Emma felt that Patrick was different from many people she had met, “You don’t seem like the nobles I know.”
Most nobles were rough and brutal; they never bothered to understand an ordinary werewolf.
“For example?”
“You are kind, not like an arrogant noble.”
Patrick was somewhat surprised, “You are one of the few who think I’m kind.”
Emma chuckled, “It’s just a feeling. I like your kindness.”
“Since you think I’m kind, would you be willing to talk to me about your past?” Patrick asked her. “Sometimes, what troubles you might not necessarily be what happened, but rather the pain that has nowhere to go. I am a qualified listener.”
Emma found this quite intriguing. Apart from her good friend Florence, no one had been curious about her past from childhood to adulthood.
Worried that she might feel uncomfortable, Patrick added, “But if you feel burdened by talking about those things and don’t want to, that’s okay too. I just want to tell you that when you need to express yourself, there will always be someone willing to share that pain with you.”
Patrick’s sudden remark surprised Emma. In her understanding, Patrick was a somewhat self-centered boy; his status didn’t require him to consider others’ feelings. Even though she was about to become his sister, he didn’t even care about Nelson, let alone his previous partner’s daughter.
“I thought you didn’t actually want a new sister,” she said. “But now it seems it’s not like that.”
Patrick was surprised by her misunderstanding of him. “How so?”
“Because you don’t like Nelson. And your mother also dislikes me. As your mother’s son, I am someone you dislike, you know, hating someone can subconsciously transfer to others around that person, just like your mother hates me.”
The statement seemed to make some sense, yet not entirely. Patrick pondered over it twice before seizing the fundamental logical error in her words. “But you are not Nelson. I dislike Nelson because I cannot accept his abandonment of his partner and child, not because he is my mother’s second partner. Initially, both my mother and I thought he didn’t have a partner before, otherwise, a beta with a partner would not have had a chance with my mother.”
Strictly speaking, this was a serious act of deception. Patrick had considered persuading his mother to give up Nelson, but Nelson was genuinely good to his mother, and his mother seemed unable to do without Nelson. Patrick knew he was just a son, with no right to interfere with his mother’s freedom to choose a partner, even if he was an alpha in this community.
Emma didn’t grasp the distinction between these two.
“But I am Nelson’s daughter. You dislike him, so you would consequently dislike me, wouldn’t you?”
Usually, that would be the case, but Patrick wasn’t usual.
“Nelson is Nelson, and you are you. His faults shouldn’t be transferred to you. Besides, my mother and I are not the same person, I have no motive to dislike you,” Patrick replied firmly. Emma felt herself beginning to like this boy; he was very endearing, more considerate than he initially appeared.
From the moment she first laid eyes on him and found out he was Nelson’s stepson, she couldn’t quite pin down what had changed in her attitude toward Patrick. She instinctively resisted anyone associated with Nelson, like a betrayal of her mother and hometown.
But Patrick offered her the care her mother couldn’t provide. Her mother could only educate her from the perspective of an elder, but couldn’t offer her the companionship and mutual understanding of someone her age. Even the time Florence could give her was limited; most of the time she was lonely, with no one willing to spend half a day just chatting with her.
Here, everyone’s time was compressed; they had to fight for every second to earn enough to live.
None of these people had Patrick’s noble status; they were just ordinary folks, lacking the superior werewolf genes that would have granted them better resource allocation. Thus, their time was equivalent to their lives.
Emma included herself among these ordinary people. She had to divide every minute into sixty seconds, never daring to stop. Even so, she still yearned for someone to completely accept her in such a suffocating space, to embrace her clumsiness, her lack of eloquence, to wrap up everything about her.
Perhaps this was the meaning of a partner?
And now, it was the person she had initially resisted who was offering her this companionship and care.
Emma thought that perhaps she should abandon some stereotypes. Leaving the Blue Halo Pack had become a fact, and she truly needed to consider how to deal with the future and this new family. Establishing a good relationship with Patrick now wasn’t a bad idea; she didn’t need to make enemies.
Patrick asked her, “Would recalling these memories cause you pain? If so, I won’task anymore.”
Emma shook her head, “It’s okay. This memory isn’t difficult to talk about; I’m just not sure how to articulate it.”
From the time she could remember, she had never felt the love of a father and mother. Every day, coming home from school, she faced only empty walls and her mother, passed out from drinking, unaware of where she lay. Her young memories were filled with endless and fearful loneliness, as well as never-ending household chores.
These were things she shouldn’t have had to bear at such a young age. The community had brought the police to the door multiple times, questioning her mother about possible child abuse, but Emma was too afraid that they would take her mother away. If they did, she would become an orphan, completely alone. Her world would sink into darkness once again.
So, every time, she would rush out and loudly declare, “My mom didn’t abuse me. Leave quickly, don’t take my mom away.”
After several repetitions, the community stopped coming. However, after that, her mother’s episodes of drinking became somewhat less frequent, and she began to work, mostly as a cashier in a supermarket or selling alcohol in a bar, but Emma was unaware as her mother never mentioned it. Only occasionally, Emma would catch a strong cheap perfume scent on her when she returned in the dead of night.
But one thing Emma was sure of her mother never brought strange men home. Ever since a man who came to fix the pipes stared at her when she was six, her mother hardly allowed any man to stay at home for more than fifteen minutes, let alone spend time alone with Emma.
In this light, her mother cared deeply for her.
“At that time, she was only thirty, the best years of a woman’s life, and I held her back,” Patrick said, looking at her with compassion. “How could she have believed that her child was a burden?”