Untitled Scene
◆◆◆
I have no idea what time it is as I open my eyes, but I’m still on the floor, my phone next to me. I’m cold, trembling, unhappy.
LOST.
I have to talk to him, I have to hear his voice…
I am losing my mind.
A sob rips out of my chest, the emotions too strong for me to control, as I grab my phone and look at my contact list.
The last call I made to his number was on the day we split.
I look through our last text exchange.
July eighth.
"We will be there in half an hour!" followed by a string of heart emojis and eggplants…
The last carefree text that ever passed between us.
I look at the call history and then at that cursed green button that has haunted me all these years.
I dreamed of pressing it.
I hated that I never did.
Now is the time.
To face him without masks or role-playing.
With a trembling finger, I press the green call button.
It takes exactly five rings before Bay answers.
Wow.
His voice sounds completely different from how it used to!
"Hello, Alex."
It is deeper, steadier, more serious, more masculine… Well, he was eighteen back then, after all… alphas keep maturing and growing longer than other subgenders.
How neutral he sounds, not what I expected at all, but that does not mean I should give up or back down from what I came here to say…
For a moment I struggle with myself, and then I finally let it out.
"I miss you…"
A long silence answers me, and then he suddenly asks,
"Are you alright, Alex?"
Well, I cannot expect him to say it back so openly. That’s not the deal.
He knows that for the last few days I have been getting speared on his shadow’s dick, coming over and over again with the idea of another man in me, an anonymous stalker, so it is hard to expect him to be cheerful.
Honestly, I do not even know what I expected.
But that does not change how I feel, the same way I felt the day he left.
"Not a single day has been alright since we broke up, Bay."
Silence.
"You should move on, Alex. You have the right to. To be free."
"Did you?" I burst out. "Did you move on? Did you fuck a lot of pretty omegas? Your fans, your groupies?" My breath catches and gets stuck in my lungs.
Silence again.
Then I whisper, "I am not as magnanimous as you. The thought kills me, and I wish it worked the other way too, Bay, I wish the thought of me giving myself to someone else killed you too, is that not how it should be?"
The silence stretches on and on, so long I can only hear his breath, steady and deep…
"But I already died, Alex. That day, July eighth, four years ago."
Oh. Maybe now is the right moment to tell him what I learned today.
"Same here. But I died once before too, Bay. Yet you brought me back to life. Twenty-two years ago. When the seatbelt crushed me inside my dad’s belly…"
I said it.
Does that mean I believe it?
Maybe, goddammit.
I killed someone by taking his energy.
Who would not allow a bit of madness under circumstances like these?
I hear his breathing change, turning shallower, more uneven.
"Your dad told me everything," I add.
Still silence, no reaction at all.
"Bring me back to life again, Bay…"
I force it out through a strangled voice, "Bring me back to life again, Bay…" I repeat louder, my voice cracking and almost folding in on itself…
"Bring US back to life again, Bay!"
I scream it for the third time, so loudly the sound nearly deafens me…
Beep beep beep.
The call has ended.
I throw my phone across the entire length of the living room, screaming like a wild animal.
"How could you give up, you bastard! I do not want to give up, I do not, I do not!" I scream even though he can no longer hear me.
"I loved you and you walked away… you are not fighting for me…"
And suddenly it hits me. I freeze, staring into the void, stunned.
"Then I will have to do it, I will be the one who fights for us…"
I will never give up.
I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON YOU, BAY!
I lie flat on the floor, on the cold boards of the living room, staring up at the ceiling as a plan begins to take shape in my mind… just a seed for now, but I cannot live without a purpose, and in this one thing Bay is right, I need a purpose to move toward.
I know what I have to do.
I have to…
Change my body.
◆◆◆
I’m handling heat recovery tolerably well. Oh, the power of a mental shift, the way a single decision can flip something inside us and turn the energy around completely.
I spend a lot of time online, studying every piece of information that might become crucial.
Most of all, I research how to schedule an appointment with the best geneticist in the country, who happens to be someone from my supposed family, the famous scientist Blue Lowen.
