Chapter 18 018
Chapter 19
Thalia’s POV
One look at him and I almost lost my mind. If we were not in a public place, I might have just pounced on him altogether. Instead, I kept my cool as much as I could, sending all of my anger into a glare and crossing my arms. I stepped closer so the words I would say would only be heard between the two of us.
"Varian, Liam felt sick. His temperature was shooting up. I needed to take him here to the hospital, but there was not one single vehicle belonging to the Packhouse that I could board. Do you think that is normal?"
His face showed a brief flash of shame, but it was gone quicker than it even come. He looked back at me with self-justification already rising up in his eyes. Then he spoke. "How was I supposed to know that Liam's condition was going to deteriorate so badly? Shelly just wanted to go stargazing, and I could not have her leave the Packhouse without appropriate protection. I was just helping out a friend and—"
"Enough of that," I said, my voice getting sharp. "You keep saying 'friend,' but sometimes with the way you act, I think that maybe you are—"
My mother stepped in at this point, standing between the two of us and trying to simmer down the tension that was boiling. "This isn't the time to play the blame game. Your mate is here now, isn't he? The most important thing is to focus on Liam's recovery."
My chest got tight. Framing it like that made it look like I was just an emotional woman breaking out unreasonably on her mate, but I wasn't being unreasonable. As far as I knew, Shelly was just a friend. There was no need for her to require so much protection; there was no need that the resources of the Packhouse should be expended so fluidly for her.
But because the situation would quickly turn into a two-against-one if I decided to ignore my mother's advice, I stepped back for now. I sat down properly for the first time since I came to the waiting room. It was my mother who was filling Varian in on what was going on with our son. All the while, I watched and waited for his reaction to see if he would feel any proper shame for what he had done.
He came forward, his face loaded with emotion. When he sat next to me, he rubbed his fingers together and said, "I'm sorry. I had no idea this would really happen. I'll make sure that I act more reasonably next time."
"Next time?" I repeated after him, like it was a curse word that he had spilled into my ears. "Does that mean that you are still planning to do something like this again?"
His eyebrows met each other, and his face started pulling back into its defensive wall again. "As I said, I'm going to take precautions to make sure that something like this does not happen again. Isn't that good enough?"
I wanted to scream a very loud "no" in his face. Instead, with my mother looking at me with a warning in her eyes, I tried to sugarcoat my feelings and be more considerate—as if I had not already been considerate enough.
"Varian, I understand that Shelly needs support—"
"I don't like where this conversation is going," he interrupted me.
But I just continued speaking anyway without stopping, as if I had not even heard him. I knew that annoyed him, which was exactly why I proceeded to do it—with the hope that it would spite him, just like how he had been unintentionally or intentionally spitting on me all this time.
"Varian, when I was pregnant, you were not this attentive to me. Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? I wasn't getting meals planned by a dietitian, and I also wasn't able to get a gender reveal—or what I could call a proper one. I definitely wasn't taken stargazing anytime by you."
His face was now firmly set in that defensive mask. "Well, last time I checked," he said without a shred of guilt, "you and Shelly are completely different people, aren't you? Besides, Shelly is not as strong as you are. She is fragile, easily takes things to heart—a sensitive woman."
The way he spoke of her, as if she were a little baby bird that had fallen from its nest and it was his responsibility to nurse her back to health, had a bit more emotion than I liked. It made me raise my eyebrows. I turned my legs, angling them closer to him. "Then if she is all of that, what am I? Made of stone in your eyes, Varian?"
His answer to this was a passive-aggressive shrug. "If you keep acting the way you do right now, then what else would I call it?"
I was beginning to see red after he said that. Then, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He instantly fished it out and stared at the screen, angling it away from my eyes, and then stuffed it back into his pocket. He got up and was planning to leave without any explanation.
I grabbed him by his arm with a grip that was tighter than necessary. "Where are you heading to?"
His eyes moved from one wall to the other, intentionally avoiding my own. "It's some Pack affairs. I have to leave now."
Even if I had only one functioning brain cell left in my head, I knew he was leaving right now for a very specific reason. And that reason wasn't Pack affairs, but perhaps another type. People were beginning to stare and I didn't want them to recognize us, so I just pulled away, keeping my eyes on him as I said, "All right then. Say hello to Shelly for me while taking care of your 'affair.'"
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