Page 170 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

Why?

“Because you… won.”

“Won?” she repeated in confusion, cocking her head in the corner of my eye.

“You know how it feels to be… at war with yourself,” I reminded her, and I saw her mouth open as she realized my reasoning before she turned her head forward again.

“And you want to know how I did it?” she guessed.

“Yes,” I admitted, glancing at her nervously to see how she felt about this private hope of mine.

I watched as she let out a long breath and reclined harder on the stone, crossing her arms and tilting her head as she appeared to consider what to tell me.

“Honestly? It’s an ongoing battle, but I do think that it starts with learning to be kinder and more accountable to yourself for how you’re feeling. I’m no therapist, Orion, but as corny as it sounds, it is actually the hardest thing… Just checking in with yourself when the… nasty thoughts try to weasel their way in again.”

I nodded because I already knew that was true.

“What is a therapist?” I asked, and she snorted a laugh.

“We all need a therapist. Basically, it is a person who is specifically trained to talk to people about this stuff.”

“It was ajobin your world?” I verified.

“Yes! Although not enough people see them, and they are horribly underfunded.”

I was quiet for a moment as I pondered the notion that there were even enough people out there who might feel similarly to me that it necessitated the need for someone who was specially equipped to help them. And the idea that if such a person had existed… then I might not have suffered as horribly as I had for so fucking long…

“Perhaps we need them here,” I pointed out, and I saw Amira whip her head toward me as if in astonishment.

“You know… you might be right,” she mused.

We were quiet for a moment while she undoubtedly pondered the logistics of this suggestion, and I absorbed her presence contentedly while watching the sun set.

“Will you tell me… What was your poison?”

“My poison?” I repeated in confusion.

“My mother was my poison,” Amira tried to explain. “She is the thing in my head that infects everything.”

“Ah,” I grunted in understanding and turned my face away from her. “There are many… poisons.”

Amira nodded, and then she sat quietly for many long moments while I tried to work up the courage to unburden a little of my soul to her.

“I had a brother. Theon,” I told her finally.

“I didn’t know that,” she prompted me gently.

“I don’t really talk about him. And Ishouldbecause he is the only reason there’s even a fuckingshredof decency in me, but it is… painful,” I admitted with difficulty.

Amira remained silent next to me, allowing me time to decide what to tell her.

“He was older than me by about ten years. We shared a worthless mother but different fathers. His sounded like he was a decent man, but he died when Theon was a baby. Mine was just… mean. Theon managed to shield me from it most of the time. He took the beatings when my father was drunk and rampaging. And he was the one who went out to steal food so we didn’t starve whenever my parents were too high or drunk to go to work.”

“He sounds… like an incredible big brother.”

“He was,” I assured her, and I heard her inhale deeply as she prepared to ask the question I was dreading.

“What… happened to him?”

---