Page 75 of Saddle and Scent
Because they name the thing I've never been able to articulate—the way it felt like they were asking me to wait for something they weren't sure they wanted to give.
"It's good she ditched you guys," the doctor continues, her voice gaining momentum and heat. "Because you're so indecisive about what you want, you think wasting an Omega's youth is fun? You think putting her through years of uncertainty and mixed signals is somehow noble?"
"That wasn't our intention," Beckett argues, and there's pain in his voice that makes my heart clench. "We never intended to waste her time."
"Then how many years has it been since you guys were together?" the doctor asks, her tone suggesting she already knows the answer won't be flattering.
The silence stretches.
Becomes uncomfortable.
Becomes damning.
"Ten years," Wes finally mutters, the words so quiet I almost miss them.
Ten years.
A decade.
A third of my life spent in the aftermath of their decision to push me away.
A third of my life spent trying to build something new from the wreckage of what we used to be.
The doctor's groan is audible, filled with the kind of exasperated disbelief that suggests she's heard this story before but it never gets less infuriating.
"Ten years?!" she exclaims. "You Alphas really love to waste our time, don't you?"
"She could have been with another pack," Callum argues, and there's something defensive in his voice that makes me want to shake him. "We couldn't have known she was still..."
Still what?
Still single?
Still hoping?
Still carrying their mark on my heart like a scar that never properly healed?
"And don't you think she wants to be?" the doctor counters, her voice rising with indignation. "Or in fact, hadn't tried? You think she just waited and waited after you guys probably did something so horrendously wrong that a sixteen-year-old just leaves her town to go somewhere so far away that none of you could chase after her?"
The accuracy is breathtaking.
And painful.
Because yes, I tried.
God knows I tried.
I spent years attempting to build something with other people, other Alphas, other possibilities.
But nothing ever felt right.
Nothing ever felt like home the way they had.
Nothing ever compared to the way it felt to be surrounded by their scents, their presence, their absolute certainty that I was worth protecting.
"We tried to find her," Wes argues, and there's genuine anguish in his voice. "We looked everywhere, called everyone we could think of. She just... disappeared."
"And failed," the doctor says flatly. "You tried and failed."
