Page 2 of Knot Happening

Mom learned that the hard way. I hadn’t realized she’d spent all those years on massive amounts of antidepressants until I turned eighteen, and she started slowly giving up. That’s when I took over caring for her.

I picked all her meds up for her and made sure they were sorted monthly. Then, a few days before I turned twenty-one, we got the letter in the mail, letting us know she was losing coverage.

Bernie’s angel of a daughter, Megan, who is also a Beta, had just returned to town from college for her clinicals and heard me crying in the break room. She’s the one who walked me through how to make Mom’s three month supply of meds last six. How to slowly wean her, rather than cutting her off cold turkey. Unfortunately, those ran out three months ago.

For me to buy those meds, I’d have to make so much money that it’s honestly better to put her in an ABO Care facility.

The guilt that slithers down my throat and constricts my chest at the thought of failing to help Mom keep the medications she needs to function makes me nauseous.

We need more money. More help. More. Which brings me back to the flyer.

One hand on the door to the apartment and the other clutching the flyer once more, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, unable to calm myself.

It’s like I was drifting along in a bubble for years, blind to how bad things were getting until the bubble popped. More like exploded in my face. What's that saying about the frog in a slow boiling pot of water?

I don’t know what the catalyst was. Maybe it was several things all coming together in a fucked up twist of time. One day, I was in survival mode. Next, I was in panic mode.

This last year has been such a fucking nightmare.

Megan is the only reason I can even leave this house to work. She gets paid through the Omega Nursing Program to be my mother’s part-time caregiver. I have to provide them with a monthly pay stub, so they see the hours Meg is needed.

The hours also count toward her clinical hours. She wants to work in the kind of facility that helps people like my mom.

The ones who suffer the worst possible fate. Losing their mate.

Her system shut down as a defense mechanism to her extreme distress once off her meds. Like being in a form of a coma. Where she’s able to walk and eat and drink. She can hear me, but her ability to focus on the words is minimal.

I was in a fog of heartbreak from eighteen to nearly twenty-one. I wasn’t blind to my mother’s pain, I had thought she was taking better care of herself than she was.

Now, she’s practically catatonic. But there’s nothing more I can do for her here. She needs more help than Meg and I can provide on our own. She needs a second chance, and I can’t give that to her.

So many days have passed over the last several months, when I wished I could save her somehow. Fix her and make her better. Reverse time and bring my dad back… We’re here now, though, and can’t go back.

I glance at the flyer, again, and for the first time in years, there’s a flicker of hope threatening to sneak in and corrupt mypessimistic thoughts. I consider myself a realist who leans into caution. But the truth is I’m probably just so fucking hardened by life at this point that I never see the good in anyone or anything anymore.

I hate hope. Hope is partly why I spent so many years making excuse after excuse for our shitty circumstances.

She’ll get better. She’ll come back to me. She’ll wake up and be the mom I once knew. She’ll love me.

It doesn’t matter if she loves me. Or if she’s the mom I once knew. My dad would want me to take care of her now that she can’t care for herself.

“Isn’t she beautiful? Your mama? Just look at that smile.”

I wince at the memory of my father’s words. I can’t even remember the sound of his voice anymore. He loved her with all he was. And she loved him just as much. I wonder if she remembers his voice?

I have to do this. I have to do whatever it takes to help her. For her and for Dad. For the memory of him and the love he held for us both.

I’ll be fine. Breaking out of my comfort zone won’t be the worst thing for me. Maybe I’ll even find a way to live my life rather than barely surviving it.

I hold the flyer up, reading the bold letters.

Now Hiring!Haze Instincts: Where your instincts come alive in the haze of the night.

Chapter Two

Hayden

I can feel the ache of her pain from here. Seeping through the walls of her apartment, the worry and stress seem to drown my Omega. I tilt my head back, resting it against the wall.

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