To Be More (Slate/Gray Book #2)

One month ago, cities across America…

“I’ve heard there’s a wolf who heals people.”

“A healer? Like...a good surgeon?”

“No, no, it...it’s like, magic, or something. It just makes the injury go away completely.”

“Huh. Okay. Wow, Angie should know about this.”

Present day, Atwood Territory...

A knock comes at the door, distracting Gray from trying to put together a mediocre resume on Sara’s laptop. Gray’s eyes flash to the front door only out of instinct, because she knows it’s Slate even before his two knocks vibrate the wood of Sara’s front door. When he breaks the threshold, Gray catches his eye and puts a finger to her lips in the universal gesture for, be quiet.

Slate raises an eyebrow at her, but complies nonetheless, closing the door more gently than he would normally. Gray just pats the spot next to her and waits until he settles to whisper in his ear. “Sara’s napping.”

Slate’s brows draw together in concern “How is she?” he whispers back.

Gray’s mouth pulls down at one side. “I think she had a hard night. But I’ve heard her stirring the past couple minutes. She’ll be awake soon.”

Slate nods and puts his feet up on the ottoman meant to go in front of the armchair. He closes his eyes in a long blink, and Gray wonders how he’s been sleeping.

Something Gray rarely mentions to anyone is that it’s not uncommon for her to sneak out to her den in the forest to rest for an hour or two during the day with no one else to bother her. With everything settling back into a normal rhythm and Gray starting to find her “new normal”, she has been dealing with some...nightmare induced insomnia. She...generally keeps that to herself. She knows Slate does not have the same luxury of free time during the day to use catching up on sleep.

Gray goes back to her job searching with the comforting weight of Slate at her side. Their shoulders are brushing ever so slightly. After a few moments where the only sounds are the keys clacking and their breathing, Slate makes an inquisitive noise. She looks over and sees him peering down at her laptop. Gray smiles. “I’m relearning how to put together a resume.”

Slate nods. He watches her input some past experience for a moment. In a question rather than an assumption, Slate asks, “You liked working for your dad?”

Gray’s breathing hitches for a moment at the easy reference to her dead father, but lets the tightness in her chest ease slowly before answering. “I liked...being able to help people.”

Slate hums. His lips twitch. “I asked if you liked working for your dad.”

Gray laughs a little. Talking to Slate is so different from talking to anyone else. It makes her realize the value of words and all their meanings. He doesn’t use them frivolously. “No, I...I guess I didn’t. I liked seeing the patients. I liked seeing them going out the door relieved and hopeful. But I...really didn’t like working for my father.”

It feels weird speaking about her father that way. She feels tempted to look over her shoulder to make sure he hasn’t overheard her and won’t use this against her in the future. But he’s gone, has been for a long time.

The two of them sit in silence for a while longer until Slate, surprisingly, is the one to break the silence again. Slowly, quietly, he asks, “Why do you want to work?”

Gray looks at him curiously, trying to see his endgame. Surely he can’t see through her skin to the whirl of anxiety inside? She breathes deep and gathers all her resolve. “I need something to stay busy and I want to contribute. It’s time to rejoin society, the world. It’s...” she trails off for a moment. Then he meets his eyes through her lashes. His approval right now is important to her, but she tries not to betray this. She lets determination take insecurity’s stead. “It’s part of my healing process.”

He smiles at her. A rare one that lifts both sides of his mouth equally, one smooth and one scarred. The smile soon disappears and intensity enters his eyes. “You don’t need to contribute financially to be a worthy member of your family, or the community.”

“I know,” she says automatically, defensively.

Slate’s mouth quirks back into a smile. It stretches his scars. “Okay,” he says slowly, “if that’s the case, then why don’t you go back to school? It gets you back into society just as much as a job would.”

Without thinking, she answers immediately. “Because I can’t leave Alexander to pay the…oh.”

Slate’s lips part to give her a wider smile, gotcha. Then he sobers again and tilts his head. “Do you want to go back to school?”

