From Loyalty to Divorce

Chapter 2 — How It Really Began

I fell into a memory.

It was not complicated. He chased me. I ignored him.

Back then we were on the same campus. He was just “Harrison" to me, a tall guy who kept showing up with a smile and a reason to talk. I did not know he was the Alpha's son or the next in line. I did not care. I had classes, a part‑time job at the music room, and a cheap apartment that always smelled like laundry soap.

He tried the simple things first. He brought coffee with my name written on the cup. I tossed it in the trash and kept walking. He left small boxes on my desk—trinkets, keychains, a hair tie in my favorite color. I dropped them in the nearest bin without opening them. When he asked if he could walk me to the bus stop, I said no and put in my earphones. When he asked again the next day, I said no again.

He did not stop. He timed his steps to mine between buildings and talked about ordinary things. He told jokes that were not great but were clean and kind. He never raised his voice. He never blocked my way. He simply showed up, day after day, with steady patience. I kept my answers short. “No, thank you." “I'm busy." “Please leave me alone." He took every answer and came back the next morning like it was a new chance.

One night in late fall I walked out of piano practice and felt a sharp pain low in my belly. It was fast and mean. My vision blurred. I leaned on a locker and tried to breathe through it. The hallway tilted. My hands shook so hard that my bag slid down my shoulder and hit the floor. I told myself it would pass. It did not.

Harrison saw me from the end of the hall. He did not ask for permission. He put his coat around me, picked up my bag, and got me to his car. He drove straight to the hospital. In the triage room he answered questions I could not. He stayed while the nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and while the doctor ordered tests. He held my hand when the pain came in waves. He said, “Breathe with me," and he did it until I could match him.

It turned out to be an acute attack that needed treatment and rest. It scared me. He did not leave, not for hours. He bought terrible coffee and did not drink it because he did not want to miss the sound of my name if I said it. When they let me go, he drove me back to my apartment, carried me up the stairs, and made sure I had water and medicine on the nightstand. He said, “Call me if it hurts again," and wrote his number on a sticky note even though he knew I might never use it.

The next day I did not throw away the coffee he brought. I said, “Thank you," and meant it. That was the first small change.

After that we spoke more. Short talks at first. Weather. Exams. The way the practice rooms always smelled like dust and wood. He kept his distance unless I invited him closer. He did not push. He did not keep score. He watched my face when I answered so he would know if I wanted the talk to stop. I noticed, and I noticed that noticing is its own kind of care.

When he finally asked me to dinner again, I said yes. We ate noodles and shared one bowl of soup because the place was small and the menu was simple. He walked me home and did not try to kiss me on the first night. On the second week he asked if he could hold my hand. I let him. On the third week I told him I did not like surprise gifts. He said, “Then I'll stop," and he did.

Months later he told me the truth about his family. We were sitting on the bottom step of the library, and he said, “I should tell you something." I said, “Okay." He said, “My father is the Alpha of Greybridge Pack. I'm next in line." I looked at him and at his steady hands and asked, “Does that change who you are with me?" He said, “No." I said, “Then we will deal with the rest when it comes."

We married in a simple way. A small courthouse. Two friends as witnesses. Thin rings that left a faint green mark on our fingers when we forgot to take them off in the shower. We ate cake on the kitchen floor because our table had not arrived yet. He carried me around the room and bumped my shoulder into the doorframe by accident. We laughed until we cried. He promised me he would always come home. I believed him.

After the ceremony for his succession, everything sped up. He became Alpha Harrison, and people started looking at him like he was the answer to a long test. There were meetings, patrols, councils, disputes, new wolves, old wolves, and a constant stream of things only he could fix. Some nights he made it home by ten. Many nights he did not. When I asked if we could set one night aside for dinner, he said he would try. At first he did. Then he stopped trying.

I learned that there is a difference between a busy man who is sorry to be away and a busy man who decides that absence is the normal price of power. He began to talk to me like a report. He stopped asking me about my day. He sat on the couch with his phone in his hand and his mind in another room.

We had a daughter, Mia. She was the best thing we ever did. The first time he held her, he cried. He called her “little wolf" and promised her a world that was safe. For a while, I thought that promise would pull him back to us. It did not. It only gave him another reason to say he was working for something bigger than home.

The change in his voice came little by little. It grew short. It grew cold. When I called him during a fever, he said, “Is it urgent?" When I said yes, he asked for numbers instead of feelings. When I waited up, he texted “meeting" and came back after sunrise. When I asked if he could skip one patrol to watch Mia's school play, he said he would try and then forgot.

One night I called him because the water heater had burst and the hallway was flooding. I did not need him to fix it. I needed him to pick up the phone and hear me so I would not feel alone in a house full of towels. He answered on the fourth ring and said, “What now, Charlotte?" I said, “The heater is done. I shut the valve. We will need a new one." He sighed and said, “I give you three hundred thousand a month so you can be content and take care of the child. Don't call me over small things." I said, “This is our home." He said, “Handle it." The line went quiet and then dead. I stood in the water and realized I was talking to a wall that could speak.

After that, I stopped calling for a while. I told myself it was better to save my voice for Mia. I told myself he would come back to us when the busy season ended. The busy season did not end. It changed its name.

Tonight, after five years of short answers and long nights, I sat alone in a hospital waiting area while our daughter was in surgery. Before they took her through the double doors, she asked to see her father. I tried to call him. A woman answered. I knew her voice. I hung up.

Now, in this memory, I am still in the early days, and we are still young, and he is still the man who sat all night in a plastic chair so that I would not wake up in pain and alone. I keep this part because it is true. I also keep the part that came after, because it is true as well.

After we married, his patience turned into distance. His gifts turned into allowances. His warm hands turned into a cool phone held to his ear while he paced a different room. When I asked, “Can you come home for dinner?" he said, “No." When I said, “Can you call Mia before bed?" he said, “Tomorrow." Tomorrow stretched into weeks. Weeks stretched into a year.

One evening, I tried again. I called him and waited. He picked up on the fifth ring. His voice was flat. He said he was tired and asked me not to start an argument. I said I only wanted to hear his voice. He said the same line he had started to use for everything: “I give you three hundred thousand a month so you can be quiet, stay home, and take good care of the child. Don't bother me with trivial things."

I did not yell. I did not throw the phone. I stood at the kitchen counter and listened to a sentence that turned our marriage into a contract I had never signed. I understood, in that moment, that something had ended inside him, and that I was the only one still pretending it was alive.

I said, “Okay," because there was nothing else to say.

He added, “Be sensible, Charlotte." Then he hung up.

The call ended. So did the memory.