Page 66 of Same One
“Yeah, you know. The thing where everything I do hurts your feelings.”
“Are you going to yell at me or insult me?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then I think I’ll be fine.”
“I messaged my mom and asked her to come get me.”
Pain sliced through her chest, but she kept her face as still as possible. Tru nodded. She had met Marissa one time, and it had been…interesting. She’d spoken a lot about being an amazing mom, but her actions said different. She was a woman who was all talk.
Tru swallowed hard and asked, “Is she going to take you?”
Bayen puffed out a breath of air and strode for the woods, stopped halfway and returned. He rested his hands on his hips. His entire frame was strung with tension. “I knew what my dad was doing in that last Pack. He was messing with the Alpha’s mate, and he didn’t care that I saw it, and he kept dropping me off with you more and more, and I felt really bad for you, and I knew you were going to be like the other girls, you know?”
“The other girls.”
“My dad has been putting me on random women for years.”
“Oh shit,” Tabian murmured.
“You weren’t the love of his life, Tru. You were a means to an end, and I wanted to tell you, and I’ve always felt really bad that I didn’t. I was selfish and I wanted to keep you, and I wanted you to stay no matter what. You were so nice to me. The other women would keep me for a few weeks and then ditch me somewhere. Restaurant eating pancakes. Hotel room. Side of the road. They would call my dad to come and get me, and every time I would get in touch with my mom and tell her I wanted to live with her, and every time she got closer to saying yes, you know? I could feel it. Or maybe I wanted to believe it, I don’t know. So, when my dad left and you were supposed to be this…this…stepparent or whatever you humans think was happening, I called my mom. You weren’t married to him. You didn’t have any obligations to me, you know?”
“Bayen,” she murmured, heart aching for him.
“No, just hear me out.”
Tru nodded. “Okay.”
He blew out a big breath and continued. “I called my mom and she said she was coming to get me, and I waited. Day after day, I would wake up and I just knew she was on her way. She had to travel to get me was all. I would text her asking where she was and how much longer, and she would say, ‘not long.’” He paced away and back. “So, I was polite to you, but I knew you were just like all the other ones Dad dumped me onto.”
“What happened with your mom?”
“She stopped texting back. Days turned into months and now it’s been a year. I message her every Monday at six o’clock, and she ignores me. She doesn’t even read my texts anymore.”
“Fuck,” Tabian rumbled, hanging his head.
Tru could see the chills on his forearms from here, and she understood. She had chills too.
What pain this boy had been carrying.
“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I belong. Moving around is familiar, staying steady feels like battle. I don’t want friends at school because I thought any day now, my mom would come. I thought if I started acting happy, my dad would sense it and come back to take me away and put me back into chaos. I don’t trust steady.” He inhaled sharply. “So, I don’t trust you. Tru.”
Tears burned her eyes and she looked at the fire to hide the hurt.
“You’re doing it. You’re doing the emotional thing.”
“No, boy, you don’t get to tell me how to react. Let me have a minute,” she murmured.
“You’re going to be mad at me now and it’ll be weird for a week, and I won’t know how to fix it—”
Tru stood suddenly and threw the blanket off her lap and pulled him into a hug.
Bay stood there stiffly, and she could hear his heartbeat drumming against his chest.
“Those other women stayed for weeks, yes?”
He nodded.
