We walked through the sticky sweet tunnel for longer than I wanted to. Yet it felt shorter than I would have liked. I wasn't ready to meet the woman that raised my father. What if she was like Charles' parents? What if she had imposed terrible standards on my father and that's why he ran away?
I still didn't know anything about her or anything about why my father left. I didn't want to bring myself to ask my mother, because what if she didn't know any of this. I feel like it would break her heart that her mate kept this from her.
I could see the end of the tunnel coming up. The palms of my hands were clammy from the nerves. I kept them in tight fists beside me, trying not to fidget. My heart felt like it was going to explode. It didn't help that I couldn't take any deep breaths to calm
