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I tried my best to focus on my strength, to remember all of the people who had been there for me: Ollie. Nana. Beckett. Eden. Liv. Taylor. Lucas. Emric. Greyson….
They all loved me, supported me during my lowest times and still stood by me each day while I battled for my sanity. I had my people, I had my loved ones. So why did it still hurt? Why did I miss the gravelly sound of Caleb’s laughter? Or the way he only smiled with one side of his lips, the other side barely twitching, yet I always knew that meant he was happy?
“That should be it,” he said, his notebook disappearing from view, jaw twitching as awkward silence filled the void. He cleared his throat again. “So, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Caleb. Working, as always.” So many angry words came to the forefront, things I wished I could say to him, my stomach lurching at the silence in my soul that my wolf had left behind in these moments. I tampered them down; this wasn’t the time, it might never be the time. “How’s Father?”
“Good. I’m having dinner with him tonight.”
“Oh.” I nodded, the dagger in my heart twisting deeper. “Tell him hello from me.”
“I will.”
“Make sure you send something to Nana in a few weeks.” My eyes flickered away for a moment before returning to stare at the screen. “It’s her birthday.”
“I will, thank you for the reminder.” He sat forward, lips still fashioned in a straight line, tension etched into every muscle. “Well, have a good day, Kasha.”
My insides quivered, the cracks in my strength starting to give away, but I pulled myself up, straightening my shoulders. “You, too, Caleb.”
And without another word, my screen went blank.
I let out a scream into the empty silence of my office. I released the pain and betrayal that I was reminded of every time I was forced to speak to Caleb, my throat raw by the time I calmed down, panting in my desk chair.
At least one thing came from this: I would have something to talk to Vanessa about this afternoon.
***
“Are you alright, Kasha?” Vanessa asked after five minutes of silence into our session.
She sat across from me, her perfectly-tailored burgundy slacks matching well with her black-and-gold button-up shirt and black boots; once again her whole style perfectly put together, finished off with two braids stitched along either side of her head before combining into a bun, her lovely face perfectly complimented by the light cosmetics she had applied.
Every little piece of her was perfect, professional. And I had to sit across from her, in my black stretch workpants that I pretty much wore every day, and a steel gray cotton shirt that wrapped around me, cutting into a V at the neckline. My hair was thrown up in an unkempt ponytail and my face was devoid of any cosmetics. I was a mess next to her.
I shrugged, settling further down into the soft velvet cushion. Questions about if this was the right time and if Vanessa was really the right person to talk to kept bombarding me, sabotaging my original motivation to vent about Caleb and everything that’d happened.
“Did something happen?” she prompted, my skin prickling.
“It’s not that big of a deal.” But I had decided to talk about this, so why was it so difficult to do when the moment had finally come?
“I told you before, we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.” Vanessa wrote something down in her journal, my eyes tracing the pattern to see if I could discern what it was. Of course, I couldn’t. “But you seem like you want to, yet something is holding you back. That is, if I’m reading you correctly…we’re still rather new to each other.”
Goddess, this woman was sharp.
Why was I hesitating? For years I had lived off my instincts, I had trusted myself, but all of that had morphed in the past year—yet another thing that had been taken from me. I needed to fight against the second-guessing.
My insides squirmed, but I leaned forward, “I talked to my brother Caleb this morning.”
“I see.” She nodded, her face softening. “And why does that cause you distress? Do you not have a good relationship with him?”
I scoffed, rubbing my forehead, an ache settling behind my eyes. “No.”
“Has it always been like that?”
“I can’t say we’ve always been close,” I admitted, a truth that never used to bother me. “But I always knew I could trust him, go to him when I needed him most. He was my brother…just like with Ollie, we had this unspoken agreement to always support each other.”
I was always closest with Ollie growing up; Caleb and I having a seven-year age gap had made it difficult to bond at such different stages in life. Yet, I remembered him sitting with me for hours in the woods when I was seven, after I had run away from Mama because she told me I wouldn’t be allowed to see the wolves during a Full Moon until I was ready to turn. Caleb had let me cry it out and have my temper tantrum, stomping on flowers and leaves and anything I could kick. And when I was finished, he’d walked me to the lake behind our house and given me a swimming lesson, splashing me and tossing me around until I was giggling so much, I completely forgot why I was upset with Mama.
“When did all of that stop?” Vanessa asked.
