FATED: 2ND BOOK OF GRAVITY

2. Yesterday

2. Yesterday

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away

Now it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh, I believe in yesterday

The day seems longer than it used to be. I don’t seek him out, but I don’t wait out for him either. I don't expect him to weed me out just for a conversation, but it would have been nice to have one. But I'm not even sure if I was a positive person in his life. I’d rather argue that I wasn’t considering what we went through. He didn’t even like me and bullied me the first time he saw me. I was the only human at school and there were only three of us in town, and I'm related to all of them.

So, I made a decision not to talk to him at all. What right did I have? He hasn’t answered any of the letters that I’ve sent throughout the ten years and most of them consisted of me thanking him for what he did.

The least that I could do was thank him personally. Why am I even obsessing over this? I lean my head on the wall to cool my head. I have a habit of choosing a corner seat just so I can lean on a cold wall. It also feels safer to just find a wall and lean my back to make sure no one is behind me.

My phone vibrates and I look over it to see that it was just Yume checking in on me. Yume and I might be human, but we have this sixth sense of knowing that something is wrong with the other. Trauma bonds you in that way, I guess.

I quickly replied to him that I’d tell him later and switched my phone off.

I don’t share this class with him and I feel a sense of comfort with that. I won't have to face him right now or be tempted to face him. I do need to prepare before that and I have no idea what to say other than “Thank you for saving me which put you into juvie. Sorry about that!”

I groan inwardly.

“Miss Olsen?” my math teacher cslld. I think his name was Larson or something. Like all werewolves in town, he’s a gorgeous man who is probably way older than me by four decades even though he looked to have lived just three. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” I answer him in Finnish, I straighten back and pretended to scribble something on my notes as an excuse. I really need to be careful because most of the teachers here are my father's spies. They’ll report anything to him in a heartbeat through the pack link.

Suddenly

I'm not half the man I used to be

There's a shadow hangin' over me

Oh, yesterday came suddenly

Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say

I said something wrong, and now I long for yesterday

At some point, school finally comes to an end and I’m waiting outside by the curb for my Dad to pick me up. I’ve successfully avoided seeing him again and kept myself busy with schoolwork. I think I’ve already finished the first and second week's worth of work just to escape him and my urge.

“So, you’re her” The heavy Welsh accent took my attention, and just by that accent I just knew who she is without having seen her face.

I meet her gaze. She’s taller and absolutely stunning with long brunette waves cascading down her shoulder and her cherry lips pucker at the sight of me. What human wouldn’t be insecure of all of the gorgeous werewolves in town? Mama used to be bothered by their beauty too, but somehow, she managed to go past it, much to my dad's relief.

“Me?” the one who put him in juvie? My chest feels hollow and I suddenly don’t have the urge to look at anyone in the eye anymore.

She scoffs. “Good to know that you know your place”

I completely looked away from her and stared at the road. “I do, and you really should be careful”

“What? Is that a threat?” She hisses. She pushes my shoulder, but it's controlled enough that I don't fall back on the road.

I see Papa’s car right at this moment. “I might be the human that you want to bully and all that, but I think you’ve forgotten who my Dad is”

Papa stops right in front of us and then rolls his window. He glares at the girl with as much menace as I know he can and growls. “I don’t know who this kid is. Care to tell me, Sana?”

Usually, I would sigh at this point. Papa is always like this when I meet someone who wasn’t from his pack, but I made a promise to Yume that I wouldn’t ever be bullied ever again and this girl clearly aims to do so. “Someone trying to intimidate me”

“What?!” his harsh voice made the girl flinch.

She sneers at me. “You’re a rat”

“What did you call my daughter pup?!” Papa climbs out of the car, but she already scurries inside the school to hide. “I’m not done with—”

“Papa, it’s okay” I grab his sleeve before he storms inside the campus. I already feel some of the stares from the other students and it’s not worth it, as long as the point was established in public then I’m going to just let it go. “We’re going to be late with Aune and Alek’s thing”

Papa huffs out some hot air and snarls one last time toward the direction the Welsh girl went. “Okay, but you call me when she bothers you again” he softened and gave me a worried look. “Are you sure you don’t want me to handle this?”

