"Are you…?" I paused, suddenly nervous. "Jealous?"

Rivi blinked, stopping in the corridor for a moment. Then she flashed me a smile. "I suppose I am." She leaned in close to my face. "Why? Do you like it?"

My breath hitched with her face so close to mine. I couldn't help but remember the feeling of her lips on mine, the way she had teased my mouth open and invaded my mouth with her tongue.

"Uh…I…" I stuttered, losing myself for a moment in her deep, black eyes. I swallowed, my mouth dry. "Do you…" I paused, memories of Rivi laughing with Sera flashing through my head. "Still like me?" I pinched my fingers together nervously as I waited for her to respond.

"Oh my darling Silvie." Rivi pushed me against the wall with her body, her face staying dangerously close to my own.

"Does this answer your question?" She gave me a sloppy kiss half on my lips, half off. "Or this? Or this?" She kissed my cheek and then my lips again. "Or is it because…" her hand landed on my stomach and then began straying down. "We haven't gone further yet?"

My eyes widened as her warm fingers moving over my clothes neared my crotch. "N-no, it's just." I swallowed, feeling strangely cornered by the warm, predatory look in her eyes. "I-I'm so y-young and incompetent, a-and I have nothing to offer you…"

"My little pet feels she's not good enough for her owner?" My entire body trembled involuntarily at the word 'owner' and I felt like my legs were about to give out.

"A-m-m-m-m, I-I r-really?" My voice was shaking as much as my body. And in that moment I understood why I wanted to be hers, why I had asked her to be my master, and chased after her like I was her pet. All it boiled down to really was a fervent desire not to be abandoned again. To be owned, was to be cherished, or so some part of me felt.

"Of course my darling." Rivi's voice softened, and she scooped into a princess carry.

"Eep!" I squealed a little as she took me into her arms, but instantly I felt my body relaxing as her warm hands carried me. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders for stability, and buried my face in her chest.

"There, there little one," Rivi murmured, nuzzling my head with her own. "You must be tired after all of today's excitement. Why don't I take you to bed?"

I murmured a soft assent, and vaguely felt her carrying me and laying me down on a soft, warm bed as I drifted off to sleep.

***

"Where have you been?"

"I told you, a late night meeting came up. With the business conference next week it was necessary to…"

"On our anniversary, really?"

"Meredith, I told you when this relationship started where my priorities were, you didn't seem to have any problems with it then, why do you keep bringing this up now?"

"What do you mean why do I keep bringing it up? It's our life Bill, you'd think you'd have earned enough for four lifetimes by now, but with the way you keep up it's like we're about to declare bankruptcy tomorrow!"

"What, so you're saying you actually care about me now? I thought you said the only thing you ever gave a damn about was my money!?"

"Yeah? Well maybe I was right! If this is how you show your care for me, if this is how you want to raise our son?"

"..."

I looked up at the dark ceiling of my room as the argument continued, the voices of my parents phasing in and out of comprehensibility as they raised or lowered their volume over the course of the argument.

***

My vision blurred and I found myself standing outside school, my fingers wrapped around the straps of my backpack. My mother standing just in front of me, looking down at me with a complicated expression.

"Heyyy, Mama's come to pick you up. That's nice for a change, right?" I said nothing as I took the hand she offered and followed to where she parked the car.

"So there's some important things you and me have to talk about, so I'm taking you out for some ice cream, ok?" Again I said nothing. This was a habit I had learned around adults. Silence was far less likely to get me yelled at or hurt than anything else.

***

We were sitting in the ice cream parlour. I had mostly finished mine as my mother watched silently, not having gotten herself anything. I was picking my spoon at the melted leftovers at the bottom of the bowl when my mom finally started to talk.

"So you know how Mommy and Daddy haven't been getting along very well, right Ray?"

I nodded, still fixing my eyes on the bottom of the ice cream bowl.

"Well we've been talking it over, and we've decided that maybe it's best that Mommy and Daddy go our separate ways, and stop living with one another."

I let go of my spoon, and put my fingers around the edge of the table.

"But that leaves the big question of what happens to you, right?" This time I didn't nod, even though my instincts told me I was supposed to. My fingers tightened around the edge of the table wondering if my mother would notice, but she just continued on.

"Well, the problem is Mama's not doing so well, and I don't know if I can take care of you very well. But Daddy's got Nanny and the Errand Boy, so you'll still be alright, right? I promise I'll come visit you, and we'll do lots of fun things together, but, well, it'll be different since Mommy won't be at home with you like normal."

I stood up on the cushion of the booth seat, not really knowing what I was doing. I paused for a long moment, because this was a bad thing that normally would get me scolded, but for some reason no scolding was coming, and my mother was only looking at me with a very strange, conflicted expression.

I blinked, then jumped down onto the diner floor, paused for a moment as I realized I needed an excuse to wander off then said. "I need to use the bathroom." And rushed off to the toilet.

I didn't need to use the toilet. But I went in anyways, and sat on the toilet for a long time staring at the wall, trying to make sense of what was happening in my life. Eventually I began to cry.

***

Rivi sat on the side of the bed watching me sleep, her thoughts adrift as she watched the peaceful inhale and exhale of my sleeping form.

Then she frowned, her thoughts coming back to the present as a conflicted expression crossed my sleeping form. "Don't go…" I murmured in my sleep. "Mama," I reached out and by chance grabbed one of Rivi's arms. "I don't want you to go…"

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