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  Thanksgiving Week

  The holiday loomed like a specter. All around me, people were making plans, buying turkeys, fighting over travel arrangements. And I was... not.

  Scott noticed.

  "What are your Thanksgiving plans?" he asked on Tuesday. We were at the coffee shop, our coffee shop now, sharing a slice of pie that was mediocre but somehow perfect because we were eating it together.

  "I don't have any." I stabbed at the pie with my fork. "My mom uninvited me. Remember?"

  "I remember." He was quiet for a moment. "What about other family? Friends?"

  "My dad's been out of the picture since I was twelve. No siblings. And my friend situation is..." I shrugged. "Complicated."

  "What about Kate?"

  The name hit me like a punch. I hadn't mentioned Kate in weeks, and Scott had been careful not to bring her up.

  "Kate's not speaking to me," I said. "I told you that."

  "I know. I just thought maybe, with the holiday..."

  "No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "She blocked my number. She doesn't want to hear from me."

  Scott reached across the table and took my hand. "I'm sorry."

  "It's fine."

  "It's not fine. It's Thanksgiving and you're going to be alone and that's not fine." He squeezed my fingers. "Come to my place."

  "What?"

  "For Thanksgiving. I'm not doing anything fancy, just ordering Chinese food and watching football. But you shouldn't be alone."

  "I couldn't..."

  "You could. You should." He smiled, that crooked smile that I was starting to think about way too often. "Come on. Eduardo misses you."

  I laughed despite myself. "Eduardo the alien?"

  "He's been asking about you. Says you're his favorite human."

  "Tell Eduardo I'm flattered."

  "Tell him yourself. Thursday. My place. Noon?"

  I should have said no. Spending Thanksgiving with a guy I'd been dating for two weeks felt like too much too fast. But the alternative was sitting alone in my apartment, pretending the holiday didn't exist, and that felt worse.

  "Okay," I said. "But I'm bringing something. What goes with Chinese food?"

  "More Chinese food, probably."

  * * *

  Thursday, November 24th: Thanksgiving

  Scott's apartment was not what I expected.

  I'd imagined something sleek and modern, all clean lines and expensive furniture. Instead, I found a comfortable mess. Bookshelves overflowing with paperbacks. A couch that sagged in the middle, covered with a worn quilt. Plants on every available surface, most of them thriving.

  "Sorry about the chaos," Scott said, taking my coat. "I cleaned, but this is kind of my baseline."

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "I like it." I did. It felt lived-in, genuine. Nothing like my own apartment, which looked like a magazine spread and felt about as warm. "It feels like a home."

  "That's a nice way of saying it's messy."

  "It's not messy. It's..." I searched for the word. "Comfortable."

  Eduardo the alien sat in a place of honor on the bookshelf, next to a framed photo of Scott with an older woman who had his same crooked smile.

  "My mom," Scott said, following my gaze. "That was taken two years ago, at her retirement party."

  "She looks nice."

  "She is. She would love you." He caught himself. "I mean... not that I'm... we're not at the meeting parents stage. Obviously. I just meant..."

  "Scott." I touched his arm. "It's okay. I understood what you meant."

  He relaxed. "Right. Okay. Chinese food should be here in twenty minutes. You want something to drink? I have wine, beer, water, and something my sister gave me that I'm pretty sure is alcoholic kombucha."

  "Wine, please."

  We settled on the couch with our wine, football on low in the background. Scott had actually read past chapter twelve, and had very strong opinions about the revelation that Allister was secretly the heir to the Shadow Throne.

  "It was obvious," he said. "The second they mentioned his mysterious past, I knew."

  "You did not."

  "I absolutely did. The brooding, the dark powers, the reluctance to talk about his family? Classic secret royalty material."

  "Okay, fine. But did you guess about Aurora's heritage?"

  "That she's half-fae? Also obvious. The weird connection to magic, the dreams, the way she could see things other humans couldn't?" He shook his head. "I'm surprised she didn't figure it out herself."

  "She was in denial."

  "She was obtuse."

  "Says the man who couldn't find his keys for twenty minutes last week because they were in his hand."

  "That's different. That's just my brain refusing to cooperate. Aurora had actual evidence that she was ignoring."

  I laughed, and kept laughing, and realized that this was the happiest I'd been on Thanksgiving in years.

  The Chinese food arrived. We spread it out on the coffee table and ate straight from the containers, passing sesame chicken and lo mein back and forth.

  "I keep thinking about something you said," Scott mentioned, somewhere between the egg rolls and the fortune cookies. "About your friend Kate. That you did something she couldn't forgive."

  My chopsticks paused midway to my mouth. "Yeah?"

  "What happened? If you don't mind me asking." He held up a hand. "You don't have to tell me. I'm just... curious. You seem like a good person, Sam. I'm having trouble imagining you doing something unforgivable."

  I set down the chopsticks. The moment felt heavy, significant.

  "I lied to her," I said finally. "About something important. And then she found out, and she felt betrayed, and she was right to feel that way." I stared at my wine glass. "I thought I was doing the right thing. But I hurt her in the process, and she couldn't get past that."

  "Do you think you were doing the right thing? Looking back?"

  "I don't know anymore." The confession came easier than I expected. "At the time, I was so sure. Someone had done something terrible, and I made sure they got caught. But the way I did it... people got hurt. People who didn't deserve it. And I lost my best friend." I took a long sip of wine. "So was it the right thing? I have no idea."

  Scott was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I think sometimes there isn't a right thing. Just a bunch of choices, and we pick the one that feels least wrong, and we live with the consequences."

  "Is that supposed to be comforting?"

  "It's supposed to be honest." He shifted closer on the couch. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're a bad person. I think you're a complicated person who was in a complicated situation and made a complicated choice. That's just... being human."

  "What if I'm not?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.

  "Not what?"

  "Not... human." I shook my head. "Never mind. I don't know what I'm saying. Too much wine."

  But Scott was looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Not horror, not confusion. Something more like... recognition?

  "We're all a little inhuman sometimes," he said softly. "That doesn't make us monsters."

  The moment stretched between us, weighted with things unsaid. Then my phone buzzed, shattering it.

  Mom.

  "Sorry," I muttered, silencing it. "She's probably calling to remind me how disappointed she is that I exist."

  "You don't have to answer."

  "I wasn't going to."

  But the mood had shifted. I finished my wine, helped Scott clean up the remnants of our feast, and tried not to think about how close I'd come to telling him everything.

  * * *

  "Thank you," I said at the door. "For today. For not letting me be alone."

  "Thank you for coming." Scott leaned against the doorframe. "Same time next week?"

  "Are you inviting me to your apartment again?"

  "I'm inviting you to whatever you want." He paused. "That came out wrong. I meant..."

  "I know what you meant." I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Goodnight, Scott."

  His smile was soft, surprised, wonderful. "Goodnight, Sam."

  I walked to my car floating three inches off the ground.

  * * *

  November 24th

  He made Thanksgiving not terrible.

  Actually, he made it good. Really good.

  I almost told him. About the code, about Kate, about everything. I got so close.

  Maybe someday I will.

  For now, it's enough that he looked at me and said, "We're all a little inhuman sometimes. That doesn't make us monsters."

  Maybe it doesn’t.

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