Willow
This had not been the response she'd expected.
Willow was surprised by just how much her own voice was strained, as if her vocal cords had constricted in protest of her attempted speech.
"He doesn't even ask what it is about. He just..." She muttered, lost.
Her sister placed a warm, slender palm across her shoulder and gave a comforting pat, glancing at Willow with a smile. "Be glad he's healthy and fine and unhurt, Will. Isn't that more important than having his usual sullen attitude back and a couple questions to answer?"
"It's not just that. You can't seriously—"
"There's no need to be this unnerved. Please, you'll stress your poor heart out, worrying so much over nothing. We'll figure things out and help him along if we have to. Nothing happened; he's okay, so let's focus on that first. Maybe he's going through his period or something; you know how males are."
"That's... true." Willow conceded, perhaps to convince herself it was.
But, she knew the signs, and there were plenty of them. It was easy to overlook these inconsistencies when things were at their best, but in these new circumstances and after careful contemplation...
Well, the truth was something was seriously off with Damien. She couldn't be sure just what.
And that's how Willow found herself seated across her sister and anxious, waiting for Damien to join them in the living room. "Girls, go to your rooms please. Freya and I need to have a private discussion with Damien." She heavily underlined the word 'private' with a pointed stare.
Her daughters looked at each other.
"But Mom—" Iris began. "We just want to make sure he's okay."
"We all want to make sure he's okay." Willow said, her tone firm but not unkind. "Which is why Freya and I need to talk to him alone. Without any distractions. We'll call you if we need anything."
"But we're family!" Ivy protested, her small fists clenching at her sides. "We have a right to—"
"Ivy." Freya's voice was soft, but it effectively silenced the girl, and made her shift uncomfortably, looking away. "Listen to your mother."
The command, gentle as it was, was absolute. Ivy's shoulders deflated.
"...yes..." It was less a statement of acceptance, and more a quiet sigh.
Still, even this much was enough. The younger ones acquiesced and went, though slowly.
Now all that remained were two women, sitting in a large living room, awaiting the arrival of their one, remaining man. Willow's shoulders were slightly hunched in her chair as if braced for some physical impact. Mothering three girls had been no simple task, but Damien... raising a boy in this world felt like raising a rare flower that might wilt at a harsh word or a sudden change in temperature.
Willow's fingers traced the rim of her untouched teacup. Her thoughts drifted back nearly 20 years to that sunny, late June day in 2005, when the nurse had handed her the ultrasound printout with the same reverence and emotion with which one might reveal a long-sought-for, momentous answer to the grand mystery of existence.
Only, it was just an image of her unborn son.
"A boy." The doctor had said, as happy as she was. "Congratulations, Willow. The odds were... astronomical."
Astronomical indeed. With each attempt at artificial insemination—three before her daughters, the fourth for Damien—she'd faced the same probability equations and statistical improbabilities. Around a 5% chance. Abysmal odds, but way better than today's average.
And how many women would willingly go through those invasive, emotionally draining and exhaustive procedures knowing it was a roll of the dice?
Over 20 pregnancies just to get lucky. This was how it felt to try to conceive a male.
Willow had been extremely lucky to have a son. And Damien himself had been an exceptionally easy birth, no complications whatsoever.
Her 'miracle child,' her perfect boy—what greater joy could any woman possibly want to have?
That's right. Nothing.
She beat the odds. In fact, she broke the odds, smashed them to pieces. To give birth to a boy, and one beautiful enough to set a new standard.
"Willy?" Freya's voice nudged her out of her reverie and made the woman look up. "What are you thinking so hard about?"
Willow blinked, turned back around, and shook her head with a fond smile. "Nothing, nothing. Just... thinking of the old days... I never realized Damien has grown up so fast. Has it really been two decades already...?"
"Ah, it certainly feels like just yesterday when he first opened his eyes, doesn't it?"
Freya nodded, arms crossed; she had been there from the start.
"Truly, and now I've no clue where the time flew. What did we do for the past decade...? Sit by him, watch over him? Care for him, day and night, so afraid to break him if we just touched him or held him?"
