Eclipse Child |✔|

|57|

Strange how we

decorate pain

-Margarete Atwood

*   *   *

"You're overworking yourself again."

I smile at Orion as he approaches the table, he leans forward, kissing the top of my head. I look up to see that he is not staring at me but the window looking outside.

The sounds are all mixed together. Laughter can be heard.

Rex told me last week that it had been a while that such a noise could be heard within this pack.

Thank you, Soraya.

"I'm fine."

Orion turns back to smile at me.

I reach for the plate of eggs, spooning them onto my plate.

"How is the school coming?"

Orion is silent. It's a long enough pause to make me look up to see him. He is still staring out the window. I smile.

"Orion."

He turns to me, eyes half dazed as if he had been pulled out of a trance.

"Mmmh?"

"Do you know how the school is coming?"

A smile lights up his face. It takes my breath away. I cannot stop the small gasp that leaves me, but he doesn't notice as he leans forward to put his mouth closer to my ear- to tell me in his excited voice all the progress that is happening.

I take in his words, savoring them. It's been several days since I've seen him. He rises earlier than me now and comes in later. It started several weeks back when one day, he detached from me as I was talking to Rex, and began playing with the children.

Rex asked no questions as I excused myself. He said nothing as I walked quietly into the house and cried. No one saw me.

And since then Orion's been lost to me in the construction and efforts of building a school for the children. A nursery for the young. A system of education and safety for them.

If I had to lose Orion to anything, then I'm glad it's this. Glad that it's for something that makes him smile the way it does now.

He tells me of the progress, and that he's delayed too much here- that he has to go now.

"But you haven't eaten yet."

He only smiles and walks out, the smile on his face bigger than I have ever seen it.

It's my turn now to face the window and look out it. To watch him walk away.

"And you worry that I overwork..."

A feeling of peace spreads over me. But it's soon shattered by the lurking shadow that I knew was listening in the corner.

"When will you tell him?"

I can barely hear the small whisper. I turn to the doorway. This was how I knew Orion was so focused on his work- because he didn't even register the other presence in the room.

"Soon."

The shadow shifts uneasily on his feet. I watch as he crawls further in the room, an uneasy tension sitting on his shoulders.

"You should...eat more..."

Bram comes fully into the kitchen's light now. His eyes stare unfocused on anything around. They are slightly off from where I sit.