“Rya, you need to stop this. You’re making it worse than it has to be.” She’s crying so hard, I can hardly understand what she’s saying.
“Please just listen to me. I just need a chance to explain what happened.” Desperate pleas tumble out of a desperate mouth.
“I thought you said that you didn’t know what happened. How can you explain it to me then?” She stumbles for words, to find the right things to say.
“You can’t have the both of us, so I’m making it easier for you. Stay here and try to work it out with your mate. Give him a chance. Obviously, you two have some things that need to be worked out, and I’m glad that this happened, because if I were to mark you, I would be forever tormented by this unfinished business with him. The what if’s would kill me inside. I have no what if’s. I only can see you now. My path is clear, unlike yours.” She’s trying with all her might to keep the door open between us.
“Please, Dallas, please don’t do this. It was a mistake; I realize this now.” Her voice is shaking like her entire body.
“Oh, you just realize this now. What about the times I asked you if you were sure with what you wanted? I believed you, but now I don’t believe anything you have to say to me.” She stills, her eyes looking at me with tears that won’t stop.
“I never lied to you Dallas, ever.”
“Then you were lying to yourself, Rya. I think that’s even worse.”
“Please don’t do this, not like this. I love you, Dallas. I love you so much. I need you.”
“Stop it, Rya, stop. You’re making this hard.” She tries to pull the car door open fully, but I won’t let her. I’m prying her fingers away that are anchored onto the steel frame. Giving her a shove, so she falls on the ground, I close and lock the door. She scrambles up, pounding her fists against the window. Her words are muffled, but her eyes hold nothing but despair.
My gut is all twisted up and turning sideways inside myself. I feel as if I could throw up with what I’m seeing.
“Go, Carson.” I can hardly say the words.
Feeling the car lurch forward, we pull away from this pack, from her, and go toward my home. Looking back, she’s on her knees holding the ground in her hands, head pressed against the earth.
“Are you okay, brother?” Carson’s hand goes to my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
“I’ll be okay.” I have been through worse. This is hard, but I will recover.
“What did Mom and Dad say?” Carson’s voice holds sadness.
“They understand that this was the best decision to be made.” I look out the window because I can’t bear Carson’s pitying eyes.
When I called my father telling him I’m coming home alone, he was quiet for a few seconds before asking if I was going to be all right. I told him yes. He was quiet again before telling me that I had to try, to take that chance. I knew what I was up against, the bond. I know what that is all about. I was just lying to myself that she could beat it, that I could beat it. But in the end, it just beat me.
I owe Rya a lot. I owe her for giving me my life back. For waking me from sleepwalking through life. She made me realize I didn’t want to be alone anymore, that I wanted more from life. I can’t help the way my own tears now come. My throat burns with emotions. I try to angle away from Carson so he can’t see me. I try to refocus, but I just can’t control my hurt.
From the moment I saw that female, I knew she was special, the way she smiled when I was showing her around the clinic, the way she dealt with all those females. Even when she was at her most vulnerable, she tried to hold herself up on her own. She has such strength inside herself. She made me laugh. She made me believe that I could become what everyone wants me to be. She made me believe in me. I’ll always love her for that.
My shoulders start shaking with the way I’m trying not to sob in front of my brother, my weakness showing through my armor that I have built up through the years.
She was mine for a moment, and I loved every single moment we had together.
“I love you, Clayton.” Carson uses my first name. I have a hard time hearing it. It reminds me too much of who I was, not who I am now.
I was to irresponsible back then, taking chances, never really thinking about consequences.
Rya will be happy with Clayton. They just need a chance to be what the moon wanted them to be in the first place. I need to keep telling myself that or else I might have Carson turn the car around and go back to her. Give her a chance, like she gave me, except her chance is with her mate and not a fraud like me.
Stopping only for gas and drive thru, we make it to the pack in record time. Caleb will drive my car home once he decides to leave. He’s become slightly attached to those wolves.
Pulling into the driveway, the pack is there waiting for me. Every single member is here to welcome me back. Getting out, I straighten out my shoulders, meeting everyone’s eyes.
“Welcome home,” the pack murmurs as one. They reach out, touching my shoulders, my arms, my shaved head.
Making my way to my parents, my mother kisses my cheek in welcome. My father embraces me into his arms, and it takes everything I have not to break down in front of my pack.
No words can leave my mouth at the moment. It’s too difficult. We hug each other for a long time until I can let go.
Making our way into the house after I thank every single wolf for coming to welcome me back, my mother has cooked a feast for me.
“You look bigger.” Cash squeezes my bicep, trying to make me smile. Kennedy is beside him looking down at the ground, picking at her nails. I can smell her nervousness. It’s like everything that used to be her is gone and replaced with something new.
“How’s everything going, Cash?”
“Better.” One word answer, but at least it’s a good word.
My phone starts to ring. Taking it out of my pocket, I see it’s Rya. I turn it off. I can’t talk with her anymore, and it’s not good for either of us. She has a mate, and I have a pack that needs me.
