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I sit down beside him and glance at his face. “Why are the walls closing in on you, Crow?”
“I want to be the person you need, that you want, but I don’t know how.”
His words shock me. What? But…
“So, this is about me? Am I making you ill?” I ask, and the thought that I’m making him unwell hits me like a gut punch.
“No! Never! This is me. I’ve always been like this.” Crow closes his eyes. “You know we were in an orphanage together. That’s where we met. My father died. He wasn’t a terribly good man, but when he died, I was just left. No one knew he had passed, and it took a while before they came. I tried to survive as best I could, but I was a tiny kid, really runty.”
I sit still, listening to the words but hearing what he’s not saying.
“Everyone who said they would love us never did. We went to foster homes and heard the same promises over and over. I met long lost family who would take me for a few months, then drop me back because I was too hard.”
“Crow-”
“I’m not telling you so you feel sorry for me. I’ve moved on, and I’m doing fine.”
I nod so he knows I know.
“But I don’t know how to give someone like you what you need.”
“Someone like me?”
“Beautiful, talented, strong, with a huge heart. I would break you into a million pieces.”
“That is not true.”
“How do you know? You might stay here and say that you love me, and then leave.”
“Or you could bond me and make it forever, and we could be happy,” I hit back, frustrated with this game.
He flinches. “What happens if we bond you, and you are miserable, and you hate us? No, that won’t work at all.”
“Take chances. Risks.”
Crow shakes his head, his jaw tensing.
I shrug. “You’ve already decided. I’m not going to try to change your mind.”
“You aren’t?”
“No, Oli,” I say, using his first name for the first time. The reaction is instant. His eyes soften, and he leans towards me like a starving man. “I’m not going to try to make you bond me. I just need a job and somewhere to stay while I work out my plans for the future.”
If anything, my answer seems to distress him even more. He twitches, so I do what I know will make him feel better because, though I hate what they did, and I want to smack them all upside their heads, I’m not prepared to let them go. Not yet. I slide across to Crow and hold my hands out.
“Can I please have a hug?”
He melts into my embrace, burying his face in my neck while I stroke his back.
“It’s all going to be okay, Oli. You’ll see. Everything is going to be fine. We have time to work it all out. Let’s just start at the beginning.”
“What’s the beginning?”
“How about friends?”
“Please,” Crow whispers. “I would love to be your friend, Bethany.”
I smile. Step one. Complete.
