Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 297

Ch. 67

Noah

+15 Bonus

Liam’s room is on my route at the end of the day. Well, I make it my route. Because what kind of coward avoids a four-year-old boy who looks up to you because of a little uncomfortable history with his mother?

I find him sitting up in bed with his favorite book on his lap and a look of frustrated boredom on his face. He looks up when I come in. And the smile that spreads across his face has me feeling all kinds of ashamed.

“You came,” he practically shouts, starting to climb out of the covers.

“Hey, now! No crawling out of bed. Are you trying to get me in trouble with Dr. Lukas?”

“Sorry,” he pouts, “I hate staying in bed.”

“I know, but it won’t be for much longer. How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Better.” He considers this. “My body had a hard night,” he adds, with all the authority of a pre-schooler who soaks up adults’ words like a sponge. “Dr. Lukas fixed it, though.”

“Of course she did. Dr. Lukas will always fix it when you need her to.” I tell him.

Cassandra is curled up in the chair beside him, a blanket on her lap and exhaustion evident in the lines around her eyes. But she looks up at me sharply when she hears what I told Liam, her eyes searching mine for an answer to her unspoken question. She finds it.

“You don’t have to-” she starts.

“I know,” I interrupt. “I want to.”

She presses her lips into a fine line, like she’s fighting the urge to argue with me. But there’s no point. My mind is already made up.

Because no matter what is or isn’t between Cassandra and me, Liam deserves a home, safety, a life without fear. And I can give that to him. I want to give that to him.

I pull the chair from the corner up next to his bed and I sit, I spend the next hour talking to Liam.

Well, he does most of the talking. He has opinions about the wolf cub story that he wants to share, specifically about whether the cub’s decision to wander into the woods alone after his mother told him not to was strategically sound. I tell him I think the cub was operating with incomplete data and should have done more reconnaissance first. Liam agrees with this seriously. He explains why. I listen. Carefully, in case there’s a quiz later.

Cassandra is quiet through most of this-not absent, just letting it happen, watching her son interrogate me about a picture book with the air of someone watching something she didn’t expect and is allowing herself to just observe without reading too much into it.

Once, when Liam is absorbed in re-examining the story, she whispers, “Thank you.

“You don’t-” I start to brush her off.

“Don’t,” she says. Not unkindly. Just: stopping the deflection before I can make it. “Please, just let me say it.”

I let her say it.

“Thank you,” she says again and I accept with a nod.

1/3

CW 67

+15 Bonus

When I stand to go, Liam catches my sleeve.

does it without thinking-the reflexive reach of a child who wants to stop someone from leaving. He looks up at me with his father’s eyes and the gravity of a four-year-old who has learned, way too young, that people leave and that learning the timeline in advance is better than being surprised.

“Are you going to come back tomorrow?” he asks.

I look at him, the pleading hope on his little face. I don’t think about Piper waiting for dinner, or the looming conversation I need to have with his mother, or what Cole said about Cassandra earlier. I don’t think about anything other than what Liam needs from me.

“Yes,” I promise him.

He smiles, simply accepting it and letting go of my sleeve.

As soon as I leave his room I lean against the wall, needing a moment before I continue. I’m in awe a little at how easy that promise was to make.

How many things have I been saying yes to without examining what they mean-yes to Piper, yes to the choice I told myself I made. Yes to the list of Cassandra’s sins I keep to justify my actions. Yes to using her presence here to keep myself whole, telling myself it’s my due.

But when Liam needed me to say yes the most, that’s when I hesitated, took time to think it through when it could have cost him everything. I won’t make that mistake again. So saying yes to him now was an easy decision to make.

The rest I’m going to have to examine eventually. But not tonight. Tonight I have a promise to keep that I made to someone else.

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