Page 21 of Bear's Rejected Love

“No he’s not. He’s been treating us like we have every known communicable disease in the history of the world.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it was best to keep my distance.”

Corbin shot him an exasperated look. “Keeping your distance might be one thing in the city, but here, it’s pretty obvious you’re avoiding us. You could have just apologized. Or is losing face more important than we are?”

“Honestly, it’s not pride.” How could he make his son understand? He was a freak, literally a scientific experiment gone wrong. Everything he touched turned to shit. He’d already fucked up Tabitha’s life, he didn’t want to fuck his son’s up too.

“Mmmhmm.”

“It’s that… I know you both deserve so much more.”

Corbin shook his head and cracked the smallest smile, but it was real. “Dude. I’m fourteen. I’ve had zero relationships and even I know how lame that line is. If we deserve good things, then be good to us. So what if you do weird things like turn into other animals? So what if doctors did terrible things to you? Are you there in that lab right now? Are you back in your old clan? Or are you here? You don’t have to apologize forever. Just do it once and mean it and move on. Just get over yourself already. No one likes people who just mope around feeling sorry for themselves. Get off the pity train.” Corbin glared at him resolutely.

“I’m cursed,” Roan spat out. “I’ve always been cursed. The lab just proves it.”

“Corbin,” Tabitha warned, sensing their son was going to start on round two of his pep talk.

Corbin stood his ground. “No, Mom, he needs to hear this. You think that Ora and Helena are cursed because they ended up in that place? What about Silver? She’s so nice! They’re nice too. I already told you having a bunch of weird animals inside you, doesn’t make you bad. Doing one bad thing doesn’t make you bad. Making a tower of bad things doesn’t make you bad. But it does build up, trust me, I know it,” Corbin paused and looked at his mom and then at Roan again. “It gets deep and then you’re in it and the only thing saving you is your mom pulling you out of the city and taking you to somewhere you think you’re going to hate. But you don’t. You don’t hate it. The only bad thing, actually, about this whole place is the thing that was supposed to be good. I was kind of excited to meet my dad for the first time. But then—” He gave a sigh, ”Can I finally pick some mushrooms please?”

“Yes!” Tabitha exclaimed, picking up the basket and thrusting it into Corbin’s hands. “Roan taught me all about foraging. He knows every plant and mushroom anywhere, I swear.”

“If he taught you, then he doesn’t need to be here.”

“Corbin…”

“He can go away and think about what we said. If he can agree to those terms. If he does, then there are plenty of days when we can do something fun. Right now, I just want you to teach me, mom.”

In the past, Roan had been nearly appalled to find that he shared what was almost a secret language with Tabitha. Her love of foraging, silence, stillness. They’d even done silly things like read the same book and discuss it. They’d been friends and for all the awkwardness of sharing a home and a life that was only ever meant to be friendly, she’d made it a good place. He used to have a thousand reasons why running was a good thing.

He should have realized that staying could have been greater than all of them.

He could have found a world with this woman, made a life and a family. She would have changed with him. Grown with him. Why was that his biggest and most painful fear?

You need to get over yourself.

His fourteen-year-old son had pretty much said it best. Sometimes you needed the harsh truth.

Roan met Tabitha’s damp, pleading eyes and offered her and Corbin a firm nod of understanding. “Domhnall and Silver keep inviting us over. I’ll have to take them up on their offer. I heard you go over there to game.”

“Yeah.” Corbin braced, sounding defensive.

“I’ve never been great at it, but I could give it a try. Maybe it can be something that you teach me.”

He expected his son to dig in and offer up a hard pass, but instead Corbin bit down on his lower lip, locked his jaw up, and nodded. “Sometime, maybe.”

“I’ll think very hard about what you said.”

“Okay.” Corbin gave him a nod this time and broke away, heading over to the mossy, wet part of the woods where there was a crop of mushrooms spurting up along an old log. “What about these ones, mom? Are these delicious or will they straight up kill you?”

Tabitha didn’t meet his gaze again. She hurried after her son before he could try and test it for himself. He watched them, their heads bent together, her soft voice, inaudible to him, explaining the wonders of the woods to their son.

He had a family waiting for him back at his cabin. He had a family right here in the woods. He had a whole clan right here in Greenacre.

He’d never allowed himself to truly claim any of them or belong to any of them.

He wasn’t cursed. He’d been given so many blessings and chances and opportunities. He hadn’t been blind to them, but why had he shut them out for so long? Yes, he had tragedy in his life, yes, he’d suffered unspeakable things done to him, but he’d gotten out the other side. He was here and he was alive. Corbin was right. It was pathetic. And he very much needed to change for the people who needed him… and for the people he needed.

Chapter 9

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