"I can't help you with Joel and his problem with mates. I don't know him that well, and I'm not sure why he feels that way. But I know a thing or two about assuming people are going to hurt you."
Alethia said it easily, as though it wasn't painful to admit. Nina looked at her. She looked serious, like she was talking about something that didn't make her happy, but not like she was hurting.
Not anymore, maybe.
"If you get hurt enough," Alethia went on, "you start to expect it, even from people who've never hurt you. And that's a problem, because it means that you start assuming the worst about people. You start self-sabotaging. You're sure everything's going to go wrong, so you prepare for that to happen. You assume it is happening...even if it isn't."
Nina couldn't laugh, because everything hurt too much. But she let out a sound that was maybe halfway between a chuckle and a sob. "That sounds like me, all right."
"It was me, too, for a long time. It meant I almost screwed up getting together with Grey, which was the best thing that's ever happened to me, just because I couldn't believe it was real."
Nina tried to imagine this confident, beautiful, self-assured woman in the same situation as Nina, broken and hurting and ashamed. She couldn't at all. Could Alethia really have made it, somehow, from that situation to this one?
"It's hard to realize what's happening," Alethia said quietly. "Because you think everyone else is hurting you. But really, you're just hurting yourself. Because that's what you're used to."
Nina swallowed another sob that was trying to work its way up her throat. "Okay," she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. "Okay. So how do you stop?"
Alethia spread her hands. “Live in the present. It’s harder than it sounds, but it’s the best thing. What’s happening to you now? Is anyone hurting you? What do you want now? What do you expect now?”
Nina shook her head, feeling dizzy at all the questions. “I don’t know. It’s too much.”
“If it’s too much, just.
..breathe. Take a step back. Breathe in, and feel yourself breathing, and breathe out, and let the past go.” Alethia smiled ruefully. “I only just figured that part out a little while ago. Grey’s never had any trouble living in the present. I’m the one who was always stuck in the past. But I’m getting better.”
“Breathe,” Nina said doubtfully.
Alethia nodded. “Try it now. Breathe in, hold it, let it out slow.”
Nina breathed in deep, and held it, thinking about herself. What did she feel?
Loneliness.
She wanted to be with Joel. She wanted to be with her mate, and have a pack.
At that thought, the past welled up in her. It was just like Alethia said—the second she remembered, she started thinking that it was impossible. That she could never have a family again.
She breathed out, and tried to let those clamoring doubts go. It was hard.
“Again,” Alethia said softly.
Nina tried it again. Breathe in. Hold. Was anyone hurting her? Not right now. Right now, she was standing in the forest with Alethia, and nothing was happening. She breathed out, and tried to let go of the memories of pain.
“It’s hard,” she said.
Alethia nodded. “One more time. Just think about yourself this time. How it feels to breathe.”
Nina breathed. Her chest filled, her body expanded with air. She held it. Then she let it out.
It felt like her muscles were uncurling, her anxieties melting away. “It’s working,” she said, surprised.
“There you go,” Alethia said. “Now. What do you want?”
Nina knew the answer to that question. “Joel.”
“Well,” said Alethia, turning to look into the trees, “I think I know where to find him.”
Nina turned too, and saw him. Joel was crouched in leopard form on a rock, looking down at her and Alethia.