Another Chance

Chapter 45

ANNA'S POV

"You'll be fine," I told Jared, cupping his cheeks and giving them a good squeeze. "I'll be right here when you wake up."

In reality, I was terrified. I wanted to burst into tears, but I wasn't going to do that to Jared. I could tell that he was frightened for his surgery, and I wasn't going to add to his stress. This was what he wanted.

"I'll see you in a couple of hours," Jared told me, pressing his lips to mine. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Clara and I made our way out of the hospital room, and my bottom lip quivered, causing Clara to wrap her arm around me as we walked. "Anna, I promise you that Jared is going to be fine. Nothing will go wrong. He's a strong wolf and Doctor Oliver is incredible at what he does."

I prayed that she was right. I wouldn't be able to carry on without Jared, and although they had reassured me, I was still allowing my obsessive thoughts to run wild in my mind. It was exhausting.

"Emma is waiting for you at home by the way," Clara informed me, nodding towards mine and Jared's house. I sighed.

Jared had offered to postpone his surgery so that I could have my first session with my therapist with him present, but in reality, I didn't really want to unpack everything with him around. Some of the stuff I would say would definitely hurt him and make him feel guilty.

It wasn't his choice that he was a wolf, but finding out he was one and that I was mated to him was slightly traumatic for me. Even if it was the best thing that had ever happened. Humans were never going to be prepared to be thrown into such a world.

"Do you need me to come with you? Or we can cancel it?" Clara questioned, but I shook my head. I was going to be brave and I was going to do this myself. I had been thinking about it all night and I had realised that Jared was right. I needed to talk out my problems or things were going to come back and bite me in the ass in the long run. This was for the best.

"No, but thank you," I told her. "I need to do this, and by the time I'm finished with the session, Jared would have hopefully woken up. It'll be a good distraction."

Clara nodded, letting me go. I wandered slowly towards the house, taking deep breaths as I made my way up to the front door and pushed it open, spotting a warm looking blonde lady seated on our couch. She immediately stood up and beamed, clutching onto her clipboard.

She was younger than I had expected which put me at ease, and she immediately stepped towards me and held out her hand for me to shake. "Hi, Anna. It's great to meet you. I'm Emma."

"Hi, good to meet you." I tried to make my voice sound as confident as possible.

"Today is just going to be an introductory session. We can decipher what I can help you with and talk about the things that you want to gain from therapy. You don't have to go into great detail at all, but it would be helpful for me to know some of the things you've been through so we know what we're working with here."

"That sounds fine to me." I nodded, settling down on the couch.

"Great. If at any point you need a break or want to cut the session short, just let me know. I'm yours for roughly an hour, and I'm hoping that in this hour we can gel and click, but if not, just let Jared know and he can arrange for somebody else to come and see you," Emma told me with a smile, not looking offended in the slightest that Jared had obviously told I wanted to make sure we got on first.

"Will do."

Emma began writing down on her clipboard as I spoke, allowing me as much time as I needed to answer her questions. Like she had said, she didn't ask for anything in too much detail, but I did have to almost re-live my trauma, sometimes having to stop mid sentence to gulp and take a deep breath.