The words land like stones.
“I called her forty-seven times before I stopped counting.” His voice is flat. Controlled. But there’s something underneathit, something old and sharp. “Wrote her a letter too. Actual pen and paper.”
His jaw works.
“She never responded. Not once.”
Lucas is quiet. Then: “I drove to her school. Spring break, freshman year. Six hours. Her roommate said she was gone for the week, didn’t know where.”
I didn’t know that. Neither of them ever told me.
“You never said anything.”
“What was there to say?” Lucas shrugs, but it’s too stiff to be casual. “I drove six hours looking for answers I never got. We’ve all got our stories.”
“The garden,” Nate says, looking at me.
“The garden,” I confirm quietly. “Ten years of her favorite flowers.”
We sit with that for a moment. Three alphas around a kitchen table. Three different ways of holding onto someone who left.
“She made her choice,” Nate says finally. His voice is hard. “Ten years ago. She chose her life, and it wasn’t us.”
“I know.”
“We built lives too. Good lives. We have the house, our jobs, the pack.” He gestures vaguely at the three of us. “We’re fine.”
“We are,” Lucas agrees. But he doesn’t sound convinced.
“So what do we do?” I ask.
Silence. Heavy.
“We keep our distance,” Nate says finally. “We don’t engage. If she tries to talk, we walk away.”
“That seems?—”
“It’s the only way.” His voice is hard. “She had ten years to explain. Ten years to pick up a phone, write a letter, anything. She didn’t. Now she shows up and we’re supposed to just... let her back in?”
“I’m not saying let her back in?—”
“Then what are you saying, Theo?” Nate’s eyes are sharp. “Because I know you. You’ll smile at her once and forget everything she did.”
That stings. Mostly because it’s probably true.
“We protect ourselves,” Lucas says quietly. “That’s the priority. We’ve built good lives here. We’re not going to let her blow that up just because she’s back.”
“And if she tries to talk to us?” I ask.
“We don’t let her.” Nate’s jaw is set. “We stay polite. We stay distant. And we don’t give her the chance to explain, because if we do?—”
He stops. But I hear what he doesn’t say.
If we do, we might forgive her. And then she might leave again.
“Agreed?” Nate asks.
“Agreed,” Lucas says.
