Chapter 18

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tantrums are age-appropriate behavior.

I'm sitting on one side of a red booth in my favorite Italian restaurant. It has low lighting and faux leather menus and authentic Italian music whispering atmospherically from a speaker somewhere. It's familiar enough that I hoped it would bring me calm. Unfortunately, I'm seated across from Pollux and Andromeda and fighting not to fidget. Or move. At all. Because I have secured the one place I know for certain I am not bumping knees with Pollux under the table, and everything else is a Battleship game I am not prepared for emotionally.

Andromeda hasn't said a word.

She's coloring the plain back of a child's menu a vicious, unexplained blob of red.

It feels like I'm in trouble.

Like I've spilled the truth about Santa and parents are mad at me because I didn't want to lie to their child. Relationships are built on a foundation of trust, after all. What is a child going to think when they find out the person they trust the most has been crafting an elaborate lie around them for years?

I know I felt betrayed.

I still have the apology card—with an essay explanation—from my father tucked away in a memory box somewhere.

But this isn't about Santa—something adults understand isn't real. This is about faeries—something Pollux believes in. Beliefs are a delicate subject, because like Zahra mentioned earlier, it's not my job to convict anyone's kids or teach them what I believe. It's my job to give them the tools they need to live kindly, with love and intelligence, so they can find their own beliefs.

The water of right and wrong is often murky.

Just like the water around my dreamboy last night.

Before he lifted me out of it and set me on a throne and told me things that are haunting me—just like I asked him to.

I do not think I can stare harder at my menu. It is not humanly possible.

I have read fettuccine so many times, I think I may actually know how to spell it now.

Why did I suggest coming out to dinner to talk? Did I think the carbs would help me stomach a potential that I'm being sued for not calling the cops the second Andromeda disappeared this morning?

After all the other ways authorities have failed me concerning her and Pollux, I didn't think the trouble would make anything better. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have done the correct thing.

Everything feels so very, very wrong.

Why didn't I just take this conversation like a man right then and there in front of the school instead of subjecting myself to this painful silence?

Surely I wasn't subconsciously attempting to offer access to apology pocket food in the shape of calzones, stromboli, and ravioli. I've never been in situations quite like these before, and I have absolutely no idea how to react.

My nerves are shot.

My natural defenses and routines and survival mechanisms are falling to pieces around me.

Pollux clears his throat.

I force myself not to shrink.

"About this morning…" he begins, then he looks at Andromeda. "Dear one?"

She slinks down in her seat. "I'm sorry I left the way I did. I know better. And when we know better, we should do better."

He's…making her apologize to me?

I'm speechless.

"She didn't want to tell you all by herself," he says.

I look between them. "You're not upset with me?"

A thick, dark brow rises. "Why would I be upset with you?"

"I…told your daughter that faeries aren't real."

His head tilts. "She knows that humans can struggle with the truth. It shouldn't have been that shocking. For her. In the context in which it happened. For her." He glances at the now-puddle of Andromeda on the seat. I can only see a few curls beyond the edge of the table. Gripping her hair, he pulls her back up, and I tense.

She crosses her arms and frowns at him. "Ow."

"Did that really hurt?" he grumbles.

Huffing, she looks out at the restaurant.

Pollux sighs and returns his attention to me. "It is painful to not be believed, but it's not something we can or should force. It's also not something we should attempt to manipulate with our behavior, but emotions are complicated, and Meda's a little too young to fully manage hers. Don't let her display interfere with your emotional response."

"Zahr-Zahr and Mrs. Role are my best friends," she mumbles. "My feelings are wounded, but I feel even worse for Zahr-Zahr, because this means you don't believe her, either." She shoots me a lethal scowl before she goes back to looking at the other people in the restaurant.

Her words hit me straight through the chest like a dagger.

Pollux flicks Andromeda in the back of the head.

She whips full around and bites him.

As though a child isn't latched onto his arm by her teeth, he provides me with an exhausted expression, grips her hair, and attempts to casually tug her off.

