My Demon Mate

Chapter One Rain rattles the window like it’s trying to get in. The glass hums under each strike, blurring the city lights beyond into a mess of yellow and white streaks. The pipes groan in the walls. Everything in this apartment sounds tired. Worn down. Too much like me. I sit at the kitchen table with a stack of guardianship forms spread across the scratched wood. My laptop screen casts a pale glow over the paperwork, bleaching the black ink into something sterile and cold. I’ve been staring at the same line for nearly half an hour. Guardian’s legal responsibility. The words blur, my pen hovers, and I can’t make myself sign. I’ve practiced every answer in my head—where I work, how I study, what I can provide—but the pen still won’t move. Across the hall, Bella’s door is cracked open. A strip of yellow light from her nightlight spills into the darkness, a thread that reassures me she’s there. She's still breathing and safe under my care... if me scrambling to provide for her counts as care. Except she isn’t asleep. Her small voice drifts out, soft but certain. “Are you still working?” I close my eyes, exhale, and lie through my teeth. “Of course not, it's much too late. Go to sleep, Bella.” The mattress creaks faintly as she shifts. “You sound sad.” “I’m not sad.” My voice comes out sharp, brittle. “Just tired.” The lamp above me flickers hard—once, twice—like it’s protesting. I bite the inside of my cheek. It does this sometimes. Flickering when I feel something I won’t name, when grief swells up from nowhere. It’s like the walls know me too well. Soft footfalls cross the hall. Bella emerges, a wisp in her oversized T-shirt, blonde hair sticking up from tossing in bed. She leans against the doorframe, rubbing her green eyes. The girl is only nine years old, and sharp in ways she shouldn’t have to be. Our loss aged both of us, no matter how I tried to shield baby Belle from it. “The light knows,” she mumbles. “It cries when you do.” My throat tightens. I force a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. “It’s just old wiring. Go on, back to bed.” She tilts her head, skeptical in that way she gets. She’s always been like that—watching people closer than they realize. But she doesn’t argue. Instead, she pads over and slips her arms around my shoulders. Warm, small, grounding. I nearly break at the offer of comfort when I should be the one comforting her. “You don’t have to do everything tonight,” she whispers. For a second, I can’t breathe. I hug her back, too tight. “Go on. Sleep.” She yawns, nods, and shuffles back to her room. Leaves the door cracked, just enough that I can see the faint glow of her nightlight. The apartment falls quiet again, except for the storm. I look down at the forms. Every blank space feels like a verdict. Once I sign, it’s official: no one else is coming. No miracle aunt, no long-lost cousin. Just me, and Bella. Not even our grandmother can take us in, since the state judged her unfit by virtue of her being recently widowed. Me, with rent overdue and a stack of textbooks in the corner. Me, trying to stretch thin enough to be student, parent, provider. My phone buzzes against the table, startling me. My stomach lurches as I grab it, some stupid part of me expecting bad news. It’s just a text. Arthur: Thinking of you tonight. You don’t have to go through it alone. I stare at the screen until the letters blur. Arthur’s a good guy. Always has been. He’s been around since freshman year—he has a steady orbit, is the kind of boy you can lean on. He’s safe, uncomplicated. He knows what today is and what it means. The anniversary. The day my life cleaved into before and after. I should reply. Something polite. Thanks. Or I’m fine. Or maybe even come over. That’s what people do, right? They accept comfort when it’s offered. But I don’t. I set the phone facedown and push it aside. Alone is safer. Alone means no one gets close enough to see the cracks. The lamp buzzes faintly overhead, then steadies. I rub my temples, try to force myself back into the guardianship forms. But the words smear into the storm running down the glass. And in the rain, I see flashes—my parents’ funeral clothes, too stiff on my skin, Bella’s small hand sweaty in mine, Grams’s voice in my ear as the casket lowered into the earth. “You’ll have to learn what you are one day.” I’d thought she meant strong, independent, and capable of surviving without parents. I’ve lived like that ever since. But sometimes—when the lights flicker, when Bella notices—I wonder if she meant something else. Something bigger. Something I don’t want to believe. I press the thought down hard. Instead, I gather the forms into a neat stack, close the laptop, and press my forehead to the cool table surface. My breath fogs the wood. The rain outside hammers the window until it drowns out everything else. The lamp flickers once, twice, then steadies once more. From Bella’s room comes the faint sound of her even breathing. For tonight, the apartment holds. And I remind myself, like I do every day, that I’ll get through this night. I always do.