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“People leave me when I get upset or show negative emotions about things.” I knew it sounded crazy even saying it out loud, but somewhere between being neglected by my parents, and being abandoned, my brain had cracked like an egg and I was still working on putting all of the little pieces back together.
Tibby’s auburn eyebrows rose. “Is that what you think?”
I nodded, my throat clogging with tears.
“Oh honey,” Tibby pulled me into a crushing hug, her strawberry scent wrapping around me comfortingly.
“Madeline, I would love you even if you were a total bitch under that bubbly exterior. You were the second person to ever be my friend. Even when I was trapped at the academy, you still went out of your way to visit me. All of us love you, and our love isnotconditional.”
Wiping furiously at the wet corners of my eyes, I struggled to regain composure. I refused to bawl in the middle of a department store, but Tibby was really making it hard. She had, somehow, managed to put into words what Ric and the rest of Pack Russo had been trying to convey with their actions for years.
Tibby’s lip wobbled and she gave me a little shake. “No crying. If you cry, then I have to cry, and then there will be two crying women and one very confused man in front of everyone shopping for Christmas.”
My laughter was wet as I sucked in a deep breath. “You’re right. Besides, Theo looks really uncomfortable right now.”
The man in question was pretending to read the back of a box of hot chocolate and at the sound of his name he looked up sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t want to intrude on your moment.”
Later, as I watched Theo and Tibby walk to their car hand-in-hand, I wondered if I would ever get to have the same easy affection that the two shared between them, and whether or not a certain pack of alphas would be the ones to do that for me.
