“Auction rules,” Lucas says carefully.
“Right.” She takes a breath. “Still. Thank you.”
The servers arrive with plates. Filet mignon, roasted vegetables, bread. None of us move to eat.
“I know you don’t want to hear excuses.” Cara’s voice is steadier now, like she practiced this. “I’m not going to give you any. But I owe you an explanation. A real one. And I need you to hear it, even if it doesn’t change anything.”
Lucas sets down his fork. Nate’s hand tightens around his water glass. I just watch her, waiting.
“I was drowning.” She says it simply. Quietly. “That first semester at college. I was so homesick I couldn’t breathe. I was struggling in my classes, terrified of failing, surrounded by people I didn’t know. And every time I talked to you—” Her voice catches. “Every time I heard your voices, I wanted to give up. Come home. Let you take care of me.”
Her scent shifts as she speaks—the honey going thin, the citrus sharp with old pain. Distressed omega. Every instinct I have wants to reach across the table and pull her into my arms.
I grip the edge of my chair instead.
She looks down at her untouched plate.
“And that scared me more than anything.”
I feel something shift in my chest. Beside me, Lucas has gone very still.
“I was eighteen,” Cara continues. “I didn’t know who I was yet. Didn’t know what I wanted to be. And being with you three was so... consuming. So all-encompassing. I was afraid that if Icame back, I’d just be your omega. That I’d lose myself in you before I ever figured out who I was without you.”
“So you stopped calling.” Lucas’s voice is flat, but I can hear the hurt underneath.
“I started calling less. Told myself I just needed space. Needed to figure things out.” She swallows hard. “And then the longer I went without calling, the harder it got. The shame just... piled up. What was I supposed to say? ‘Sorry I’ve been ignoring you for weeks, I was too scared to admit I was falling apart’?”
She looks up, meeting our eyes one by one.
“Every day I didn’t reach out made the next day harder. Until it felt impossible. Until I convinced myself you were better off without me. That you’d moved on. That reaching out after so long would just make everything worse.”
Silence.
I think about those first few months. The calls that went unanswered. The voicemails I left, trying to sound normal, trying not to beg. The way hope slowly curdled into hurt, then anger, then something worse—resignation.
“You could have said something.” My voice comes out rougher than I meant it to. “Anything. ‘I need space.’ ‘I’m struggling.’ ‘I don’t know what I want.’ We would have listened.”
“I know.” Her eyes are bright now. “I know that now. But I was eighteen and stupid and I didn’t know how to ask for help without feeling like a failure. I thought needing you meant I wasn’t strong enough to stand on my own.”
“That’s—” Lucas stops. Runs a hand through his hair. “That’s not how it works. Needing people doesn’t make you weak.”
“I know that now.” A tear slips down her cheek. She wipes it away quickly. “I’ve spent ten years figuring that out. Writing books about packs and omegas and second chances because I couldn’t stop thinking about what I threw away.”
Nate hasn’t moved. Hasn’t spoken. His face is completely blank, but I know him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw is locked tight.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” Cara says. “I know I don’t deserve that. I just needed you to understand. It wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It wasn’t because you did something wrong.” Her voice breaks. “I loved you so much it terrified me. And I was too young and too scared to know what to do with that.”
Her scent floods the space between us—honey and citrus drenched in grief and longing and ten years of regret. It hits me right in the chest. Lucas shifts in his seat, jaw tight. Even Nate’s hand has stopped moving on his water glass.
The words hang in the air.
I think about being eighteen. About how sure I was that nothing could touch us. About how completely unprepared I was for her to just... disappear.
“We thought you were dead.” The words come out before I can stop them. “For three days. We called hospitals. Nate called every emergency room in the county. I sat on your grandma’s porch for six hours until she finally told me you were fine.”
Cara’s face crumples. “I didn’t know. I didn’t—she never told me?—”
“Of course she didn’t.” Lucas’s voice is soft.
