Page 24 of Frayed Owner

“Yes? Maybe.” She sighed. “I taught myself what I needed and normal for me. I don’t care about everyone else.” She gestured out to the world with her hand. “Fuck them. Fuck what they think is normal or what I should do. I care about me.” She thumped her chest. “I know what I need. I know what I’ve endured. And it’s a lot. It’s been too much for someone my age.”

“Yeah, no eighteen-year-old should be where I am,” I whispered, feeling good for admitting it—feelingit for real.

“So try it. Try to not cry. You did today. Fine. Done. Tomorrow, hold it in. Then hold it in on Tuesday and cry when you’re alone in your room. Learning how not to break in front of people isn’t a bad thing. You were just taught the extreme and now the dam broke. Fix the dam a bit. Make it alowerdam. That’s what I did.”

“And it got easier?”

“It took a few months but yeah, then I just realized I was at a week.” She snorted. “I broke down sobbing that I’d gone seven days without crying which fucked up my streak, but—we know how crying with relief is the best fucking cry there is. People who have truly been traumatized and lived in fear—nothing is more cleansing than crying inrelief.”

“I don’t know that I’m there yet,” I admitted. “I just—”

“You’re still looking over your shoulder. I get it. It was about six months after I was in the military and Taylor sent me a clip from our media where my father and uncle were asked about me and they denied my existence. Not that it was a misunderstanding and I would be brought back into the fold—none of the normal shit. They changed their answer and I was free.”

“Yeah, I’m not there yet, and it will be more complicated with Clare.”

“Exactly, so just start focusing on getting through each day. You’re not in AA, but they’re not wrong on how they view things for more than addiction.”

“Thanks, Emma, really.”

“Glad to do it. Really. Just remember this when you see someone else in our spot. You’re not in a spot to help Clare, so don’t try to. I’ll talk to the others and maybe we can when we know for sure she’s really out. I don’t know that I’m comfortable telling her the truth, but—don’t take on keeping someone else floating right now, Bevin. That’s how you drown.”

“Yeah.”

“Kelton is proof of that.” She nodded when I flinched. “That was his crime, not throwing therapy in your face. Yeah, that was fucked, but he didn’t mean it like that. He—he fucked up. His mistake was trying to keep you afloat too when he’s drowning. His brother could have died because he wanted to be with you. He should have hit the brakes, not been the one to console you.”

Hearing her say that helped a lot. The framing but also because I’d felt that too. I asked her how I pushed that next time and how I communicated that better. I frowned when she laughed. Likelaughed, and I didn’t think that was something to really laugh at.

Until she explained that she would never give me relationship advice and I would be stupid to ever ask her. She had a lot to offer me to grow and handle my past… Romantic relationship advice was not part of it. She’d apparently fucked a lot of people she shouldn’t have on top of loving someone she knew wasn’t a healthy fit for her.

Okay, yeah, when she put it that way, I didn’t want to ask her either.

I felt bad for saying it, but she simply laughed again and took off to finish her last two miles.

“You’re a fuckingchamp,” she praised when she was done. “Who is tagging in? She wore me out.”

“I’m in,” Taylor said. “Cheese and I want to talk.” His hard gaze met mine. “You mind?”

“Part of me wants to tell you no because I don’t feel like I’m able to,” I admitted, moving closer to Emma as I did.

Taylor’s eyes flashed shock… And a bit of hurt. “You canabsolutelytell me no, Bevin. On anything.” He frowned. “No, not anything that would risk your life. But anything else.”

Emma patted my shoulder. “You don’t speak Taylor yet. His attitude isn’t dismissive. He just knows you’re nice and taking a lap of your run to help Cheese—you’d do it in a heartbeat. So it was kind of a given, not him being mean.”

“What she said,” he agreed.

“Okay, fine, but I have some things too,” I countered, glad when Cheese snorted.

“Can I be invited to the other familiar parties?” Cheese asked me once we started. “I heard the others saying that they had fun spending the day here instead of just being lazy at home. It sounds really nice. I mean the Reids are great, but they’re always busy. And there used to be more familiars to talk with, but now their people are all coming back and it gets boring.”

“I’m fine with it if Taylor is,” I told him. “There are rules and—Bubba tends to be the boss for me. Or Woodchuck since she lives here all of the time and has for years. So as long as you’re fine with listening to a ferret or a girl then I’m okay with it. We brought in the chickens now and you can have one. I think you can as a serval.”

“He can,” Taylor interjected. “He might share it though since they normally eat smaller birds.”

“Fair, but we try not to have animals the familiars can hunt that are animals that can be familiars. Or that’s the plan going forward. We might need to—we had bunnies brought in, but there are rabbit familiars, so—it gets tricky. We don’t want any accidents. I think we’re going to have to make specific zones on the property if we’re going to keep having so many guests.”

“Smart. That would be my suggestion as well.”

We talked about that for a while and even the areas he would recommend specifically. We definitely needed more deer, but we also were going to have that huge amount of land soon. The sales contract was finally signed and we were waiting for the closing with the cleared title and details that made my head hurt.

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