Chapter 8 #2
“I was eighteen,” Cara continues. “I didn’t know who I was yet. Didn’t know what I wanted to be. And being with you three was so... consuming. So all-encompassing. I was afraid that if I came back, I’d just be your omega. That I’d lose myself in you before I ever figured out who I was without you.”
“So you stopped calling.” Lucas’s voice is flat, but I can hear the hurt underneath.
“I started calling less. Told myself I just needed space. Needed to figure things out.” She swallows hard.
“And then the longer I went without calling, the harder it got. The shame just... piled up. What was I supposed to say? ‘Sorry I’ve been ignoring you for weeks, I was too scared to admit I was falling apart’? ”
She looks up, meeting our eyes one by one.
“Every day I didn’t reach out made the next day harder. Until it felt impossible. Until I convinced myself you were better off without me. That you’d moved on. That reaching out after so long would just make everything worse.”
Silence.
I think about those first few months. The calls that went unanswered. The voicemails I left, trying to sound normal, trying not to beg. The way hope slowly curdled into hurt, then anger, then something worse—resignation.
“You could have said something.” My voice comes out rougher than I meant it to. “Anything. ‘I need space.’ ‘I’m struggling.’ ‘I don’t know what I want.’ We would have listened.”
“I know.” Her eyes are bright now. “I know that now. But I was eighteen and stupid and I didn’t know how to ask for help without feeling like a failure. I thought needing you meant I wasn’t strong enough to stand on my own.”
“That’s—” Lucas stops. Runs a hand through his hair. “That’s not how it works. Needing people doesn’t make you weak.”
“I know that now.” A tear slips down her cheek. She wipes it away quickly. “I’ve spent ten years figuring that out. Writing books about packs and omegas and second chances because I couldn’t stop thinking about what I threw away.”
Nate hasn’t moved. Hasn’t spoken. His face is completely blank, but I know him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw is locked tight.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” Cara says.
“I know I don’t deserve that. I just needed you to understand.
It wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It wasn’t because you did something wrong.
” Her voice breaks. “I loved you so much it terrified me. And I was too young and too scared to know what to do with that.”
Her scent floods the space between us—honey and citrus drenched in grief and longing and ten years of regret. It hits me right in the chest. Lucas shifts in his seat, jaw tight. Even Nate’s hand has stopped moving on his water glass.
The words hang in the air.
I think about being eighteen. About how sure I was that nothing could touch us. About how completely unprepared I was for her to just... disappear.
“We thought you were dead.” The words come out before I can stop them. “For three days. We called hospitals. Nate called every emergency room in the county. I sat on your grandma’s porch for six hours until she finally told me you were fine.”
Cara’s face crumples. “I didn’t know. I didn’t—she never told me—”
“Of course she didn’t.” Lucas’s voice is soft.
“I’m sorry.” She’s crying now, not trying to hide it. “I’m so sorry. I never meant—I didn’t think—”
“No.” Nate’s voice cuts through. Flat. Cold. “You didn’t think.”
We all look at him. He’s still staring at his water glass, but his hand is shaking slightly.
“You didn’t think about what it would do to us. You didn’t think about the calls we made, the letters we wrote, the nights we spent wondering what we did wrong.” His voice doesn’t rise, but something in it makes my chest tight. “You were scared. Fine. But we were destroyed.”
Cara flinches like he hit her.
The silence stretches. Around us, other tables are laughing, enjoying their dates. We might as well be on a different planet.
Then Nate sets his glass down. Stands.
“I need air.”
He doesn’t wait for a response. Just turns and walks toward the exit.
Lucas is on his feet a second later. He looks at Cara, then at me, something unreadable in his expression. “I’m sorry. We need to—”
He doesn’t finish. Just follows Nate.
And I’m sitting here. Across from the woman I’ve loved for half my life, watching her cry, every instinct screaming at me to stay.
But we’re a pack. Even broken. Even hurting. We don’t leave each other behind.
“Theo.” Her voice cracks on my name. “Please.”
I stand. My chest feels like it’s caving in.
“I’m sorry,” I say. And I mean it—for leaving, for not being strong enough to stay, for all of it. “I have to go.”
