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Alana smacks the table. “I’ve got it. Once you’ve made the change, I’ll take you for service dog certification classes. Then we can still go out to places together.”
“Is that…morally acceptable? What will people say if they perceive that a dog is eating off the restaurant plates? I don’t know exactly how the glamour will work. If I’m in my human form, you may not be able to tell I’m here either.”
“I don’t know.” She bites into the pepper. “Are you going to say goodbye to Mom and Dad while you’re here?”
Goodbye. That word hurts now that it feels so real. I only have a few days left with my humanity. It’s so bittersweet. There is nothing harder to do in this world than trust that the unknown will work out for the better. “I don’t know how to explain why I’m here. And I don’t know how I’ll keep from crying. I’d be admitted to the psyche ward before dusk. I…I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now. I love Ollie, but how do I know I’m not rushing into this or making a mistake?”
“Listen. You don’t turn something like this down. You forge blindly ahead. This is bigger than anything we’ve ever known. You’ve found the place where you belong. There’s no reason to wait.” She sucks in a breath and pins her eyes on mine. They glass. “You do not pass up care and love and belonging for an eternity just because there are three people left in this lousy world that you’ll miss interacting with in the ways you’ve been used to.” Her eyes close. “Besides. We’re all older than you. So. Missing us was inevitable. At least this way you get to choose.”
My heart thuds. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s just the truth.”
It’s an ugly, ugly truth. And I can’t stand even thinking about it.
“You love this guy, B,” she says. “He’ll take care of you. I won’t have to worry about you living alone six hours away on the edge of the woods where hobos might be doing drugs anymore.”
But I will worry about her. Texting isn’t the same as talking face to face or even on the phone. This decision gets bigger and bigger the longer I’m able to compute that what we’re doing right now is about to be for the last time. Seeing her brings up memories of all the moments I’ll never be able to experience again. Tears well, burning my nose and throat and eyes as I fight to keep them at bay. “Promise me you’ll be okay,” I whisper. “Promise me hugging your sister when she’s a Pomeranian won’t entirely crush you.”
Alana, looks sidelong toward other tables as she lifts her hand—now holding a fresh bread stick—and says, “I solemnly swear to do my best not to get tears in your fluffy Pomeranian coat. I make no promises concerning how violently jealous I will be when I see you again as a fluffy cloud of happiness without bills.” She rips a bite out of her bread stick and continues watching the tables around us. “Everything will be okay.”
I don’t know who she’s talking to more.
Deciding the best way to keep my mother’s judgment and disbelief from gutting me completely is when it’s already too late, I determine to head back home to Mountain Vale without seeing her. Who knows? Maybe there will be a couple fae kids to adopt into our pack before I have to say any sort of goodbye forever.
I’m about to become a werecanine.
I think, probably, just about anything is possible.
After we’re finished eating, Alana brings us back to a parking lot near our trod, completely oblivious to Pollux pouring terror into every crevice of her car while sitting beside her carrot cake plush in the backseat. I hug her for a long time, as tight as I can, then…I manage to drag myself out of her arms and start up the sidewalk leading to the alley that will take me home.
“Relationships suck,” Willow murmurs, walking next to me. “Are you well?”
I sniffle. “Yeah.” Lifting my head, I search for the prickle of bone-deep unease I’ve nearly gotten used to after hanging around in a dream eater’s presence for multiple hours. “Where’s Pollux?”
“Behind you.”
My heart lunges up my throat as I turn violently to face the monster stalking up the sidewalk from where Alana parked. “W-what were you doing?”
“What makes you think I was doing something?”
Well, the fact he answered me with a question, for one. Ollie’s taught me that’s Faerie Speak 101. Don’t have an honest answer you want to give? Flip the question. As a fae, your choices are either manipulation or blunt truth.
“Were you doing something bad?” Willow asks before I can figure out how to essentially accuse Pollux of trying to evade my question.
“No, I wasn’t doing something bad.”
She looks at me. “Let’s go home. I’m tired, and if my stupid husband didn’t have stupid stamina issues, I’d call him and make him carry me back.”
“You’d call him?” I ask.
“We share a shadow, and he can turn into shadows, so I can summon him through mine.”
Oh my goodness. Her husband is constantly pocket-size. “That’s amazing.”
“Yep. We’ve got a rule that he’s not allowed to come unless I say his name three times in a row now. I have suffered through too many instances of having him interrupt me while I’m talking about him. Nothing is more annoying than him appearing in the middle of girl talk with a dopey you called, darling?” Her arms fold. “Such a nosy, obsessive, rude—” She curses. Still scowling, she mutters, “It’s irritating how much I love him.” Without another word, she’s the first one through the trod, and Pollux winces as he carefully moves past me with a mumbled apology and a growled Willow.
Feeling as though I’m leaving half my heart and life behind, I take the necessary steps after them.
