Page 119 of Fanged Embrace
“So.” I broached the topic carefully, side-eyeing her as I twirled my fingers around the cocktail I had no intention of actually drinking. “I wanted to ask you something. About Dandelion…”
Laurie stiffened immediately, and the ice in her glass crackled when she stabbed her straw into her drink. She looked away, shoulders slumping forward as she hunched over the bar. “What about her?”
I leaned forward and reached for her cheek, gently turning her head to look her in the eye. I saw the panic there, the wound that still bled, fresh as the day she lost her daughter. “Laurie, you’ve let go of everything else but this. It’s the one memory you cling to and the one memory that hurts you the most.”
Laurie swallowed and her eyes grew faintly glassy, then she pulled away and dashed an arm over her face, scrubbing away tears before they could spill. “I can’t just—” She sucked in a breath, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes. “You don’t understand, I can’t just forget about her. It’s—it’s not right. She deserved to live and Ifailedher.”
She dropped her hands, fisting them on her knees instead. “I don’t deserve to move on from that. It feels selfish to let myself forget.”
My heart twisted in my chest, aching with the pain that ebbed out of her in waves. Her aura was no longer a furious tempest, but that grief still hovered like gray mist around her head. I could understand her hesitance, her inability to let herself move on. Her memories of her daughter weren’t all bad, they were bittersweet. In a way that made it worse. It made it impossible to let go.
“Laurie, you’ve punished yourself enough. You have to let yourself move on.” I reached for her hands and brought them up to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Let me help you.”
She looked at our hands, her slim fingers clenched betweenmine. Her eyes were water-rimmed and her bottom lip was red and raw where she’d bitten it. Her voice came out choked and gasping. “Ican’t.I can’t cast aside my memories of her. It would be like she never existed.”
“Then let me carry those memories for you.” The answer was on my tongue before I could wonder if it was even possible to take her memories and carry them myself, rather than misting them away. But if itwaspossible, if Icoulddo it, I’d be happy to. If it meant giving her a future, a life unburdened by grief and guilt.
Laurie stilled in her seat and her eyes slowly lifted to meet mine. “You can do that?”
“I’m not sure.” I tightened my hold on her hands, tilting my head to the side as I thought it over. “But I’m willing to try, if you’ll let me.”
She stared back at me, breath coming slow and stilted as she thought it over. This was the last memory she’d been clinging to, the one that defined her grief. I understood her hesitation. Silence stretched between us and I waited, watching her work through every reason not to relent.
Her lips drew themselves to a thin line and finally, she asked, “Are you sure?”
I didn’t have to contemplate my answer. I knew in my soul that I would go to the ends of the earth for her. If I could follow her into battle I could handle this. I could share the burden. I could be the keeper of the memories she couldn't bear to erase but couldn’t carry herself.
I held her gaze. “I want to help you.”
Laurie’s expression softened the longer I looked into her eyes. There was relief there, like a long exhale. Her voice came out quiet but resolute. “Okay.”
“Great, gimme your face.” I released her hands and reached for her cheeks, squishing them between my palms.
“Wait, you wanna do it here—now?!” Laurie cast franticeyes around the bar, but her concern was unwarranted. Aside from an elderly patron crumbling to dust in the corner over a frothy pint, we were the only two people in the bar. Even the bartender had pottered off to smoke around the back.
“Sure, why not?” I pecked a kiss to her forehead while she frowned at me. I couldn’t take the scathing expression seriously when I still had her cheeks squished like a chipmunk. “No one’s gonna notice us. We’re just two lovely ladies having a moment at this incredibly average bar.”
Laurie gripped my forearms with an exasperated grimace. “There’s an old guy in the corner—what if he’s, like, homophobic?”
I rolled my eyes skyward with a wry smile. “I’m entering your mind, Laurie, not sticking my tongue down your throat.”
“That’s arguably even more homoerotic,” she mumbled back, but leaned forward to ram her forehead against mine. “Just do it already, this is embarrassing.”
I chuckled as I adjusted in my seat, leaning forward with her face clasped in my hands. Laurie was still looking tense but the teasing had helped slightly, and when I looked into her eyes she smiled back at me. I drew in a breath. “Are you ready?”
She closed her eyes. “I’m ready.”
I let my own lids flutter shut and began my descent into the depth of her mind.
Passing through the layers was easier than it had been when I’d first begun lifting her memories. Where before it was a struggle to sink, now I sliced through those barriers like a knife through butter. Laurie opened her mind to me, and I entered her head without triggering any knee-jerk defenses. Her fingers tightened on my forearm and I brushed my thumb along her jaw.
I sank deeper, spiraling down, down, until I entered that cold, dark space inside her head. That familiar black oceanrolled gently beneath me. I waited, giving Laurie the time she needed to present the memories on her own.
They came slowly, tentatively, tiny shards handed to me one by one. I cradled them like the delicate treasures they were, each memory both beautiful and unbearably poignant. I handled every fragment of Dandelion with care, and I bore witness to the memories Laurie cherished the most:
I experienced the very moment Dandelion drew her first breath, tiny legs kicking and little fists windmilling as she wailed a war cry at the world. I experienced her slight weight in my tired arms, looking down at her tiny body swaddled in blankets. Her angry, red face was creased to comical proportions, and when she opened her eyes and blinked up at me, I fell in love.
I felt the soft tufts of her stark white hair under my fingertips, downy and wispy-thin. I let her grip my pinky with surprising strength, and I counted every perfect, minute fingernail with awe. She was perfect in every way, from the top of her head to the tip of her nose. She was worth every ache and pain it took to carry her to term. She meant the world to me—to Laurie.