"I remember being incredibly reluctant to do either." Freya chuckled at the recollection. "Your daughters are lovely, dear, but nothing can compare to a son's charm."
"Do I hear bias in your voice, Freya?"
Freya's lips curled in an insouciant smirk, not giving any more replies to Willow's musings as the sound of light, carefree footsteps echoed through the hallway and soon thereafter appeared in the living room.
Damien, after what seemed like an entire eternity to Willow, showed himself. He came into the room dressed casually, taking a chair and looking as fresh as if he had been ready for some light stroll outside or reading a book in his room, rather than getting dressed for an imminent inquisition.
Willow opened her mouth and held her breath as her son smiled a beatific, benign little smile at her and Freya before taking his seat, settling like a marble statue.
She exhaled through her lips, then coughed to cover up an impending stutter of words.
'Ask him. What you need to know. Ask him now before your throat clamps shut.'
She clenched and unclenched her fingers around the tea cup, making it clink lightly on its dish.
Damien hadn't been the same, and he continued not to be. Not only were there some obvious differences that one could observe by staring at him for a little bit longer than they were used to, but there were a dozen subtler, internal differences, too.
It required a careful dissection only a family member would be able to make.
The way he stood, his gait and body movements, the manner and cadence of his speech, the frequency and use of inflection when he spoke to others.
Things, normal as they were, were, by all accounts, not normal with him. And most importantly, he seemed unaware, or pretended to be unaware of it, or just didn't care.
But his current, unchanging, tranquility was worrisome.
Her eyes met Freya's, who seemed to urge her with a slight tilt of her head to go for it.
"Damien."
"Hmm?" He murmured pleasantly, offering his full attention. His gaze rested squarely, comfortably, on her.
Usually, he'd have difficulty meeting his mother's eye. Usually, the focus of his stare tended to hover above her shoulders or somewhere to her left. That insecurity was absent from him. He was unreserved, unhurried... and entirely unafraid.
His lack of discomfort wasn't the only change, either.
For example, his smiles had a slightly different tint to them than the smiles Damien had given before. Where the boy's smiles had been shy and uncertain, this young man's smiles seemed almost smugly ironic, like an adult grinning indulgently while someone told a very bad joke.
Willow managed an exhausted sigh. 'Will you please just...' She sucked her bottom lip nervously between her teeth and cleared her throat again. "Damien..."
"Yes?"
"You have to... you have to understand, I'm... we are… worried about you, okay?"
He seemed unmoved by this admission, nodding imperceptibly. "Okay."
"Could you not be this nonchalant?" She snapped. "Damien, do you have any clue just what... oh, Freya, tell him something too." Willow's desperation to make this conversation work was so obvious one could nearly see her wrestling against thin air. "Don't just stare. Please, do something, or just talk..."
Her sister made a wry face.
Willow fixed a hard stare upon her, but Freya responded to that, not with apologies or explanations, but by casting aside any thoughts or hesitations that might have lingered, and entering the conversation with full gusto.
"Damien, what your mother is failing to say, because she is both tongue-tied and apprehensive, is that there are things she noticed, and most likely we did too, except it would have been very disrespectful of us to say anything to you, let alone push you into giving an explanation. Your recent change of behavior and actions, while not something to be deemed a problem immediately, are definitely concerning to a large degree."
A long, drawn-out pause.
Damien let it hang in the air without apparent care.
Freya gave him a small, disarming smile. The gesture was an attempt to disarm any defenses, to soften him up for a confession.
"We're your family, Damien. We're just concerned. And we're not trying to get you in trouble."
"I never thought you were, Auntie." Damien smiled. "You're too nice and caring for that."
"Well, I'm glad you think so."
Willow stared at her son. She wasn't quite sure whether he was playing dumb or being sincere.
"So, you'll tell us the reason behind your peculiar actions?"
"Certainly." Damien's smile fell into a thoughtful line. "You see, there really isn't... a reason."
Willow's eyebrows furrowed. She opened her mouth to respond, then closed it.
'Nothing to talk about?'
She wondered what on Earth had gone so terribly wrong that her son was being evasive, even dismissive.
