Camden felt his humor leave him. “I remember.” He’d caught the good doctor doing it on a number of occasions, determined to learn his secrets—so sure he’d divulged some to Aspen. Which he had, trusting she’d never betray his confidence. He couldn’t even say why he’d so easily trusted her. He’d just instinctively known he could. “I also remember she tried convincing you to distance yourself from me.” He’d been infuriated when Aspen told him.
“That was when I went from disliking her to officially hating her. She should have wanted to help you, not isolate you.” Aspen tossed the last of her cupcake into her mouth. “I never spoke a word to her after that. I used to simply stare at her the way you did. It was sort of fun.”
“Looking back on it now, I think she only gave you that warning because she hoped you’d tell me. I think she wanted to coax a reaction out of me.” The therapist had been very cunning that way. Not to mention determined to trip Camden up.
“She nearly got one. I found you striding toward her office with a pair of scissors in your hand.” Aspen shook her head at the memory.
“You didn’t even ask what I’d intended to do. You just took the scissors from me and dragged me away with an eye roll. Then you made me watch cartoons.”
“I was pretty sure you were only going to threaten her, and I would have found that somewhat entertaining. But it would have given her the ammunition she was looking for to insist to Corbin that you needed to go to that center she kept mentioning.”
“She did seem intent on having me sent away, didn’t she?”
“She just hated that she failed to make you talk to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she planned to give you an ultimatum at the last second and be all like, ‘if you agree to talk to me during our sessions from now on, you don’t have to go.’”
“Maybe. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t pin her focus on someone else. It’s not like I’m an interesting character.”
“Oh, you’re very interesting. People often have trouble reading you, and they seem to love that.”
“You never had trouble reading me.” She’d seen through him the moment they met. Seen exactly how dark and broken he was, but she hadn’t shied away.
“I know you extremely well, true, but you still manage to surprise me at times.”
“Right back at you.” His bearcat had always kept him on his toes. Seeing that she’d relaxed a little, he said, “So … are we going to talk about it?”
She tensed. He could do as her girls did and let her get away with pretending it wasn’t the anniversary of the day she almost died, but it wouldn’t do her any good. He’d learned from past experience that it was best to make her talk about it. If he didn’t, if he let her bottle the anger up, she’d only explode at a later date. This way, she could get it off her chest and then put the memories behind her—it was simply the best way she coped.
She shrugged. “What is there to say? What happened was shit. But it’s in the past. And I have a good life now.”
“And you still haven’t forgiven her,” he said softly.
Aspen looked down at her glass. “No. No, I haven’t. I don’t want to. I feel like if I forgive her, then I’ve said that what she did was okay. It wasn’t okay. And I don’t want to ever be someone who could excuse something like that.”
“Because then you can be sure that you never do it.”
“Yeah.” Aspen chugged down her wine. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“Look at me.” He waited until her eyes met his before he said, “You would never hurt any child, let alone your own. You certainly wouldn’t see it as your right to cut their life short.”
“I would have said the same about Lucia. She wasn’t a cruel person. She wasn’t even weak. She was just … I was going to say ‘lost,’ but that’s not quite the word. It was like she didn’t see any point in life anymore. Not when she had to live it without my father. If I didn’t have the enhanced strength of a shifter, I wouldn’t have been able to escape the car. I’d have died of carbon monoxide poisoning right along with her.”
“Which is why you have every right to be pissed at her. I will never stop being fucking infuriated with her. She gave up on life, despite that you needed her. Worse, she didn’t first drop you off some place safe before killing herself. No, she tried to take you with her. That is fucked up. As your mother, she should have been your biggest protector.”