Page 23 of Thorns That Bloom (Venusverse #3)

Theo

Very, very quietly, I unlock the door and creep inside. I’ve sobered up on my way here, but I still feel like life isn’t quite real. My head is light and heavy at the same time, and my limbs barely cooperate with me. I just want to feel comfort. Warm, soothing comfort of home.

I shed my shoes and drag myself through the hallway. The place is quiet, as it should be in the middle of the night. I’m not sure what the time it is exactly, and I don’t want to know.

Without turning the light on, I walk straight across the small room until my feet hit the bed and I collapse onto it. With a tired exhale, I turn around to face the wall and the dozen teddy bears and other stuffed animals that have been on my bed ever since I was little.

I sink into their softness, feeling like I’m in a warm hug. My parents put them all up again after I got old enough and moved out. They said it ‘reminded them of those sweet innocent days’. I found that stupid. Embarrassing.

Now, I think I understand why they did it. I don’t do this often, but there are moments when coming here and getting drowned in plush takes me back to a time I didn’t have to worry about anything.

I hear footsteps in the hallway. The click of a switch, then the slow, creaky sound of the opening door.

“Theo?” Dad’s breathless voice sounds as he sticks his head in.

Light from the hallway illuminates my little den of self-pity.

Once he realizes it’s me, he lets out a loud exhale.

“Oh my god. I thought I heard something. I wasn’t sure whether we were getting robbed. It’s two in the morning, you know?”

“Sorry,” I mumble, twisting at the waist to look at him. When he sees my face, Dad narrows his brows like I’m his little boy that scraped his knee again before he opens the door wider and walks in. I grumble at the light coming in but say nothing and push myself up to sit.

“What’s up, dork?” he asks after settling down on the bed next to me. I let him gently push me to the side so he can rest alongside me, snorting in response.

Dad grabs one of the few teddies we are surrounded by and lifts it up, gazing at it in thoughtful silence for a moment.

“You used to love this one. Mr. Fluffers, right? Ah, you and Gail fought over it so often. You wouldn’t give up until you got it.

This one time, you pulled her hair so hard to get it from her that a chunk of it stayed in your hand,” he says, chuckling.

Instead of nostalgia, my chest tightens even more. There are no happy childhood memories without thinking about what happened with Gail and the role I had in it.

I stay quiet. I don’t know what to say, or whether I should even bother him. I came here because I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and regrets.

Dad looks at me, resting the plush white bunny with long floppy ears in his lap. I feel his gaze, so I glance at him. “It’s just— I think I ruined everything, Dad,” I whisper.

His eyes soften, the short, unstyled light brown hair falling across his forehead as he tilts it to the side to see me better. “Your dad told me about the life advice you asked him for not that long ago. Does this have anything to do with that person?” he asks gently.

I don’t know how he does it. How he always knows everything.

“Maybe.”

He puts his arm around my shoulders like he’s always done. “What happened?”

Sometimes it’s hard to believe Dad isn’t the one who gave birth to us. Not like Pop is distant or anything, but Dad has this intensely nurturing, tender way about him.

“I fucked up, and he found out that I know about what happened to him. I didn’t mean to, but I just blurted something out, and now he knows, and he looked really, really upset,” I say quickly, so quickly it barely makes sense, because that's the only way that makes it possible for me to let it out without getting swallowed up into the ground.

Dad sighs, like he’s gathering his thoughts.

“When the assault happened to me,” he starts carefully, “your father begged me to report it right away and go through all the proper channels, but I…didn’t want to, at first.” He lowers his gaze, staring at the plush toy in his hand blankly.

“I didn’t want to be known as the omega who went through that.

I knew it would get out, and I didn’t want people to look at me differently.

The idea felt terrifying. Like they would look at me and see only that one label.

That one horrible night. Picture it in their minds.

Picture me suffering. Who I was would’ve been erased, over and over again, by what happened to me.

Of course, that wasn’t true.” A faint smile flashes over his lips while I hang on his words with shallow breaths.

“But it wasn’t easy to get over that idea.

If it’s still fresh to him, he might feel the same way.

He might need some time to digest that. And that time might be longer than you’d like, darling. ”

There’s a surge of that endless, pure care I keep feeling whenever I think of him. “I know,” I blurt out. “I don’t mind waiting. I don’t care how long it takes.”

Dad narrows his eyes at me, perhaps wondering how deep in this hole of illogical devotion I am. Great.

