Chapter 72
Sapphire’s POV
Grandma catches me watching her and her face softens. For a long beat she looks away into the middle distance, a faraway look coming into her eyes that I’ve seen on Brie and Taffy when they talk about their mates. “You know,” she says, voice low and far-off, “I used to hate anything with too much pepper or spice.” She gives a small, dry laugh and stirs her teacup with a spoon. I turn my head fully towards her; she’s remembering something.
“I grew into it because of Evander,” she says, and the name lands in the room like a dropped stone. “That man was obsessed with pepper. He could eat it like it was nothing. Jesse and I ended up learning to love it beside him—not like he did, but enough. Anyone who can eat chilli like he did is a maniac. God help anyone who has to live with that sort of madness.”
I listen because I have nothing else to give. I don’t know how to fill these moments with words of my own. She looks at me then, really looks, and something in her face shifts from memory to recognition. “You don’t just look like Evander,” she says slowly, “you smell a little like him. You have his way of leaning back and rubbing your stomach when you’re full. If I didn’t know better, I’d have taken him for your father.”
Something in me lurches. The familiarity I felt earlier prickles into a new sharpness; this explains the odd tug I felt when I saw his photograph. I look like the female version of him? My chest tightens and my mind runs through impossible questions. It isn’t reasonable—Evander died decades ago. Right?
She watches my face and the smile drops out of hers. “Not possible,” she says, voice flattening a little with the weight of facts. “Evander had impossibly real cadmium-red hair and Spanish red eyes. His skin was pecan brown. And his scent was…distinct. You don’t carry that full scent. Your build isn’t his either; nothing about you is the sort his descendant would inherit. Besides, you’re eighteen; he died a long time ago.” She sets the cup down, the sound small in the quiet room.
Silence arrives heavy. I had always known my father died soon after I was conceived; that much is part of the few scraps of truth Mother left. But Evander? If he’s gone that long, then he can’t be my father. The thought should be relief, but instead there’s a hollow, the kind that pulls at the bottom of my ribs.
When I raise my head, her eyes are wet. For a moment I am shocked—I didn’t expect her to cry all of a sudden. I cross the room without thinking and sit beside her. I don’t have words; I have hands. I wrap my arms around her and rest my head on her shoulder. She lets me, and her small, close chuckle carries both humour and sorrow.
“You must think I’m daft,” she says, trying to make light of the rawness in her voice. “You probably think I mistook you for someone you’re not.” Her hand moves to the back of my head and pats there the way someone pats a child’s hair. There’s an ache in her mouth as she smiles. “Evander wasn’t my mate,” she says, quick to correct as if afraid I’ll think anything else. “I loved him badly, but it was one-sided. He was strong as an ox and stubborn as a mule. Until his last breath, he was the one I couldn’t best—but then again, a student never does outshine her master.”
I picture the small man in the old photograph again, and the idea that he was somehow so fierce and unyielding surprises me. She squeezes my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says after a pause, the words soft. “I didn’t mean to get lost in the past. Your face, it brought him back for a moment.”
We stay that way in comfortable silence for a few minutes. The tea cools and the clock ticks above us. My breathing slows to the regular rhythm of the room. “Let me tell you something,” she says, and her voice settles into a serious softness. “I don’t know everything you’ve been through, Child. I can’t imagine some of it. But I know this: you’re surrounded by people who want the best for you. Even that rude bastard, Hendrix, he wants to spend his life with you. Trust them. Trust him.”
Something inside me shifts. I reach for my phone before my head can swim with the pressure of feelings. My fingers move almost of their own accord to the communication app, typing the truth into the small, bright box: I do trust him. I really do.
Her eyes search mine. Then, quietly, she asks, “Then why don’t you speak, Child?”
“Because nobody cares to listen to me except my mother!” I type the words into the communication app, thumb hovering over send until the little whoosh tells me it’s gone.
Grandma tilts her head and gives me a gentle, disbelieving smile. “Child, read that again,” she says softly. “Think about what you wrote. Don’t you see how those words sound to the people who have been here for you?”
I look down at the screen and read the sentence again. At first I don’t see what she means. The words look honest and straightforward; they match the ache I’ve carried so long. I stare at them, the little white letters too small somehow for the shame that’s meant to be in them. Nothing in the sentence seems wrong—until it does.
The pause is not dramatic. It’s a small, practised quiet where memory begins to move through me: Scarlette sitting cross-legged on my floor, palms open and patient; Brie bringing me food when I barely left my room; Drix listening while I signed clumsy sentences until I found the right ones.
The prick of realisation grows, slow and ordinary. I feel my chest tighten. I had built a little fortress of silence and convinced myself it was the only safe thing. But those people—Scarlette and the others—had been knocking at my gate all along, offering themselves as a place to put my voice. I had turned them all away. Especially Scarlette.
A single hot tear slides down my cheek. My hands begin to shake. The thought that I have robbed them of the chance to be there for me tastes like guilt and small foolishness all mixed together.
Grandma watches me without hurry. “You see?” she says when I finally meet her eyes. “You have people who will listen. You always have.”
Tears slips down my cheek. I lift my head and look at Grandma; her face expression is soft and gentle. My hands tremble more. It’s not just nerves—it’s terror, a coldness that sits behind my ribs. The thought of speaking aloud after so long makes my throat close. The last time I spoke, really spoke, was the day I heard Mother had gone. Everything after that shrank to silence.
Grief sits in my chest like a weight. Regret follows close behind. I think of the fight we had, the slammed door, the way I let anger win when I should have followed her. I regret not stopping her when she left to find a cure for me. I regret not going with her when some small part of me told me I should. I regret the things I said and the stubbornness that made us part.
Those regrets have been the reason I shut up, the reason I believed my voice didn’t matter. But now I see how wrong that was. Scarlette has always wanted me to speak; she offered herself as witness and ear, and I refused her that trust. How much have I hurt her by staying silent? How many chances have I wasted with the people here who would have listened?
“Child,” Grandma says, her hand steady on my shoulder. I try to answer and only a choked sob comes out, my fingers clamped over my mouth as if to hold the sound back.
“Regret doesn’t do you any good,” she says softly. “I have regrets enough to fill a lifetime—about Evander and mistakes I made. They sit with me every day. But you still have time. You can make amends. Will you keep living in what’s gone, or will you try to change what’s left?”