I’m wearing someone else’s sweatshirt. It’s big on me. I look down at it and see a Boston University logo. Mason’s.
For some reason, this cranks the waterworks up some more. I flop back on the bed.
Ivy climbs on and lays beside me and holds my hand.
“Amie, I…” She stops.
“I don’t wanna wear this,” I whisper.
“Your suitcase had no clean tops,” she says. “I didn’t know if I should dig into your bags and boxes.”
I look at her. “He raped you.”
Color drains from her face.
“He fucked you in public? Half-shifted? And you were bleeding? And then you tried to escape and he dragged you back and infected you with his sperm – landing you in harm’s way again because your body was allergic to it.”
“My body was allergic to the birth control pill,” she says softly.
“Oh, give me a fucking break,” I snap, “You’ve been on the pill since you were a teenager. It never caused problems before.”
“I wasn’t a teenager. I was twenty-one. And anyway…”
“You were nineteen.”
“I was not nineteen.”
“I remember having to get them for you on the way to that concert for that stupid boy band you liked and we went to the concert three days after my twentieth, your nineteenth birthday. I know this was the year before I could drink and your drama that night made me wish it was one year later!”
“As if you didn’t drink underage.” She rolls her eyes.
“Bottom line, you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome.” I point at her. “You just married a monster who kidnapped you, raped you in public, and you’re fucking fawning all over him. We need to get the fuck outta here. And then the first thing we’re doing is getting you a psychiatrist.”
She bolts up to standing and shouts, “You know nothing about him or what he endured before he found me!”
I roll my eyes.
She leans forward aggressively, “You know nothing about the emotions we’ve felt through this time together, the connection we have. No wait, you do know about that connection because you’re developing one yourself!”
“I was deluded. I knew, I fucking knew it wasn’t logical,” I tap my temple, “wasn’t real, and still, I let myself fall for the bullshit. I’ll get a psychiatrist too. Maybe we’ll both go to the same one and they’ll give us a Brennan, sister discount. Because we’re both fucked in the head.”
“Amie, your road might be different from mine but surely you can see the similarities. I don’t like what happened. It was the worst thing that happened in my entire fucking life.”
My expression drops. “I can’t imagine, Ivy. I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.” I grab her and hug her.
She shudders out a breath. I do the same.
We’re quiet for a moment, just hugging one another.
Then she speaks again. “The worst thing that ever happened to me, Ames. Until I was faced with the idea of a life without Ty, a life where he’d be a basic animal living in the woods because he could not bear to live in human form without me.” She pulls back from me. “I knew. I knew that what happened at that dance would be the second worst thing to happen to me because the worst thing I can imagine is not spending my life with Tyson.”
I blow out a breath. She grabs my hairbrush from the bottom of the bed and starts working it through my hair.
“I knew it was something bad when you were at my place, I mean Rick’s place,” I whisper.
“It was. And he brought me back and believe me, I didn’t just jump back into his arms. I was broken. I was destroyed.”
“But Ivy, you married him. You let them arrange a party in the same place the bad thing happened.”
The hairbrush on my scalp feels soothing. She doesn’t speak for a minute, just keeps brushing. So, finally I take the brush from her and toss it, staring into her eyes, seeing the warring emotions there.
“I know,” she whispers. “And Tyson didn’t push for that. He said no, in fact, but I wanted to make sure the whole pack could come and that was the place that would accommodate everyone. It wouldn’t have worked at Tyson’s house with that many people. So I knew I’d have to get over it. Ty and I went there beforehand to see if I could handle it. If I couldn’t, he was going to ask Mason if we could do it here since Mason has the biggest back yard. But walking in there and seeing it decorated for us, seeing all those people helping out to get it ready, people I was afraid to face again… something came over me and I knew I could. Believe me, Amelia, he’s sorry about what happened. He's proven how sorry he was. When you love someone, you forgive them when they fuck up.”