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“Was that the only thing keeping you from trusting him?”
“I had plenty of reasons not to trust him right away.” I looked up at Vanessa. “I’m not saying all of them were logical, but he was a new person who came to take over, something we hadn’t seen in a long time. Made me wary that he was a High Faction plant of some kind. He was taking the job that I was originally slated to inherit…”
“And the fact that your last Alpha betrayed your trust,” Vanessa said.
I tensed. “I don’t want to talk about what happened with Logan yet. You—you told me that I di—didn’t ne—”
“No, we don’t need to go back to that night right now.” Vanessa gently patted my knee. “But he was a man you had put your trust in, and he was your Alpha for almost three years. It’s okay to admit that trusting another Alpha felt not only impossible, but morally wrong.”
My stomach rolled at the words, my vision blurring. There was merit to the idea—I had admitted it to myself a few times—but never had I said those words out loud. It all just seemed so much more complicated in my mind, like a tangled web of truths and lies.
I looked back on my time with Logan, wondering when it all went wrong. I was an investigator; I should have recognized the signs sooner so I could protect myself, but I had let my trust in him keep me blind to who he really was.
He hid in plain sight from a lot of people.
“It wasn’t just my trust he broke.” My shoulders shook. “He betrayed everyone that night. The Faction, our friends, Caleb…”
“He made a choice that caused a lot of pain,” Vanessa said. “You were the one the stone struck, but everyone else felt a ripple from the impact.”
“Not Caleb.” The words came out strained, high-pitched and struggling on soundless tears turned to sobs.
Vanessa pulled her chair forward. “Caleb made a choice to ignore the truth.”
He was choosing to ignore a lot of things about Logan, and every day that went by, I felt more and more betrayed.
“Take care of my sister,” I whispered into my hand, the sobs still racking my body.
“What?” Vanessa squeezed my shoulder.
“That’s what Caleb said to Logan when we celebrated our promotions.” I moved my hand away so she could hear my words loud and clear.“Take care of my sister.”
“He broke that promise,” Vanessa said. “He took advantage of the trust you built in him and he broke the promise he made to your brother.”
“I know.” I sniffed, wiping away the stream of tears. “I’ve always known that. What crushes me is that Caleb doesn’t think he broke that promise.”
“We can’t control what other people think, even if their thoughts are misguided or clouded. This past year has forced you to lose people you once trusted. That type of trauma can force us to reevaluate the way we see people, especially when we first meet them. It’s alright to be cautious when new faces enter your life.”
“Then why does everyone joke about needing to be more trusting?” I looked up toward the ceiling, hoping it would help dry some of the tears. “People say it, not just to me, but to anyone who doesn’t ‘let loose’. It’s like it’s a flaw to be wary of people when they enter your life.”
“It’s not.” Vanessa shook her head. “Just because most people find that kind of caution funny, doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. You have plenty of reasons to not trust people when you meet them. You not only work in a job that constantly asks you to question everything and see the worst kind of people in our country, but you personally experienced trauma and betrayal of trust in a compressed period of time. Your mind needed to do something to protect both itself and your heart from further pain, and the way to do that was to put up barriers, to allow your trust to be earned, not gifted easily. And that’s okay, Kasha, it is okay to set that boundary for yourself.”
I sniffed. “It is?”
“Those who care about you, those who are really worth your trust, will stop at nothing to earn it.” She smiled at me.
The words washed over me, the truth of them settling on my heart and mind, validating something deep in my soul.
I was allowed to set boundaries. I was allowed to tell people that they needed to keep a distance as we got to know each other. Sure, I could go about doing it in a better way, cut the sarcasm and maybe be a bit more honest about my need for that boundary, but it didn’t make the validity of my need any less real.
It was alright that I hadn’t trusted Nolan right away—that wasn’t wrong. It was wrong of me to be mean to him, to push him away, to treat him like the enemy. I at least felt a little settled that I had apologized for that this week; it made accepting all of this even easier, being able to see the errors of my actions but also noticing the efficacy of my needs. It was alright that I needed time. It was alright, and I could accept it.
I accepted this new part of me, and let the stress of my denial free.
“It looks like you just let go of something else,” Vanessa whispered, holding up a small mirror she pulled from her pocket. I took it, my hands shaking, but what I saw was crystal clear: for the first time in a year, I saw myself with bright gold eyes.
For the first time in a year, I was reminded how beautiful I was.
Chapter Thirty-Four
