18 months later…
I’m anxious. More anxious than I should be. I try on half a dozen shirts, hating all of them before I settle on a basic, long-sleeved, black t-shirt and an oversized hoodie, resigned to the fact that today just isn’t my day. None of my clothes look right on a body that doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore. It’s been nine months. And while I’ve managed to drop most of the weight, I’m still…different.
My breasts are larger. My hips wider. I’m soft in places that were once firm and I just…I exhale a loud breath. I’ve changed. And not just on the outside. Clothes can only hide so much. There are times, like now, when I feel like an imposter trapped inside my own body. As if pretending to be human wasn’t bad enough.
I sigh. At least I don’t have to worry about that anymore with where I’ll be going to school.
César chooses that moment to wake, and I silently curse myself for my little outburst. The air rustles around me, letting me know I have only seconds before he erupts into full-on temper-tantrum mode. Rushing over to his crib that’s positioned beside my bed, I lean down to pick him up, rocking him in my arms while making soft cooing sounds.
A quick glance at the clock shows me I need to leave in fifteen minutes. If I’m late for my first day of school, so be it. César is more important. I cherish these moments when it’s only the two of us so much, but if I’m being entirely honest, I know I won’t be able to go to school today if he doesn’t settle down. Mom won’t be able to handle him.
He’s nine months old now, his psyker powers just barely awakening but present enough to cause a ruckus if he wants to. He shouldn’t have developed his powers so quickly, and when I realized he did, I was terrified, but so far we’ve managed.
He’s an aerokinetic so teleportation is something I thankfully don’t have to worry about. But he’s growing so fast and changing every day. Already I know my days of nursing my sweet little boy are numbered, especially with going back to school. I wish I could slow down time. Be here more with him.
I planned on getting my GED when we returned to El Paso, knowing I was done hiding who I was and had zero plans on returning to my former all-human school. But then Diego pulled some strings and got me in at Hellbound High, the one hybrid school in the area that mixes paranormals from all factions along with humans in the hopes of forging friendships the students will carry into adulthood.
I’m both excited and anxious at the prospect of finally being able to be the real me. The psyker me. And if I survive the last six months of senior year, I get to graduate high school like a regular kid. Mom thinks it’ll be good for me. To find a sense of normalcy and be a teenager again. I can’t say I disagree, but the thought of leaving César, even just for classes, is a hard pill to swallow. In such a short amount of time, this little boy has become my entire universe.
I sigh and hug him close as he nurses. These moments are special. I know that. And despite having his face memorized, I still get lost staring into his eyes and have to stifle a smile at how unlike me my own son looks. His eyes are a dark rich brown unlike my cerulean blue. His hair a softer shade of chestnut than my raven black. He even has his father’s full lips and straight brows that make him look like he’s scowling more often than not. And despite being a psyker, he isn’t a hydrokinetic like I am—he has the power to manipulate air and its currents.
He’s different. But he’s precious, and he’s mine.
A pang of regret hits me in the chest when I think of how he might never know his father. How he might never have him show him how to throw a football or work on a car. How he won’t ever know the other half of who and what he is.
I don’t know if César will ever shift. And if he does, what he might shift into, and I worry about that. I worry about how I’ll handle raising a shifter child on my own. But for the time being at least, I have to push it from my mind. I want to give my son the world but…I don’t know who his father is. Not by name. And a physical description doesn’t get you very far. I’m positive he’s a shifter, which would mean he likely belongs to the Southwest Pack but the one time I took a chance and called the Southwest Compound, asking if it were possible for a non-shifter to have a shifter child, the woman on the other end snarled at me to stop fetishizing their kind and hung up.
I could have tried again. Explained myself better. But I was young and scared. Mom had me convinced the Pack might try and take César from me if he ended up being a shifter, and it’s something I still have nightmares about.
It’s a big part of why I took my mom’s advice after those two little pink lines appeared, and decided maybe it was for the best to just forget all about him.
Only, that was easier to do when we lived in a different state, when the chance of running into him was virtually non-existent.
A thrum of nervous energy courses through me at the possibility of seeing him again. Since moving back, every time I leave the house, I scan the faces of the people around me, hoping for a glimpse of the boy who changed my life forever.
He said he’d ruin me for any man who came after him. He wasn’t lying. Even after all this time, I still think back to that night. To the way he made me feel. Maybe I’ve built it up in my mind, I don’t know. But what I do know is that he left a mark. I realized that even before I found out I was pregnant, and a small part of me is convinced that he can’t be the boogeyman my mother has made him out to be. That just because he’s a shifter doesn’t mean he’d steal my son away. Right?
César finishes nursing and I make quick work of burping him and changing his diaper before picking out his outfit for the day—a pair of soft black cotton pants and a red onesie—and head to the kitchen where I know my mother is waiting for me.
She sees me as soon as I step into the room, and her smile brightens when she catches sight of César in my arms. “Oh, he’s awake.” She holds her arms out. “Come to Grandma, amorzinho,” she coos. My little love. I can’t help my smile. She used to call me that when I was a little girl.
César pulls away from her at first. He can be clingy when he first wakes up, but after a few more softly spoken words and some bribery in the form of a banana, he relents.
Handing him to her, I grab apão de queijo—a baked cheese roll, just as a honk outside alerts me that my ride is here.
“There’s breastmilk in the freezer and I have my phone on me. If he gets too fussy. I can always—”
“Go, Joaninha. We’ll be fine,” my mom tells me. I hesitate for a moment before the sound of the horn again jerks me into motion. With each month that passes, César’s abilities grow, but I have to trust that Mom can handle it. I don’t have an alternative.
I give César a kiss on the cheek, grab my breakfast, along with a bottle of water—my security blanket—and head for the door. “Call me if—”
“Yes. I know,minha filha. I raised you, and you turned out fine. Stop worrying. Go. Have fun.”
Fun isn’t the word I would use to describe high school, but I keep my feelings to myself and hurry outside. I’m going to a hybrid school. I should be excited. I want to be excited.
Jaejun Yu—Jae for short—is standing in my driveway beside a sleek, cherry red Acura TLX. He grins when he looks up from his phone and realizes I’m there before he rushes around to the passenger side to open my door.
“Thanks.” I offer him a tight smile and slide into the passenger seat, tucking my backpack between my legs on the floor as he jogs around the car to get back in. I hate when he does that. I know he’s being chivalrous or whatever, but it still feels weird. Like it means something more than it should. The water inside the bottle sloshes around with a mind of its own, and I have to force myself to stop and take a deep breath. My abilities have been—sporadic to say the least since having César.
