"Why are you looking at me like that? Yes, I have changed," raising my hands, I spun around ironically. "I no longer have a ton of extra pounds and, unfortunately, you won't be able to make fun of me because of them. You loved to do that when you were a kid. I remember it very well."
Stopping, I lowered the corners of my lips.
"There's just one thing I can't understand. Why do you even need to meet me? I thought that our paths diverged back in childhood."
Carter wove his fingers through his hair and tousled it so much that even his hood fell off his head. The alpha reached out, took the documents from me, and, breathing out raggedly, pointed his phone at them.
And it was only a few seconds later that I realized why. He was running the cards through programs. Opening a public database and scrolling through my photos in it.
First, the ones in which I was still a chubby child. Then, getting to the ones in which I was already at the age when we just met. And at these photos, Carter stopped.
Against my will, I noticed that the veins on his palms were showing, and that his body was too tense. In some ways, looking into Carter's eyes, it seemed to me that he was breaking down. And too much.
Could it be that the photographs were bringing back even more of his memory? At least, that was the feeling I had. Even Carter's reaction was different.
True, I didn't know how to feel about it. If he remembered me more clearly from the photographs, was that good? Or... bad?
For now, Carter looked like a stone statue. And, still holding the phone in his palm, he stared at the screen. With that look, that made me feel completely uneasy.
"Lily..." hoarsely saying this, the alpha touched the screen with his thumb.
And for some reason, I took a step back, seeing that now Carter was scrolling through other photos. More recent ones. Those in which I had already begun to change, reaching those in which I was the same as now.
Hanging on them, too. Then he closed his eyes and grinned. Blocking the phone, he sent it into the pocket of his sweatshirt, already burying both palms in his hair and, it seemed, experiencing truly powerful pain.
Many things could be read on his face, but so far, I could only discern animal rage, and the sensations were such that everything was being shattered into tiny pieces.
"Maybe I should give you some water?" I asked, realizing that the question was stupid. I don't have any water. And I have to run to the nearest store. But I could.
Carter didn't say anything for a while. He was breathing heavily. As if he were regaining control of himself. Leaning his hand on a tree, he rubbed his eyelids with the tips of his thumb and index finger.
Another breath, and the alpha opened his eyes. Again, he looked me over slowly, then looked me in the eyes and did it in such a way that it seemed like the whole world was shaking to hell.
"You used to have dimples." Carter tilted his head to the side a little, causing his disheveled hair to fall over his face, and his gaze slid over my face.
"You still have them. Here," I stretched my lips into a smile. Dimples appeared on my cheeks. As a child, this was a common occurrence.
In my adult life, I had never smiled like this in front of Carter. Usually, in his presence, my face was elongated with horror. "You remembered about my dimples? I'm flattered."
"You can consider that I have now remembered everything. Including the fact that you bit me for them."
"Because you did this to me."
I put my palms on my cheeks and squeezed them, becoming like a hamster. I don't know why, but Carter was bothered by my dimples as a child. Once he said something about them, and I intentionally stopped smiling, after which he squeezed my cheeks like that. I bit him. All fair.
Carter, looking at me like this, for some reason, smiled. Barely noticeable, but it looked even more creepy than when he grinned. At least because his grin was more familiar and understandable.
I immediately removed my palms from my cheeks.
"So you're Lily," Carter didn't ask. He already said so.
"Only in the past," I shrugged. "I stopped coming to your house because my parents got divorced, and my mother took me with her. When she remarried, I took my stepfather's last name and, recognizing him as my new father, I took the name he gave me. That's why I'm Selena now."
There was a noise, and at that moment, a whole crowd of children burst into the park. Several groups had been brought here from the nearby kindergarten.
I immediately went to the bench and took my bag, because the curious little one immediately ran up and started tugging at the keychains on it.
And I wasn't against the children playing with them, but I hadn't fastened the bag before and was afraid that everything that could fall out would fall out. In particular, the folder with the results of my tests.
I wanted to take the diary, which was still lying on the bench, but Carter took it first.
"Give it to me. It's mine," I said, holding out my hand. Carter didn't give the diary back, but he took me by the wrist and pulled me along with him.
"Let's go. We have something to talk about."
"Give me the diary first," but I didn't resist. I went for it, because one way or another, I still hadn't gotten what I needed from Carter.
Alpha still hadn't given me my thing, and even though I thought we'd go to the nearest coffee shop, Carter pulled me into his car. Okay, we can talk here, too.