In the morning we got ready. “You still haven’t told me how work’s been.”
Lexus chuckled. “We’re on vacation, I don’t want to talk about work.” I looked at him seriously. “Fine,
work is good. I’m practically running Viv’s business myself. We’re considered partners now.”
“What do you even do?” I felt weird that I didn’t know but it’s not like I didn’t try talking about it before.
“She’s a noble. Her business is creating work for the people of her kingdom, selling them land, and
giving them protection. She works closely with the king and queen too.” I noticed he was feeling
admiration for Viv.
“How do you feel about Viv?”
Lexus sighed. “She’s always been a really good friend, she’s still a really good friend. I enjoy her
company and I missed her but not in a sexual or romantic way.” Since we were mates I could tell when
he was lying, and he wasn’t. “I love you Aqua, I only ever blocked my emotions and thoughts from you
out of fear. It’s hard to open up this much to someone. I lost my two best friends, and I don’t want you
lose you. I’m not going to block you from feeling my emotions or thoughts when we’re away from each
other anymore.” He wasn’t lying.
I smiled because I realized Lexus wasn’t hiding himself anymore. Not at all.
We met with the others around noon. Mom sighed. “I’m nervous, we should do something else before
we visit them.”
Dad held her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s better that we get this out of the way okay? Then we can show
Lexus, Cade, Sadia and Gray around.”
We all started walking. I noticed Cade staring at my parents’ hands as they held each other’s. He
looked at Gray. “Why’d you want to come so bad?”
Gray smiled. “Isn’t this where Aqua lived before? It’s so cool that it’s a whole other world. Didn’t you
want to come badly too?”
Cade shrugged. “It’s cool I guess.”
I looked at my phone and noticed Sadia texted me: When are you going to make up with Cade? He
won’t admit it, but he missed you. He didn’t mean what he said about the defending your parents thing.
He’s been having to be there for his mom a lot so it’s weird for him to have to be around his dad who’s
so happy with someone else.
I never thought about how it must have been with his mom. Not in that way anyways. When we got to
our family home I didn’t feel good. It was one thing to visit when my adoptive parents were out of town,
but I knew they were here. Tay told me they’d be here, and our grandparents would be too.
I walked to Cade. “Before I go in with them can I talk to you?”
Cade nodded and we walked a distance away from them. “Is this good or bad?”
“Well, I wanted to know how your mom was doing.”
Cade frowned. “What?”
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“Not really, things were the worst a couple months ago.” Around the time we last saw each other. “She
had just moved into her own place and I had to go over a lot when Gray wasn’t there so she wouldn’t
be alone. She cried a lot and told me that she regretted rejecting Dad. It was hard to hear.” He sighed. I
could tell it was hard for him to talk about. “Things got better… until she found out about Mae and Dad
being together a few weeks ago. She kept asking me about her so she could compare herself to her.
She can see how happy he is when he comes to pick up and drop off Gray. She knows it’s because of
Mae.” He groaned in frustration. “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want you to tell anyone and
don’t let Dad know that you know. Dad doesn’t even know I know. A few days ago, she begged Dad to
take her back. I wasn’t there but she told me about it. I think I’m the only person she’s comfortable
talking about him with. I feel bad but I wish I weren’t the only one. She told him she still loved him and
that she wanted to get back together. She said she forgave him for his affair. He obviously turned her
down and… then she tried to kiss him, and he avoided it and left. I think there was a little more to it
then she told me. I think she was upset that he wouldn’t cheat on Mae with her, but he cheated on her
with Mae.”
“Oh…” It was a lot to take in. “I’m sorry she’s going through all of that. I’m sorry you have to shoulder
it.” Maybe he felt the way he did about my mom because how much she was indirectly hurting his.
Cade shrugged. “Yeah but she’s my mom and I shouldn’t be so hard on your mom. Neither one of them
are perfect and that’s more clear to me now.”
“Do you…” I looked away. “Do you like humanity?”
“Huh?” He looked confused. “Uh… I don’t really know much about humanity, not firsthand. I like you
and I’m willing to give Mae a chance. I guess with everything I heard about it I wasn’t thrilled with
coming here but Gray made a good case for it.” He shrugged. “At first I didn’t understand why Dad
would want to be with a human, they’re fragile and live half the time we do. I get it now because I see
how much he loves her.” He paused. “Are we good now? Am I allowed to be around you and Mae?”
I nodded and chuckled a little. “We’re good, you’re definitely allowed to be around us.” We hugged then
walked back to the others. “Are we going in?”
Mom nodded and we walked to the front doorstep and knocked. Cade, Sadia and Gray walked to the
nearby park while the rest of us stayed. My aunt answered the door. She looked at Mom in shock.
“Maeve… you’re alive.” She looked at me and tears were in her eye. “Aqua… I didn’t think you’d come
back, I thought you hated us.”
I shook my head. “I never hated you Mom…” I didn’t feel comfortable calling her anything else in that
moment, she did raise me.
My birth mother hugged my adopted mother. “You were always right… I was just too different for this
world.” Mom sniffled. “And I guess my daughter was too. Thank you for raising her.”
After our trip was over in a few days I felt different. Everything felt right. I was on my father’s back on
the way back to the hidden world. I jumped off and shifted into my dragon form. I realized then that the
dream I always had when I was younger was a holder dream and that I was seeing this moment.
The End
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