Chapter 45: XX. Daddy-2

Then I caught sight of the frightful face his handsome son had brought into the house. I looked worse than I thought. My skin was red, blotchy, and completely broken out. Maybe that was the alcohol … or the stress. My eyes were still bloodshot and puffy, and my nose was red from it running. My hair was a mess, and even though I was dressed, I looked like I had just fallen out of bed. Standing next to Shea, I rolled my eyes. "Is looking like a demigod a lycan thing, too? Because I think you make me look uglier than I am. Or maybe I am just constantly having a bad face day." Shea laughed. "Hey, if that's your theory, then you're part demigod, too," he countered. He was still holding my hand, and he brought it up to his lips, kissing it. "I think you need glasses." "I have acne," I murmured. "So does everyone," Shea retorted. "You should see Cece's mess in our bathroom. She has this electronic brush thing that like scrubs all the skin off her face. I don't know exactly, but long story short is that we all have things we're insecure about." "What are you insecure about?" I asked him. I would honestly be shocked if he could point out a flaw in himself. Shea's face softened. "I don't know if it's an insecurity, but I do feel insecure about you and me," he admitted. "It's just not the same for humans. It isn't and that's not your fault. But that's what I'm scared of. You have the power to completely destroy me and you don't even know it." Why did I just whine about a couple of zits? My mouth opened, but I didn't know what to say. "I love you andyour zits," he told me, though he couldn't hide his smile when he said the latter. "You are very beautiful, and if you don't believe me, just ask the two hundred guys I had to threaten on your first day of school." He winked at me, before leading me away from the mirror. I followed, dumbfounded. Shea led me into his living room, which was quaintly decorated with eclectic furnishings, nothing matching. The far wall was lined with sturdy timber bookcases, littered with what looked like volumes of thick texts, combined with popular books, and photographs. Shea went directly to the bookcases, kneeling down on the floor and he began sifting through what looked to be large scrapbooks, or maybe photo albums. When he found the one he wanted, he pulled it from the shelf, and stood back up. He brought it over to one of the couches and we sat down together. He laid the large scrapbook across both of our laps. When he opened the first page, I was immediately amazed. Mom had tried scrapbooking for a minute when I was in elementary school, but after she'd dropped beads all over the floor, and gotten glue all over her clothes … and spent two hundred dollars on supplies, she gave up. This, though, looked professional. The first page was Shea. I knew because beautiful, baby blue letters were glued at the top of the page, spelling out "Shea Robert Braverman". There was a picture of him on his mom's chest, all bloody and new, as well as a cleaned up one in his cradle. His tiny hospital bracelet was attached to the page, as well as his mom's. "Let's just skip the pictures of me looking like a potato," he joked. He flipped the page, and his mom had made a similar one, only this time on pink paper for baby Cecelia Marie Braverman. The next few pages were filled with cradle pictures of Shea and Cece, combined with firsts, like their first baths, their first smiles, them crawling, and walking. Then Shea reached another page, another birth page. It took me a second to register what I was looking at. "My mom saves things," Shea uttered quietly. Pasted onto the page, surrounded by decorative beads and ribbons, was a yellow birth announcement card, complete with little duckies. My heart lurched in my chest as I read the words. Ronan and Amanda Bryant are thrilled to announce the safe arrival of their beautiful baby girl. SARAPHINE JO BRYANT Born September 21, 2001. 6lbs 11oz 20 inches. Just seeing my parents' names written like that filled my eyes with tears. I had never even seen my dad's name written before, let alone seen it combined with my mom's, like any other ordinary married couple. I started to cry again. Because I read the word "their". Their baby girl. Belonging to twoparents. A mom and a dad. A daddy who was thrilled to announce that his daughter, Saraphine Jo Bryant, had arrived safely. Glued down underneath the birth announcement was a picture. A candid. It was a picture of two parents, filled with love, as they held their baby. Mom … she looked so young, so tired, but so pretty. She was lying in a hospital bed cradling me. And next to her … I had to wipe my eyes. Next to her, sitting beside her on the bed, was my dad. His hand was cradling my head, and he was looking down at me with such wonder. His other arm was wrapped around Mom. This was the very first time that I had ever seen what he had looked like. And he looked nothing like I had imagined. Like Mom, he was so young. His face was youthful. He would have only been in his early twenties. His hair was dark, though it wasn't as dark as Mom's, and his eyes, from what I could see, were light. He was smiling so widely, and I could see he had dimples in his cheeks. I loved them. He looked broad, and strong, a protector, even in his youth. I could see that by the way he was holding us both. "Oh my God," I whispered. "I thought you might've wanted to see him," murmured Shea. "My dad was your dad's Beta. His second. Mom made these pages for him after he died, to help him remember his best friend. We looked at them together sometimes. I remember asking him where you went. There was something about your name, it always stuck in my mind. Maybe, subconsciously, I knew you would be important one day." Shea flipped the page, and sure enough, there was another picture. One of my dad and Shea's dad. They stood together, smiling at the camera. The picture was taken down at the beach, and I wondered if that was the same beach that we lived by, and if we have ever walked the same path. They were both only wearing swim shorts, and their tattoos were proudly on show. "Karen" was across Shea's dad's chest, and there it was, Mom's name, "Amanda", was on Dad's chest. They both looked so young, young enough that they looked as though they could be seniors in our school. It was so strange to see him this way. I had always pictured him older, wiser-looking. But to see him this young just broke my heart even more. That was no age to die. His life, his whole life, was ahead of him. A life with Mom and me, if only she hadn't been so scared. He seemed so familiar to me. My heart, it felt, longed to know him. "Ronan loved fishing but couldn't catch a darn thing. Pickles and peanut butter on toast were his go-to snack. And he was loyal to a tee. There wasn't anything that he wouldn't do for his girls, his pack, and the community," Shea told me, as though he was recalling a conversation that he'd had with his own father. I honestly didn't know how to feel. I felt a combination of anger, subsequent guilt, and painful longing. But I mainly felt grief. I finally had a dad I could see, that I knew things about, and I had lost him senselessly.