I make myself turn. Make myself walk away from those brown eyes, that honey-citrus scent, the sound of her trying not to sob.
At the door, I look back.
She’s alone at the table. Shoulders hunched, face in her hands. The candles flicker around her like some kind of cruel joke—all this Valentine’s Day romance, and she’s sitting there shattered.
I almost go back. Almost.
Then I push through the door into the cold.
Nate’s leaning against Lucas’s car, arms crossed, staring at nothing. Lucas is beside him, hands in his pockets.
Neither of them speaks when I walk up.
We stand there in the parking lot, breath fogging in the February air. Inside, I can hear music starting up. Dancing. People enjoying their evening like the world didn’t just crack open.
“She told us why,” I finally say. “The real reason.”
“I heard.” Nate’s voice is rough. “All of it.”
“And?”
Silence.
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if it changes anything. She was scared, fine. She was eighteen, fine. But so were we. And we didn’t disappear.”
“No,” Lucas agrees. “We didn’t.”
“But we also weren’t drowning.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “We had each other. We had the pack, even without her. She was alone.”
They both look at me.
“I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m not saying she was right.” I stare at the community center doors. “I’m just saying I understand it. Being so scared you can’t ask for help. Digging yourself into a hole and not knowing how to climb out.”
More silence.
Then Nate sighs. Scrubs a hand over his face.
“She won the auction,” he says. “Three dates. That’s what she paid for.”
“So we each owe her a date.” Lucas’s voice is careful. “One on one.”
“You think we should?”
“I think...” Lucas pauses. “I think we’ve spent ten years wondering. Now we know. And maybe the only way to figure out what comes next is to actually talk to her. Without all three of us there. Without the pressure of—” He gestures vaguely at the community center. “This.”
Nate is quiet for a long moment.
“One date,” he finally says. “That’s it.”
“That’s all she’s asking,” I say.
“Fine.” He pushes off the car. “Let’s go home. I’m done.”
We pile into Lucas’s car. I end up in the back, staring out the window as the lights of the community center fade behind us.
I left her there. Crying. Alone.
It was the right thing to do. We needed to process this together, as a pack. Needed to figure out what we’re going to do without her there, watching, waiting.
But it still feels like I failed her.
The house is quiet when we get home.
Nate goes straight to his room without a word. Door closes. Silence.
Lucas lingers in the kitchen, filling a glass of water he doesn’t drink.
“She looked so small,” he says quietly. “At that table. When we left.”
“I know.”
“I almost stayed.” He sets the glass down. “When Nate got up, I almost let him go alone.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Because if I stayed, I would have forgiven her. Right there. And I’m not ready for that.”
I nod. I understand. It’s the same reason I walked away—because staying meant giving in, and we’re not there yet.
“But we will reach out,” Lucas says. “About the dates. Give her that much.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll text her tomorrow. Set something up.” He runs a hand through his hair. “She deserves that much. After what she told us.”
“She does.”
He heads toward his room, then pauses at the doorway.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I believe her too. About being scared. About the shame spiral.” He looks at me. “It doesn’t fix everything. But it helps to finally know.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”
He disappears down the hall.
I stand in the kitchen for a while, staring at nothing.
She told us why. After ten years of wondering, we finally know.
It doesn’t erase the hurt. Doesn’t undo the years of silence. But it’s something. A crack in the wall. A place to start.
I think about her sitting alone at that table. The way she looked when I glanced back. Broken and beautiful and trying so hard to be brave.
We left her there. All three of us. Because we needed to protect ourselves, because we weren’t ready, because the pack comes first.
But tomorrow, we’ll reach out. Give her the dates she paid for. Let her try to earn whatever comes next.
I head to my room. Lie down in the dark.
For the first time in ten years, I don’t have to wonder what I did wrong.
Turns out the answer is nothing. We did nothing wrong. She was just scared and young and didn’t know how to love us without losing herself.
I can understand that. I can work with that.
The question now is whether we can find our way back to each other. Whether the people we’ve become can fit together the way we used to.
I close my eyes.
For the first time in a long time, I let myself hope.