Chapter 80 - Trinity-An Existential Crisis
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Trinity
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I thought with Reece going back to his usual schedule on Monday, that I should do something too. Yeah, I would be starting cla.s.ses soon, but they were all online and from what I had been told about them, I could study on my schedule most of the time. So, that left me with plenty of time to still do some Luna work.
I wanted to go see Lila so we could discuss the pack daycare idea I had. She seemed to love it when we talked about it last week. She hadn"t been at breakfast today, which was a rushed one with Reece needing to leave early. But thankfully, it wasn"t awkward, unless you counted the fact that when I looked at him, I subconsciously tried to see through his clothes so I could see his chest underneath. He had been curious as to why I blushed randomly, but I think I played it off pretty well.
Lila was in her room when I knocked on her door.
"Come in." She invited me. I pushed the door open and remembered the first time I had come here, when I had found her sitting in the chair near the window. The sun s.h.i.+ning on her making her glow like an angel, or a ghost.
"Hi Trinity, how is your morning?" She asked me. It was closer to noon, so the morning was almost over now. I saw that Lila was once again sitting in the chair she had been in last time, the curtains open, sun s.h.i.+ning just like last time. The only difference was that she was awake. But I had such a strong memory of when I had seen her last time, the emotions I had felt that day. I remember how I was pleading for her to be able to see Reece, and to be there for him in the ways that I couldn"t be.
"Is everything alright?" She worried.
"Yeah, I was just remembering the last time I was here." I smiled at her sadly.
"What do you mean?"
"When you were still, you know?" I replied sheepishly.
"I didn"t know you came to visit me when I was lost." She smiled happily. "You should have told me, that makes me happy."
"It was only once. I had only been here for a short time when you woke up. I"m glad you did too, Reece needed you."
"I think Reece needs you more than me." She offered, but I just shook my head in refusal of her words.
"He would much rather have you or someone else there to help him." I denied sadly.
"Why do you think that?" Lila seemed upset.
"It"s what I told you when I came to see you that day too." I looked at her and tried to smile, but I couldn"t force the motion to make it happen.
"When I came here, while you were "lost" I said that I wished you were here to support him, to give him whatever it was he needed that I lacked. And that I wished you could see the wonderful man he had become."
"I remember that." Her voice was full of awe, shock covered her face.
"What? How do you remember that?"
"I don"t know. I remember that I was lost in the dark somewhere. I had gotten lost the night my husband died. I remember that night clearly. I remember going with him, his beta, my husband"s brother and his mate, and my cousin Steven, and some other pack members. It wasn"t supposed to be a fight. We had been planning to sign a treaty between our packs, but when we got there, it was an ambush. I remember watching my husband die in front of me, then getting hit in the head by something really hard. The next thing I knew I was walking in the darkness. There was never any relief from that darkness."
"So, you weren"t really catatonic?" I was shocked, what had really happened to her?
"I don"t know what to call what happened to me. I know that once in a while I would hear things. I heard Reece"s voice. Only his voice for so long. He would tell me what was going on in his life. Sometimes he would talk about things that were good with a voice full of pride. Other times he might vent angrily. Often, he would tell me what he couldn"t tell others, his voice full of the tears he probably never shed."
"I"m sure you were his solace in this crazy life he leads." I gave her a comforting smile as I walked closer to her and took her hand.
"I hope I was." She smiled as she looked at my hand. "But you know, I remember your touch as well. I remember when I heard your voice, I felt someone touch my hand. I looked down toward my hand, or where I knew it would be in the darkness, and what I saw then was a thin white line attached to my palm. It was the first thing I had seen in that darkness, ever."
"What was it?" I wondered.
"It was you, Trinity. It was you guiding me back. You wanted me to come save my son. You begged me to come back, you took my hand and guided me home." Lila was crying now, tears silently flowed down her cheeks.
"I don"t understand, Lila. How could I do that? How could I guide you back?"
"You"re our Luna." She told me as if that explained it all.
"That doesn"t mean I should be able to do something like that."
"But you"re special. Reece has told me so as well. He has said how you"re not like the others."
"Yeah, because I don"t have a wolf, not because I"m someone that can do something like that." I vehemently denied.
"Are you sure about that?" She asked me with a confident smile. "I told you when I first woke, I knew your voice. That"s because I kept hearing your words the entire time that I followed that light back to my consciousness. I followed you, Trinity. You brought me home because you"re special."
Lila"s words shocked me to my core. I stood there frozen while her hand slipped from mine and I stared at nothing. A buzzing sound started in the back of my head, drowning out all other sounds. I vaguely registered Lila standing in a rush with a worried look.
"Tri..ty" I heard her words, but they were chopped. "Are…..k?" I still couldn"t make out what she was saying to me. I felt her hands on my shoulders before I fell into a chair.
Everything that she was saying. Everything that had happened to me. The time in the woods when I could smell the warlocks and Reece couldn"t. When I could see them somehow and he couldn"t. How I never got a wolf like everyone else. All the things that marked me as different from everyone else, it was all coming back to me at once.
If I didn"t have the clear indicators of being part of the pack. Part wolf at least. The hearing and the extra senses. The strength and speed. Having to obey the alpha"s commands. Then there"s being mated to a wolf. If it wasn"t for all of these, I would think I wasn"t part of the pack at all, that I should be exiled, that I didn"t belong here.