Gray thinks about this for a moment. Does she want to go back to school? It’s surprisingly less daunting to think about than entering the workforce. She was pre-med before, on track to become a doctor or surgeon or something else her father would approve of. But she doesn’t have to please her father anymore, doesn’t have to please anyone. “Maybe,” she says. “What would I do?”

Slate raises his brows. “You’re asking me?”

Gray rolls her eyes. “I’m not asking you to tell me what to do. I’m asking for your opinion.”

He gives her another look. “I’m not going to put words in your mouth.”

She sighs. “Just help me, then.”

His eyes stray to the ceiling as he thinks. Slowly, he starts by presenting a few things they’ve already established, “You liked working at your father’s practice. You liked helping people, interacting with the patients, giving them hope. You were on track to study medicine--” he pauses to meet her gaze, “did you enjoy learning about medicine?”

Gray opens her mouth to say something about her classes, when another thought comes out of her mouth unwillingly. “I knew this woman...I called her Miss Audra.” The name feels unfamiliar after so long, but the fondness and sadness come in equal parts anyway. “She taught me about nontraditional medicines. I loved learning from her.”

“Hmm,” Slate thinks. “How did you like learning about traditional medicine?”

“I...liked it,” Gray says slowly. “But I really don’t want to spend the next ten years in school and debt,” she admits.

Slate nods. “You like helping people. You like being with patients. You like learning about all kinds of medicine.”

And then he stops. He lays out a number of facts and just...leaves them there. Gray huffs. She realizes she’d been waiting for him to tell her what she should do, even though he told her he wouldn’t. She doesn’t like how natural it is for her to wait for someone else to tell her what she likes or is best for her.

Before they can say anything else, Sara comes wandering out of the hallway, rubbing her eyes and trailing a blanket behind her. She straightens when she sees Slate there. “Slate!” She croaks happily.

Slate laughs at her, but quickly rises from his seat and wraps Sara up in a big hug. She hums into his chest, nuzzling her face there. “Mmm. You’re the best bro.”

Slate grins and helps her sit next to Gray. “Sleepy Sara is always so pleasant.”

Sara swats at him weakly. “Shush, you know you love Sassy Sara just as much.”

Slate gives her one last squeeze and says kindly. “I love all the Saras.”

With no other warning, Sara bursts into tears. “I-I-I l-love you too, S-slate,” she sobs.

Slate grimaces, then shares a commiserating glance with Gray. “It’s going to be one of those days,” Gray sighs.

She will never be more thankful she can’t heal hormonal mood swings.

:::::

Aria is sitting in the living room in front of the coffee table with her math textbook and notes spread all around her. She hates math. Luckily, she’s the only one in the house right now, so no one is around to scold her for swearing.

Whose idea was it to put half the frickin’ alphabet in algebra?

At least it’s distracting her from the nightmare that is her life right now. She’s happy that Gray is happy and experiencing some character growth or whatever, but sometimes she just needs to mope without the reminder that life goes on whether she’s enjoying hers or not. And all Zander does is avoid her. He’s probably trying to “give her space” or something, but would it kill him to give her a little attention?

She does recall guiltily a few occasions where Zander and/or Gray had knocked on her door when she had been in a less tolerant mood than she is now. Figures. She finally comes out of her cave of gloom when no one’s around to appreciate it.

Life sucks.

She’s about to convince herself she’s hungry and needs a snack to make herself feel better about procrastinating even more, but then someone knocks on the door. Aria immediately perks up. Maybe it’s one of her friends!

She abandons her homework and scampers to the door with all the hope and enthusiasm of a child hearing the ice cream truck. She whips the door open to find...not the ice cream truck. Aria sighs heavily at the porch floor. “Gray’s not here.”

Slate nods and says, “Okay. Can you give this to her?”

Aria sighs again and takes her gaze from the floor to meet his eyes and she flinches at the sight that meets her. Slate has come around almost daily for Gray, but Aria’s sister has always met him at the door before they’d go on their merry way like they’re too good for Aria and Zander. So...this is actually the first time she’s seeing Slate’s face.