She doesn't budge.

His voice drones. "I'm almost positive this isn't entirely approved behavior for your feeble sensibilities, Kassandra. For that, I apologize."

I don't even know where to begin in the correctness of his statement.

But, hey, at least I know why biting has been mentioned several times now.

One mystery solved.

Yippee.

An equally-concerned waitress appears to take our orders and bring us a saucer of herbs and olive oil to go with a sliced baguette. Andromeda only unlatches for half a second to tell her father that she wants both the calzone and the ravioli. Then she chomps back down.

He gives up on pulling her off in favor of rubbing one eye. "I'm so sorry about this."

She grabs his shirt and shakes him. "You're ashamed of me now?"

"Meda. Your emotions are important, but they are not the only ones that are."

Scowling, she slips under the table, effectively bumping my knee into Pollux's.

With his heat leeching through his jeans to meet my bare leg, I attempt to remember what I'm supposed to do in a situation that I have never been in before. I'm stuck like a deer in headlights, my brain utterly focused on the sensation of Pollux's leg against mine.

"How do you like your playground?" Pollux asks, breaking me from the trance into territory I somewhat understand how to navigate.

"It's amazing. I've never seen anything like it. I still don't understand how it was possible to construct in such a short time. Did you…fund it?"

Andromeda pokes her angry face up beside me and Kubrick stares. "If only you had cameras fixed at the backyard with recorded footage you could pull up."

"Andromeda," Pollux growls, and she sinks back under the table. Pressing his hand to his eyes, he deflates and mutters, "I'm beginning to wonder if I've not added enough enrichment to your enclosure. Perhaps you are at the age where I should be sending you out on solo quests."

Beneath the table the tiny chant of quest quest quest arises.

I whisper, "Please don't do that."

Andromeda kicks me in the ankle, and, somehow, now one of Pollux's knees is sandwiched between mine. "Kiss her, Daddy."

"Meda," he grits.

"Do it."

Rocking his body to the side, he reaches under the table. The action traps one of my legs firmly between his.

But I'm not paying attention to that.

I'm far, far away. In a lovely dream. Where nothing is going wrong or weird. I'm a survivor, truly. On an island somewhere. The beach is very beachy this afternoon. I don't think I'll bother spelling S.O.S. in the sand. Being adrift in the middle of nowhere constitutes a wonderful vacation.

Which reminds me.

My extra long Thanksgiving weekend starts soon.

And I should invite Pollux and Andromeda to my parents' house.

Because I have something clinically wrong with me.

"Do not push me to punish you," Pollux hisses, breaking up my pretty fantasies of coconuts and tiny umbrellas. "I don't readily know how to."

A raspberry blows.

An inhuman rumble emanates from Pollux's chest.

"You can't intimidate me," Andromeda sasses. "Mrs. Role won't let you hurt me."

"Care to bet on that, little girl?"

Andromeda squeaks, "No."

"That's what I thought. Sit in the corner and behave yourself until your emotions level out." Rising, Pollux fixes his glare on me. "I do suppose you wouldn't appreciate it if I told her to walk home."

My mouth is dry. Because it has been hanging open for a little while. I give my head a slight shake and say, "…no. I don't think that's the best idea." We're five miles away from their home. Her legs are tiny. It would take her hours. She would get kidnapped.

He grunts. "Well, there goes my single disciplinary idea."

"I think timeout is an excellent choice."

His eyes narrow. "Timeout?"

"Telling her to sit until she calms down. Timeout. It's a good punishment."

He scrubs a hand down his mouth. "Dearest…that's not discipline."

"Of course it is."

"Surely not."

"Surely yes."

He stabs a finger against the table and leans forward. "Do you know what Andromeda is doing right now?"

"Sitting and calming down. Letting her emotions and her thoughts find a place where they can meet rationally. As you asked her to."

"Plotting revenge."

I press my lips together.

I tilt myself back and find Andromeda in the corner under the table, rocking and muttering to herself. Her blue eyes spark when she finds me looking. She hisses.

