"Your father called me again last night," she said, her eyes rolling with practiced weariness. "Still complaining about the property taxes. The neighbor's dog. The state of the world. You'd think, after all this time, he'd find a hobby."
Adriel made a sound.Mmm.
He knew this song by heart. He had been raised inside its melody. His father's failings, first movement: lazy, predictable, exhausting. Her martyrdom, second: the weight she carried, the burdens she bore alone. And then the chorus, always circling back to him.
You understand me. You always have.
His father was not a man in these stories. He was a flaw, a nuisance, a burden shed. And Adriel was not their child, caughtin the wreckage of their mutual hatred. He was her ally. The sensitive one. The one who understands.
Her eyes found his across the table. Brown like his own, but darker. Almost black.
"He never could appreciate the finer things," she sighed, her finger tracing the stem of her glass. "A quiet meal. A well-kept home. A little discipline. It was like talking to a wall." She held his gaze. "You always understood me better than he ever did."
The weight landed in his chest. Dense and cold and familiar. He had carried it his whole life.
To nod was to side against the other half of his blood. To demur was to betray her.
He nodded.
I know,he said softly, and the words were a betrayal he couldn't name. The weight pressed down on something small and bright he'd carried with him from Grayson House, a spark, a fragile thing, the whisper ofmaybe I am more than this, and compressed it into silence.
His mother smiled, satisfied, and began to tell him about her neighbor's hedges.
Adriel sat in the bone-white room and listened to her voice wash over him. He thought about his father. He thought about the man he was, the man he wanted to be, and the distance between them. He thought about the warm roll he would not eat.
And when his mother said,Isn't that right, Adriel?he nodded, smiled, and said,Yes.
The food arrived. White plates on white linen, the meal arranged like something meant to be admired instead of eaten. His steakwas modest, he'd made sure of it, ordered the smallest cut, but it still sat there, seared dark at the edges, surrounded by vegetables glistening with oil and herbs. Garlic. Rosemary. It smelled divine.
His mother's plate held a salad. Quinoa and arugula and shrimp arranged just so.
Her eyes flicked from her plate to his. Quick. Assessing.
"Oh," she said. Light. Airy. A single syllable wrapped in silk. "That's…hearty."
His stomach tightened. The rich aroma turned cloying, the garlic suddenly too sharp. He stared at the seared surface of the steak and saw, not a meal, but an accusation.
She speared a shrimp.
"I just worry," she said, her voice softening into velvet. "You seem tired. Are you sleeping properly?"
"I'm fine." Flat. Hollow. He picked up his knife and fork.
She hummed.
"You know, maybe you could try low-carb this month. Just as an experiment." A delicate bite. A thoughtful chew. "It did wonders for me. The energy, the clarity… it'sremarkable."
Adriel cut a piece of steak. Perfectly cooked. Tender. He put it in his mouth and tasted ash.
"It's about more than weight, Adriel. It's about your health." Her voice stayed gentle, pitched in that register of loving concern that made resistance feel like cruelty. "I'm just trying to look out for you." A pause. Then, softer: "You'll never get anywhere in life if you can't control yourself."
Control yourself.
He stared at his plate, and the edges of his vision blurred.
Something flickered in his chest. Sharp. Unexpected.
Anger.