It’s...kind of scary. The scar is just so... Aria can’t not look at it with how much of his face it covers. Aria feels a little guilty about it, but she’s reminded of the villain from Batman, Two-Face.

Anyone could see that Slate was a highly attractive specimen--Aria knows many girls who lust for him from afar. Very far, but still. But now...well, he’s not not handsome, but it’s...kind of off-putting. It makes him look vicious, fierce. He feels almost more untouchable now than he did before, which she wouldn’t have thought possible.

“How did your face get like that?”

Aria’s mouth drops open. Did those words just...come out of her mouth? She immediately claps both hands across her lips while her brain short circuits.

Before he can say anything else or...or do something--who knows what he would do--Aria hurriedly backtracks. “I-I mean, not that it’s bad, it’s totally normal--well, not normal, but, like, you’re still really attractive,” Aria breathes. Her fingers twitch as her brain short circuits again. Brain-mouth filter--vacation much?

Aria flaps her hands and babbles some more, “What I mean to say is--”

“You’re curious about what happened?”

Aria sucks in a breath when she realizes she hadn’t inhaled during most of her speech. Still out of breath, she gasps, “Yes.”

Slate...Slate smiles. With teeth. And then he must see whatever acrobatics Aria’s face is doing now and he starts laughing!

“Oh my gosh,” Aria mutters to herself. “I can’t wait to tell Ellen I made Slate…” Then she remembers. She won’t be telling Ellen anything any time soon.

Slate’s laughter fades quickly, but a small smile still lifts up the scarred side of his mouth. The smile and scar look weird together. Then finally Aria can drag her eyes away from the white-pink lines of scarring to meet his eyes aaaaand, yep. They’re still as intense as ever. She shrinks into herself a little.

“Aria, I…” Then he gets a thoughtful look on his face. He nods to himself as he decides something and then gestures past her. “May I come in?”

“Uh…” Aria really hopes she doesn’t have anything embarrassing lying around, but who says no to Slate Atwood? It’s already a miracle if he’s looked at you with any sort of meaning, much less talked to you. “Sure.”

Aria feels like she’s in a dream when she moves aside so Slate--Slate Atwood--can move past her and be in her house and talk to her. Alone.

Her palms are wet.

Once the door is closed behind them, Slate puts a plastic bag down on the kitchen table. “Will you make sure Gray gets this?”

“...sure,” Aria says after an uncomfortably long pause. “Um, what is it?”

Slate tilts his head at her. What that means, Aria has no clue. “It’s my old laptop and phone. I got new ones, so I don’t need these anymore.”

“Oh.” She swallows. “Okay.”

Then he looks at her. He’s not, like, staring or anything, the moment doesn’t last that long, but it’s like her mouth just won’t stop moving. “Have you heard from Sage?” she blurts.

If it wouldn’t have been even more humiliating, Aria would have facepalmed. What does she mean has he heard from Sage? They’re brothers!

Fortunately, Slate just nods like she’s being completely reasonable and not extremely awkward and slightly creepy with how much staring she can’t help but do at the scarred side of his face. “He’s been a little upset recently.” He looks at her...softly. Just like the smile, the softness looks odd with the scar. “How have you been?”

“So bad,” Aria gasps. To her utter horror, she actually starts to tear up. When Slate sits and graciously pulls out a chair for her next to him, she drops into it heavily and tries to stealthily wipe her nose on her sleeve. “I used to have all these friends but they, well...and-and-and then there were these other people who liked me and talked to me and wanted to spend time with me an-and…”

Aria trails off and looks back up at Slate. He’s not even doing anything, just sitting there meeting her eyes and tilting his head like he’s listening. She can’t help but keep talking. “And now they won’t even talk to me.”

Slate lets the silence hang only until she starts curling into herself and getting insecure. “Do you know why that is?” he asks quietly.

Aria nods and whispers, “Yes.”

Slate nods, accepting this in its simplicity. “Can you resolve it?”

“I don’t--may-maybe?”

“Do you want to?”

