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Kyler
Wind blows all around me and waves crash roughly along the sandy beach just two hundred feet below the balcony I stand on. The sky has transitioned from a bright blue to a dismal grey and as raindrops start to pelt against my skin, I wonder if this is the fates rubbing salt in my still-open wounds.
I shove my hands roughly into my pockets and turn around to head inside the small cottage I’ve rented for the couple of weeks I have off.
It’s been mission after mission lately and while I need this time, I’ve only just arrived and I’m already regretting my choice to spend the entirety of my vacation here.
Fourteen years have passed since my mate was taken from me. Though “taken” is too nice a word. Cara was ripped from this world, her light snuffed out, never to be seen again.
I let the door slam behind me as I enter the house and see the flowers I’ve left on the table. Every year during this week, I’ve come here and mourned all over again. Wallowing in the misery that has become my life, knowing that the best part of my soul will never smile up at me or laugh at my anger over the little things.
My chest is hollow, as if someone has been slowly carving the center out with a spoon over the years. Still, I grab the bouquet and head toward the front door, deciding to stop procrastinating. A new emotion to the grief. Each anniversary is different. Some years, I can’t keep my eyes dry for even an hour; others, I don’t shed a single tear. Though there’s always a certain level of rage simmering.
Even with the hesitation at visiting Cara’s gravesite, I still sense the unwavering fury that has lived within my heart since she was killed. Yet as I walk out the front door, I can’t deny it’s not as severe as usual. Maybe I’m finally starting to heal.
Climbing into my truck, I set the flowers on the seat next to me and turn the engine over. The rumble of the exhaust mixes with the pinging of raindrops landing on the roof of the truck, but none of it drowns out the ache growing inside me.
My wolf stirs in my mind, not saying anything, but I can tell he isn’t in agreement about my thoughts. Except I don’t bother to ask him what, exactly, is bothering him or why.
He’s barely spoken to me since our mate died. We still work together just fine, but it’s a quiet relationship that we’ve settled into.
As I drive toward the cemetery, I allow my thoughts to drift away and only focus on the pain inside me. My wolf stays present but still silent and I begin to wonder what I might be missing, what he’s not saying.
It wasn’t until I arrived in Virginia that I realized how off I felt, but for the first time, not in a bad way. The darkness I’ve been drowning in since losing Cara isn’t as bleak as I expect. There’s a softness to the grief, almost like it’s slipping away. As if I’m letting her go, but the tighter I try to grasp the pain, the further it seems to float away, like it’s her pulling away. Not me.
My wolf growls quietly in my mind and I know I’ve just figured out his displeasure.
It’s not as if I want to, I say to him, even though he should already know my true feelings.
Still, he doesn’t respond.
We get to the cemetery and I reach for the flowers beside me before getting out. The rain hasn’t made it this far inland yet and I take advantage, jogging toward the headstones.
This place is mostly filled with human graves, but Cara’s family was a little unique in the fact that they preferred to live amongst the humans and that was how they were laid to rest as well.
Considering I had no idea where I was going to live or what I was going to do when she died, I did what I hoped was the right thing. I had her buried with her parents.
But before I can get to their corner of this depressing place, I make a stop in the middle. It took me years to stop hating this man, but I learned that forgiving him for something he couldn’t control was something I needed to do for me.
Arnold Franklin Morsey—he lived for seventy-three years before he had a heart attack while driving a small pickup truck with a few two-by-fours in the back of it.
When he crashed into my Cara…I squeeze my eyes closed, attempting to block out the image of that horrid day.
It shouldn’t have been possible. She shouldn’t have died like that—not with her wolf shifter genes—but she did and there had been nothing I could do to save her.
When I’d heard her cries through our bond, I had never been so terrified in my life. I felt her pain, but more than that, I felt her fear and that nearly paralyzed me. Even still, the horror of what I might find hadn’t stopped me from going to her. Not even as my soul had literally felt as if it were shattering the closer I got to her.
I place a few of the flowers at the base of Arnold’s headstone and remove the ones I last left. I’ve never seen signs of anyone else here and that alone made me turn soft toward the old man.
My hand pats the top of the concrete slab before I stand and nod. The only words I’ve ever spoken to the man were “I forgive you.” He didn’t mean to rip my life apart, but it was nice to have someone to blame for a few years.
Making my way toward Cara, I ignore the wind that starts to pick up, just like it had the house. I’m sure the rain won’t be far along, but nothing will rush me today.
Once I’m standing in front of her grave, there’s a warmth that moves through me. It could all be in my head, but I still smile.
“Hello, Mate,” I say softly, then I kneel, replacing the flowers in the metal vase secured next to her marble headstone.
My fingers brush over her name—Cara Samantha Havens. She was only twenty years old when she was taken from this world and she was mine.
