Chapter - Bay #8
"Serious, Alex. I never want to be separated from you… you know I even started looking at colleges with good music programs and good math departments, so we could stay together even then… I don’t want to be away from you.
Ever," I whisper. "I know I’m only sixteen, I can’t give you anything yet, but maybe one day I will…
and I already know what I want and it’s you. "
The light reflecting in Alex’s eyes picks up a sheen of moisture now.
"I will," he says suddenly. "Because I don’t want to be separated from you either. I want only you, forever."
I realize I don’t have a ring, but in a burst of spontaneity I break off the pull tab from the soda can on the nightstand, it’s bigger than the ones on Coke cans so it fits.
I slip the pull tab onto Alex’s finger.
And he bursts out laughing.
"Wow, that is one hell of an engagement ring…!"
"I’m sorry, I’ll get you a better one…"
"No… this one is actually perfect, it’s from the heart…"
Alex’s voice shakes with a hint of emotion.
He lifts his eyes to me, his face glowing with happiness, pulling me toward him like a magnet.
Then I lean in without warning and kiss him on the lips.
They’re soft and they part in an inviting way, and for the first time I don’t feel fear but something new, a quiet hunger for pleasure and bliss.
"I love you," I whisper, pulling back for a moment.
"And I love you," Alex answers.
We look at each other for a moment, and then I gather my courage.
"Alex, there’s something I wanted to show you, something I wanted you to know."
I hesitate because I don’t want to sound too sentimental, my gaze drifting across his sweet face as I give him a shy smile.
"What is it?"
I bite my lip. "I’m about to get pretty vulnerable here…" I murmur.
I pull a journal with a pink cover from my backpack and hold it out to him.
Alex draws his breath, then gently takes the thick notebook. It’s thick because it’s stuffed with inserts, little plastic bags, mementos, and extra pieces I glued inside over the past two years.
He slowly opens it to the first page and reads the entry.
"On the first day of school, I sat next to a tiny boy. He was so beautiful that I didn’t think someone that cute could even exist. He had blond hair with a pinkish shimmer and amethyst eyes. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I had to. There was something magical about him."
He blinks and looks at me in disbelief, then turns the next page and the next and the next, reading all the entries I wrote about him, dreaming about impossible things and believing that somehow he would lift the spell of darkness and filth hanging over my life.
He picks up a little bag containing the dried flower he once gave me and studies it for a moment.
Then he reads out loud, his voice trembling:
"When I’m near Alex, I don’t remember those events.
They feel like they belong to another reality.
He pushes them into the background shadows.
I’ve known many omegas, even liked a few back in middle school, but this is completely different.
Alex is like a star against a colorless gray sky.
I fall asleep thinking of him and wake up pulling his face back into my mind. "
Alex lifts his eyes to me, then sets the journal aside and stands.
He moves a few books away, and behind them rests a thick notebook lying flat against the back wall of the shelf.
He returns to the bed. With a serious expression, he opens it to the date of the first day of school last year and holds it out to me.
Feeling my heart speed up, I read the first entry:
"The third day of school, and a new student joined our class, or rather a late one. His name is Bay. Oh my gosh, what kind of boy is this? I’ve never seen anyone like him.
Is it even possible to be that handsome?
Everyone else in class suddenly looks like gray sheep, and he glows among them.
He has dark red hair tied in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck and beautiful features, the kind many omegas would envy.
Everyone keeps sneaking looks at him, but I notice he gazes at me.
He really tries not to, but I see his secret glances. At me?
Me?
The one everyone makes fun of, the one everyone jokes about, the one they call Sneezy…
But not him. He never calls me that.
Is it possible that my sniffles and coughing don’t bother him? Is it possible that for the first time someone actually noticed me?"
I glance at the next entry:
"Yesterday I thought we’d go to lunch together, but those two damn omegas intercepted him. Honestly, I wanted to cry, and I don’t even know why, because we don’t really know each other. We exchanged a few words, and somehow I stupidly started to hope he might have liked me.
But today he talked to me and asked if I wanted to go to lunch, and the whole time I was stealing glances at him, admiring his perfect face. He’s so tall, obviously growing into an alpha, the tallest in class.
Is it possible that he and I… that maybe we could be something more? Someday?"
I flip through more pages, stunned to find entries written about the same moments, seeing how similarly Alex viewed them, each one filled with hope for something more, for me to notice him in a way that went beyond friendship.
There are memories from summer break, our first gentle kiss, Alex’s crushed hopes echoing in words like "He doesn’t want me… he says he wants to protect our friendship, so he pushes me away. It breaks my heart…"
Finally, I reach the scene from Halloween night, the handwriting shaky, the ink smeared, probably by his tears.