“But I was stupid, and I guess others noticed how interested I am in him. Now he knows I think he’s my fated mate and will probably want to stay away from me, even if he ever gets over that idea.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Fated mate? Your Pop didn’t say anything about that,” he blurts, putting his finger up as if to stop me while his mouth hangs open.

I roll my eyes, sinking my head back into the pillows and plush toys with a loud groan.

“Right…because I didn’t tell him. Because I knew what he would think.

How he would react,” I say, gesturing back at his own shocked face to prove my point.

“Like everyone does when I try to talk to them about it. Everyone acts like I’m crazy or stupid. Or both. Maybe I am…”

His silence scares me a little. Dad shifts back to face ahead, his shoulder still pressed against mine, just sitting there with me in the darkness for a moment.

“I didn’t know you believed in that sort of thing.”

“Well, I didn’t until I met Sam,” I whisper, a little dejected by all the judgment.

But Dad’s silence now doesn’t feel like he’s judging me; it feels expectant, so I hesitantly continue.

“I’ve never felt this way before. I thought…

that I loved Emily, at least at the beginning.

And Ronnie. But this is…incomparable. Stronger.

Deeper. It’s like I've never experienced love before, Dad. I can’t describe it, and it doesn’t make sense.

Which is probably why no one but religious extremists believes this stuff.

It just…clicks. All the stereotypical crap I know about fated mates—from the ‘you can’t think about anybody else and you don’t want to think about anybody else’ to the ‘life as you knew it ends the moment you meet your match’. ..it all just fits perfectly, okay?”

I finally turn to him, baring my everything with a desperate, tired expression.

Dad stares at me through the dim light for a while.

Then, his thin lips spread out into a tentative smile.

“You’re right that Pop probably wouldn’t be very receptive to this.

Especially not with the implications of what fated mates are.

You know…a special, unique, fated connection between an alpha and omega exclusively. ”

Glancing down, he chuckles to himself, as if he thought of something. I stay quiet to hear him out.

“All our lives, people around us told us that we… Not that we didn’t belong together, but that we could do better.

They told us two omegas can’t reach true fulfillment.

That it’s supposed to be between an alpha and omega.

‘That’s how we were made to be.’ Then they laughed when we wanted to get pregnant.

‘It’s nearly impossible,’ they said. ‘The chances are so low.’ But we did it,” he says, lovingly brushing a strand of the longer hair at the top of my head back behind my ear.

“So…I can’t say I understand or believe this fated mates thing, but your father and I belong together.

We always did and always will, no matter what the world or the people say, and I always knew that in my heart.

If you’re as sure about this as we’ve always been about us, then it’s not really that different.

And it can’t be wrong. Besides, if love doesn’t make you feel a little crazy, you’re not doing it right.

Just be certain this Sam feels the same way, okay? ”

Are my eyes watering? Dammit, my eyes are watering.

“Yeah, of…of course,” I say, rubbing my face, hoping to hide it from him. But he probably already knows. “I would never push him, I would never—”

Before he can enjoy feeling like I’m his little boy again and comfort me with the help of Mr. Fluffers, someone else barges into the room. Pop turns on the big overhead light, leaving both of us squinting in discomfort and protesting at the sudden visual attack.

“What the hell is going on here? Theo, is that you? Wh— What did I miss? What’s going on?” Pop puts his glasses on and tries to focus his eyes, which he seems to struggle with. I laugh through my tears and shake my head.

“Nothing, dear,” Dad says with a knowing smile, giving me a quick glance. “Our son is staying overnight. That’s not a problem, is it?” He stands up and ruffles my hair before going to Pop and kissing him on the cheek like nothing out of the ordinary’s happening.

He still looks painfully confused, but quickly catches on. “Okay…? Err, should I make hot cocoa?”

“No, no,” I say. “I’m going to sleep. I’m beat, and I’ve bothered you enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Thanks,” I say to the both of them.

Seeing them together, Dad holding Pop around the waist and openly enjoying the sight of him all sleepy and perplexed, fills my chest with comforting warmth. It makes me a little more hopeful about my situation, even though right now, it’s pretty damn bleak.

I need to be patient, like Dad said. No matter how long it takes. All I care about is Sam and the baby being happy.

And that’s okay. It’s what I feel, and no one can take that away from me.

With that knowledge, I wave them goodnight and sink back into the mountain of my childhood toys, ready to fall asleep and hopefully dream of Sam.