Reaching Answers (Artemis University #8) - Erin R Flynn Page 0,72

and I never wanted to make others feel that pressure.

His eyes flashed shock. “Young. Eight.” He studied my aura and understanding filled his eyes. “I was angry too. I hated him for a while. I hated how my mum and I were treated because he wasn’t there to protect us. I blamed him because he hadn’t set things up better to make sure we were taken care of as we should have been. I couldn’t even grieve for him until I was older. I was too angry.”

“I get that,” I whispered. “I hate her. Them. I don’t care if she was the most wonderful person ever born to everyone else. She sold me, Julian.” To be fair, I told him what had happened and how a betrothal wasn’t the same to fairies as other supes.

“How is that really any different?” he asked when I was done.

“Right?” I growled. “It’s still another person dictating on something they shouldn’t. She didn’t have the right to set up anything for my mating. She sold me for peace. I don’t care how noble the reason, how selfless others think her for doing it. She wouldn’t have had to pay the fucking bill. I would’ve! I won’t!”

“Good. Don’t. You’ll come up with a better way and you already are, love,” he comforted. “There’s more though.”

“There’s more.” I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, my theory that my mother didn’t want me to end up with Geiger and how conflicted I was about that. I liked the person I was.

I simply wished I hadn’t gone through as much pain as I had to get to being me. I knew the journey made me who I was, but… For the love of fuck. Maybe I could have turned out the same with a few more breaks.

Maybe I’d be less broken.

“How did you get over the anger? I can’t be distracted right now on so many fronts. Too much is at stake.”

“You’re right, there is,” he sighed, tapping his chop sticks against the box.

He was good with them but honestly, I ate too much and too fast where I needed a fork and to shovel it in or all I would do was eat. For real. There were times I used the bigger spoons in my flatware set just to make eating go faster.

Fine, most times.

And I brought some from home to use in the cafeteria. Those cute little soup spoons just didn’t cut it.

I couldn’t really have been the only one who thought that, right?

“My mum got fed up with my anger and sat me down at our table, two seconds from blowing her lid at me, which I’d never seen her before like that,” he told me, bringing me back to the conversation. “She said my anger was valid but it was misplaced, and my da loved us too much to have been careless with us. But I was too angry to see the truth and it was time to get that out, as it hurt her.”

“And you are a momma’s boy,” I teased, smiling when he didn’t deny it, opening more cartons for me.

“She’s a wonderful woman.”

“She is. I like her a lot.”

“She adores you.” He shook his head and sat back in his chair. “She beat me with everything in the kitchen when she learned I’d messed us up. Here I don’t tell her because I think she would be disappointed in me for dating a student, no matter how young I am or you’re a year older than the others your grade and much more mature. And she knows and is pissed I lost the best thing that ever happened to me.

“She barely spoke to me for weeks, only yelling at me. She thought I did something stupid—well, other stupid because I’ve not dated much and I didn’t treat you right as a woman. When she finally calmed down enough to let me tell her, she was… She, White, and Edelman were the only way I survived.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know how you went through ending things with all of us alone.”

“I wasn’t. Izzy and Mel were there. Ray and Zack were a huge help. White and Calloway. Even Mrs. Vogel that night everything went down with Darby’s grandpa.”

“Someday I want to hear about all of that from you.”

I nodded, not wanting to get into that again. I’d broken down sobbing to him in the dreamscape, begging him to explain to me why he hadn’t loved me enough to