Page 150 of Beautiful Trauma

Maeve smiled at her son. “Thank you.” With a pointed look, she said, “We’ll talk soon. Make Kellan give you my number.”

“I will.”

As they were leaving the terrace, Kellan appeared. At the sight of me, the panic on his face waned. “Here you are.”

“I needed some fresh air.”

“That’s understandable.”

“I got to meet Maeve.”

“You did?”

Nodding, I replied, “She’s amazing.”

Kellan smiled. “Yeah, she is.”

“I want to go visit her and Rafe in New York as soon as we can.”

“Because I promised to take you to Rafe’s club?”

I laughed. “Well, there’s that, but I was thinking more about how much I enjoyed being with her.”

Genuine joy radiated in Kellan’s eyes. Without saying anything, I knew he thought this was a step forward. That by wanting to spend time with Maeve, I was healing. Because of how much he cared for me, he would disregard that this wasn’t the milestone he thought it was.

But in that moment, I would let him believe it. Anything to see the happiness on his face.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: KELLAN

After almost a week in Boston, it broke my heart to see Mila struggling. Nothing seemed to bring her out of her growing depression. Even though I was supposed to be taking it easy, I’d pushed myself physically to try to help her emotionally.

First, I took her sight-seeing in the city. I thought doing something for others might help, so we volunteered one morning at the mission with Caterina. Since she seemed to really light up around Julianna and Piper, we took them to the aquarium.

But nothing seemed to help.

She continued retreating from me. I was starting to worry that I might lose her. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called in our clan doctor to see her. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Not Mam or Callum and especially not Mila.

When he arrived, I had no idea if she would even see him. I cautiously brought him to our bedroom. To my surprise, she sat up in bed to talk to him.

After leaving them, I went out into the hallway. As I paced the floor, I fought to keep my emotions in check.

“Kellan?”

I whirled around to see Ilsa. Furrowing my brows, I said, “Hey, I didn’t know you were here.”

She gave me a sad smile. “I came to see how Mila is doing.”

“Not good. The doctor is with her now.”

She nodded. “He’ll know what to do to help her.”

“I feel so fucking helpless,” I choked out.

Isla closed the gap between us. “I know you do. I feel the same way. With everything I went through with losing my parents, I feel I should know the right things to say or do to help Mila. But I don’t.” She shook her head forlornly. “Grief is isolating.”

“And so is trauma. I mean, Eamon and I experienced the same thing with Maeve, but we dealt with it in such different ways. And even though he wouldn’t talk about it, deep down I knew if he did, it still wouldn’t help.”

She nodded. “It was the same way with Brooke and me. We’d both lost our parents, but we grieved differently.”