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“Well,” she says. “Hey, gang.”
The gang choruses varied greetings back.
“Oh.” Zahra shifts her attention toward an empty slice of space. “Pila’s here. Nice to hear you again.” Planting her hands on her hips, Zahra grins. “Epic. Should we get a picture before the children destroy everything their grubby little hands can reach? I think we should. And, obviously, we should get it with an enchanted phone.” Opening her palm toward Pollux, she says, “Gimme.”
Pollux does not question the Zahra. For he has, already, learned that it does no one well to question the Zahra. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he delivers it to her wordlessly and shuffles himself toward everyone when they gather around the head of the table.
Lifting Pollux’s phone, Zahra whistles. “So that’s what you look like, Pila. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting to see you with the glamour-removing camera. How come everyone doesn’t have their wings and things?”
“There’s a difference between glamour and the form we’re currently taking. For the sake of potential human interaction, those of us who can are presenting our human guises.” After a handful of flashes, Cael leaves the group and steps forward, hand outstretched. “Your turn.”
Zahra sparkles as she hands him the phone, trots into the picture, and lifts her hand behind my head.
I swat at her. “Stop giving me bunny ears.”
“No. Also—” She wiggles her three fingers against one side of my head. “—they’re axolotl fins.”
“What?”
“It’s a team effort,” Pollux murmurs from my other side, and I have no idea what the camera catches when my mouth drops open, but I have a feeling it’s more genuine than my polished photo smile ever could be…
Chapter 39
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll be home for Christmas (if only in my dreams).
“I hope you like living with us,” Andromeda says, swinging her little arms while holding her Secret Santa gift in one hand and her bag of frogs in the other. I watch her teeter on the curb in front of me and try to keep my anxieties in check. Starting tonight, I’m living with her, and Pollux, and Alexios. Throughout the past week, my father and Pollux spent father-son time together in order to bring my things from my old room to my new room. I haven’t seen it yet, but according to Pollux, it’s ready. For me.
After we all have a family dinner together tonight, that’s it.
I’ll go home with Pollux.
I’ll have officially moved out.
Andromeda continues, “Daddy says that if you don’t like living with us, you’ll go back to your parents’ home. Did you tell him that, or is that what he believes?” Her big blue eyes hit me, childlike innocence gleaming in them. Since we’re still in public, she’s yet to shed the full human guise she wears to school, but regardless of whether the whites of her eyes are black or white, the blue maintains its eerie depth.
“I didn’t tell him that,” I say. “He’d have to mess up really badly and really consistently to scare me off now.”
She smiles. “Daddy won’t do that. He’s very careful.”
Yeah… I know.
“I like that about him,” I murmur, and my face warms, so I pretend I’m cold and tuck my nose into my scarf. Winter really snuck up on me this year. The wave of mildly chilled days did not prepare me for the forecast of a white Christmas creeping across the news.
I can’t believe Christmas is this weekend.
And I’ll be spending only some of it with my parents, before I say my goodbyes and head back to my home.
It’s surreal to think about.
I’m moving minutes away from what I’ve always known, but everything is changing.
I’m not even going to spend my Christmas break in a decorated house this year.
Who knows how long it will take me to feel at home? It never happened when I was away at my college dorm.
Maybe I should have waited until summer for this transition. Perhaps winter break really won’t be long enough to regain my footing and learn new routines. Is all of this really worth the potential I find myself while I’m away from the self-inflicted guilt of presenting who my parents raised me to be? Is this a big mistake?
