Skip Dinner, or Die
Jason’s message arrived while I was fastening my earrings.
I’m back in New York. Dinner tonight? There’s something I need to tell you.
I had just reached for the second diamond when a translucent window slid across my phone.
She’s really going to meet her childhood sweetheart?
I froze.
Another line appeared.
Her husband is away, her old flame is back, and she’s still getting dressed up for him.
The comments kept crawling over my lock screen.
She has to go. Otherwise, how will the bridge accident happen?
My fingers went cold.
I was thirty-two, a New York lawyer, and Lucas Vale’s wife. Six years ago, I had chosen Lucas—a quiet, silver-eyed European heir—for a practical marriage. He handled everything at home, remembered my coffee order, and rarely said what he felt.
Our five-year-old son, Ian, had inherited the same reserve.
He was clever, unfailingly polite, and careful with every expression. He never climbed into my lap or threw his arms around my neck. Whenever I reached for him, he stepped away.
I had assumed they were simply like that.
Sometimes, when Lucas withdrew or Ian turned his face from me, I wondered if they disliked me.
I never forced them to be affectionate. Love was not supposed to feel like a demand.
The window flashed again.
The accident kills her tonight. Her husband dies later from grief, and the little boy grows up alone.
Ian becomes the Calamity Wolf King. He destroys the pack that rejected him and nearly wipes out the human world.
My phone nearly slipped from my hand.
I read the words twice.
Then I laughed once, sharply, because screaming would have been worse.
A new comment shoved the others aside.
Wait. Lucas is a werewolf, right?
Both father and son are. She never finds out until it’s too late.
I stared at the hallway.
Ian’s bedroom door was closed at the far end, a thin stripe of night-light beneath it. Lucas was supposed to be in Zurich until Friday.
Werewolves.
I looked down at my ordinary hands.
The window flashed again.
Don’t cancel! The plot will correct itself.
Even if she survives tonight, Ian still loses her later.
“No.”
The word left my mouth before I finished thinking.
I opened Jason’s message and typed:
I’m sorry. Something came up. We’ll reschedule.
My thumb hovered over Send.
Jason had been my best friend since childhood. Everyone had expected me to marry him. Six years ago, he disappeared before my wedding, and I never learned why.
Tonight, he wanted to tell me.
Tonight, according to the glowing window on my phone, I was supposed to die on a bridge.
I pressed Send.
Then I canceled the car.
The house remained quiet.
No sirens. No warning. Nothing except the air conditioner and the faint sound of a child moving downstairs.
I took off my other earring and went to find Ian.
He was in the kitchen, lining up toy cars across the marble island. Clara, his nanny, was helping him sort the blue ones by size.
“Ian.”
He looked up immediately.
His dark hair was rumpled, but the rest of him was as neat as ever. He had probably been rolling on the playroom rug again.
“Are you leaving, Mom?”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
I crouched beside him. “No. I canceled dinner.”
For half a second, his face lit up.
Then he hid the happiness.
“That’s okay,” he said. “Your plans are important. I can stay with Miss Clara.”
He said it like he had practiced the sentence until it stopped hurting.
The comment window hovered beside my shoulder.
Look at him pretending he doesn’t care.
He wants her to stay so badly.
I studied Ian’s face.
His little mouth was carefully straight. His hands were folded in his lap, fingers twisting against each other. He kept glancing at me, then looking away before I could catch him.
“Do you really want to stay with Clara?” I asked.
He nodded.
The nod was too quick.
“Of course. You can go.”
He even smiled.
It was the kind of smile adults used when they were trying not to be a burden.
My chest tightened.
I reached out to smooth his hair.
Ian flinched and took one step backward.
His shoulders rose. His eyes went wide.
I stopped with my hand in the air.
The sting came first. Then the question.
Was he afraid of me?
“Do I scare you?” I asked softly.
Ian shook his head so hard his hair fell into his eyes.
“No.”
“Then why do you keep moving away?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His fingers closed around a red toy car until his knuckles turned white.
The comment window flickered.
He can’t tell her. If he gets too emotional, the shift starts.
He thinks she’ll leave when she sees the real him.
I looked at my son.
He was five years old. Too young to understand why love might be dangerous, yet old enough to be terrified of losing it.
“Ian,” I said, keeping my voice light, “I’m staying home tonight.”
His head snapped up.
“Really?”
“Really.”
His careful mask cracked. Hope rushed across his face, bright and helpless.
Then fear covered it again.
“Only tonight?” he asked.
The question was so quiet I almost missed it.
I swallowed. “As long as you want me here.”
His eyes shone.
He blinked quickly and looked down, as if even happiness had to be hidden.
“What are we going to do?”
Normally, I would have suggested a movie and answered messages while he watched. We were often in the same room, but that didn’t mean we were together.
This time, I said, “You choose.”
Ian stared at me as if I had handed him something precious.
“The dragon movie?”
“The one with the singing wolves?”
He nodded.
“Absolutely.”
His shoulders loosened a fraction.
Then he looked toward the stairs.
“Can I bring Gray?”
“Who’s Gray?”
“My friend.”
He ran upstairs before I could ask anything else.
Clara watched him go. “Gray is the stuffed wolf, right?”
“I hope so.”
I picked up the red toy car he had left behind. Its wheels were worn smooth, and a tiny crescent-shaped mark dented the roof.
My phone buzzed again.
The comment window continued to scroll.
She changed the first scene.
Maybe the accident can be avoided.
Maybe Ian won’t become the villain after all.
I looked toward the staircase.
For six years, I had mistaken Ian’s fear for rejection. I had accepted every step backward because I thought he wanted distance.
What if he had only been trying not to lose me?
Upstairs, I heard hurried footsteps.
Then Ian’s small voice floated down.
“Mom? You’re really staying, right?”
I looked at the phone in my hand, at the impossible warnings, at the closed front door.
“Really,” I called back.
This time, I meant it.