Dinner is quiet, hushed with our mood. In time, this won’t be so bad. It will be like she never happened to me.
Carson gets up from his chair, facing our parents. “I’d like to talk with the both of you in your office, Father.”
My dad’s looking at him in question. I don’t think he’s ever asked this of both my parents at the same time.
“All right, are you okay?” my mother asks.
“I am, I’m okay.” Those are his words, and I believe them.
“Your training starts now, my son. You need to make your own way to the wild wolves and come back on your own. You need to get back to basics before you can move forward with me.”
“How will I know when it’s time to come back?” I’m not sure that I’ll want to come back.
“You’ll just know, trust me. Now go.” My father’s deep voice urges me to follow what he’s saying.
Giving my goodbyes to my family, I head out toward the wild, and hopefully, I’ll come back ready to face what I have been putting off for so long.
The wolf ascends from cocoon of skin turning to fur. He run full out, noses pointed forward, tail straight, stretching our body out completely.
The Wild runs the way the wind can blow, fast and furious to greet his nature head on.
Chapter 15
Forgiving
Rya
Motionless.
The inability to move, fingers gripping into the earth as its axis tilts underneath my body. Trying so hard to just hang on so I can’t fall off the world.
My tears stopped hours ago, yet somehow I just can’t seem to pick myself off the ground. I want to decompose into the earth, like all things that have died.
I can’t get up.
This is what love does. This is always what love does.
It ruins you in the end.
Floods of emotions in, only to flow out once again in great sobs of distress.
The ground is damp with all the tears I’ve shed.
Muddy face, I can feel the grit in my teeth, up my nose, irritating my eyes.
“Rya, it’s time to get up.” Clayton is behind me, urging me to pick myself up. I wish somehow I could.
“I’m going to help you get up, but that’s all I’m going to do. I’ll take you back to your house. You can’t stay like this.” I can tell when he gets closer to me. I hate him, but I hate myself more.
I open my mouth to scream, but no sounds come out.
My body is shaking its betrayal when his hands make contact with my arms, electric energy pulsing inside me into a soothing relief that I don’t want to feel.
“Rya, I’m not sure what to say.” He picks me up off the ground, setting me down on my own two feet that want to crumple underneath me.
Somehow it’s impossible to support my own weight. So he now has no choice but to support me.
Tremors ripple my flesh from within, skin on skin contact that my flesh craves, but my mind loathes.
Words refuse to answer him back.
I have done this to myself. I have no one to blame but me. I should have been stronger. I should have stopped it, fought harder against it.
I was weak.
“Take a step for me, Rya, one foot in front of the other.” Clayton sounds like his voice is cracking inside his throat.
Trying to take a breath in, I suffocate on the rush of pain so deep, it feels as if my bones are cracking, except it’s my heart that’s peeling away.
How long does a heart take to disappear?
In this moment, I need for mine to be gone.
The only male that has ever seen me worthy of love, and I ruined it. I threw it all away with a kiss.
All I have left are memories now. That’s all I will ever have of him…memories.
Hopeless, the word doesn’t mean enough.
Dallas saw me kissing him. He will never unsee that; he will have that with him forever. How could I even convince him I’m not a cheater, because I am?
“Another step, Rya. Walk for me.” I can hear him, but my eyes refuse to focus on anything. The puppeteer working the puppet, he’s stringing me along where he wants me to go.
“Rya, take a big breath in. Breathe for me, Rya.” The panic vibrates in the wobble of his voice.
“He’ll come back for you. He was just upset. He’ll be back. Take another step, Rya. You need to keep walking. That’s it.” My legs start shaking again with the image of Dallas’s eyes, how they looked at me.
“Don’t you fall down, do you understand! One foot in front of the other.” Burning heat saturates into my skin where he’s holding me up. Most of my weight is in his hands, my feet only dusting the ground. Sometimes I miss a step, but he won’t let me fall.
“It was wrong of me to come to you. It was so wrong, but I couldn’t stay away. I had to be selfish one last time. I had to just see you one last time. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I just thought I could let you go.” His words sound so far away from my ear, but I know that his lips are close. The way his breath hits my neck sends drumming fingers down my spine that pools deep inside my core.
Clayton opens a car door for me. Was it my car that I drove here with? I try to think about how I got here, not expecting Dallas to be leaving as soon as I came.
He had time to shave his head.
Before he can put me in the car, I vomit on the ground with the disgust I have for myself. He holds my hair away from my face, letting me empty the contents of my self-hate for the earth to soak up. It’s not fair for the dirt to have to hold all that vileness.
I’m an old brittle paper that’s crumbling.
I let my head rest against the glass window, watching nothing as we drive.
“Rya, time to get out of the car. You can do this, one leg, then the other. Now walk toward the door.” I can’t see anymore, I can’t talk anymore, I can’t anymore.
Love destroys.
***
Week one
Heartbeat flat lines…
Anxiety waking me in the middle of the night, clutching my chest, sweat trickling down my skin. It’s so hard to breathe, but I do.
