Chapter 29 Twenty-five
Twenty-five
Brea
Olinda was an actual angel. A legitimate miracle-worker. In the words of my very adorable omega, a bona fide queen of doing the things.
My residency mentor had been sympathetic to my struggle and absence to care for my unexpectedly unwell omega. Part of me felt guilty lying to Olinda, but ultimately it was better for everyone involved, at least for the time being.
And, if nothing else, the spirit of the lie was rooted in truth.
Either way, coming back to Farendale had meant facing the fact that I’d lost my shot at completing the program and graduating on time.
I should’ve known better than to underestimate Olinda, patron saint of ass-saving. Within a week of meeting with her, I was all set to restart my residency in the spring, alongside my capstone. My last semester would be sleep-deprived and busy as hell, but it was the absolute best outcome possible.
Forget patron saint. Olinda was a damn goddess.
The remainder of the fall term, I’d do as much prep as I could for capstone, as well as finishing out the last two lecture credits I also needed.
I was wrapping up a reading assignment on designation impacts on socioeconomic status when a key scraped in the lock and the door swung open. I closed my laptop and stood from the couch right as Brooks entered the apartment.
“Hey,” I said, surprised. “Don’t you work today?”
He tossed his keys onto the entry table. “Overstaffed, so they sent me home.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” Tucking my sweater tighter around my torso, I rounded the couch to stand before him and took his hands in mine. “I feel like I’ve hardly seen you since we’ve been back.”
Brooks frowned. It used to be a strange sight. “Everything okay?”
No, I can sense your unease, and I miss the smiles that used to be as easy as air, and I want you to talk to me about it.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s good,” I said and stepped through to the kitchen.
Maybe a little physical space would take some of the pressure off him as I pushed just a little harder.
“I just…we spent two weeks side by side every minute, and now it feels like I only see you in passing.” I straightened the folded dish rag on the counter to save Brooks from my undivided attention.
“I guess I wanted to know if everything was okay on your end.”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “As okay as okay can be, considering.”
Liar.
I nodded as if I believed him. My fingers rolled the corner of the towel backward and forward and scratched at the textured fabric. “Anything you wanna talk about?”
“Like?”
“Anything,” I repeated.
He crossed his arms, eyes narrowing a bit. “Where’s this coming from?”
I snorted. At least this I could be up front about. “I’m an aspiring therapist. I’m attuned to your moods at the best of times. And this time is far from best.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Lightyears from best.”
I waited.
Brooks half-sat on a barstool and leaned over the counter toward me.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Doesn’t it all feel…
anti-climactic? Like, we spent weeks and weeks being chased, our only thoughts keeping Taryn safe.
Then the worst came to pass…and it passed.
And what the hell are we supposed to do now?
How does all that happen and we come out the other side and just… go about our life?”
I refolded the towel and laid it aside, folding my hands on the cool countertop. “I don’t think there’s any one way to do that.”
“Well, how are you doing it?”
In an actual session, I’d redirect the attention back on the client. My job was to give them the strength and confidence to ask the questions and find the answers within themselves, not to spill my own traumas and hangups.
But Brooks wasn’t a client. He was my packmate. My beta. My friend.
“Throwing myself into my work. Clearly,” I added, gesturing between the two of us. “Same way I did when I left Pockston.”
At that point in my life, escaping my family had been the climax of my story. Running away with Taryn, starting our life together had been the happily ever after, the epilogue of a hard-fought tale.
In some ways, this was the same. We all had our chance at a happily ever after together. This was what we’d been fighting for, working toward from nearly the day we all met.
But leaving Pockston, we had been running toward a brighter life than what lay behind us.
Emerging from a lightless existence with a lightless future.
This time, we’d all lost a little bit of innocence.
We were no longer naive to the grim realities that existed around us, unseen. They’d been our reality for a time.
Now, not only did we have to convince ourselves that the danger had actually passed, but we had to move through the world with newfound understanding. We could see things now that others didn’t.
If leaving Pockston was a journey from dark into dawn, coming home after Phoenix felt more like dusk melting into black night. No streetlamps, no stars, and the sound of something creeping just out of sight.
It was bound to make anyone a little antsy.
I grabbed his hand. “Maybe things feel anticlimactic right now because life doesn’t have a climax. This isn’t a story that we’ll ever reach the last page of, Brooks. There will always be another page, and another. It just…it continues on, and so do we.”
Cool eucalyptus surrounded me. My alpha preened at having found the right words to soothe our beta. I’d have to keep at him—at all of them, really. We all carried so much inside us since Phoenix.
Brooks sighed, squeezing my hand in thanks. “You’re a good therapist, Brea,” he said before kissing my knuckles. “Such a good therapist I won’t ruin the moment with a joke about climaxes.”
Note to self: Clients do not get slapped upside the head.
Packmates, though? Fair game.