Page 28 of Unlearning

“Of course! All you need is the proper tools to deal with challenges appropriately, whether emotional, mental, or pharmaceutical tools will be up to you and your doctor to discover together. You just have towantto change, to get better.”

“You know what, for the first time, I really do.”

???

“How are you feeling?” Hailey asked, looking me over and nodding slightly, seemingly satisfied. I'd been awake for a month now, and although I no longer had wolf healing, I was recovering nicely. Thanks to intensive physical therapy, the muscle tone that I’d lost in the coma was slowly coming back, my coordination was improving, and I’d managed to gain most of the weight back as well. The pack psychologist was helping me work through the loss of my wolf, and I was also having virtual sessions twice a week with a human psychologist in thecity to deal with my suicide attempt. They had me on a low dose antidepressant for now, until I could work through the roughest part of it, just as a crutch. I found it empowering that I had the opportunity to work on changing myself. I'd come to realize that I'd been unhappy with who I was for a long time. Now I’d been given a chance to change that and I would not squander it.

“Much better,” I told her. “They're talking about discharging me next week.”

“Wow, already? What then?”

“They don't want me to be alone for the first month, so I'll stay with my parents and continue working with the pack psychologist. But after that I was thinking – and I actually wanted to talk to you about this first – I was thinking of moving to the city, to be closer to you and the kids.”

She sighed.

“Brandon...”

“Look,” I interrupted her, “I don't expect anything from you romantically.”For now,I amended mentally. “I just want to be close to you guys. I figure the pups are commuting to the pack school anyways, and I am still going to work at the pack for several years, so why not spend an hour in the car with them before school and an hour after school? It would also be easier for you that way, you’d get two hours of your day back.”

“I would,” she nodded thoughtfully and I took it as encouragement.

“Don't get me wrong, Hailey, I would absolutely love for us to be a family again. And as tragic as the loss of my wolf was, it has removed one of the obstacles that were between us. I'm in therapy now, working on removing all the other ones, on making myself worthy of your love again. I would also be willing to try couples' counseling if you ever feel like giving me a chance again. I’m aware it is too soon after everything that happened to jump into rebuilding our relationship, but I want you to know that I will do everything in my power to repair what I have broken. I know I haven't been the best husband and I broke your trust, and I am sorry. I am also sorry for breaking your heart with my suicide attempt,” she flinched a bit at that, she didn’t like remembering it, but a big part of my therapy was acknowledging the attempt and all of my faulty reasoning behind it.

“Hailey, you, Benjamin, and Hannah are my life. And I will spend all my remaining years proving that to you and being there for you three, regardless of how you choose to proceed with our romantic relationship. I also hope you know that you are the only woman I have ever loved, and the only woman I will ever love.”

“I think I know that now,” she whispered. “I have also been going to therapy these last months, first because I needed to deal with... what you did,” she averted her eyes. “But we quickly moved on to what caused the separation, and my insecurities, soI have also been dealing with some of my issues and I realized just how many things we managed to mess up during our marriage.”

I nodded sadly, and she continued:

“When the time is right with your recovery and when we settle into our new routines, I think we could try counseling together,” she shyly took my hand and I held it gently.

“I would love that, Hailey. Thank you for even considering giving me that opportunity.”

She smiled, and the light from the window was like a halo, framing her beautiful head and transporting me back to that library afternoon when I first saw her in all her beauty. The pack shrink had been prompting me to come up with different scenarios about my wolf's death. Seeing how the wolf side was supposed to be the stronger one, it made little sense that I would live and he would die. One scenario I’d come up with was that he’d given up because he was too depressed to live without his mate. Another one was that he’d wanted to doonegood thing for his mate, the only one he would ever be able to, and set her free, so that she could love and mark someone else. In this moment, watching my beautiful wife framed by heavenly light, I came up with another reason why my wolf might have died – maybe he’d made the ultimate sacrifice for me and my family, so that I would be free to love Hailey with all my heart, without anything holding me back. I felt a burning in my nose and tears welling upin my eyes. I would honor his sacrifice to my last day, whatever his reasons might have been, and I would not let it go to waste. I would be a strong and honorable man for my family, and I would spend my life teaching my pups to be better than I had been.I promise you that, I whispered to my wolf, wherever he might be now.

Epilogue

October, 2037

Samantha, age 48

Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve

“Ash! Rowan! Get in here, you two,” I yelled from my front porch, frowning at my teenage twin males who were about to collapse from running around playing some made-up werefootball game with their father's wolf, who just got a glare from me. He was the one should know better, and instead he was usually the main instigator among the three of them. He contritely tucked his tail between his legs and gave me a sad look before darting off into the forest. The faker. The pups stumbled into our mud room, red-faced and breathless, toed off their boots and carelessly shrugged off their jackets, before yelling: “Mooom, is lunch ready?”

“Shower first, you both reek.”

I missed Sage. She’d left for college in August and I'd been missing her like crazy, not only as my firstborn pup and only daughter, but also as a female presence in the house. I was now outnumbered by males and I felt and smelled every second of it. I tried calling her again, but it went to voicemail. Again. I hadn't heard from her in two days, and I was starting to get worried. She knew that three days was the maximum radio silence period that I would be willing to tolerate (and that during exam season!) before jumping on a plane and going to rescue my pup from some imaginary harm. She’d better call me back, soon.

My Sage had gotten acceptance letters from multiple medical schools, but she'd settled on one in Illinois. I was glad that if she was already going to be so far away from us, she’d at least be close to my parents and Lainey. With me and James co-running the Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska, we were kind of stuck in the wilderness in case of true emergencies. And since aunt Alaina and uncle Lucas were her inspiration for becoming a doctor (she was leaning towards trauma surgery for now), I was sure she would keep in touch and visit them regularly, which calmed my mamma wolf heart greatly. I loved our current posting, and I hoped to stay here indefinitely. Living in the biggest national park in the whole country, at 13.2 million acres, was the experience of a lifetime. We'd moved to Alaska ten years ago, when Sage was 9 and Ash and Rowan were 5, and I was still discovering new things every day – whether it was one of the majestic glaciers (one of them 53 miles long!), the snow covered mountain peaks (9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US were right here), subpolar icefields, a14.163 ft tall active volcano, the rivers spawning salmon, the wildlife, the ocean - all of it was straight out of a winter fairy tale. One thing I knew for sure was that my pups had been given the best childhood possible: spending their days in the purest nature there was, playing outside for hours without any screens or technology clouding their young minds, far away from pollution and stress. It was now in their blood, and no matter where life took them, I knew they would eventually find their way back to it.

Our Alaska pack, Fireweed, was a true pack - entire families lived on the Preserve territory and could function like a traditional pack since we were isolated enough from human settlements. James had grown into the most driven and focused Alpha I’d ever met, and I could only hope that I was bringing the same level of dedication and fierceness to my Luna role. He kept reassuring me that I was, but most of the time he was trying to get in my pants, so I took it with a grain of salt. Right as I felt a tiny jolt of arousal at the thought, strong arms caged me from behind and James licked his mark on my neck, knowing full well that the action would cause my knees to give out, regardless of whether our children were in the house or not.

“What is my naughty mate thinking about?” he rumbled into my ear, and God, I wanted to jump him right there. Maybe the twins could apply for early admission to college, after all, they had walked in on enough things to be scarred for life so they had a lot of material for their personal essays. That thought knocked some sense into me and I deftly escaped his cage.

“The boys,” I hissed and he laughed. He knew exactly why I was so freaked out. He raised his arms in mock surrender.

“Did you manage to get a hold of Sage?”

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