Chapter Thirty-Three

Callum

“C allum? What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, crossing the open grass field to the house. “I thought I’d come visit.”

My mother was like every other mother out there.

Equipped with alien supernatural senses that saw right through my bullshit as if it weren’t there.

She was halfway down the stairs before I’d even finished speaking, arms outstretched to welcome me.

“My baby,” she said. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“I don’t even know,” I told her as we went inside to sit at the kitchen table.

“Are you hungry?”

“No,” I said, waving her off. “I’m okay.”

She ignored me and started pulling things from the fridge to create a couple of sandwiches. It was a mother thing.

“I know my boy,” she said when I protested. “Do you want to talk about what’s wrong now or after you have something to eat?”

“Who said something was wrong?”

I laughed in response to the side-eye thrown in my direction.

“If you’re not ready to talk about it yet, that’s fine,” she said.

“I honestly don’t know where to start .”

“Why don’t you start by telling me where Madison is?” she said gently.

“At the palace,” I said.

“Well, that’s purposefully vague.”

Being called out by one's own mother was not a comfortable experience. I shifted in my seat, reaching for a sandwich to try to avoid it.

She was faster, pulling the plate away.

I sighed. “She’s at the palace. In her quarters, probably.”

“Her quarters? I thought you two were living together.”

“We were,” I said. “Then we had an argument. Now, we’re not. Can I have a sandwich?”

The plate didn’t move closer. “An argument over what ?”

“Me. Her. Us.” I hesitated a long time. “Noa.”

“Oh, my son.” She pushed the plate over to me, but I wasn’t hungry all of a sudden.

“I screwed up, didn’t I?” I asked without looking up, not wanting to see the disappointment I was sure was written all over her face.

“Did you?” She turned the question around on me gently, but the words hit far above their weight class, pressing me down into the chair.

“I think so,” I whispered. “Maybe? I don’t know. It’s complicated! ”

To my surprise, she laughed. “Of course it’s complicated, Callum. It’s life. Nothing about it is ever simple. It can be easy, but it’s never simple. There are always consequences. It’s all about mitigating them.”

I picked up a sandwich, chewing on her words and the food simultaneously.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad,” I said. “I kicked her out. Told her to leave.”

Eyebrows rose. “ You told her to get out?”

“You expected otherwise?” I said through a mouthful of turkey and salami. “They are my quarters, mother.”

She snorted. “Don’t be disrespectful, I know that.”

“Then don’t act like I’m the bad guy for kicking her out.”

“I’m not the one who said you were the bad guy,” she pointed out gently. “Only you’ve said that.”

I leaned back, food momentarily forgotten.

“Do you feel guilty about telling her to leave?”

She was pushing, like any mother, but doing it gently.

“No,” I said at last. “I don’t. I feel guilty that it got to that point. It shouldn’t have. I could have done a better job. So could she, I suppose, but that’s not what we’re talking about.”

“Why don’t you feel bad for kicking her out?”

“She told me to get over the fact that Noa’s dead.”

I tried to leave the rest off.

My mother didn’t fall for it. “And?”

“She told me to ‘accept that she wasn’t Noa, no matter how much I wished she was.’ That was when I told her to get out.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three days,” I said.

Cleye had come by later in the day to tell me he’d come across Madison and had put her up in quarters in the guest section of the palace. Said I might want to give her some space before approaching and trying to patch it up. That Madison was rather upset.

So, that was what I’d done. I’d left her alone.

“You’re an idiot, my son.”

I choked on some salami. “What?!”

“You heard me. How can you let this fester for three days without going to find her? This woman is screaming for you to chase after her. To fix things. Yet you waited three days, and you come here first?”

“Being berated by you wasn’t why I came here.”

“Maybe not. But if it’s going to wake you up to the fact you care for this woman, probably even love her, then I’ll berate you all day long,” she said, crossing her arms.

The sandwich nearly flew from my mouth, and I dropped the uneaten half on the table while I stared at her in shock. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me. Just like I can hear you. I can hear it in your voice, Callum.”

“But what about Noa?”

“My son.” She steeled herself. “Noa is dead . You cannot let that grief consume you any longer. You have to accept it and allow yourself to move on. She would have never wanted you to stay like this.”

I rose to my feet. “You haven’t gone through this. How could you know?”

She pointed at the chair. “Sit. Down.”

I didn’t. I glared at her, but she glared right back, knowing full well I would cave before she did.

“Fine,” I said, sitting down.

“Now, listen to me, Callum. I’m not telling you to forget Noa. Nobody is. But you have to look at what’s in front of you and ask yourself a question. A very big, very important question.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you willing to give up another chance at love because of something that already happened and can’t be changed? Or are you going to stand up tall, face the uncomfortableness of life head-on, and fight for what you want?”

I licked my lips nervously. In different words, I’d asked myself the same question. There was just one problem with answering it.

“What if I don’t know how?” I whispered, voicing my biggest worry, my biggest fear.

If I couldn’t tell my mom, who could I tell?

“Then you figure it out,” she said, squeezing my hand. “You figure it out, my boy. One step at a time. You take what comes. And you figure it out . It’s new. It’s scary. I get it. But are you going to let that fear control you? Or are you going to push through and see what’s on the other side?”

I grabbed the sandwich and chewed, trying to slow my breathing. When I was done, I wiped my mouth and took a very deep breath.

“I think I have to go, Mom,” I said, standing up. “Thank you for the food.”

She smiled, beckoning me in for a hug. “Go get her, my son. Tell her how you feel. All of it. Don’t hold back. Share it all.”

Tell her how you feel.

How did I feel?

My mother must have sensed something in me, a tensing of muscles perhaps, I didn’t know. But she grabbed me by the chin and locked eyes with me.

“Just tell her. You don’t need the perfect words. You just need words . Speak from here, and she will know.” She tapped my heart.

“You’re the best,” I said, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek and hug her goodbye.

“See. Words .”

We laughed, and then I was gone, out the door, down the stairs from the porch and into the grassy field. My body began to morph, to expand as I went. With every step, I grew in size and power. Wings sprouted from my back, snapping wide in the waning sunlight.

I had no idea what I was going to say to Maddie.

But I did know silence wouldn’t cut it.

She deserved better. And somehow, despite everything, I would find a way to give it to her because she needed to know how I felt.

I could only hope it wasn’t too late to fix things.