But what exactly am I? Where exactly do I belong? Who am I really? These are things I wanted answered but was never likely to find out.
"Trinity, are you ok?" I heard Lila this time, she was holding my hands and looking at me with fear in her eyes.
"I-I-I"m f-fine." I stuttered.
"What happened?" She asked me, not convinced by my attempt to rea.s.sure her.
"I think I just had a bit of an existential crisis, that"s all." I tried to smile at her.
"Trinity, sweetie, what is going on with you?"
"I don"t think I belong here. I don"t belong with Reece, and he knows it. The whole pack knows it, that"s why so many people still don"t accept me."
"That"s c.r.a.p." She snapped at me. "You"re his mate. You belong wherever he is."
"But I don"t. I don"t have a wolf. I"m not strong enough for him or the pack. I"m not good enough for him."
"Where is this coming from, Trinity? Why are you saying this?"
"He"s said it himself, Lila. He has told me I"m not allowed to fight because I don"t have a wolf and therefore, I"m not strong enough, even though I have been trained to fight for years. He has told me he doesn"t want me as a mate, that I was a weak little girl with no wolf, and I would just drag him down. He told me he hates me."
I was hyperventilating by the time I was done. Remembering the two different nights that Reece told me these words was like tearing my heart out of my chest. I was so in love with him now that I knew there was no chance for my heart to be spared. I now understood though. I knew why he rejected me, why he didn"t want me. And I don"t even blame him now. I wasn"t one of them, and I never would be. I couldn"t stop the tears from falling. They fell, unhindered, down my cheeks.
"Oh, sweetheart." Lila soothed as she hugged me tight to her chest. I tried to stop crying, but the silent tears turned into sobbing. I had not cried over his words since the day I told Juniper about what had happened. Not like this anyway, not since I cried in the bathroom.
"Shh." Lila shushed me. "It"s alright Trinity. You have it all wrong."
"No, I don"t. He told me all this himself, didn"t you hear me?" I implored her.
"I know sweetie. I heard you. But there is something you don"t know."
"It doesn"t matter. He doesn"t love me, and he never will." I wiped the tears from my face as I spoke. "I can"t be with someone who doesn"t love me."
"Honey, can I tell you something?" Lila asked me as she pulled a chair closer so she could sit next to me. I nodded. "Reece told me something, something that you need to know. I probably should have told you sooner, but I wanted you to put him in his place a few more times before I told you."
"What are you talking about?" I asked her as I tilted my head in confusion. Lila sighed as if she was about to say something that was difficult.
"Do you remember when we talked about all of this before. After you got hurt?" I nodded to answer her. "Well, the first thing I did after that was go and yell at my son. I couldn"t believe what an idiot he had been, and how cruel he had been to you."
"You didn"t need to say anything to him, Lila. Things are fine the way they are."
"No, I had to say something. And I am glad I did." She smiled at me as she sat up straight in her chair. "You see, Reece explained a few things to me, and I was able to clear a few things up for him."
"What do you mean?" I was more confused now than when she started.
"Reece had a terrible misconception about the past. And he also told me why he wanted to keep you at bay."
"I don"t think it matters anymore." I sighed. "We will never be true mates."
"Please, listen to me." She begged me. "He thought that you would never be able to truly bond with him, being that you have no wolf. He thought that he would end up loving you so much more than you could ever love him because he didn"t think you could truly feel the mate bond."
"That"s insane, if I can form the mate bond, then I can feel it. I don"t know how it feels for him, but for me, for me it"s like being near the other half of my soul, my heart. I love him more every day whether I want to or not. I want to be near him all the time, to know that he is safe and happy, but I know that I can"t have that. I know that if I were to be near him, he would not be happy, and potentially he wouldn"t be safe with the people trying to get to me. I am nothing but poison to him."
"Wait, wait and listen, please." She pleaded. "Reece thought that a man he once knew, Steven, my cousin, had mated with a human woman born into a wolf pack. She was human yes, but he was not truly mated. She tricked him, made him fall in love with her. He got so deep into it that he said he didn"t care that there was no mate bond, and he was going to be with her forever. But she was not in love with him. She betrayed him. She was the reason my husband and brother-in-law died. She was the reason I was lost to Reece for all those years." I was in shock upon hearing all this.
"He thought that they had mated, but that she was incapable of feeling the bond like a wolf. He didn"t know the truth. Steven hadn"t told many people the truth, after all."
"So, he thought I was going to betray him too?" I cried. "He thought that little of me?"
"He was broken, Trinity, you have to understand that. He didn"t know the truth and was hurting." Her words broke my heart, but not for what Reece had thought of me, for what he must have been feeling.
"There was something else he told me as well. After he became Alpha, there were people who tried to manipulate him to use his power. They sent women to use him. He learned to not trust women at all. He built walls around his heart to protect himself. He was afraid to let you in. He would never tell you this himself, but he was scared."
"I understand." I told her as I got to my feet. I had a lot to think about now. "I can understand why he said what he did. Why he has never trusted me and why he rejects me."
"But sweetheart, he doesn"t reject you." She tried to convince me.
"I will believe that when he tells me that himself." I smiled at her sadly before I left the room. I never got the chance to talk about the daycare like I wanted. I would try again later.