I shake my head. “It’s fine Papa, really.”

Papa climbed inside the car and I did as well. I looked behind my seat and there wasn’t anyone else inside the vehicle with us “Where’s Yume?”

“I-I-I thought you’d appreciate being picked up first” He pulls out of the curb of my school.

I frown. “It was the math teacher, right?”

He goes quiet. He didn’t even look at me as he turned the radio on and kept his eyes on the road. Sometimes, it’s truly hard to believe that people are scared of my Viking Dad. Sure, he’s big and a wolf and all, but he’s harmless to us. We’re human and he hasn’t hurt anyone of us at all.

I’ve seen what a true monster is like and Papa is the farthest thing from it. Who even stutters to answer their teenage daughter that way? Not a monster.

Yume climbs in the back of Papa’s large Range Rover and he’s puzzled to see me in the front seat beside Papa. His brows furrow together as he slowly sits and takes the seatbelt around his body because Papa would throw a fit if we even dared to not be safe in his presence.

He gives me a look that says You’re going to tell me later, right?

I nod. “Oh, hey, Papa don’t we need to buy flowers for this play?”

“Hmm, should we? Is that a thing?”

“It is, but I hardly think a little kid’s play would merit something like that” Yume mutters behind Papa.

“If I remember correctly, we threw a party when you grew out of your lisp” I scoff at him. “You hardly have the right to say that!”

Papa chuckles. Yume just rolls his eyes and pushes his glasses up his nose again. He got the family’s sweaty nose too.

“Plus, Grandma and Grandpa would demand flowers, so we might as well get it.” I grin at Papa. Poking his shoulder to annoy him.

Papa scoffs at me, but his lips are tipped up. “You just want us to buy flowers from your work”

“I am the best employee of the only flower shop in town” I keep poking Papa till he lets out a full-blown smile. “You’ve got to support your daughter or she loses her only job”

Papa sighs with that smile. “I still don’t know why I agreed to you having that job”

“Because Uncle Tapio could be really annoying if he’s on my side” I grin at him, during moments like this all my worries seem to fade. Us just being a family, it helps me forget the fact that we’re human in a town filled with werewolves and that we’re not as different from the rest of our family.

There was one summer when I asked Uncle Tapio to help me get a job as an assistant florist. He didn’t stop annoying Papa till he said yes. Uncle sent letters, and emails, and even came to our house holding bouquets of different flowers just to throw them at Papa’s face and run away. Uncle Sven had to get in on it and started to throw mud at Papa while we were in our Grandparent’s house. I felt sorry for a while until it succeeded and I apologized to Papa after. I should’ve known better not to set his own brothers against him.

Papa seems to remember this and frowns. “I begged Aiti to only have one son.” Mother

Yume and I laugh.

By the end of the drive, we had bought red roses from my boss and everyone was already in the twin’s school. By everyone, I meant everyone in my family. My grandparents, Uncle Sven, and Uncle Tapio were there along with my Mom who went ahead to help the twins with their play. A whole row of seats were reserved for us on the front and I could just feel the nepotism oozing out of it.

Who gets front-row seats for their preschool kid’s play? Us. Who brings their whole family for said play? Us.

Grandma is in her quarter-sleeved shirt and jeans, standing by the entrance with Grandpa. They see the three of us and her eyes lit up and Grandpa had to let go of Grandma’s arm to hug me and Yume together like he’s molding us together.

“My little babies!” Grandpa lifts the both of us off the floor.

“Dad! Human!” Papa growls in warning. His hand on Grandpa’s arm to pry him off.

“It’s okay” Yume and I say in unison. I stifle the urge to groan, but my lungs are burning.

Grandpa shakes Papa off, the only other person who could do that. He kisses our foreheads before he lets the two of us go. Grandpa is the only werewolf that looks truly elderly, but he’s a century old from what I’ve heard. His salt and pepper hair swept back while his blue eyes gaze at our dark ones.

“Good idea with the flowers, kultsi” he pets my hair.

