers.
“The communication cards are in the kitchen and the sunroom now,” Garrett says. “Sloane put a set by the couch too, though he pretended it was Idris’s idea. Calliope asked that the sunroom stay the way you saw it, with the plant book left out.”
I hold the scarf tighter.
“There will be food you know,” Garrett continues. “Grilled cheese, fries if you want them, tea, lemon bars if Calliope has anything to say about it. No one is expecting you to perform comfort faster than you feel it.”
My breath slips out before I can stop it.
“That’s good,” Garrett says, his voice lowering. “I can hear you breathing. That’s very good, Theo.”
The room around me feels less thin for a moment. I can almost see the kitchen island, the sunroom glass, the booth at the café. I can almost feel Sloane across from me, Idris behind the messages on Calliope’s phone, Calliope’s shoulder warm against mine until the second she moved away.
“Sloane said you did well at lunch,” Garrett says. “Idris said you ate more than he expected.”
My face warms before I can hide it, even though Garrett can’t see me.
“And Calliope,” Garrett says, pausing on her name long enough that my whole body waits. “Calliope was very happy you came.”
The sound in my throat breaks before I can swallow it.
“She’s very easy to talk to, isn’t she?” Garrett asks.
I look down at the blue scarf in my hand. My thumb slides over the place where the fabric is worn thin near the edge.
“I know how special Calliope is,” Garrett says. “We all do.”
For a second, I can breathe all the way in. The sentence moves through me like it belongs with the scarf and the note and the plant book waiting in the sunroom.
Then Garrett continues, still in the same voice. “That’s why we’re going to be careful with her too. You’ve had two big visits, and placement is close. Everything can feel intense right now, especially when someone makes you feel safe.”
My eyes open, and the call room comes back around me in pieces: gray table, white wall, receiver cord twisted around my wrist.
“That doesn’t make the feeling wrong,” Garrett says. “It means we make sure no one carries too much before you’re settled.”
I think of the booth. Calliope’s fingers around mine. Her mouth against mine. The inch of space she put between us after Garrett’s message.
My stomach twists as the scarf slips lower in my lap.
“Sloane and Idris can take the heavier parts of the transition,” Garrett says. “Calliope can stay close. She can still be Calliope. We just don’t want either of you overwhelmed before the house is ready for you.”
The words sound like something made to protect her. They fit with the packet on Miller’s tablet and the orientation rooms and the charts about heat stress. They fit with every counselor who has told me a steady head Alpha matters.
My thumb finds the hair tie hidden in my hoodie pocket under the scarf.
“Theo?” Garrett asks.
Her name presses behind my teeth, too warm for the call room and too large for the receiver. I want to ask for her. I want to ask if she moved away because I scared her. I want to ask if kissing her made the inch happen.
Footsteps pass outside the door, and I put the receiver back in the cradle before her name can come out.
Miller waits a moment before coming farther into the room. Her eyes move from the phone to the tote, then to the scarf still caught in my fist.
“Did Alpha Crane answer?” she asks.
I nod.
“Right away?”
I nod again, keeping one hand in my pocket around the hair tie.
Her face warms. “That’s a good sign, Theo. It seems like that pack really likes you.”
I nod because she’s smiling. I nod because Garrett answered. I nod because he knew about the hoodie and the sweater and the scarf, because he said Calliope was special, because he said she could still be Calliope.
Miller walks me back to my room and leaves the tote on my bed. The door clicks shut behind her, and I spread the pack’s things across the quilt before Bellwether’s lemon-clean air can swallow what they brought me.
Calliope’s scarf stays against my chest while I climb into the middle of everything. Sloane’s hoodie goes beneath my cheek, Idris’s sweater tucks against my back, and Garrett’s shirt rests near the pillow where I can reach it without moving.
Under the scarf, hidden in my fist, is the hair tie I took without asking.
Honeyed pear and vanilla tea cling to the elastic, warmer than the scarf, less careful, full of the café and her fingers and the word I couldn’t say into the phone. I hold it close enough that the band presses a line into my palm, and my mouth shapes her name where no one can hear it.