Statue still, it’s easier if I don’t move, don’t talk, don’t think.
Clayton is here along with my parents and sisters; it’s gone supernova. Hatred over so many years bubbles out of mouths that have been silent for so long. My family says things to him that can never be unsaid, but I think it makes them feel better. I’m a silent spectator watching the gladiators compete, flinging insults at one another, accusations on both sides falling on ears that burn with truths. It’s a domino effect. He says, they say, the fury of words are like blocks falling one right after the other.
My father flings out words like useless, weak, disgusting, not a male of worth in this sanctuary where there are no eyes to witness a member of the pack raising their voice at the Alpha. All done behind closed doors as families do, no need to air the dirty laundry out in the open.
Clayton flinging out his own words to them, saying they weren’t really there for me, not a true support when I needed them most. How does he know all this?
Viciously they verbally attack each other, both holding their own ground from one another. My family is a group of mongooses going after the cobra.
My once-peaceful space is gone, replaced with anger.
I stay paralyzed on the couch, not reacting, not looking, barely trying to listen. Is this how it is to be in a coma, everyone talking over you thinking you can’t hear?
I’m lost in my own madness.
They come to some form of a compromise once the rage has been burned out.
No one will leave me alone. Someone’s always here with me. I still can’t talk, I can’t eat, I can’t.
It’s funny, no matter how bad you feel, the world still keeps going on with or without you; the world keeps moving regardless if you can’t.
This is what love does. It builds you up, then it quickly destroys you.
***
Week two
Fingers twitching, eyes start to focus in and out.
Soft energy surrounds me, hands running through my hair when I wake up.
“Why are you here?” His fingers stop. My head’s resting on his lap. It’s comforting in a sick way.
“I just couldn’t walk away again. I couldn’t do nothing. I have to do something for you.” A tear rolls down my cheek, darkening a spot on his shorts. He’s a little too late.
“I don’t want you here.”
“I know.” Getting up, he puts my head on a pillow, covers me with a blanket. I remain cold once his heat is taken away.
“It’s going to be really simple, Rya. All you have to do is start living again and I’ll go away. I’ll leave you alone.” He sounds like the Valentines, the way he’s using their words against me. Putting my mouth against the pillow, it holds my cries. Fists pound against the couch that do not damage the fabric.
***
Week three
It’s starting to become easier to talk, easier to breathe. The weight that’s pressing on my chest is lifting slightly. It’s not as suffocating.
I can walk on my own, but I still cry.
The world keeps going, and so do I.
Limping progress.
“Did you brush your teeth today? I see you never combed your hair. It’s a good look for you.” Clayton’s taunts aggravate me.
“You smell like old underwear. Change your clothes.” Clayton acts like he’s my friend, as if we don’t have a history together.
He comes in the morning, never staying for long, then he comes before bed just to make sure I’m still alive. My family comes as well, each one rotating a shift in this acute crisis.
I catch Clayton by surprise one morning. He’s trying to get me to eat some toast, and I hit him as hard as I can. Harder than I have hit anyone in my life. I think I broke his jaw. He takes the hit and the next ones I give him until I can’t hit him anymore. It’s not making me feel better. In fact, it’s making it worse. He
hugs me to him. He holds me as I cry into his chest, while he pats my back, saying it’s going to be okay, that it gets easier, I just need time. Dallas will come back for me.
Backing away from him, I go into the cupboard and pull out a whiskey bottle, pouring him and me a drink. He takes it from me, pouring it down the sink, both the glasses and the bottle.
“It won’t help, trust me.” He talks like he knows what he’s saying.
So now comes my verbal insults, the lashing of silver tongues on one another. All those years of rage pent up inside me comes out. Screams, accusations, blaming. Both of us screaming at the other, both of us blaming the other because things didn’t go our way.
He blames me for being his mate when all he ever wanted was her. I blamed him for everything.
He slams the front door shut. I slam my bedroom door shut over and over again, screaming until I fall asleep still in the clothes I wore all day long.
Caleb is sitting on the couch when I come out of the bedroom with Max in his arms. It must be Monday. I’ve lost track of days, one running into another, but I know when Mondays come. It’s their day together to watch this little pup. What’s going to happen when Kimberly is out of school and those males won’t have their Mondays with him anymore? Caleb is going to make a good father when his time comes. That makes me cry because I won’t get to be involved with any of them. Maybe if I’m lucky I might catch a word here or there about the lives of the Valentines.
“Rya, it’s going to be okay.” Caleb hates when I cry. I just can’t stop.
“Is he back yet?” Always the same question for him.
“No, not yet.” Max is snuggled in this male’s arms, safe and secure. Not a care in the world except when his next meal is. What a lucky male.
“How long do you think he’ll be out there?” In a way, I’m envious of Dallas, able to just move on like I never existed. For me, he’s always walking in my mind, always there; he’s always a thought that I can’t escape from. I can’t turn him off, but it’s getting easier to let life in again.
The Wildflower Series Page 36