Chapter 3
897 Words
Sera POV
Chapter 3: The Quiet Departure
The next morning came grey and softz I was already awake before the morning brighten.
I had not really slept. I lay in the bed with my eyes open and the ceiling above me and I thought very clearly about every single thing I needed to do.
I already had enough of Henry and I'm going home without feeling any remorse, I needed to do what's needed of me.
Feelings were for later. Right now I had a list of thing to do and pack.
Henry came home at 3am.
I heard the front door. Heard his shoes on the stairs. Heard him stop outside the bedroom for just a moment, maybe checking if I was awake, maybe not caring either way and then heard him walk to the guest room.
He didn't even pretend anymore.
Good.
It made what I was doing easier.
I started packing from the small things first. That's was it, I didn't need his permission neither do I need to let him know I was leaving, my wolf wanted drama but I felt I didn't to stand in the middle of the room with heart breaking to confront Henry.
I just acted normal like I was folding laundry.
I took my books first. Packed them flat in the bottom of the bag my father sent me when I first moved here, a big leather bag, Redfang brown, that I had kept hidden at the back of the closet for a year. Then my clothes. Only the ones I actually liked. I left behind everything Henry had chosen for me.
The pale blue dress went back on its hanger.
I didn't touch it.
Then my documents. My real ones, with my real name. Sera Redfang. I had kept them in a locked box under a loose floorboard in the bathroom. Henry had never known that box existed.
He had never been curious enough to look.
I put the box in the bag.
I zipped it closed.
I stood up and looked at the room.
One year of my life lived between these four walls. One year of careful lying. Of making myself smaller and softer and easier for a man who had never deserved a single day of it.
I felt nothing sad looking at it now.
Just a clean, clear feeling.
Like opening a window in a room that had been shut too long.
Henry found me in the kitchen at nine.
I was making breakfast.
Eggs. Toast. His coffee with two sugars, no milk. I had the radio on low and I was humming something soft and I looked, I was sure, like a woman with absolutely nothing on her mind.
He stood in the doorway in yesterday's shirt.
He looked at me.
I looked at him and smiled.
"Morning," I said. "Eggs?"
He sat down slowly, trying to figure out a puzzle.
"You're not angry," he said.
"About what?" I asked.
I put the eggs on his plate. I poured his coffee. I sat across from him with my own cup and I looked at him with the softest, most patient eyes I had.
He shifted in his seat.
"Last night," he said. "At the gala."
"Oh." I waved my hand lightly. "You had too much to drink. You said something silly. It's fine, Henry.”
He stared at me.
"You're not really upset."
"I'm tired," I said simply. "And I miss my family. I was actually thinking about visiting them this week. Just a few days. I haven't seen my father in months if not years."
The shift in his face was instant.
As his guilt replaced by relief.
He thought I was running away to cry at my family's house. He thought the visit was about heartbreak. He thought he was getting three days of peace without a sad Luna moping around his pack house.
"Sure," he said, reaching for his fork. "Take your time."
Take your time that was what he could say.
I smiled into my coffee cup.
"Thank you," I said softly. "You're so understanding."
He actually nodded believing me.
He had no idea at all who was sitting across the table from him.
My bags were already in the car.
I had put them there before dawn while he slept.
I washed the breakfast dishes. I wiped the counter clean. I folded the dish towel neatly over the oven handle the way I always did.
Then I picked up my keys and my handbag and I walked to the front door.
Henry was in the living room watching something on his phone.
"I'll be back by the weekend," I called.
"Mm," he said. Not even looking up.
I opened the front door.
The morning air hit my face. Cool and fresh and smelling like pine trees and open road and everything that was waiting for me on the other side of this life.
I did not look back.
I stepped outside.
I pulled the door shut behind me.
And I walked to my car and I drove away from Henry's pack, and his pale blue dress, and his two sugars no milk, and every single small and careful lie I had ever told myself about what love was supposed to feel like.
My father's pack were six hours away.
I turned the music up loud.
I drove.
- Writer