I sit back up. "Noted." We've not touched our bread and oil, so I dare to get a piece now and swirl it in the herbs. "Being a parent is hard." Especially of gifted kids who somehow manage to get entire playgrounds to appear overnight. The gifted kids are the most difficult ones to manage because they're so used to being right.

Very calmly, Pollux has a minor breakdown. "I don't know when I'm doing parenting right. I've read so many books, but nothing seems to be an adequate guide for such a mixed level of maturity. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, I have a pitiful amount of practice. Cael was always the one who led and knew how to interact with people. And Castor…"

Castor.

That's the person who is upset with Cael. The bad prince.

Most of the people Pollux knows have such interesting names.

"What about Castor?" I ask as I take a bite of my bread.

Pollux locks his jaw. "He didn't care. I do."

My brow furrows. "He didn't care?"

"When you don't care, it's easier to exist. You don't have to worry about whether you're doing things correctly or not. You just don't care."

"That doesn't seem like a good relationship to have."

Pollux reaches for a piece of bread, tears it in half, and puts it under the table. "It wasn't. But that's the problem when you're the one in the relationship who cares, and the other person isn't."

I chew my bread and don't know if this is the moment when I provide encouragement and suggest that he's doing a good job or not. Validating that he's in a cult with his daughter is not exactly the best choice here, I think. Also, the many bottles of liquor in his house. And the hair pulling. Her sweet little curls should not be pulled, and I feel like I need to stand by that.

Even if she's presenting distinct gremlin behavior and doesn't seem to be under any sort of duress.

Yep.

Let's hold off on the you're a good father for just another minute. For the sake of my sanity. Which I am quite quickly losing grasp of.

I ask, "Do you have any friends who are parents? I'm sure they understand feeling just as lost as you."

Pollux exhales a laugh. "You have met most of the people I consider precious. They have yet to rear children of their own."

I'm not going to say I love that he refers to his friends as precious people. But I do. It's beautiful, and once again I'm in awe of his mind. "So you don't have any other more experienced parents you can talk to?"

"No."

Have I asked my parents about adding people to our Thanksgiving?

Nope.

Am I almost certain it will be okay…

…for everyone but me…?

Yep.

Neat, neat. Cool, cool.

"Would you like to come to my house for Thanksgiving, if you don't already have plans? My parents had a single daughter to deal with, too, so they might be able to offer words of encouragement or comfort."

And we'll just ignore the possibility I'm inviting a potential cult member to my house. To be fair, it's a small town, and if these cult members can raise a playground overnight, I'm sure finding my address is about two Google searches for them. But. Anyway.

A curly mass pops up into the seat beside Pollux. "I want to go." She presents her hand.

Pollux puts another piece of bread in her palm. "You weren't invited."

My heart leaps. "No, no. She absolutely is. I'm sorry. The invitation extends to both of you."

"Ha," she declares.

A low hum resonates in Pollux's chest. "Will you stop behaving poorly now and promise not to behave poorly in front of her parents?"

Andromeda reels. "You want me to promise? I'm a little girl."

"And yet you are not just a little girl."

Andromeda gnaws on her crust of bread for a moment, then sighs. "I promise to do my best to behave appropriately in front of Mrs. Role's parents for the duration of the Thanksgiving event we have been invited to if this oath is acceptable to my daddy."

"An excellent oath. I accept it." He pats the seat next to him, and she pops up fully, swings around, and is bouncing merrily when the food arrives.

After the plates have been situated on the small table, Pollux says, "We'd be honored to join you for the celebration. Are there any protocols or expectations I should be made aware of?"

Right. I forgot. Because your cult doesn't do holidays, I need to explain the holiday. Hopefully this doesn't get them in trouble with their "prince." "Usually, my family just goes around the table during the meal and says something we're thankful for. That's about it."

Just a meal.

With my family.

And two members of a faerie cult.

No big deal.

Twirling a fork in my pasta, I drown myself in the carbs in order to keep from thinking about what I've just done.