Chapter 7: I Want All Of Them!
Starting in high school, he pulled back. He wasn’t as close with the angels anymore, keeping a careful distance, fewer long talks, shorter visits, excuses to duck out early. They noticed, of course, their brows furrowing as they swapped theories.
"It’s just puberty." One would say, shrugging.
"He’s growing up, needs space." Another would add, though her eyes lingered with quiet hurt.
They didn’t suspect the truth: that he was stepping away because he loved them too much, not too little.
Mika figured he could live like that, keep his secret, maybe even turn into some brooding hermit to ’atone’ for the sin of wanting his parental figures in a way he shouldn’t.
He’d resign himself to a life of quiet repression, letting time sand down the edges of his longing until it was just a dull ache he could ignore.
That was the plan, anyway.
But everything changed today, after the accident.
When that truck slammed into him and sent him crashing into the tree, when he lay there staring at a death he couldn’t actually meet, it hit him like a freight train: the regrets.
In that frozen sliver of time, as his mind grappled with the what, ifs of dying, Mika realized he’d regret nothing more than never telling his caretakers, those beautiful women he adored, how he truly felt.
The love he’d bottled up for them swelled in his chest, and suddenly all the barriers he’d built in his head felt like flimsy paper walls.
The age gap, the motherly roles they’d played, the family dynamic he’d feared breaking, none of it mattered anymore.