Chapter Three – Asher
Jess is… not quite like how I remember her.
She’s quieter, colder. I don’t know if it’s because of her circumstances or if it’s because of me.
It could very well be because of me. I know I was a jerk, but peer pressure is a crazy thing.
When you’re young, you want to fit in, go with the crowd, be one with the group…
even if that means hurting someone you’re close to.
I can’t explain it. Not adequately. As the years went on, it got easier.
I stopped thinking about her so much. I figured she was happy—maybe not right away.
Who could be happy after they lost their parents and had to endure countless hospital visits and physical therapy and all that?
But, you know, eventually. Eventually happy with where she ended up.
I definitely never thought I’d hear from her again, but when I saw a message request from a strange new profile, when I read that message…
it was like something changed in me. I was thrown back in time.
I was forced to remember what I did, or rather what I didn’t do, and how it’s the biggest regret of my life.
So, yeah, even though I figured it would be awkward and weird as hell, I agreed to help her out. It was the least I could do after everything. And, I had to assume, if she was reaching out to me, she didn’t have anyone else in her life to ask.
And now I know why.
She’s definitely an omega. She’s small. Even sitting next to me in the car, I’m reminded of that fact. I might not be able to smell her thanks to whatever cream she put on, but she’s got all the other telltale omega traits. The height, the curvy but slim frame, and those big, beautiful eyes.
She still wears that baseball cap on her head, but I’m pretty sure I see some strands of blue peeking out from underneath it. Maybe she dyed her hair. Blue is definitely an interesting choice if so.
She got the topic of conversation off herself a while ago, asking about me.
I’m not stupid. I know she just doesn’t want to talk about herself, but I play along.
I tell her what I’ve been up to: going to college, getting a degree in business so I can eventually take over the family company—something which my brother has always made clear he doesn’t give a crap about.
My brother is… well, Mason is rough around the edges.
He’s a loner, in spite of our parents’ effort to make him a team player.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re even related, but then I remind myself of how I treated Jess after the accident, and I know somewhere in me is an asshole that could rival my brother’s.
Of course, my brother’s inner asshole would win, given the fact he’s an über. They always have advantages when it comes to things like that.
“Any potential packs?” That question comes out of her once we cross state lines. Eventually we’ll have to swing by a store so she can grab a few of the things she wasn’t able to bring, but I figure we’ll wait until we get closer to the cabin to do that.
At first, her question doesn’t register in my head. It takes a minute or so for it to finally dawn on me, what she’s asking.
“Um, no” is my lame as hell answer. And as lame as it is, it’s true. As much as I wish it wasn’t, it is, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I’m not in any pack. I’d been asked a few times growing up to join packs, but… I never said yes. I always said no, denying my friends. Most of the time, alphas will have their packs created by the time they turn eighteen. I guess I take after my brother that way.
Not something to be proud of.
The expression she wears tells me she’s surprised I’m not in any pack, so I feel the need to explain myself: “It’s never felt right, I guess. I’ve never felt close enough to anyone to want to be in a pack with them.” I guess I feel the same way about packs as she does about matching with alphas.
Jess’s lips pucker as she says, “That’s not what I thought you’d say, although it makes sense. I don’t think a pack would let you help another omega alone. Your parents aren’t on your ass to settle down?”
I shrug. “I mean, sure, mom’s mentioned it every now and then, but my dads… they don’t push me. They were all older when they found my mom, so maybe they think I still have time.”
“You do,” she mutters with a slight pouty frown. “You alphas have all the time in the world. It’s us omegas who are on a time crunch.”
Hmm. I guess she’s not wrong. Typically omegas are forced to find their packs before their first heat at twenty-one. They say it’s super painful for omegas if they don’t have any alphas nearby to relieve the pain of their heat with… a knot.
I’m suddenly reminded that that’s exactly what Jess is going to do: go through her first heat, alone, without any pack to back her up. All for her inheritance. Or, if I go by what she said earlier, so her aunt wouldn’t get half of her inheritance.
I didn’t bring it up when she was telling me, but I plan on staying with her, just in case.
The plan was never to leave her at the cabin alone.
I’m a star student, so my professors were more than willing to excuse my absences as long as I keep up on the reading and the tests and homework they assigned.
Luckily, most everything is available online these days, so all I had to bring was my laptop.
That way, if Jess needs me to run down to the store while she stays in the cabin, I can do that for her.
She won’t be locked in that cabin alone.
And since it’s my family’s cabin, there’s already a soundproof, scent-proof room waiting for her. I’ll have to make sure it’s clean as a whistle before we leave, but it’s doable.
“Is there something you want to listen to?” I offer her control of the car’s radio.
“I don’t care.” Her tone is short, and I take it to mean she doesn’t want to talk.
It’s the strangest thing, though. I do. I do want to talk. I want to keep talking to her, catch up, learn what I missed these past ten years. Hell, I want to tell her that I’m sorry, too, but I don’t think she’d take it well.
Besides, what good is an apology now? What’s done is done. There’s no rewinding time, no going back and fixing the mistakes you made when you were younger. It’s something I’ll have to keep living with.
I tried checking up on her every now and then, but she rarely posted anything online, so it was hard. Every so often I nonchalantly asked my mom if she’d heard anything about Jess through the grapevine at the country club, but more often than not, the answer was a big fat nothing.
I’d thought a lot about her, honestly, but I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell her that every time I was asked to join a pack, the word no was already on my tongue because in the back of my head, I couldn’t get the sad girl who lost her parents out of my head.
Years later, I could still picture the day she returned to school clearly. Even now, it’s as if it just happened yesterday.
She lost weight. She walked a little funny.
Her eyes looked more hollow and sad than they did before.
She never smiled. She gave off a vibe that scared everyone away, and since we were kids, only ten or eleven years old, no one knew what to do or what to say, so we didn’t say anything. We acted like she wasn’t even there.
Looking back now I know how cruel it was, and I hate I played a part in it.
After a while, I break the silence of the car and say, “Is your hair blue under there?”
Jess realizes she’s still wearing that baseball cap, and she goes to lift it off her head and let her hair tumble down. Most of it is still black, but its tips are lined in a deep blue hue. The splash of color is something I imagine her aunt hated—and maybe that’s why she got it done to begin with.
“A little bit,” she says, running a hand through her hair. It was long, and I’m honestly surprised the cap was able to hold it all in. Its length falls well past her shoulders. “I just needed a change. Plus I knew it’d piss off my aunt, so.”
Knew it. Seems after all this time, I still can peg her pretty well.
“I think it looks good,” I say, and the compliment is out of me before I have the chance to wonder whether or not it’s a good idea to even say it. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea. The last thing I want is for her to believe I’m only helping her for some ulterior motive.
“Thanks.” The smile she gives me is a tight one, as if she doesn’t quite believe the compliment comes from a genuine place. I suppose, if I was her, I wouldn’t believe any compliments thrown my way, either.
I know what she’s been through, and yet I still can’t imagine it. Going through what she did, then being a social outcast at school… shit. I really can’t imagine how hard it was for her, and I hate she had to go through all that alone.
Fuck. I’m such an asshole. I really am. I like to think I’m a nice guy, but… you’re really only nice if you actually act like it, and what I did ten years ago was not nice at all. Acting as if she was invisible, like she didn’t matter, like I wasn’t happy to see her back; all asshole moves.
I’m such a jerk. I wonder if, maybe, after all this is said and done, Jess will forgive me.
I hope so. For some reason, I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than I did her forgiveness.