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It’s ridiculous for me to feel possessive over Lincoln, but I do. It hurts to think of him courting Mackenzie, and then at the same time it makes me happy to think of my brother courting her. It’s like a full-on split personality. Then I get irrationally annoyed with my brother for creating conflict, anxious about anything changing in the dynamic I have with his pack, and then resentful that I can’t even talk to Mackenzie about all of this.
I mean, I suppose I could, but that feels like betraying their trust. None of them have asked me not to say anything, but honestly, that might just be because they’ve forgotten about me in the midst of their own drama. I’ve thought about mentioning everything to Micah or Mason or Cabe, but that feels weird too. There’s this small part of me that wonders whether they might also want to court Mackenzie if they knew she was available. Ignoring the myriad of conflicting feelings that thought stirs up in me, I just know Leo would hate me if I inadvertently added to his competition.
I don’t actually know what decision Leo, Lincoln, and Tanner made, or if they came to an agreement at all. It’s driving me crazy trying to listen in on their conversations or dropping hints around Mackenzie to try to surreptitiously see if they’ve approached her.
Thank goodness I have therapy today.
Everything has just felt so unsteady recently. I thought I was getting a handle on things, setting myself up to start school next semester, getting back into art, working on my mental health, making friends ... But lately it just feels like I’m walking on shaky ground, and the effort of figuring out the safest path is leaving me drained.
“Ellie!”
I look up at the barista holding my tea. Ellie is actually pretty close to my name, so I smile as I move forward to grab my drink. Leo and I used to make a game of it when we were younger. It was actually something we did with our father, back before he got too lost in his grief. My dad would give us each some money and we’d go up to the counter one at a time to place our order, each using our full names. We’d each get a point if both our names were wrong, but we’d get two points if our name was the only one incorrect. I was always “better” at the game, so to speak, and it used to make Leo so mad. He’d tell me I was cheating because my name is longer than his.
Sitting down with my tea, I unzip my bag to grab the small journal Dr. Morgan gave me to use. My assignment weeks ago was to start writing down positive memories from my childhood. It’s something she’s trying out with me, a way to redirect my thoughts if I find my mind wandering to the past. I’ll admit I’ve been stubbornly avoiding doing it, so I feel pretty pleased to have something to record in here at the last minute.
Dr. Morgan has lots of little mantras and assignments for me.
She’s told me more than once that I’m in no way, shape, or form a guinea pig, but it’s hard not to feel like some sort of experiment when I know she’s reporting back to my government case managers. It’s not like she’s breaking my confidence or sharing personal details from our sessions, but because of what my father was trying to accomplish with his evil brainwashing scheme, there are a lot of people interested in how my treatment is going.
I can’t exactly begrudge them that. I suspect they’re purposely keeping me in the dark about a lot of their investigation, but I know I’m not the only omega who’s experienced shit like what I went through. Iwantto be helpful and unselfish and all that. It’s just sometimes my mood gets the better of me and I find myself wallowing in self-pity, wishing some other girl with some other therapist had figured everything out already.
The wait for my tea and writing my little journal entry eat up a good amount of time, so soon I bundle up and head back to the health services building. I’m on autopilot up the stairs and through the hallways, and before I know it, I’m once again settling in in Dr. Morgan’s small office. It’s cozy. Decked out with a clashing mixture of pastel hues and various pieces of East Asian art, and smelling of jasmine. The space is now deeply familiar and comforting to me.
When I first moved in with Leo I saw Dr. Morgan every other day, but we slowly pulled back to three and then two times a week. As always, I’m sitting across from her in my favorite egg-shaped chair, the wooden side table holding tissues and a bejeweled elephant in easy reach.
“Hello, Esperanza,” she greets in her typical soothing tone.
“Hey, Doc.” I smile, pulling up my feet to tuck them underneath me. I always prefer to sit crisscross than to have my feet dangling in the air.
We go through the same quick routine at the start of every session—how I’m feeling, sleeping, and eating, then some baseline questions for anxiety and depression, etc. I answer on autopilot, watching as she marks little boxes in her session notes.
Now for the main event.
“So, earlier this week we talked about how you’ve been experiencing increased anxiety and some tension with your brother. How has that been going?”
I take a deep breath in, hold it, and then blow it out. I’m naturally an empathetic person and don’t mind talking about my feelings, but given everything that happened, it can be painful to dredge up certain things. Hence the easy-access tissues. Dr. Morgan used the metaphor of a deep tissue massage in one of our first sessions, explaining it can hurt to dig into sore or injured muscles and that the pain might actually hurt more after the massage than before getting one. But it’s a healing pain, and in a few days the discomfort will fade, leaving healthier, more relaxed muscles in its wake. Time to deep tissue massage my emotional psyche.
“There haven’t been any big changes,” I begin.
I’ve been pretty open with Dr. Morgan about the whole situation with my brother and Mackenzie, though admittedly I’m too scared to confess my inappropriate feelings toward Lincoln, a.k.a. mycrush. It just feels too stupid and too personal, a deep shame I can’t help but hide away. It doesn’tmatterthat I’m feeling this way; it’s just a small and inconsequential piece of the bigger picture. Granted, it’s a broken piece. But there are so many other more important, more broken pieces. I don’t feel up to offering this one up for inspection and diagnosis just yet.
I already decided that distracting my perceptive therapist would be the best course of action, so I reach forward to grab out my notebook, intent on redirecting us to the relatively safer ground of my childhood.Ha!
“So I actually wrote down one of my nice memories from—”
“Esperanza.” Dr. Morgan cuts me off, kind but firm. Her eyes seem to peer through me. “I think we should explore your current situation a bit more. Can we do that?”
“Sure,” I acquiesce, setting down my notebook and picking up my tea instead.
“You were telling me about a disagreement your brother had with his packmates. Lincoln and Tanner?” she confirms, glancing back at her notes. “Your brother wants to court a certain omega, a friend of yours, but Lincoln and Tanner aren’t on the same page.”
“Well, Tanner seems to be okay with courting her,” I correct. Though, honestly, I’m not entirely sure how he actually feels about Mackenzie.
“And so they’re fighting? Have they come to a decision about whether or not they’ll be putting in a courting bid?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem like it.”
Dr. Morgan nods, studying me.