He is the head of the genetic research division at Malden Pharmaceutical.
He does take outside patients for consultations, but the waitlist is enormous and the price is pretty high. I manage to sign up for an appointment that won’t happen for another six months.
It’s frustrating, but I’m determined for many reasons that it has to be him. His widely acknowledged genius is one thing, but the other is my origin, and he might be the only person who wouldn’t deny my request because of our blood connection.
Unfortunately, months of waiting lie ahead.
Returning to campus after heat recovery is deeply stressful for me.
Mostly because posters with Oswald’s face are plastered everywhere, all saying "Missing!"
It’s a horrible feeling.
Every time I see one, guilt hits me like a punch.
Here I am, his killer on the loose, walking across campus, passing those posters while carrying the knowledge that I eliminated him.
Someone else might say he deserved it, that he tried to assault me, and even if that’s technically true, the scent of heat is a powerful trigger for all alphas.
Only the strongest can resist it completely, and Oswald was only twenty-two.
I’m not trying to excuse him. He came to my house knowing he wasn’t welcome, but I can’t quite erase my anger at Fate, because this whole situation started when I stepped outside during the storm, leaving the door wide open.
Someone else might shrug and say he got what was coming, but then I learn he was an only child, and his parents are devastated, searching for any trace of him.
I also know the police are talking to a lot of people, and the thought that they might show up at my door makes me sick with fear, even though I barely knew him, had only seen him a few times, and danced with him once at that party.
Luckily, no one witnessed that moment in the park when he tried to stop me except the stalker, so the threads leading back to me aren’t very strong.
One day I see a police car parked two houses down, where the guard post is, and even though I’m sure my home camera wasn’t working, what about the ones at other houses? Was the entire line damaged?
I start spinning paranoid scenarios about the police tracking Oswald walking along the row of houses, catching him on camera until he disappears near mine, and then never showing up on the following ones.
I comfort myself with the thought that even if he vanished by my house, the houses beyond the broken line also lost their surveillance footage.
So there’s no way to say where Oswald went next.
Luckily no one shows up at my door or asks any questions, and after a few days I manage to calm down somewhat, though that doesn’t mean my guilt fades.
I can’t ignore the fact that not only did I kill him, I also handed his body over to the stalker so he could dispose of it like trash.
His parents will never have closure. I condemned them to a lifetime of pain and uncertainty.
Whatever Oswald did wrong doesn’t erase the suffering of the people who love him.
I promise myself that one day I’ll write them a letter, something that gives them at least a little peace.
Meanwhile, other important changes happen in my life. I officially finish my undergraduate studies and move on to my master’s program.
I also receive an offer from the college.
Before, I got a small scholarship and a modest hourly wage for all my duties as an undergraduate teaching assistant and undergraduate research assistant.
Now I move to a much better arrangement.
Alongside my graduate studies, I’ll be teaching first-year students calculus and algebra, holding a paid position as a graduate teaching and research assistant.
The pay still isn’t great, but it’s higher, and while living modestly and steadily, it will be enough to get by.
In September I start working and studying at the same time.
◆◆◆
In October I’m invited to Jared’s wedding.
It’s not an easy situation for me because I’ve never met his husband, Mark Ferguson.
I meet him for the first time at the wedding itself.
I’m honestly shocked by how grand the ceremony and reception are. Hundreds of guests, including many public figures. Ferguson comes from a political family, and his uncle was a state senator. He runs a sizable company and clearly does extremely well, moving in all the right circles.
The reception is hosted in the lobby of a large hotel, and I learn it belongs to the Sanders family.
Their only heir, a certain Maurice, is the boyfriend of Jared’s best friend, Kay Sanders.
Since I’m the sole representative of Jared’s family, I’m seated with Kay and Maurice so we can represent his side together.
Kay is an aspiring model just starting his career; he and Jared met during some photo shoots and have stayed in touch.
The whole experience feels surreal, because Kay and Maurice look like they stepped straight out of a fashion editorial. They’re only eighteen, yet already absurdly beautiful.