Forest Darling

Chapter 38 - Owl

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Chapter 38

°Fynn

I thought to bring her a book from my library, so we could read together is the right thing to stop her mind from going into terror mode, but now that I'm standing here, I feel really silly.

But that is pretty ridiculous as well, because after everything that happened, I think the least of our concerns is to be embarrassed in front of each other.

I take a deep breath, in hope to calm my traitorous color on my face and walk to the bed while holding the book out for her.

"A book?" She asks confused and takes it to read the title. She turns it around shortly after and skims the description of the content.

"This is one of the books where I got the quotes for my notes from. You mentioned you didn't know the majority of them." I say and scratch my neck awkwardly.

She looks at me surprised and a little touched.

"You remember?"

"I remember everything you wrote." I say with a smile.

She gives me a small one in return as well and looks back down to the book.

"Which quotes is from this one?"

"I won't tell you, it's more exciting when you find it in there." I say, grab my desk chair and sit next to the bed.

I don't want to invade her personal space or make her uncomfortable, by joining her on the bed.

I open my book, luckily, I have this one twice in my collection.

"If you like it or didn't finish it, you can take it home with you."

"How comes that you read so many books?"

Now or never

"I don't know how much you know, but my parents aren't good parental figures and have actually only gotten children to build an image for their private office. Before Theo was born my mom was interested in me for maybe 4-5 years and after that my grandparents took care of me." I make a pause and try to push the unpleasant memories of my parents to the back of my mind.

"They teached me to read and after that we made it our ritual to read at least one book a day. When I was already in school for a few years, they both died and I coped with the loss by making books my best friends."

"My parents have many authors as clients, so my mom often got copies of books as a thank you. I took these and in the memory of my grandparents made reading my hobby. I think autobiographies and historical novels are really boring and there were often not among the gifted books, which is why I mostly read romance novels."

"Is that why you live here with Theo?" She asks with a timid voice.

"Yes. When my mom announced she is pregnant again, I was 13 and had no desire for a sibling, in fear they could love him more and take better care of him while they abandoned me." A guilty look comes over my face.

"Now I regret having such thoughts. When Theo was born, my parents moved their office into our house to promote the happy family vibes even more. But the interest in Theo decreased even faster than with me. Our parents concluded I'm old enough to play the babysitter, so I got the caretaker role." I try to swallow the sudden lump in my throat.

"When Theo was 3, my parents and he were in a car accident and Theo was the one to get injured the most. When I got the message, I left school and ran to the hospital as fast as I could." My eyes start to fill with tears, but I don't feel the need to hide my emotion in front of Harriet.