'There's definitely something wrong with him!'
She could hardly keep herself from jumping up and screaming in frustration.
"Damien." The woman sighed. "It's not a joke. You know, you must know, that we're all aware something is—"
"Of course, Mother. But I still can't fathom why you would need an explanation or, rather, what it is exactly you want an explanation for as there are no particular incidents or concerns worth mentioning."
"Well, first and foremost, your attitude."
"My attitude is perfectly normal."
"No, it's not. It's completely out of character for you, and you know it."
"If my attitude was perfectly normal, as you put it, wouldn't that imply I was behaving the way you expected me to?"
"Well... yes. Yes, it would." Willow blinked.
"Then, I'm glad I've surpassed your expectations."
"No, no, no. No, you're not. You're not doing anything correctly. You're not behaving the way a person of your..." She trailed off.
"Gender?" Damien supplied, raising an eyebrow.
Willow paused. "... well, yes. I mean, no, not that. That's not what I was going to say."
"Were you going to say age, perhaps?"
"No, but—"
He tilted his head, crossed his legs, and stared at her patiently, almost amusedly.
She struggled to maintain a straight face, her hands clenching into fists before finally, she threw her hands up in a helpless gesture. "D-Damien, you just came home with a police officer and didn't act embarrassed, or even nervous."
"And why would I have to be nervous? Valeria was a very pleasant woman." Damien's tone was conversational, and the fact he'd just referred to a police officer by her first name sent an icy chill down Willow's spine.
There was no wariness in his eyes. No sense of unease or even discomfort. And that was scared Willow the most, in a sense. That absolute lack of caution, like a capybara sitting on a crocodile's head, completely unconcerned, unaware of how close to danger they are.
Valeria was a police officer. More importantly, she was a woman. A strange woman.
And Willow knew that any sane, functioning woman wouldn't pass up the very same opportunity Officer Valeria was just blessed with; and if the latter had any wits to her, she'd have already exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch.
Freya frowned as well, and to see the always grinning Freya frowning was enough for Willow to know her own expressions weren't far from being as grave.
"Damien... do you remember what we talked about?" Freya began. "About the dangers of strangers. About the difference between women and men? About the fact you can't be careless when interacting with other people, and that, especially when talking to other women, you must exercise the utmost caution."
"Women make up over half the population." Damien shrugged again, sounding as exasperated as Willow herself was, as if for some reason their respective logic was clashing on a different wavelength of thought processes. "I can't avoid talking to them. That would be counter-productive. If anything, it would make me an outcast. Besides, both you and Mom are women. I'm speaking with you right now, aren't I? Does that mean you are both dangerous, or that I should run away and hide in my room and lock the doors?"
"No, but there's a world of difference between our relationship with you and the relationship you should have with others." Willow intervened tiredly. "Damien, don't you understand what we're getting at?"
"Well, you seem to be suggesting that women are a danger."
"We're not saying your life is directly in danger, but you should be aware of how special your existence is to them." Freya insisted, clasping her hands together. "At least, they could be a potential danger to you, Damien. Desperate women are dangerous. Especially when you're a male who is as beautiful and rare and..." She trailed off, but she got her point across more than enough.
"Thank you, but one day aren't I supposed to fall in love and get married?"
That seemed to stump both Willow and Freya.
He calmly beheld both of them.
"Yes." Freya eventually replied, a little shakily. "Yes, of course. But not until you are older... and I'm surprised you would even want to talk about these things. You always said you'd be single for life."
Willow remembered that as well, and she was perfectly fine with it—if that was how Damien wished to live. As much as that would deny another woman's happiness, and a statistical loss that society could scarcely afford.
It was, objectively, a tragedy.
But Willow had never been able to bring herself to say so out loud. Because to Damien, she suspected, framing his entire existence as a resource to be allocated would not land particularly well.
And she was probably right about that.
"Life's only worth living if you have someone to share it with, isn't that true?"
Damien did this unnervingly sexy little shrug. Freya's lips clammed shut.
Willow looked at her son, her mouth agape. She was stunned.
What had happened?