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    The cool air and the quiet campus had always been afort to me. But even the cool evening breeze couldn''t lift the heaviness weighing down on me as I fled the hockey arena.


    I wasn''t even entirely sure why I was running, but I knew I had to. My feet carried me across the empty athletic fields, and it wasn''t until I broke through the line of trees that I finally slowed to a walking pace.


    Eventually, I came to a small stream that was located along one of the many walking trails that the campus boasted. It was flowing in full force thanks to the summer rain, and it offered a bit of sce.Belongs to N?velDrama.Org - All rights reserved.


    I plopped down on a fallen log, my eyes stinging as I fought to hold back a new wave of tears. This was too much. Even with my werewolf healing, the red mark Enzo left on my arm remained as a vivid reminder. It was a painful imprint not only on my skin but also on my heart.


    "What the hell was that? You think that was okay?" I muttered, urging my wolf to respond, to offer some kind of wisdom that I sorely needed right now.


    "He didn''t mean to hurt you, Nina. Sometimes Alphas snap."


    "Snap? That''s not an excuse," I shot back, surprised at the bitterness in my own voice. "That''s not Enzo. He''s never been like this-never. I don''t buy that for one second."


    My wolf fell silent, and right now, I was d for it. I didn''t need any justifications as to what had just happened. Enzo had shoved me, his pregnant wife, and that was all that mattered right now.


    My fingers found the wet trail my tears had left on my cheeks and wiped them away. I stared at the stream in front of me, its water cascading over rocks, a natural course altered by obstacles but never stopping. What was the saying? That you never saw the same river twice?


    If only the solution to emotional pain was as simple as the physical: a little bit of elerated healing, a dab of supernatural ointment, and I''d be good as new, like the new waters flowing over the rocks.


    But deep down, I knew that the hurt I was feeling was a lot moreplex than that.


    I sighed as I looked out over the stream. I had be so wrapped up in my own fears, my own pain, that I had almost forgotten that Enzo was a person too.


    A person with his own fears, his own past, his own PTSD from our war with the Crescents. We had both seen things, done things that we couldn''t take back, that lingered like dark clouds over our lives. Things that we couldn''t tell the world, things that had to be kept a secret from so many people around us.


    Could it be that he was struggling just as much as I was all along but he was just too afraid to show it?


    I clenched my hands, my nails digging into the flesh of my palms. Why hadn''t I seen it before? Why had I assumed that I was the only one affected, the only one who needed support?


    As I stared at the rippling water, the realization hit me with crushing weight: what if Enzo was going through his own hell and I wasn''t there to help him through it? He was so worried about what would happen to me while he was away, but what if something happened to him while he was away? What if, like me, he too shouldn''t be alone?


    "Should I go with him?" I muttered aloud, calling to my wolf again. "What if we''ve been overlooking the simplest option all along?"


    "I wouldn''t call it the simplest," my wolf said. "You would have to put medical school on hold. That''s not simple."