8. Ben
EIGHT
BEN
Coping Strategies
I was in a meadow.
I couldn’t remember why or how I had gotten there.
The sun was shining, and yellow and white flowers swayed idly in the tall grass.
When was the last time I had felt so at peace? I couldn’t even remember.
“There you are! Why’d you run off on me, silly?”
That voice.
I knew that voice.
Every cell in my body cried out at once, desperate to face that voice, and yet I could only turn in slow motion.
Agonizing second after agonizing second, I finally managed to turn, and there she was. Same as she had been when she was sixteen and I was fifteen.
“Vermillia…” I whispered, my throat threatening to close in on itself.
“Vermillia? Honey, what are you on about? You know I prefer to be called Millia.”
Right. Of course. I knew that.
“How are you here?”
“What are you talking about, sweetie? You’re the one who invited me to this picnic.”
I had?
I looked around. I thought… what did I think? I didn’t know. Everything was sort of hazy. But did any of that matter when my beloved was in front of me?
“I missed you,” I murmured, pulling her into my arms. Fortunately, my body was moving in normal motion now instead of impossibly slow, so I was able to draw her into my arms.
“Millia,” I breathed, burying my nose in her hair. She was much smaller than I remembered, with none of the softness from growing into a woman or carrying our child, but she was still my beautiful Millia.
Wait.
Carrying our child?
Right.
We were older. I was older. We had a child. Benjamin Poynter Jr. We weren’t kids.
But if we weren’t kids, how could I be embracing her?
“You forgot me.”
“What?”
Suddenly, the entire world changed. I was no longer in the meadow, and Millia was no longer her teenaged self. Instead, we were in what remained of our ransacked home, and she was exactly how I found her on that fateful day: sprawled out on the floor in a puddle of dried blood.
Because of our healing abilities, it took a lot to kill a shifter. But the bite on the side of her neck and the long slash down her leg told an awful, grisly story.
“Millia, no!” I cried, collapsing beside her. No, no, no, I couldn’t go through this again.
“You weren’t there for me.”
It was her voice, but older and rotted, just like her body. Her eyes were gray, completely lifeless, but they flicked to me.
“You were supposed to be there for us. But you weren’t. And now we’re all dead.”
“This isn’t real, this isn’t real!” I cried, clapping my hands over my ears. I was in a night terror. That was the only thing that made sense.
But even though I knew that, it didn’t ease the grate of her voice as it chanted.
“This is your fault. This is your fault. This is your fault. Thisisyourfault. Thisisyourfault. Thisisyourfaulthisisyourfaultth ? —”
“STOP!”
I lurched forward and toppled out of bed, gasping and gagging as my brain scrambled back to reality. It was just a dream.
Just a dream.
But was it?
Had the nightmare come because I’d agreed to go on a date with my son’s teacher?
Why had I done that?
I’d fully intended never to go on another date in my life. I’d already had the love of my life, and I was well aware that there were no do-overs.
Except…
Except I hadn’t laughed like that with another adult in over a year, and the way she looked at me...
There was probably something wrong with me, but I couldn’t get over how angelic she’d looked in that hospital bed.
My gaze was constantly drawn to her, drinking in the way her cheeks rounded when she grinned, how soft her hair looked in the artful braid around her head, how the green ring around her irises blended so seamlessly into the golden ring around the edges.
That wasn’t all, of course. It was how her voice was musical, even when she was serious. It was how delicate her wrists were as they tapered into her elegant fingers. It was the kindness in her gaze when she looked at my son, and the ease that had settled over her features when he read to her.
All of that was why I’d said yes when she’d asked me out.
I was crazy.
“Daddy?” Junior cracked open the door. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I murmured, picking myself up off the floor. I was drenched in sweat. Gross. “Just had a bit of a nightmare.”
“I figured,” he said, climbing into my bed.
The awful terror and guilt from my dream began to ebb. “You do?”
“I do! Miss Fischbacher taught me.”
Of course she did.
“All right, let me go wash my face, junior, and then I’ll be right back.”
“Okay!”
I didn’t bother turning on the hall light. With my shifter-enhanced vision, I could see just fine in the dark. I paused by Veronica’s room, listening intently. Good, I hadn’t woken her.
Although she’d been a rather colicky baby when she’d first come into my care, Veronica had proven to be an excellent sleeper once she got past her first round of teething.
It had definitely been a lucky turn, because even with Natalie’s help, I’d been on the verge of going insane that first month before I’d gone out on my revenge mission that I’d thought would give me peace.
It didn’t.
I didn’t regret it, because I’d made sure the man who had been my beta and his gang couldn’t hurt anyone else.
I washed my face, then headed back to my room. Junior was propped up on a couple of my pillows, a flashlight in one hand and a book open in his lap.
“Oh, are you reading to me, buddy?”
“Yeah,” he said before reaching under the covers and pulling out one of his stuffed animals. “Hold this, please.”
I took it, then awaited further instructions. “What do you want me to do with it?”
He gave me a look like I’d just asked him something ridiculous. “ Hold it, silly.” He patted the bed next to him. “Come on, lie down.”
“All right.”
Although my heart was still pounding and my stomach was definitely sinking, I was feeling better.
And that only continued when Junior took my phone and played music on a low volume.
It was classical music—not a banger, like “The Ride of the Valkyries”, which would be far too fraught to sleep to, but something relatively mellow and light with a lot of dainty harp chords.
Strangely enough, the sound of the harp reminded me of Giselle .
The delicate curve of her neck, the broadness of her smile, those intense cheekbones of hers.
The spark in her eyes whenever she was particularly pleased about something.
I hadn’t known her long, yet it felt like I’d already observed so much.
“You comfy?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Awesome. Now, close your eyes and relax.”
“Miss Fischbacher really taught you all this?”
“She gave me the tips to get started. I googled a lot too.”
“Aren’t you a little researcher?”
“I dunno about little. I’m kinda tall for my age.”
Maybe in any other kid it would sound defensive, but my son was casually stating a fact.
“You are pretty tall. But you’re definitely gonna get taller.”
“I hope so!”
I chuckled, then closed my eyes and focused on my breathing as he began to read about different ocean creatures from across the world.
I loved that my son was into such scientific things.
It made me feel like I was succeeding as a father—at least a little—and I would take whatever victories I could.
Although I was giving it an earnest try, I didn’t expect to fall asleep.
But by the time we got to the section of the book about coral reefs, I began to dip down into a slumber.
Sometimes, I got so excited at the prospect of sleep that I’d wake up all over again, but now I concentrated on my son’s voice.
And wouldn’t you know, it worked. I sank deeper and deeper, until I was enveloped in that space between being awake and asleep. It was comfortable and comforting , and I wasn’t in the grasp of that awful night terror anymore. I also didn’t think there were others waiting in the wings to swoop in.
“The end,” my son said softly as he closed the book. “I’m gonna sleep in here tonight, okay, Dad?”
I let out a grunt, too sleepy to get out intelligible words.
“Okay. I’m putting the baby monitor between us, just in case.”
I was so intensely impressed with my son. Impressed and touched. Not only had he saved his teacher from getting hurt much worse, but he was helping me. Watching out for me.
He really was incredible.
I wished his mother could see it.