“She’s only advertising for her work” Yume rolls his eyes and elbows me. “Stop making Jorgen’s flower shop rich with our family’s money”

“Like they’ll be contributing to the economy by just letting their money stay in savings” I snap back at him.

Grandma sighs. “I forgot that our grandbabies are Asian sometimes, but hearing them talk is a good reminder” she jokes

I laugh. “Hi Mami” I tiptoe to kiss her cheek, but even then she has to lean down for me to reach it.

“Had a good first day of school?” She caresses my cheek lovingly.

“Ugh,” I answer.

“Now that truly sounds like everyone’s high school” She giggles and kisses both my cheeks and then Yumes.

“Ooh, a family gathering outside the hall?” I heard Uncle Tapio before I even saw him. He comes out through the doors with his blonde hair tousled and blue eyes always glinting with mischief. Grandma said that she was supposed to name him Loki until Grandpa asked her to name him Tapio instead. “Why wasn’t I called?”

Papa shoves the bouquet of red roses harshly into Tapio’s arms then wordlessly went inside the hall. Uncle Tapio just laughed it off while giving Yume and me kisses on the cheek.

“Come on, your Mom is going to have a mental breakdown if you two weren’t in the crowd”

We all follow Uncle Tapio and just like he said, we see Mama peeking out of the curtains to look at the crowd. She finds us and beams, waving a hand with a wide smile. Papa wasn’t anywhere in the crowd either.

I sit beside Yume near the aisle and I wait for the loud music from the stereo before I elbow him. He looks at me with his glasses sliding down his nose and I can’t help but wipe his sweaty nose with my fingers and push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Ew,” He groans.

“Shut up, it’s just sweat” I raise my brows, "It's your sweat"

He scowls. “I’m disgusted for you”

I roll my eyes. “You peed on me when you were born, that’s worse”

“Can we not?” he blushes. “Anyway how was school?”

I try to smile, but it doesn’t come out great. I look beside me where Papa should be sitting but he’s nowhere to be found. I don’t worry about him too much because knowing him, he might be behind the curtains with Mama with the twins.

“Hard” I bite my lower lip and pat his knee. “But it’s okay”

He gives me his signature worried look. “You promised me”

“I know and I’m fighting back. Just…it’s hard, you know?”

He frowns. “I do”

Yume and I have been through a lot. Mama too, but thankfully she found things that made her happy and she had to go through a lot to make sure that we feel safe, and we do, but the scars are still there. I still look at the mirror and see everything that's wrong with me.

One of the reasons why it’s also hard to talk to Albie is that he reminds me of what happened that night. Mama is stronger than both of us, but she was beaten by our biological father too and she went through worse things than us. So, when Papa came and she looked like she was finally happy and at peace, we decided to protect it. That includes not telling her most of the things that are happening in our lives.

Aune comes out at the start of the play as a fairy, and I don’t quite grasp what the story is but she’s floating around and dancing while I spot Alek in tights with a green hat.

“What is this play?” I ask Yume.

“It’s like Peter Pan, but shorter and filled with toddlers.” Yume shrugs.

I laugh. “This is so silly”

“You…saw him, didn’t you?” Yume touches my hand on his knee. When did his hands get this big? It easily grasped my knee and it’s incredibly warm.

I nod. “I thought it would be easy, but when I finally saw him I cried for some odd reason as if I’d break right at that moment.”

“Cried for what?”

“Sorrow? Relief? A mixture of both” I entwine our hands. I stifle the urge to cry with my Grandma just a few seats beside me. “Funny thing is, I really wanted him to come to me to talk to me, but I felt selfish”

“Ate” He sighs. big sister “You’re not selfish”

“I am. He went to juvie and was gone from his home for a decade. Who was I to talk to him as if I hadn’t ruined his life?”

“You forget that you almost died then. You’re forgetting about yourself” He lowers his body just to lean on my shoulder.

I sniff. “I’m fine. I’m happy”

He looks up at me with a deep frown that makes him look older than he is. “The thing is, I know that you’re not.”

I lean my forehead against his. I feel like breaking down at his words but I bite my lip and shake my head. “I will be” I whisper with every intent of making it true.