“Oh baby. My sweet, sweet baby,” her mom cooed, rubbing her back and letting Sonnet sob into her shoulder.
Katherine looked like she had slept as little as Sonnet. She wore an elegant suit and pearl earrings, but her hair was pulled back simply, and she had dark circles under her eyes, just like Summer.
Summer was kneeling on the floor of the couch, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sonnet.”
Her cries grew louder, then soft, as she let her mom do what they couldn’t. Her mom began to feed her and make her drink water, talking to her the way she needed to be spoken to. Summer watched, a soothing, sidelined figure, before walking over with heat and heartbreak in her eyes.
“I trusted you to take care of her,” she hissed. She looked scarier now than she did when they first met. Like a starving lioness ready to pounce. “How could you let this happen?”
“We didn’t,” Kai choked. “I never would have let her come with us if I knew Juliana would be there.”
“Being an alpha isn’t about helping your omega through the predictable. It’s not about knowing. It’s about—” Summer stopped abruptly as Sonnet cried out in pain. It was obvious. Sonnet’s cries hurt Summer just as much as they hurt the rest of them. “I’m sorry. I just… I know how much Sonnet hoped to be reunited with her birth mother again. Despite everything that woman put Sonnet through, she loved her and missed her so much.”
Felix cleared his throat as she leaned against the kitchen island. The scent of burned strawberries was like wax in his throat. Summer’s scent burned as well, faint, and uncommon for a beta, but that was no business of his.
“I don’t want to overstep,” Felix said, “but I think we all want to know what Sonnet went through. We want to know about her birth mother.”
“She hasn’t told you everything.” It wasn’t a question. “It’s not my story, but I guess someone has to say something. Whatdoyou know?”
“Sonnet had said she was abandoned by her mother when she was seven, and that she was taken in by her father, which is when it came out, she had been a child born from an affair.” Felix looked over towards Katherine, the woman who could have easily turned away from Sonnet, and yet somehow managed to step up and love her despite everything. A woman deserving of the name Mom. “And that she loved your mom for being her mom, too. Even though she still carries guilt for it. And now,” Felix cleared his throat, “we know from Juliana that her birth mother was a prostitute.”
The wordprostitutehung in the air like a bad smell, making everyone sick. Suddenly, everything and nothing about Sonnet made sense.
Summer’s expression was tight. She looked towards her sister with fierce fondness and even fiercer protection. “I don’t know everything,” she said softly. “My parents have shielded me, but I’ve heard bits and pieces growing up. When Sonnet came to us, my parents spent the whole night arguing, thinking we were asleep. And I spent the whole night listening.”
“Did Sonnet hear them?” Jude asked.
“No. She was so scared about everything that she crashed almost immediately after being brought home. I remember being so angry that this girl I didn’t know was sleeping in my bed.” Summer looked away from her sister and towards the rest of them. “Sonnet’s birth mother worked as a prostitute for a long time, even before she met our dad. I heard she was paid very well, but she spent it on hotel stays, living lavishly, and spending so quickly that she didn’t even have a bank account. She spent even more for Sonnet. She spoiled her. I might not have ever met her mother, but I know she loved her, and shewould spend every dime on her daughter, and she did. But love isn’t enough to take care of a child.”
“No. It’s not,” Kai agreed.
He would know. His mother seemed to share similar burdens to Sonnet’s.
Summer continued. “Sonnet spent her childhood moving from one hotel room to the next, playing in the pool, eating takeout, and taking care of herself when her mother worked. She never went to school. It took a lot of private tutors to help Sonnet excel at school and keep up with her peers academically. She struggled. I think that’s why she never went to college. She hates school because she hates feeling like she’s not as smart as everyone else in the room.”
But she is the smartest one in the room.
Her emotional intelligence is my favorite thing about her.
“My mom was terrified by how impacted Sonnet was. I don’t even think Sonnet remembers, but she was…she was sostrange. Like no child I’ve ever seen. It was like my dad brought home an alien and told me to call her sister. To me, it was no wonder why my mom was yelling at him. It wasn’t until I realized it was because Dad had cheated, not just that,paid for it.”
Disgust was tinged in Summer’s tone. It was unmistakable, and suddenly Summer wasn’t terrifying to Felix. She was just a girl carrying her father's burdens, just as Sonnet had done.
“Look, Sonnet came to us with scars. There’s a cigarette burn on the back of her left foot. Her mother wrote a letter, and I don’t know much, but I know she admitted that the last month she had Sonnet, she lost control of a situation and Sonnet got hurt from it. That’s why she gave her up. Sonnet’s mother recognized love wasn’t enough to keep her safe, and she couldn’t walk away from her life, but shecouldwalk away from Sonnet, I guess.”
Summer went on and on, and after a while, Felix realized why. Summer was processing her own grief. He could tell how much she loved her little sister, and now, how much having Sonnet in her life changed everything.
Summer brought up being angry so many times, but that anger always deflated. At the very end, Felix felt like he understood everything a bit better, but he still wasn’t any the wiser on how to fix it. Then he remembered no one came to fix his grief when he was little. No one had that kind of magic. But looking back over at the couch for the hundredth time, he felt as if Katherine had magic to.
With everything just as heavy as it was before, there was nothing more to say, and everyone went back to how they were before. Summer joined her sister, Jude paced, Zayden was back on the phone in the backyard, and Kai was hovering on the staircase, watching Sonnet like a miserable, depressed hawk.
With Sonnet being well cared for by her mom and sister, Felix did the only other thing he could. He cooked.
He made a feast he didn’t even know anyone would eat, but after Sonnet’s mom convinced her to take another bath, everyone was starving.
After dinner, Felix was the only one left in the kitchen. He dimmed the lights, turned on some classical music, and began scrubbing the dishes. It was the only way to keep his thoughts and memories quiet.
“Can I help?”
