She was quiet for a moment before continuing with a small sad smile on her face. “I always got to be the defensive coordinator. Dad said I had a knack for coming up with plays and that I was bossy enough to get my brother and sisters to do what I said.”
My gut clenched as I recognized something in her I saw every time I’d looked at myself in the mirror the past three months.
Grief was stark and unmistakable.
It wove its way into the way you held yourself, making your shoulders hunch with the burden of your loss. It snaked its way into your gaze and hid behind your eyes, making them sad, even if you were smiling.
After shouldering my own loss, I’d recognize it anywhere.
“When did you lose him?” I asked softly.
She let out a soft but shaky breath and wrapped her delicate fingers around her dewy glass. “Almost fifteen years ago.”
My heart ached at the sadness in her voice and I yearned to reach across the table and touch her. To erase this space between us. To do anything it took to put that smile back on her face.
“You must have been young.”
She nodded. “We were sixteen.”
I winced at the way her voice broke on that last word.
“We lost them both that day,” she continued.
“You lost your mom and your dad the same day?” My heart raced at the implications.
It couldn’t be.
“Yeah. They were fated.”
Fated.
That one word reverberated through my head over and over as I tried to wrap my mind around it.
Fated mates weren’t unheard of, but they were rare enough to be special. I’d never met a pair before, but I knew what it meant. One couldn’t live without the other. When one died, the other followed shortly after. It was as tragic as it was beautiful.
It was also something every wolf strove for, even if they wouldn’t admit it. Who didn’t want to find their match? The one wolf born for them.
Growing up, I’d always wished my mated parents could have been fated. Obviously, that would have been impossible since my mom wasn’t even a wolf, but it didn’t stop ten-year-old-Wyatt from hoping.
Now, the fact that they weren’t fated was a blessing. If they had been, we would have lost our mom with our dad. Like Callie had. I couldn’t imagine that kind of loss, but I could see the result in the slump of her shoulders.
“Callie. I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged and sniffed softly before turning to look out the window. My eyes traced her profile over and over as I watched her strength surge to the surface and harden her edges again.
“It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
She lifted one shoulder and dropped it just as fast. “Yeah, well, getting upset over it won’t change anything.”
I frowned at the side of her face and folded my fingers together to prevent myself from reaching out to her. “Callie. You know you’re still allowed to mourn the loss of your parents.”
When she didn’t answer, I continued.
“There is no time limit on grief. It doesn’t matter if it won’t change anything or make things better. You get to feel whatever you feel for however long you want to feel it.”
She heaved a heavy sigh and slowly turned to face me. She still wouldn’t meet my eyes, but at least I got to see her whole face now. It was marred with sadness, but also more beautiful than ever.
“You sound like you’re talking from personal experience.”
My gut clenched and I sat back in my seat. “If you’re right and there are no secrets in a pack then I’m guessing you already know about my dad.”
“Abey mentioned you lost him recently.”
I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah. It’s been a few months now.”
Silence fell heavy between us as grief slowly encroached on our lunch. It sucked the color from the day and dimmed the brightness of the sun shining through the windows. It settled around my shoulders, weighing me down more with every second that passed.
I wished we hadn’t landed on this topic but couldn’t really regret it. It had given me another small piece of Callie McCoy. It was a sad piece and one I wish she didn’t have to shoulder, but now it was mine and I’d treasure it. She was proving to be a tough nut to crack, but I’d pick up all the crumbs that resulted from every fissure I made in her hard exterior until I had it all.
I didn’t know when I’d decided I needed to get behind her barriers, but I knew I did. Every piece of her I got just made me want more. Every new thing I learned about her made me want to learn more. The deeper I got, the more I craved, and I didn’t see an end in sight.
We sat in heavy silence for a while, both lost in our own thoughts. Mine of course centered around her, but I couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. Was she reminiscing about her parents? Was she remembering a fond memory? Was she regretting landing on this topic to begin with?
“So, did you pick up all this feel your feelings mumbo jumbo from a therapist or something?”
And just like that, the spell was broken.
My head fell back as I laughed long and loud.
I hadn’t thought it possible to recover from our somber silence, but Callie had found a way. She was funnier than I thought. Even more so because I don’t even think she knew how amusing she was.
When my laughter subsided to chortles,
