Page 14 of Things Left Unsaid

Loki is like my brother, my child, my father, and my best friend all rolled into one.

He's in mysoul.

There's no me without him.

Loki neighs, the warm gust of air brushing my chest as he rubs his head against mine like he knows the burning in my eyes has turned painful from holding back my tears.

That’s when a grubby little hand tugs on my elbow.

Tipping my head, I see Susanne standing there, her bottom lip popped out. Not in a pout. But in shared grief.

She knows what I’m feeling.

“I’m so sorry, Colt,” she warbles, her bony arms clinging to my hips.

With Loki in front and Susanne to the right, there’s no denying I feel safe.

Safe enough to grieve.

Safe enough to let go.

I cry.

For Clay who died too young. For me who lost an uncle who loved a misunderstood nephew. For a future without him in it. For a childhood filled with bitter pain from a drunken father who hates his heir.

Throughout it all, Susanne hugs me and Loki's hooves tap the floor, prancing agitatedly on my behalf.

Nothing will ever be right again, but at least I have this.

Zee

PRESENT DAY

Runaway - AURORA

“You can’t be serious.”

Grand-mère’spinkie finger gracefully points at the ceiling as she lifts the china cup to her mouth and takes a dainty sip of coffee.

The knuckles might be more gnarled than I’m used to, but it’s a movement I’ve seen thousands of times from her.

There should be a sense of peace in this onenever-changing act, but peace flew out the window the second she laid down the law.

I’ve been fine all morning, but I can already tell the stress from this conversation is messing with me. My emotions are spiking as hard as my blood sugar, which is making this tough talk a thousand times more impossible to deal with.

“Grand-mère!”

Her wrinkled lips purse as the cup returns to the saucer. Without a clink.

“Thishasto be a joke,” I mumble, looking at the contracts in front of me. “This isn’t the eighteen hundreds!”

I came back because I figured the triplets had gotten into mischief and they were hiding the truth from me.

I flew here with Tee because it was supposed to be a quick trip. A few days of getting scolded for being an absent grandchild then we’d return to normalcy.

This is?—

“It might as well be 1820, child.” Her dulcet tones are so alien that it’s still jarring after a lifetime of hearing them.

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