AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I know it.
But I still hate it.
It takes a lifetime to reach the front door, and when I do, I bang my forehead against the wood and take four deep breaths. Four torturous, agonizing, wonderful inhales.
Quinn smells like a home I’ll never be able to find.
“Mr. Weingard?”
“What?” I snap at my assistant for the tenth time today.
She recoils and I hate myself a little more. “Uh, Dr. Rumi is on the line.”
“Thank you. And Angela? I’m sorry for being a jerk. I’m dealing with some stuff.”
Pressing her lips together, she nods before leaving the room. I pinch my eyes shut and try to breathe, but the only thing harder than suffocating with Quinn’s scent is living without it.
The traces of it on my clothes have faded. I’ve contemplated leaving to go back home and dive face-first onto my bed that’s covered in the sheets from her nest, but my dads are counting on me to keep things running.
Which means I need to get my anger under control. The phone beeps with the call, and I pick up, turning my seat to stare out the windows. “Dr. Rumi, I wasn’t sure if you’d call me back.”
“Of course, I would.” The old man’s voice is gentle and a little more frail than I remember. He was in his early fifties when I first saw him. Now he’s approaching seventy. I’m not sure why he’s still working, but I’m glad he is.
The idea of telling someone else everything he knows is agonizing.
“What’s on your mind, Brady?”
“I...” I trail off. He’s going to hate me too, once I admit the truth. “I screwed up really badly.”
Patient as ever, Dr. Rumi simply hums. “And I assume you need someone to talk to?”
“I know you only see children, but you know my history. You know everything.”
Please don’t direct me to someone else.
“True, but you’ll always be my patient, Brady. I can hear the hurt in your voice. What’s going on?”
Blowing out a hard breath, I tell him everything. All the wrongs I’ve committed. How I’m filled with self-loathing, but also how I feel like a piece of shit for feeling that self-loathing. I expose every wound. Every failure. How I’ve let down my mom. How I ruined my perfect omega because I lost control.
Everything pours out of me, and when I’m done, Dr. Rumi doesn’t speak. I turn around and check the phone. Maybe he hung up when he realized what a waste I am. But he’s still on the line. A quiet sigh crackles through the phone.
“Doctor?”
“I don’t have all the answers, Brady, but one thing I always noticed was the way you carried that promise you made your mother like it was the reason you were born.”
My chest tightens and heat crawls up my neck. I duck my head to keep anyone walking by from seeing the tears filling my eyes. “She asked me to protect them.”
“From the fire, Brady. Your mother, from everything you told me, was wonderful. She was a good mom, and a good mom knows asking a child to be responsible for her other children’s safety for the rest of their lives is unreasonable.”
The sharp bitterness of smoke fills the room. I bite my cheek to keep from making noise.
“She died,” I whisper.
“And she loved you so much, Brady. You didn’t fail her.”
I shake my head. He’s wrong.
“You did what she asked. You saved your brothers. You got them out, just as she asked.”
