Page 16 of Thorns That Bloom (Venusverse #3)

Sam

As I head down the hall toward the cafeteria with Kristoff and a few others, having a healthy appetite for once and experiencing an unusual lightness in my chest, it hits me that today is actually one of those days when I feel like…myself. Good and steady.

I look down at the dotted plate in my hand, my mind buzzing with the memory of Theo bringing me the food on it yesterday.

I honestly didn’t expect to see him again after we talked in the cafeteria.

I pretty much told him off in the nicest way possible, didn’t I?

Then he turns up in my office the very next day, all smiley and radiating positive energy like I hadn’t completely shut him down, bearing gifts.

And not just any gifts. Oh, it was so damn delicious. I was starving, and Theo appeared like some magical answer to my unspoken prayers.

Arguably, what he did was a bit strange.

He thought of me, of all people. Just because I’m pregnant?

Was there no one else who would’ve taken the food?

It’s hard for me to believe that. And yet…

I’m almost glad he did. I chastise myself for it, but I’m not even sure what I want to feel and why.

My thoughts are all jumbled when I try to make sense of it. When I try to make sense of him.

I know I’m overthinking this. He’s a sweet, young guy being nice. That’s it.

“I’ll be right there, just need to put this away,” I tell Kristoff when our group heads to the food counter.

He glances down at the plate with interest and raises his brows, but doesn’t ask me about it.

I think he’s learning to read when I want to talk about things and when I don’t, and that most of the time, I don’t.

I break away to the left to come up to the small window into the part of the kitchen that deals with sanitizing and cleaning the plates and cutlery. The rack with trays of unfinished food is next to it, ready for the workers to take in. It makes me a little queasy.

The air in the dishwashing room is radiating heat.

I feel a surge of sympathy for everyone who works back there.

If it were me, five minutes in the sweltering space would melt me.

I was going to take the plate back last night, but by the time I remembered, I was too tired and the cafeteria was already closed.

Hesitantly, I poke my head through the window, hoping for someone to notice. A short, pale guy turns from one of the large sinks like he can sense me, his forehead glistening with droplets of sweat. He instantly puts on a polite smile and hurries toward me.

“Sorry. I was just returning this,” I blurt.

At Torken, the cafeteria staff hated it when anyone took cups, mugs, plates, or anything else out and into the offices with them.

The sweet little lunch ladies would shout at grown men in front of the entire cafeteria about it; the only time it felt like they were the ones on top of the food chain.

Those arrogant, proud managers would roll their shoulders the same way I am now and hang their heads down in shame.

The man reaches out for the plate but stops in the middle of the motion with a confused frown. “This isn’t ours,” he says.

I narrow my eyes. “Oh?”

“The plate. It isn’t from the kitchen,” he assures me, sounding more confident now.

“All our dishware’s the same, see?” Taking a step back, he grabs one of the many clean plates stacked on the shiny, stainless steel table in the center of the room.

“It must be from one of the office kitchens,” he says with a smile that’s honest and genuine, even if his eyes say that he needs to get back to work, and hopes I get the hint.

“Ah, okay,” I mutter, nodding quickly. “Thanks.”

Clenching the plate in my hands, I turn around and make a few steps before stopping.

Theo said the food was from the cafeteria, right?

It was…suspiciously good, though. Not that the food here is bad—oh, I’ve worked in places with godawful, shit food—but it tasted almost like it was homemade.

But that would be crazy. That would mean he got it somewhere else, or worse, made it himself, and brought it for me, acting like he didn’t.

My cheeks flare up with heat. I can’t tell if I’m uncomfortable or touched or horrified.

Then, the realization of truly terrifying magnitude hits me.

The plate is probably from the little kitchen the guys from Manufacturing have, just like there’s a small kitchen for heating food and making coffee in the office in Engineering.

And to return the plate, I’d have to go there.

To an unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar people. And alphas.

For a moment, I’m disgusted with myself. It’s probably the sort of feeling I will need to talk about with Dr. Stewart later today, because I know it isn’t healthy for me to be this hard on myself, and yet… Damn, it is pathetic.

