Chapter Fifteen #3
They shuffled out of the bathroom and down the hall, walking at a snail’s pace. Her mom always knew when Kimberly needed gentle care, when she was most fragile.
“Where’s Dad?” Kimberly asked, holding in the urge to sniffle. Her dad never liked it when anyone cried within earshot of him.
“I told him to get lost tonight. He’s probably at the bar with some friends. I said I’d call when you were in bed.” Stacy’s grip tightened on her daughter’s arm. “He will be here in the morning. You know he can’t stay away for too long.”
“I know.” Kimberly eased herself into a creaky dining chair at the round, oak dining table. “I just knew it’d be easier if he wasn’t around until I was settled.”
Stacy rushed to the old stove and the steaming metal pot, her special spaghetti pot. She cooked the noodles and sauce separately, but always mixed it in this specific, thick metal pot that had to be a family heirloom.
Her mother scooped out noodles onto a scalloped-edged plate. “I understand, honey. Believe me, I do.”
Kimberly heard and recited the rest of that sentence from her childhood. “But he’s my father.”
Stacy shook her head and made up the second plate. “Yes, he’s your father, but things are different now. You are an adult, not a child. The rules of your childhood don’t apply.”
That surprised her. “Since when?”
“Since you moved out and found a pack of your own.” Stacy grabbed up two forks and brought the plates to the table before retreating to the kitchen again to fetch the plate of aromatic garlic bread.
Kimberly had barely eaten all day, and the smell of home cooking ignited enough appetite to motivate her to dig in and let the matter drop. Stacy let her eat, patient and likely glorying in the chance to cook for her child again after so long.
When the biting edge of hunger dulled some, Kimberly felt ready to talk. She told her mom about the attack, how she couldn’t shift, how Shane triggered her, how he built her up and then tore her down again, after making her believe that her dominance didn’t matter.
She trusted her mother enough to tell her everything, even the sex, because she considered that valuable context to her belief that the trauma had shrunk to a manageable ratio, that her wolf might have been healthy enough to shift again.
That night and morning with Shane in Oakfield could have changed everything.
Now, she felt just as broken as the day she was attacked, or the day she learned that she had no dominance after she came of age as a shifter.
Kimberly hung her head over the empty plate smeared with spaghetti sauce and littered with toasted breadcrumbs.
“I just wanted to feel … normal. I wanted to feel like I had a chance at a normal shifter life. I wanted to find love, be part of a pack, play a role in my community, and make a difference.”
Stacy reached out and placed her hand near her plate to get her attention. “Kimberly, you have. You have Shane, you’re in a pack, and you are a talented florist. You bring beauty and joy with your flowers.”
“But I’m a liability,” Kimberly groaned. “I’m a weak link. I’m a burden to every shifter I’m around because they have to protect me.”
Once more, sobs rose up her sore throat, but Stacy wouldn’t let them come. “No. None of that is true.”
Kimberly snapped a fierce look at her mom. “Isn’t it? Isn’t that what Dad’s been trying to tell me for so long? Isn’t that why we fought when I decided to go to college in another state? Dad said I could never make it outside if a pack. He always said—”
“You forget what your father said.” The heat and anger in her mother’s voice shocked Kimberly into silence. “You forget all of it.” Stacy sucked in a breath. “You are not a burden. You are not weak. You never have been, and you know it.”
Kimberly’s lips worked, trying to gather the will to say it. “Then, why did Nathan attack me? Why did he want to hurt me?”
The harsh lines of Stacy’s expression became softer.
“Why does any man want to hurt a woman? They want to feel powerful. They get a thrill from the control. They search for an easy victim, and he thought that was you.” Stacy cupped her cheeks.
“But you’re still here. If you were an easy target, that other shifter would not have arrived in time to help.
You had a support system, just as every other shifter has in any pack.
If you had been a victim, you wouldn’t have fought him as hard as you did.
You wouldn’t have screamed and struggled the way you told me.
You would have lain down and given in, but you didn’t. You won.”
Kimberly didn’t think she had any tears left, but they pricked at her eyes just the same. “It doesn’t feel like I did.”
“It doesn’t matter how you feel. What matters is what you do when it’s all over and how you walk in your victory over what he tried to do.”
Nothing about this felt like a victory. Her beaten, fragmented heart didn’t feel victorious at all. How could she ignore the emotions to see any silver lining to this whole mess? Because even if Nathan hadn’t attacked her, it didn’t change the reality of her life as a shifter.