“Well... that took an unexpected turn.” Sabrina grabs the sandals we left out for her, sitting on the edge of the bed to slip them on. “Someone want to text Hunter where to meet us for lunch? Because I think I owe him a drink, and after that, he’ll probably go stew in silence somewhere unless he’s clearly invited.”
Bo and I share a wary look before I grab my keys off of the table and gesture to the open doorway. “After that, I think we all could use one.”
Chapter 5
Cinjin
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The chain restaurantis nothing fancy, but as happy as Sabrina is at the prospect of getting something to eat, you’d think we took her on the best date of her life.Thatreally makes me feel like shit, and realize how much we desperately need to step up our game. Especially when I help Kaige shove a couple of tables together, and my fingers stick to the surface when I try to let go.
Unable to stand it, Slade gags, striding right up to the busboy hitting on the hostess instead of cleaning. Stealing the rag and spray bottle off of the gangly teenager, he wipes everything down twice before we take our seats. I manage to snag a seat beside Sabrina, Kaige on her right, much to the chagrin of the rest of the guys. Slade ends up across from her, sandwiched between Bo and Damian, with Hunter and Reid on the ends. It’s fairly abandoned right now, only four other tables in the place currently occupied, and we’re set as far away from them all as possible.
Starting the afternoon off right, Sabrina buys a round of beers for the table, but opts for a screwdriver for herself. No one comments, confused at how she’s treating everything like it’s normal, but not me. After what she worked out this morningwitha headache and still a little out of it, it’s never been clearer to me that she’s a much hotter, wiser version of Reid, and I’m well-versed in interpreting my twin’s mindset. Or I used to be, at least.
She’s not mad, even though she has every right to be after the manipulative bullshit that came out of Damian’s mouth. She’s sad; so fucking sad, that if she doesn’t convince herself that everything’s going to be okay, she’ll break down sobbing and might never get back up. But wallowing serves no purpose in her eyes, so she’d rather rip off the bandage and get it all out in the open, trigger any other lurking landmines so that she can finish decimating what remains of her previous life. Leave nothing looming to haunt her; explode that bitch, call it a wash, and begin the arduous task of foraging for whatever pieces survived, and move onto the next stage of her life.
With as paper-thin as the walls of that motel were, we didn’t even need heightened senses to hear their entire conversation. I think I'm safe speaking for my brothers on this one that we'd rather steer things towards being pissed off at Damian than go down the rabbit hole that her theory on our fathers leads to. Those old wounds hurt enough on the best of days, and I have no interest in opening that can of worms right now. Or ever. Not when I’m coming up for air for the first time in years, second guessing if it was the right move. Things were far easier when I was able to watch my life play out from a distance, because my other half is far better equipped at navigating this shitshow than I am.
But there’s something about Sabrina that brings the pieces of ourselves we’d rather leave to rot to the surface; whether we like it or not.
I’d much rather repress the topic of our parents until I actually forget that they ever existed at all. I can simply continue to pretend that I sprang forth from the ether fully formed, a surprise for my uptight older brother to remind him to live a little. Not a burden; a gift.
Him, not me. Fuck, who even am I without him at this point? She’s going to notice. She’s going to see that I’m not the person she claimed and hate me for pretending to be him. I don’t know what I was thinking, I can’t do this.
“You can and you will.”Five words, so simple, but so impossible all the same.
Fisting my hair as I take a few breaths to collect myself, Sabrina decides to take the bull by the horns and looks past me to Reid. "Feeling any better? IfIfeel like death warmed over, I can only imagine you."
Yet he doesn’t say a word, refusing to face her. He’s been closed off even from me since he stopped puking his guts out, hasn’t told any of us what the fuck even happened to him. All he's done while we waited for Sabrina to wake up is sleep, or sit around in stoic silence, staring off into space or flipping through pictures of her on my phone. Yet here she sits, and he can’t be bothered to look at her. None of us know what to do except wait for the lingering effects of the drug to leave his system, but even then, the entire thing fucked with his head, brought his worst nightmares to life.
It's not a matter of bringing my twin back to us anymore, because a part of him died the second that needle pierced his skin. There’s no getting back to normal, not now that he's crossed this point, his entire reality shattered. His wolf won't be going back to sleep now that it's had its first taste of freedom, went from zero to one hundred without an adjustment period. Reid's in a similar position to what Sabrina was, with a freshly awakened wolf and no idea how to cope with it. He’s spent his entire life living in denial, and that simply won't work anymore. The only real difference is that, his wolf? It's going to fight him harder than any of us ever had to endure, the two of them mortal enemies forced to share a body.
“Maybe circle back later?” Slade suggests, nervously glancing at his youngest brother. “Men don’t really talk about their feelings when they’re upset, love.”
She shakes her head in disappointment. “Why would they? There’s so much more to be heard in their silence.”
