Page 79 of Let It Snow
His words cut deep with a cold pragmatism, and they make me feel even weaker, though I can’t even explain why. Maybe because I know he’s right. Everything has already shifted for Snow, and since Theo isn’t willing to end the pregnancy, Snow will always carry that duty. He’ll have to spend time with the child, and whoever stands at his side will have to accept that child too.
A knot tightens in my stomach. I want children too. But I still don’t even know what mine and Snow’s status is, whether we really are True Mates, or how Theo’s baby would reshape the family I might have had with Snow if anything ever did happen between us.
It’s too much. Way too much. I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility, not now, not while my memory is fractured, when I wake up every day with headaches and confusion. This isn’t the time to make life-changing decisions.
And then it hits me: maybe it’s not even the time to get involved with Snowat all.
What am I supposed to do?
Bay is right. I need to give it time. I have to make sure of what I really want, test how determined I am to build a relationship, and see if that determination can survive the whirlwind that’s hit us.
Then another realization flashes through me.
Snow and I have shared plenty of physical contact as of now.
If we truly are TMs, nothing in this world can keep us apart. The famous Pull would have to start soon. I had a bit of a taste of it, though it only had a sexual aspect to it—the strong attraction and constant arousal—yet without the painful part.
But now?
I’m not going to see Snow for at least a few days. My head needs to clear out. We’ll see if the painful part kicks in. And it’s inescapable. That’s how the start of creating the Bond shouldwork: once it’s triggered and the Pull is on, it can’t stop until the Bond is completed.
If we are bound to each other by Fate, then our free will won’t matter. I could be fussy and angry and jealous, and still, it will win over me. The Pull will drag me back to Snow and push aside everything else, drawing us toward each other relentlessly.
The final testis coming.
I rise slowly, feeling like a massive weight is pressing down on my shoulders.
When I glance at Bay, he’s watching me with that same strange, cold detachment, as if I’m a shadow, not a person.
I turn away, moving toward the door.
"Good luck, Summer," Bay calls after me, his voice flat, like a memorized script. I know he doesn’t care. He’s sunk too deep into whatever consumes his life to care about anyone else, least of all, me.
I go back home and curl up in my nest, hoping for comfort, but none comes.
The confusion only thickens.
Misery.
The bitter sense of being unlucky. The feeling that nothing in my life ever works out the way I want. Why? Why can’t anything ever be simple, damn it?
Why can’t I just have thenormal lifeI dream of?
???
The next few days I spend almost entirely shut away in my room.
But if I expected the pain to increase slowly, like it does with The Pull, I’m in for an unpleasant surprise.
It hits me right away!
I lie curled on the bed while pain pulses mercilessly through my skull, like somebody pushed a spear in there, until I canbarely handle it, tears streaming down my face, my breath shallow.
Finally, it’s too much, so I drag myself to the kitchen during hours when no one else is around.
Desperate, I start searching the cupboards for painkillers, even though I’ve always avoided any medication.
But this time it’s do-or-die.
