Silence stretched between us as we just lay there beneath the stars. “You don’t have to… explain your life just because I did mine,” I glanced over at him, but he didn’t move a muscle. I wasn’t even sure if he had taken a breath in the last few minutes, “You caught me at an interesting time.” Nervous laughter bubbled up in my chest as I realized that I’d quite literally just vomited the last ten years of my life to this man who probably thinks I’m just looking for sympathy. “Mom died when I was three. My dad thought that having a mate made him weak, so he killed her. Right in front of me,” I heard him audibly swallow, “First core memory was my dad beating my mom to death,” he scrunched his nose, tapping his temple, “Really starts you out on a good path. But after that, it was just me