Chapter - Alex
ALEX
All weekend long Bay doesn’t answer my texts. I try calling, but he won’t pick up.
I finally call his dad and ask if I can come by, but he tells me Bay is a little under the weather and is staying in his room to recover over the weekend.
It is not until Monday morning, when his parents pull into my driveway, that I see Bay again.
I know right away that Bay did not tell his parents anything, because they are both in perfectly normal moods, and his dad even asks me how the Halloween party went. I tell him it wasn’t great, but that Bay played beautifully.
Bay himself sits motionless, staring out the window and avoiding looking in my direction, and he is pale, dressed in a black hoodie and black jeans, his hair tied back in a messy way, loose strands dark red like dried blood falling across his cheeks.
We get out in front of the school, and Bay looks around carefully before stepping away from the car, only then heading toward the building, and I walk right behind him, unsure what I should say or do, feeling the enormous distance coming from him.
As always, we are early, so when we enter the classroom there are no other students yet, and I use the chance to say,
"Bay… I was so worried, when you didn’t answer my texts, I thought you…" I can’t finish the sentence.
He puts his backpack beside the desk and sits down, pulls out his tablet, and says nothing.
I can’t take it, I crouch beside him, trying to force him to look at me, and he finally does, his eyes incredibly dark and impossible to read.
"Will you tell me what happened," I blurt out, my voice shaking, "…back there?"
"What do you think?" he says through clenched teeth.
The ground nearly slips from under my feet, I lose balance in my crouch and drop to my knees. My lungs tighten and I have to reach for my inhaler.
"Bay… I don’t know what to say. I’m so, so sorry…
Thank you sounds so flat, so not enough, but I still want to thank you, your sacrifice…
you did that for me…" tears spill down my face, "what can I do for you now, please tell me," and lately it feels like all I do is cry, but I simply cannot help it, because the pain is ripping me apart, the guilt and the grief crushing my lungs. I cough painfully.
Bay turns his eyes away, his face strangely motionless.
"Let’s just forget about it and leave it behind us and never go back to that topic again, Alex."
"Bay, but…" I squeeze my eyes shut. "Why did you do it? Why?"
"Because I was already broken, and you weren’t. I was the logical choice."
"I don’t understand…"
Bay sighs lightly, with a bit of strain.
"There is something I always wanted to tell you, but I simply didn’t have the courage, though I think you should know it to understand something about me and so you don’t take my behavior personally," he says slowly, almost carefully choosing each word.
"I don’t understand," I whisper, "what didn’t you have the courage to tell me?"
"This isn’t the first time something like this happened, Alex. You could say I’m a veteran."
And suddenly he looks straight at me and his eyes are filled with something bottomless, like a wound that never healed, a wound that swallowed his soul and replaced it with horror, and for a moment I see it, the flash of that abyss.
My voice trembles.
"It wasn’t the first time?"
"No."
Suddenly I remember my dad’s words, and I whisper,
"Is that why you never wanted us, you and me…?"
Bay nods.
"And what omega would even want an alpha like that? After something like this."
My head is almost bursting from the surge of emotions. I lock my blazing stare on him.
"The fuck?! What are you even saying?! That’s a harmful, damaging stereotype! This can happen to anyone, and it doesn’t take anything away from them!"
Bay presses his lips together.
"It has nothing to do with whether you’re an alpha or not! You’re born an alpha, and you grow into it over your life! Trauma doesn’t take away your gender or the worth that comes with it!"
That’s exactly when the first students walk into the classroom, and I shoot to my feet and hurry back to my seat, wiping my cheeks.
But I have to take another dose from my inhaler, the tension buzzing through me.
My head is buzzing; I’m crushed… I can’t wrap my mind around any of it, and yet at the same time the entire last year finally falls into place, Bay’s behavior, his reluctance toward physical touch, his slow, cautious steps toward trusting me and letting himself grow close to me…
And suddenly I remember that Halloween kiss.
Wow, was he slowly preparing himself to take that next step, for us… him and me…?
And now everything has reset!
I can barely focus for the entire lesson, and more than once I have to use my inhaler just to be able to breathe. Dereck, Zion, and Kaen, who sit closest to me, glance over every time I take another deep inhale, fighting for each breath.
I know what I have to tell him, I know what I need to assure him of. He has to know who he is to me, what will never change no matter the circumstances of his life.
When the break finally comes the classroom is still full of kids, so I can’t talk to Bay, but I text him instead,
"Bay, I want you to know that none of this changes anything for me, I love you and I want to be your friend if I cannot be your boyfriend, but please, I’m begging you, don’t pull away from me, you are everything to me. Everything. The most wonderful person in my world. You’re my angel, my Bay!"
I see Bay read the message, look at me, and then type something back.
"Thank you, Alex, for those words, and I don’t want to lose you as a friend, I just need some time to pull myself together, and I don’t want to talk about it, let’s just leave it behind us for now."
It sounds so… curt. Shutting me down. But I cannot stop myself from asking the question.
"What about the Hansons? What if they show up again?"
"For now let’s leave that topic alone, but we will come back to it."
I want so badly to ask him… everything, to comfort him somehow, to thank him again, twice, a hundred times, to never stop thanking him, but the scale of his sacrifice is so big to put into words, because what do you say to someone who took on the suffering meant for you?
How can you repay that?
How do you truly honor it?
So I decide to simply be there, to stand by his side and refuse to be pushed away, to stay close and give him strength and support, to make sure he does not forget about the small everyday things, about his music, about school, to help life wrap around him again, because I know he feels cast out of it now, betrayed, broken twice over.
And I will not let him break even more, I cannot let him fall. No. I refuse.
That doesn't change the fact that I will cry for the next few days. Cry and cry. I cry myself to sleep because he suffered. It kills me inside and just doesn't stop.