This Life, I Kept the Tenderness for Myself

Claire's POV

On my birthday, my husband hands me a snow-white hamster with a smile and says keeping it in the house will bring us good luck.

My seven-year-old son names it Snow.

But the second I see its red eyes, my blood runs cold.

Because in my last life, I got the exact same gift on this exact same day.

Back then I treated it like something precious. I fed it the best food, bought it the biggest cage, cleaned out the shavings every single day.

And every night it burrowed into my blankets, bit through the skin at my wrist and my throat, and drank my blood a little at a time until there was almost none left.

I begged my husband to get rid of it. All he said was that I was paranoid, that I was faking being sick to get attention.

My son planted himself in front of the cage and screamed that Snow was better behaved than me.

Then, on our wedding anniversary, I collapsed in the bathroom and never woke up.

My spirit drifted near the ceiling, and only then did I finally see it.

That hamster climbed down off my body and turned into a woman in a white dress, and threw herself into my husband's arms.

His eyes went red and he said now that she'd drained me dry, she could finally take her real shape again.

My son ran to her and sweetly called her "Hamster Mommy."

It turned out the thing was my husband's old love, the one who'd died young. He'd used black magic to hide her inside a pet's body.

And I was nothing but a container. A blood supply.

Now my eyes are open again, and the cut on my finger is still warm.

This time, I won't let a single one of them get away.

On my birthday, my husband Ethan comes home two hours earlier than usual.

He's a biomedical professor and runs the university's animal research lab, where he spends his days supervising a team of grad students on drug trials.

He pushes the door open with a clear plastic cage in his hand and that gentle smile I know so well.

"Happy birthday, Claire."

I look at the cage.

Curled up inside is a hamster, white from head to tail, its fur so clean there isn't a single off-color hair on it. Its red eyes catch tiny flecks of light under the lamp. It doesn't shy away. It lifts its head and looks straight at me.

Every drop of blood in me freezes.

"It's a rare breed. I had someone track one down for me." Ethan sets the cage on the dining table. "It's smart, and it's friendly. They say a hamster in the house brings the owner good luck."

Seven-year-old Lucas jumps off the couch and leans over the cage.

"Mom, I already picked a name. Snow. You like it?"

I don't answer.

Snow walks up to the cage door and sets both front paws against the plastic, its nose twitching nonstop.

It's smelling me.

"Mom, pet it." Lucas presses. "It's really sweet."

Ethan has already opened the cage door.

I reach out, and the second my fingertip touches that soft white fur, Snow lunges and bites down on my finger.

A sharp pain shoots through the pad of my finger, and a bead of blood wells up right away.

Lucas lets out a shriek, but he moves fast and wraps both arms around the cage.

"Mom, hold still! You're scaring Snow!"

Ethan grabs my wrist. He glances at the cut, then bends down to make sure the cage hasn't gotten knocked around.

"It was just a little nip," he says. "That's how it bonds with its owner. Biting you means it likes you."

I look at him. "It likes me, so it bites me?"

His smile thins out.

"Animals don't show things the way people do. You always think the worst of it."

I heard that line in my last life too.

Back then those tiny teeth terrified me, and so did that cold little body pressed against my chest when I woke up in the middle of the night. But in the end I took it in anyway. I raised it like it was precious, and all I got back was its growing hunger for my blood, and night after night of it breaking my skin.

None of that is happening again.

In the bathroom mirror I see my own face. Pale, clear-eyed, the cut on my finger still seeping.

Ethan comes back with gauze and bandages it for me.

"Claire, don't be upset." His voice drops, coaxing. "Snow will get used to you soon."

I lower my eyes and take the gauze from him.

"Sure."

Lucas breaks into a grin.

"I knew Mom was the best!"

I smile and run a hand over his hair.

"I'll take good care of Snow."

Ethan relaxes and carries the cage back into the living room.

I stand where I am and look at that little white hamster.

It watches me through the plastic, its red eyes smug.

After my shower I go back to the bedroom, and Ethan walks right in behind me carrying the cage.

"It gets cold easily. The temperature's steadiest in here."

He says it like he's asking what I think, but he's already set the cage down on the nightstand.

Inside the clear cage, Snow curls up in the shavings, nose twitching at me.

I stand in the doorway and don't move.

"The guest room has heat too," I say. "There's no reason to keep it in here."

"Nobody's in the guest room at night, so it gets cold in there." Ethan frowns. "The vet said it's delicate. It can't be in the cold."