Page 59 of His Gentle Omega
“Only he found an alpha he could control.” Unclenching my fingers, I shook them to get some feeling back into them. “I can’t even blame Edward.”
Tessa raised one brow in question. “No? Why not?”
Shrugging, I said, “I was there, wasn’t I? I was in the relationship too. It wasn’t just Edward. We were both there. I allowed him to treat me the way he did. To manipulate me. To cut me off from my family, my friends. I made those choices. Sure, I’d love to paint Edward as the villain in this story–and he is, don’t get me wrong–but I can’t pin all of it on him. I was there. I was a partof it. I let it happen. And…” taking a shaky breath, I said, “the truth is I loved him. I loved Edward. I did. So, what does that say about me? How the fuck could I love someone like Edward? He’s not a good person. He’s an alcoholic, and a drug addict, and he’s done some evil things. But I loved him. With everything I had, I loved him. And I stayed. Who does that?”
She stared at me for what felt like minutes, but was probably only seconds, before she quietly remarked, “A lot of people stay, Shay. A lot of people. That doesn’t make them bad people. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“What does it make me then?”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Just a normal person. You’re carrying a ton of guilt for things I think you wish you could change. You need to give yourself a break. There is no shame in you having loved Edward. You just laid out three underlying causes of his behavior.” Ticking them off her fingers, she listed, “Over-indulgent parents, alcohol, and drugs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the more we talk, we uncover a couple more reasons. How old were you when you met Edward?”
Swallowing hard, I rasped, “Barely eighteen.”
“You were a kid, Shay. You were an eighteen-year-old kid when you met Edward. How old was he?”
“Twenty-one,” I whispered.
“It sounds like you’re blaming yourself for decisions you made as an eighteen-year-old that you probably wouldn’t make as a thirty-year-old. I know we all want to think we know everything about everything the minute we turn the magical number of eighteen, and oh, look at me, now I’m an adult. But none of us know dick at that age. Period. We’re all still dumb kids. You need to give yourself grace.”
“Easier said than done. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. I pushed my family away. My brother is pissed at me, even though he’s helping me. But I know he’s still mad about a lot of things. And he should be angry. He has every right to be angry.”
“Does he know any of this?”
“Of course not.”
“Maybe you should tell him.”
My head shot up, my eyes wide at her suggestion, and she held out a placating hand. “It’s just a suggestion, and not one you need to do today. You don’t even have to tell him everything. But he obviously knows what brought you here, or some of it. If you want to mend the distance between the two of you, I strongly urge you to tell him some of what happened to you. I assume you want to mend things between the two of you.”
“I do,” I nodded, “I want to fix things between Asher and me. We were always so close, and I ruined it. I ruined our relationship over an omega. Isn’t our hour almost up?” My head already felt like a band of tension had a vice around it, tightening with each minute.
“I cleared my schedule today.” The small smile that never seemed to leave her lips quirked up at the corners. “We have all the time that you need today, Shay.”
Shoulders slumping, my breath escaped with a small “Oh.”
“Tell me about that. About your brother and your family growing up. Before Edward.”
Changing the subject off of Edward felt like the weight had been lifted from my chest. I found it surprisingly easy to talk about my life before Edward. About my mom, dad, and brother. The house I had grown up in, my dad’s shop, even my mom dying.
“I didn’t really know what was happening,” I whispered, blinking back more tears. “I just knew she was sick. I was too little to really understand it at the time, and I think they all tried to shelter me from it. I was five when she was diagnosed, and I didn’t know what breast cancer was. Asher understood more than me and he really tried to protect me. I don’t remember thinking that she was going to die. That one day she wouldn’t be there. She never acted like anything was wrong, even when she started treatments. She–and my dad–tried to keep everything as normal as possible. Until they couldn’t. She fought hard for two years. I don’t really remember her anymore. I try to remember her voice, and I can’t. Sometimes I get vague memories of something, but I wonder if I really remember it or if it was just Asher and Dad telling me things about her, so I would feel like I had more time with her than I did.”
Wow, I hadn’t talked–or thought about–my mom in a long time. Not really. But the more Tessa put me at ease with her non-pushy way of getting answers, the easier it became for me to talk about all the things I didn’t want to talk about.
“Seven is young,” she said, and I realized Lucas was almost seven and just how small he was. If I had died that night–or any other night with Edward–would Lucas even remember me when he was older? “Tell me something you do remember about your mom. A memory that is just yours, not something your family told you about her.”
Shaking my head, I started to say, “I don’t–” then stopped as a memory surfaced. I hadn’t thought about it in so long, I had nearly forgotten it. “Tulips.”
“Tulips?”
Nodding, I smiled wistfully. “I remember helping my mom plant tulips along the front of our house. I had to be five or six.I think it was soon after they found the cancer. She had this tool that dug a hole deep enough in the ground for the bulbs. I remember she had these bright green gardening gloves. And she would make the hole and then I would drop the bulbs in. There was a big brown bag of bulbs and she had mixed all the colors together, so we didn’t know which ones I was dropping.” Closing my eyes, I dug deep into my memory, trying to recall the details of that day.
“I remember she smiled up at me, and she said something like these flowers are going to come up every year, for years and years. And for me to think about her each year they bloomed. And I did. Every time those flowers bloomed in the Spring, I always thought of her. Tulips always make me think of her.”
“That’s a beautiful memory.” Tessa’s eyes were shining, her voice soft.
“I haven’t thought about that in forever,” I admitted, feeling wrung out. Today had been a lot mentally, and I was barely on my feet physically. There was something about Tessa that made it easier than I had expected to open up to her.
“Now,” she turned sharp eyes to me, “tell me about Edward and how you became mated.”
