Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 145

Chapter 145

BIANCA

The three children sat in their corner of the playground, surrounded by books and dinosaurs, entirely unconcerned with the running and shouting happening around them. The girl had opened one of her books and was reading something aloud–I could tell from the way Theo was listening, head slightly tilted, the posture of someone taking in information. The boy had his book open on the ground in front of all three of them, something with photographs, something they could all look at together.

Theo laughed.

It was quiet from here—I couldn’t hear it through the windows and the distance–but I could see it. The way his shoulders moved, the

changed, the brief flash of that grin that was almost his old grin.

My eye

He

ing to be okay. Not perfe

friends who sat in his

son needed it.

be okay.

Suis said quietly.

said. “I know, S

hed.”

cost, not without the shape of loss remaining in him for a very aurs he’d kept. He had a father who’d moved to another city for

at’s good, at it cost a

Altis,” I a

ucian

or jus

wa

certainty of someone who’d been working on is important.”

and knew

and was still in mine, and his grip had chan

1. it.

other five minutes. Watched Theo s gerated delight that made Theo d thing and trying not to show it

one who understood that th

arrange his dinosaurs

e playground signal

ands.

had tightened

collection, watched the rassed way he’d always he Triceratops and return it

e recess was ending, because the

em walked back toward the building

d decided they belonged together.

ing specific, just a general glance backward at

where we were parked.

this distance, with the shadow of the trees.

hed back and followed his friends through the door

Chapter 145

+25 Bonu

Not the self from before–that self was gone, changed by loss the way everyone was changed by loss. But he looked like himself now. Like the person he was becoming from the materials of what he’d experienced and what he’d survived.

He had his father’s jaw. He had my eyes.

The door closed behind him.

I sat in the car and breathed.

“Bianca,” Lucian said quietly.

“I’m alright.” My voice came out steadier than I’d expected. “I’m alright.”

He didn’t question it or offer reassurance I hadn’t asked for. Just held my hand and let me be whatever I was.

“He has good friends,” Louis said from the back seat, in the tone of someone delivering a considered verdict. “The girl with two books is very good at.being a friend. You can tell. She sat right next to him without asking if it was okay, which means she already knew it was okay, which means they’ve been friends long enough that she knows where she belongs.”

I turned to look at Louis, at this five–year–old who had been processing friendship and belonging and what it meant to find your place for months through the lens of his own experience.

“You’re right,” I said. “She’s a good friend.”

“He’ll be okay,” Louis said, with the simple certainty he’d been developing the certainty of someone who’d come from a very dark place and could recognize the signs of someone else making the same journey. “He’s still sad but he’s okay. Those are different things.”

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