I begin to read but stop almost immediately, closing my eyes as I shut the notebook. The last sentence my eyes catch reads:
"Dear Fate, please let a miracle happen. Please let Bay forget all of this. Please let it fade. Please let him be happy with me…"
The fact that Alex kept a journal too doesn’t surprise me. We’re so similar in so many ways, but I know I need to say something that should have been said long ago.
I take a deeper breath.
"You make that happen, Alex. Truly, you make it happen."
I smile sadly. "Every day you turn darkness into light. I thought I wouldn’t make it through this year, but every day when I almost fell apart, you held me up with your presence, unwavering, strong.
Whenever I stumbled, you were there to steady me.
Whenever things got too heavy, you took part of that weight.
Day after day, week after week, you patiently erased all the pain. "
I look into his big eyes, seeing my entire world reflected inside them.
"People think only big gestures matter, you know? But no one notices the everyday moments that are so much more important, so much more precious. And you were my everyday, the breath I took, the heartbeats I lived…"
I pull him closer.
"I want to be with you forever, Alex. I want us to take the next step, if you’re open to it…"
Clear tears spill from beneath Alex’s lashes as he gently touches my face.
"Oh, Bay, there is nothing I want more."
I take a deep breath and wipe his tear away. "I’m sorry for getting so dramatic, but I wanted you to know that it was always you, only you, from the very beginning…"
I give him an apologetic smile.
Alex chuckles and sniffles. "You don’t have to apologize for anything, but if you want, I can tell you something interesting, something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while… something that might bring us even closer," he says shyly.
"That sounds intriguing. What is it?" I lift my brows, and he blushes.
We stare at each other, and suddenly Alex says,
"It’s something I discovered recently. A weird little trick I can do. I thought maybe I could teach you, and then we could…" He hesitates.
"What is it? Tell me. What did you figure out?"
Alex giggles timidly. "Just watch… a picture’s worth a thousand words."
He sits beside me with his legs folded under him.
"Look!"
He tilts his head back a bit, lifts his upper lip, and…
He extends his mating fangs.
I stare in shock.
"Wow. What the fuck?"
It’s impossible to extend your teeth before your glands are developed. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Adults can mark each other’s neck glands, usually during heat, to complete a mating, but teenagers? Never.
Alex grins with his teeth still out, thin and pearl white like two thick needles pushing through his upper gums. There’s a tiny streak of blood, because to come out they had to pierce through the flesh.
A sudden, inexplicable urge crashes over me.
"Could you… could you bite me?"
Alex goes serious. He looks at me for a long second. I see confusion in his eyes.
I sit up too, and now we’re kneeling across from each other on the bed.
"Do it, Alex. Bite me. I want this."
My voice is solemn.
Silence fills the room. Alex slowly moves closer on his knees.
He finally kneels between my legs and sets his hands on my shoulders.
His heart races, and mine tries to catch up with it.
"Are you sure?" he asks, a little muffled because his teeth are still out.
"Absolutely. Do it."
I pull down the collar of my T-shirt, exposing my inactive neck gland.
Alex’s eyes lock on it for a moment, then return to my face.
I nod.
He nods.
Then he leans in and sinks his fangs into my skin.
The feeling is…
Shattering.
My whole body jerks with a violent tremor so strong my spine bows like the letter C.
A sound rips from me. Something tight snaps inside me, and pleasure floods through my whole body, and then something else fires off inside me.
And…
I feel my own mating teeth push their way out of my gums.
I let out a cry of shock that twists into a sound I’ve never made before.
I realize what it is. I just let out my first AO sound ever.
It’s a request for permission to mark back.
Alex, whose teeth are still buried in my gland, lets out a sharp gasp and answers with a high, uneven noise, positive but shaky, urging me to return the mark.
I can’t believe this is happening. We’re teenagers. Our teeth should still be hidden deep in our gums.
But I do it anyway. I lower my head, bring my chin toward my chest, pull down the edge of Alex’s T-shirt, and sink my teeth into his gland.
Now we’re locked in a bite lock, each of us buried in the other at the same time, my head spinning like I’m on a carousel. Nothing else exists…
My arms wrap around Alex for the first time without a trace of fear, a rush of endorphins and ecstasy and disbelief taking over everything, breaking the last bits of fear and resistance and uncertainty… I pull my teeth back.
Alex lifts his head too. I can barely see straight. It’s like I’m drunk, everything swimming in a red pink haze, and I want just one thing. For the first time in my life, I want the simple pleasures a body can offer.
"I want to be close to you, really close, Alex, if you’re willing," I whisper, my throat tightening with emotion, longing, hope… hope that the future will be good.
Alex smiles wide, a smear of blood still on his lip, and raises his hands to cradle my face.
"I want the same thing…"