Page 44 of Altius (The Scent of Victory #2)

Twenty-Seven

Morgan

T he year started with a bang—thanks to a tipsy Cal deciding it was high time we christened the velvet ottoman in my suite’s lobby—but I still got up at five-thirty as usual.

I was almost done stretching when my phone buzzed, heralding the arrival of my first text of the year.

Reaching across the gym mat, I picked up my phone, eager to see who the message was from—Grace, Rory, Alijah, or…

Jenna. It was from Jenna.

Indecision gripped me. I had to open it. Even if she cursed me out. Or wanted nothing to do with me moving forward.

If she lobbed an emotional bomb at me a mere six hours into January first, so be it. I’d deal.

After taking a few centering breaths, I clicked on the message… Which wasn’t a message at all.

Just a picture.

The oval of a plane window. Jenna’s slender fingers silhouetted against the early morning haze. Thumb, pointer, and pinky extended, making the hand sign for I love you —except her fingers were angled as if moving diagonally.

Flight.

Unprepared for a body check of nostalgia, my emotional control slipped, making my spine sag until my shoulders hit the gym mat, leaving me staring at the ceiling.

Jenna was willing to give me a second chance.

I thought she would deliberate for weeks and ultimately decide to maintain our current distance because she could barely stomach my presence. My very existence was a burden to her.

The possibility of forgiveness was too much to comprehend.

Sharp, discordant breaths made it impossible to calm down.

No, focus. What could I see? Five things. I needed five things.

Chunks of ice clung to the windowsill. The treadmill belt looked too thin to be trusted from this angle.

That’s it. Don’t think about Jenna avoiding your gaze. Or how hard she cried after you hit her with your pharmacology textbook.

Three more things. Find three more things. But what else was there—except unfettered anguish?

The door opened.

Oh, that was one sound. How many more did I need?

“What happened?” A worried Wyatt knelt beside me, cradling my face in his calloused palms. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” I lied.

My wounds were too deep, too close to the core of my psyche, to be seen by the naked eye. But I didn’t have the energy to explain that to him—because I couldn’t breathe. My vision wavered. The ceiling spun.

A panic attack. I was having a goddamn panic attack.

All because Jenna didn’t hate my guts.

“Morgan, baby,” Wyatt crooned, urging me to sit up. “Talk to me.”

I had no words. No rational thoughts, either. All I could do was shove my phone at him.

He scrambled to catch it, then stared at the photo, jaw clenching and unclenching, brows knitting tighter together.

And then, without exchanging another word, Wyatt wrapped me up in his strong arms and endless patience, holding me tight and purring, rocking us back and forth until my heart stopped stuttering and my breathing evened out.

Until I was calm. On the verge of submission. Completely at his mercy.

Wyatt kissed the center of my forehead. “Better?”

“Mm. I think so.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I—I don’t know. If I do… It’ll all just come pouring out and never stop.”

“So what?” Wyatt shifted, resting his back against the wall, pulling me more fully into his lap. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go today.”

If he had walked in a few minutes later, I would have been able to resist. Could have feigned nonchalance before detonating in the shower. Or ruined something in my nest.

But Cal was asleep in my bed. And too many people knew my shameful, destructive secret now.

It was too late. My mouth was open. Purging the truth.

Out it came. All of it.

The frustration and self-loathing.

How much I struggled to string two words together at first. The monstrous behavior. That I’d compose paragraphs of horrid, typo-ridden, berating, belittling texts, lobbing insult after insult at my parents, only to delete them.

At first.

When the rage got too intense, demanding I hit the send button to find relief, I sent them to myself.

But it did nothing to help the hair-trigger of my temper.

I hit Pops because he brought me the wrong pair of tennis shoes. Blew up at Dad for trying to touch me during a back spasm. Yelled at Papa for buying a throw pillow in the wrong shade of indigo.

I whined and cried, throwing a full-blown snotty tantrum because Mom didn’t crisp my bacon correctly. Why should I eat when everything was tasteless and the texture was ruined?

And Jenna was there, trapped in the corner, watching me explode with wide, terrified eyes the entire time.

Too afraid to move, too scared to make a noise, instead of getting help with her math homework. Forcing herself to eat meals ruined by my outbursts. Earning a tongue lashing for every compliment or bit of encouragement she tried to give me.

And then, one day, when she came to tell me dinner was ready, I struck her square in the sternum with a four-pound pharmacology textbook and traumatized my eleven-year-old sister so badly she refused to be in the same room with me for months.

Clutching at Wyatt’s sweatshirt, I splattered my fears against his shoulder.

“It’s like…like part of me is trapped there, fused to my desk, forced to throw that book on an endless loop, hitting her over and over and over— forever —because it’s an actual memory. Something I didn’t forget—that I can’t forget.”

Why did I have to live with so much anger?

Even now, at this moment, pouring my heart out, it still ran too close to the surface—a throbbing vein in search of a sharp object.

“But I know there’s more. More things, worse things, that I don’t remember saying or doing to her.

But I know I did. I must have. To my parents, too.

And Kelsey and Jacobi—and— and you .” I begged Wyatt to put me out of my misery.

“What did I say to make you leave? To never call or text again. Why did you leave? I didn’t…

Tell me I didn’t say all the awful things Ethan and Jacobi say I did. Please .”

Wyatt pressed his cheek against my forehead and held me tightly—oh, so tightly. Trying to erase the lingering sting of his prolonged absence.

“It doesn’t matter now.” Wyatt forced me to look at him.

“I know you. The real you. How brilliant you are. That you’re strong.

Confident. Amazing under pressure. Quick on your feet.

Sarcastic as fuck. None of that changed.

And you still care. So much. About your patients. Your inner circle. Your family.”

Wyatt scoffed, looking rueful.

“Hell, you probably think it’s a failing that your friendship circle shrank after your accident.

Because you think it’s easy to be someone’s best friend for thirty fucking years—but Morgan, let me tell you.

It is not . You only make it look easy.” He poured a quiet, self-aware laugh into my ear.

“Fuck, I don’t even know if I’d last thirty minutes alone with Jacobi, and I like the guy. ”

I sniffled, wiping my wet face on the back of my arm. “Excellent tolerance without specialist training, if you ask me.”

Wyatt brushed a lingering tear away with his thumb. “Please don’t sign me up.”

“But I didn’t get you anything for Christmas.”

Teasing Wyatt felt good. Almost as good as being in his arms.

“You know what I want.” His blue eyes had taken on that misty, otherworldly quality again. More mesmerizing than piercing, more intimate than intense. A slow seduction. Drawing me ever closer. “But I’ll settle for the free intimacy pass. Can I have it back?”

I nodded.

Wyatt pressed our chests together. My hands sank into those soft, wavy lengths of black hair. And we kissed.

It was a mutual joining, not driven by ravenous desire, but rather a shared need for reassurance. A light but steady touch. Unmoving. Reliable. I basked in the firm yet gentle pressure of his mouth against mine.

Exchanging mellow breaths between languid undulations of lips, teeth, and tongues, Wyatt and I made a silent vow on a quiet winter morning while the snow fell outside, blanketing the world in a joyful hush.

Our kiss lasted until sunrise.