you very much.” Her voice was soothing, but her eyes met mine over Oliver’s head with something that looked almost like
triumph.
“I think,” Rachel said softly, standing up with Oliver still clinging to her, “maybe I should go. I didn’t mean to cause such upset
on your special day, precious boy.” She stroked his hair again, and he pressed his face into her neck, still crying.
“No, don’t go!” Oliver begged, his voice muffled against her designer dress. “Please stay!”
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said, her voice thick with fake emotion. “I feel terrible about this whole situation. I only wanted to make
your birthday special.” She carefully detached herself from Oliver, smoothing her dress. “Maybe another time, when things are…
calmer.”
She left, taking my son’s heart with her, while Derek stood frozen between us, his expression torn.
Oliver collapsed onto the couch, sobbing. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
Each ‘hate‘ felt like a knife in my heart. I stood there frozen, watching my son cry over another woman leaving his birthday party.
2/3
I’d faced countless emergencies as Head Healer, but nothing had prepared me for this kind of pain.
Derek stepped closer, placing a warm hand on my shoulder. “Olivia, he’s only five. He doesn’t understand what he’s saying.”
“He seemed to understand perfectly well,” I whispered, my voice rough.
“No, he doesn’t.” Derek turned me to face him. “He’s a child who wants cake and doesn’t understand why his mom won’t let him
have it. That’s all this is.” (1
I looked into my mate’s emerald eyes, so much like my own. “Is it? Because it feels like much more than that.”
“Trust me,” Derek squeezed my shoulder gently. “Tomorrow he’ll wake up and barely remember this. Children are like that.”
Slowly, Oliver’s sobs quieted into hiccups, then into the deep breathing of exhaustion–induced sleep. Derek carefully lifted him and carried him to his room, leaving me alone with the aftermath of our ruined celebration.
I began cleaning up mechanically – collecting torn wrapping paper, storing away the untouched fruit cake I’d spent hours making, wiping down surfaces that had never seen the joy they were meant to hold today.
That’s when my phone pinged with a notification. Rachel had posted on social media – a photo taken earlier today. She was with Derek and Oliver at the pack’s favorite ice cream shop, all three of them smiling brightly at the camera.
Oliver was wearing the new wolf–themed comic t–shirt I’d gotten him just before his birthday, which he hadn’t been wearing
when he’d gotten home just now.
The caption read: “Happiness is in this moment.
I stared at the photo until my vision blurred, at my son’s bright smile – the one he no longer seemed to have for me. The one he
saved for Rachel now.
Some wounds, it seemed, were beyond even a Head Healer’s power to mend.
D
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