The Luna Who Forgot Her Pack Chapter 04

The Luna Who Forgot Her Pack Chapter 04

I stared at the agreement. The shock was absolute, that for a moment, the pain inside me vanished I read each word slowly

[One daughter Scarlett Thorne)

[Primary custody awarded to Ethan Thorne)

Irreconcilable differences made the bond unsustainable

Ethan’s signature stared back at me from the bottom. The line next to “Elara Winters was blank

With trembling hands, I opened the diary. It was nearly full.

The pages were a battlefield, soaked with old tears, the ink smudged. A half–filled diary holding a lifetime of sorrow

I read about the joy when Ethan confessed his love after the mudslide, the shock of his proposal and how Grace, my

maid of honor, sobbed at our bonding ceremony.

Then, the beginning of the end.

Ethan staying out all night, returning with strange, unpleasant scents clinging to his clothes. Grace’s social media posts

photos of her with him, like small, deliberate cuts.

The first time I wrote the words ‘sever the bond,” I found out I was pregnant.

Those miserable, nausea–filled nights, clutching my father’s pen, waiting for a man who never came home

Then Scarlett was born. I had written about holding her sleeping form, begging Ethan to stay, reminding him of what we had, of the history stretching back to childhood.

The words on those damp, misshapen pages made me sick. At twenty–two, I couldn’t understand how the woman Id become would ever degrade herself for a man.

The last diary entry, dated the day of my ‘accidental‘ fall, held a decision

A final decision to sign the papers. Interrupted by a tumble down the stairs

The scent of dinner drifted through the crack in the door. I closed the diary and looked up at the single, dim lightbulb in

the room.

I pressed my hand to my chest. My heartbeat was steady and strong.

A clear, sharp thought cut through the fog of loss. Good I was twenty–two again. I was Elara Winters, and I was afraid of nothing.

I stayed. Partly to acclimate to a world eight years more advanced than I remembered. Partly because the severance agreement on the table was a joke.

He was the one who cheated. He deserved nothing.

Now, I needed to gather evidence.

From that day on, I became a ghost in that house. Only Mrs. Davis, who came to cook, spoke to me, and even she was careful around the subject of Ethan and Grace.

The first real conflict came over scheduling. I had an appointment to get my cast off, and the same day was Scarlett’s school parent–teacher conference.

The girl, who usually sneered at me, knocked on my door the night before.

“You’re taking me tomorrow.” Her tone was flat, unlike the sweet, childish voice she used with Ethan and Grace.

“No.” I didn’t look up, my eyes still on the bank statements my lawyer had obtained. “You want Grace to be your mom, let

her go.

She froze, then a wail burst from her throat. “No! They all say she’s a homewrecker! They say I’m the homewrecker’s kid!

No one will play with me now! This is all your fault!”

She charged, her small body slamming into my injured arm. A searing pain shot through me.

Before I could think, my hand moved. The slap echoed in the small room.

“Get out.”