It’s fucking pathetic that I can’t do this one simple thing without my stomach twisting and my throat closing up. Walking into a stupid room and putting a plate down. Something that would’ve been normal before. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but now everything inside my head is fucked.

I’m so angry and annoyed that I just start walking.

I should tell Kristoff where I’m going, considering I said I’d be right back, but I don’t.

As I march through the cafeteria, I scan the tables, looking for Theo, hoping to find him.

Would it be awkward to talk to him right now, especially with what I realized?

Probably, but it would also make life easier for me.

Of course, I can’t see him. Not at that table where I saw him last time, or anywhere else. He might have already been, or he might be out, or…

“You can do this,” I say to myself, gritting my teeth, and head toward the manufacturing floor.

At least I think that’s the right way. For a split second, I feel incredibly small, and consider coming back to Kristoff and asking him to come with me, but then bile rises in my throat again, and I bite down on that pathetic urge and push myself to go alone.

I’m not a child. I don’t need moral support or a chaperone.

I try to think of what Dr. Stewart would say in response to something like this.

Probably something like ‘we’re always the hardest on ourselves’ or some shit.

How else am I supposed to get through this if not by being tough on myself?

I can’t just self-love my way through the trauma and violation I experienced.

Shutting my eyes briefly, I caress my stomach with a sigh. “Sorry,” I whisper to the baby. I felt great moments ago, and now I’m all strung up, irritated, and spiraling.

Suppose I really do need the help.

The manufacturing floor is loud and bustling and smells of metal, acetone, and a bit like dust. Besides that, there are also a lot of people. Like upstairs, they’re mostly focused on their tasks, only instead of computers, it’s machines with computers on them.

Here, the air isn’t as clear, and not just because of the busy environment.

I can sense the pheromones floating around.

It might be a stereotype that alphas are always physically strong and capable, but all stereotypes come from a grain of truth.

Plenty of the guys I see around the machines are tall and muscular, and their pheromones show who they really are.

Pressing my lips together to stay calm, I clutch the plate in my hand, still hoping to catch Theo’s eye somewhere. I picture them in my mind, bright and lively.

I can’t see him, though. So I stand by the door, clearly out of place, and soon enough, one of the workers notices me. With a confused grimace, the older man heads toward me, glancing around as if me being here is some sort of trick or a trap.

“You need somethin’?” he asks in a rough voice.

Somehow, I keep the anxiety bubbling up inside me at bay.

For now. “I’m returning this,” I blurt out, perhaps a little too sharply, and show the plate.

His reaction is completely uncontrolled, and it shows utter confusion about why he should care or know anything about a damn plate.

“Is…is Theo in?” I ask instead, hoping to end the conversation quickly.

“Theo? Err…no, don’t think so,” he says, looking over his shoulder. “He’s off. Sick or something.”

Just my luck. “I borrowed this from him.”

Again, the man glares at me like he couldn’t care less. With a suppressed sigh, he twists his body and points to the left corner of the massive room. “Kitchen’s there.” He points. Briefly, he lets his eyes slip down to my belly, then walks off.

The old me would’ve torn him a new one for being rude and would’ve been twice as unpleasant in return.

Instead, I stand there, nervously shifting on my feet to gather courage to pass through the entire area filled with a myriad of sources of various pheromones. Any of which might be similar enough to the ones I've tried to erase from my brain, to no avail, ever since that day.

It’s happened before. In the store. And once in the hospital.

It was terrifying, and the mere memory of it sends chills through my bones—the way panic took over. I was powerless, nothing but a passenger in my own body, swallowed up by the monstrous echo of it, forced to relive those awful moments again.

I can’t use citrusy shower or hand gels either, because that was the scent they used in the restroom.

Not to mention pheromones with undertones of wood, or…

whatever it was. My senses got completely scrambled and overloaded between the heat, the pain, and the terror of that endless loop of overstimulation of all my senses…

It wasn’t until I was in the hospital for a checkup and that man walked past me, carrying a scent of amber, that it hit me, and I nearly lost it.

But that’s not happening now, I remind myself firmly as I make my way across the manufacturing floor. It’s not happening now, and you’re fucking okay.