Page 96 of Begrudgingly Yours
She laughs. “You’re named after a video game your dad loves, I thought that was considered cool.”
I partially roll my eyes. “No wonder you were able to keep us a secret. Literally no one would ever expecttheCordelia Monaghan to name her son after a video game character. Especially one like Jak and Daxter.”
That causes the lightness to fade from her expression the tiniest bit. “It’s true. I’m not as glamorous as people think.”
The change in her demeanor causes me to raise an eyebrow. “Is everything okay?”
My mother gives me a sad smile. “Come sit down with me, darling.”
I think about my pack mate waiting for me downstairs, my omega waiting for me across the city. I feel rushed for time, butsomething on my mother’s face causes me to follow her to the bar and sit.
“Ev’s waiting for me,” I tell her, emphasizing how little time I have.
She nods before looking down at her tea. Her usually bright aroma is dulled and full of worry. “I understand. This won’t take long. It’s about Nicole?—”
I start to stand back up. “I don’t want to talk about that yet.”
“Dax,” she warns.
My body stands up a bit straighter as I steel my spine. “No, Mother.Please. Don’t ask me to forgive her, because Ican’t.” I’m barely containing my alpha as a growl sits in my throat. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive her,” she responds as she pats the seat beside her again. “But there is something you should know.”
A part of me doesn’t care. There’s nothing that she can tell me that will make this better.
But also, I’m surprised to hear that I don’t know everything. We’re a family that doesn’t have secrets (besides the big obvious one), so hearing those words on my mother’s lips is concerning.
I reluctantly sit back down, but I keep my pack in the back of my mind. My omega’s anger gleams in my memory like a beacon.
My mother sighs, still watching her tea as it becomes cold on the counter. “Your sister has been going to therapy for the past couple of years. She’s also been on mood stabilizers.”
I blink. “What?”
“Before her freshmen year at Bensen, she went to NYU for an open house. She stayed the weekend, but some things happened there that made her unable to attend in the fall. We helped her transfer over to Bensen with some…persuasion?—”
I narrow my eyes. That normally meansdonation. “What happened?”
She gnaws on her lip. “She didn’t get along with her bunkmate, some hateful words were exchanged apparently and Nicole thought destroying all of her roommates’ things was the correct response.”
I balk at that. “Holy shit.”
“I know,” my mother responds. “Not only that, but the roommate turned out to be the dean’s daughter. So, your sister’s acceptance was rescinded and we had to figure out what to do after that. New York wasn’t an option. The dean has… a lot of friends.”
“So, that’s the reason why she didn’t go to NYU?” I had no idea. I always thought it was suspicious because Nicole loves New York, but I didn’t question her choice to go to Bensen with me.
“Yeah. After that, things were hard. She couldn’t understand why her acceptance was rescinded and it was day after day of aggressive meltdowns. We finally told her that she needed to go see someone. It didn’t take them long to diagnose her with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”
“She’s a narcissist?” I raise a brow. No, that can’t be it. She’s my little sister. She used to capture bugs to take them outside. One time she cried when her friend got hit in the face because she felt the pain of it, too.
“It doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, Dax. But there were things we noticed, even before that. Her heightened sense of importance, her need for praise, being emotionally dysregulated when she’s losing control. We couldn’t ignore them anymore. And Nicole was also tired of feeling lost, so she agreed to see a therapist, and then she agreed to start medication. It helped her tremendously.”
“I’m still not understanding,” I say. “What does that have to do with what she did earlier today? She’s obviously not fine.”
She huffs out a low breath. “We noticed that, too. We had our suspicions for a few months now. That’s why we wanted you both to come home for Thanksgiving. We needed to see her, see she was okay. But she’s not. We confronted her about it, and she told us that she stopped seeing her therapist over the summer and she stopped taking her meds, too.”
I can’t believe everything I’m hearing. Not only has this been happening for at least two years, butnoonehas said anything. How is it that I’ve been so out of the loop with my own family?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, letting the thrum of theatrics in my DNA take hold for this one melodramatic moment.
