Eclipse Child |✔|

|22|

If you want to learn what someone

fears losing, watch what they 

photograph

-Unknown

***

Orion follows me into my room.

I had forgotten the appearance and layout of it from being away for so long.

The bed laid the way I had left it- covers overturned and hanging on the side.

Some clothes still on the floor.

Papers and other wrappers from breakfast bars scattered around.

That's not what grabs Orion's attention though.

He walks forward to the wall at the far end of the room. I walk to stand with him, taking in the hundreds of faces that decorated the surface.

He surprises me by shifting. I don't say a word as I watch his skin merge from flesh.

"Who?"

My hand automatically connects to the wall, tracing the different images. Each person. Each face.

"This is my pack."

Those grey eyes light up in surprise.

No one entered my room. I knew that from the bed staying in its disordered state and the floor remaining dirty. Sandra knew better than to come in and clean.

Whenever someone did come in through, they never asked about my wall.

I always thought it made them uncomfortable to look at my dream. My dream that I had so plainly laid out before everyone.

This was my pack.

"I know all these faces."

I point to each one, listing them out by name.

Orion is staring intensely at the people I point out as if this is a test and he is trying to memorize the names I have labeled to the individuals.

"I know each of their stories."

I turn to face Orion. He stands bare before me. I take in the dirt that stains his skin. The wildness that clings to him.

"Come on." He moves with me into the bathroom.

I turn the water to the tub on.

"Do you want bubbles?"

His face lights up, telling me his unspoken answer.

Soon the bath is ready and I am peeling off my shirt to step in. Without question, he mimics my example.

It reminds me so much of when we were in the pack. How we cleaned each other- taking off the blood and dirt that stained our fur.

Now the reverse had occurred.

I could tell the touch we exchanged was not intimate- the wolf was too deeply embedded in him. It was touches of comfort and affection. Not desire and want.

I don't even know if Orion knew of such a feeling.

If he had a name to place to the sensations that ran within him whenever skin grazed against skin.

Another excuse to escape into fur – to avoid the contact of me. Avoid the foreign feeling that it brought. It was something unnatural and strange.