Aria’s chin starts to wobble and tears start leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Yes, but...no.”

With that one word, the waterworks start in earnest. She’s full on ugly crying and Slate--Slate Atwood--is...oh, he’s...he’s pulling Aria to her feet and...hugging her?

Yes. Yes he is. The moment his warmth comes around her fully, she buries her head in his chest and grips his T-shirt with fisted hands. When he starts petting her hair and shushing her, she figures all dignity is out the window, so she just...lets go. He’s a very good hugger, she can’t be blamed! She releases all the pent up anger and sadness and anxiety from the last couple weeks.

When the tears start to die down, Slate guides her to sit back down. He gently untangles her hands from his shirt and graciously makes no comment on its wrinkled and wet spotted disarray. “What happened, Aria?”

“Well,” she breathes. “I think I...made some mistakes.”

When she looks up at him through damp lashes, he just nods and waits, so she continues, “When we first started telling people...or when people found out that Gray is our sister and she’s the healer, it felt like that’s all anyone wanted to talk about. So I started avoiding the schoolhouse here just to get some peace and got Zander to take me to the library to study where I met...some older high school kids.”

Aria thinks now is the time when the adult is supposed to sigh at her predictable poor decision making, but Slate merely nods and remains passive. So she continues, “I thought they were cool and fun and...and so different from anyone I’d known, pretty much. The pack I grew up in...it wasn’t good. My father didn’t let me spend time with any other kids who weren’t werewolves and I always had to be quiet when we were at home, or else Mom would get upset. With the kids at the library…” she trails off. “They didn’t know me, or my dad, or my sister or brother. I could be whoever I wanted with them. And then there was this boy--” she rolls her eyes at herself now, and mutters, “Of course there was a boy. He seemed interested in me and paid me a lot of attention, and thought I was pretty and smart and…”

“He wanted more than you were comfortable with?”

“Yes,” Aria says on an exhale. “And when I told him no, he got angry and said things about me to the other girls and they wouldn’t talk to me and–and I don’t even really like them, but…”

“So you don’t want to fix things with them,” he revisits.

“I think...not really,” she mumbles.

“And you’re afraid to talk to your friends here again?”

“Yeah,” she says miserably.

Slate hums thoughtfully. “Why?”

“Because they hate me,” Aria frowns. “They should hate me. I ditched them.”

“Who?”

Aria sighs. “Why are you making me talk about who hates me?”

All Slate does is raise his eyebrows and give her a side eye. “Okay, fine,” she gives in embarrassingly quickly. “Mostly it’s Ellen and Jenna,” then she mumbles into her shoulder, “ and Sage.”

Slate doesn’t even smile at her like she’s young and dumb and amusing. He just nods. “Describe them.”

Aria gives him another weird look, but is physically incapable of saying no to him. “Well Ellen is bubbly, talkative, like me. Jenna’s more girly, but super funny. Sage is,” she blushes, “nice.”

Slate nods again. “Do those people sound like they would be the kind of friends who would turn their back on another friend after a little bit of distance?”

Aria sniffs and considers this. “Not really. But then what does that make me if I turned on them?”

“Well, let’s think,” he says reasonably. “You were experiencing a difficult life changing event and felt like you weren’t getting the kind of support you needed. What you did was actually very smart, on a survivalist level.”

Aria’s nose wrinkles. “What?”

“You didn’t have what you needed available, so you went to find it somewhere else for yourself.” Slate looks at her deeply. “Makes sense, right?”

“But I--”

“So you found people who seemed to accept you, who filled the need for attention that was left unattended by those close to you. Sounds reasonable to me.”

“But-but-but I should have known better,” Aria bursts out after working her mouth in silence for long moments.

Slate’s mouth tilts and it pulls at his scars. “Maybe you’re right. I also think you should allow yourself extra slack for choices you made in times of stress and anxiety.”

Aria deflates, feeling remarkably relieved. “Okay. So...what do I do now?”

Slate’s mouth tilts the other direction this time. “I think I know a great place to start.”