Chapter Twenty – Jess #3
The expression he wears right then is pained and sorrowful.
“I lost everything. I lost my family and what future I had. When I came back, I wasn’t the same girl you used to know. I was…” I shrug. “I was a zombie, a skeleton of who I used to be. We couldn’t have gone back to the way things were because I was different, and so were you.”
“Still,” Asher whispers, “I should’ve tried. I was a dumb kid, but that’s no excuse.”
“Yeah,” I admit, “you should’ve tried, but I probably wouldn’t have let you in.
We both came out that year different. I resented you and everyone else for a long time because of it.
The resentment made me feel better at the time, but now that I’m looking back…
nothing really made me feel better. I was broken, depressed. I probably still am, to a point.”
“Still am what?”
I look at him like he’s crazy. Isn’t it obvious what I meant? “Broken and depressed, obviously. It’s why I get along with your brother so much. I think he’s depressed too, not that he’d ever admit it to you or your parents.”
That causes him to crease his brows and sit a bit straighter.
“You really think he’s…” When I nod, he sighs.
“Crap. I didn’t know.” He’s quiet for a while, probably wondering why he didn’t pick up on the signs of his brother’s not so good mental health, but after a bit, he turns the conversation back to me.
“You’re not broken. You might be depressed, but you’re not broken.
We can get you help, you and Mason. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. ”
Based on the fervor, on the way he says it, I know he means it, and I know he believes there’s absolutely no shame in feeling the way Mason and I feel—but he still doesn’t have the full picture, at least not when it comes to me.
“I don’t think antidepressants are going to fix me,” I whisper.
“You don’t need to be fixed. You just… need some help, that’s all. We’ll figure it out—”
“No, I mean, literally, there’s no pill out there that can fix me. No therapy, no surgery. I met with so many doctors, and though they all tried, none of them could fix me and put me back together the way I was before the accident.”
His concern is palpable. It’s the only reason I feel comfortable saying what I say next.
I suck in a hard breath, figuring I might as well just get it out there. No use in beating around the bush, not anymore. Not with the state of things. Having a broken omega isn’t fair to any of them. Not Asher, not Mason, and definitely not Rourke.
“I can’t smell anything,” I say. “I can’t smell when you or Mason or even Rourke walk into a room.
I can’t smell cookies fresh out of the oven.
Can’t smell body odor or farts either—those ones I don’t miss, but I do miss everything else.
” And I have caught myself wondering more and more lately what the three alphas in this house smell like.
It’s really not fair. I wish I could breathe them in like they can breathe me in.
“My aunt took me to doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist,” I say.
“It’s where I spent most of my time outside of school after the accident, up until recently, and I think it only stopped because we ran through all of the nearby options.
The sad thing is, she never wanted to fix me to help me.
Anytime she brought it up, it was always for my future pack’s benefit. ”
I roll my eyes and mutter, “Because who would want a damaged, broken omega? No one. Even an omega with my last name, the last Dryers, I’d still be an outcast. Unwanted.
Unchosen. I’m surprised she never sent me off to one of those auction houses.
” Omegas who aren’t from founding families often end up there if their families can’t secure a match for them. It’s sad.
Asher reaches for me, and I let him take one of my hands in his.
He scoots closer to me, holding my stare with a seriousness he has no reason to command when he tells me, “Listen to me, Jess: you are not broken. You’re not damaged.
You’re you, and you’re amazing. If I wouldn’t have been such a little dick back then, I would’ve told you that every single day. ”
The way he holds onto my hand, how his thumb runs along my knuckles; it’s a strangely comforting thing. And what’s even stranger is that I believe him. I believe everything he says.
“I guess we have a lot of time to make up for, then,” I whisper. “You can start telling me I’m amazing now.”
The grin that spreads on his face is one of pure joy and warmth, and the words that follow are dripping with that same joy and warmth: “You’re amazing. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, and I hate that I spent the last ten years being a stranger to you.”
I smile at him. “That’s nice. A girl could get used to compliments like that every day.”
“I could give them to you every hour, if you want.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That might be overkill.”
He laughs softly, and he pulls his hand off mine. “I guess I should let you eat in peace.”
“Yeah, I bet your dinner’s getting cold down there.”
He stands, but something still weighs on him. He looks back at me. “What you said about not being able to smell… is that something you want me to keep from the others? Rourke might suspect something, but—”
I think about it. At this point, I don’t know what I’d stand to gain by keeping the others in the dark.
Besides, if Rourke suspects something, it’s only a matter of time until he finds it out for himself.
I suppose it’s better for everyone if we just get it out in the open now rather than wait until God knows when.
So, even though my first instinct is to tell him to keep his mouth shut, I find myself saying, “Okay. Yeah, you can tell the others. I don’t even know what I’d say to them, so maybe it’s better if you do it.”
Is this me taking the chicken’s way out?
I don’t know. It’s not something I’m comfortable with talking about, even now, all these years later.
You’d think it’d be something I’m used to, something I’ve come to accept about myself—just a fact of life when it comes to me—but in order for something like that to happen, I’d have to have had a good role model for such a thing.
And my aunt? Obviously not a good role model when it comes to standing out. She always treated me as something to be fixed, and that something was deeply wrong with me because of my inability to smell.
Maybe if I would’ve had a loving guardian after the accident, things would be different. Maybe I’d be different. Maybe I’d be better.
Asher gives me a gentle smile that fills me with butterflies, a calm, gentle smile that backs up everything he told me previously. “You don’t have to worry about them. I know it’s scary, but it’s a good thing for everyone to know—like you and Rourke being scent matches. It makes things…”
“Harder?”
“Easier.” That smile of his doesn’t fade as he goes on, “I thought, when I first met the guy at gunpoint, he was going to take you from me. I definitely didn’t think this is how it’d go, but honestly?
I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know we haven’t even gotten through your heat yet, but I’m confident we can, and after…
well, I think after all of our lives will look a lot different, provided you don’t want to kick us to the curb by then. ”
I want to ask him how he could ever think I’d kick any of them to the curb, but I stop myself. He’s so genuine it’s almost sappy and cheesy, but at the same time it’s nice. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
After my heat, they don’t want to go anywhere.
They want to court me. They… they want me.
A part of me doesn’t believe they’ll still want me after they know my secret, but Asher’s still here, still basically declaring his intentions with me, so why should I believe my scent match would be any different?
And Mason… I think we connect on a different level. I think we understand each other, or at least the pain inside us recognizes a familiar face in the other.
Asher leaves the room after that, and I watch him go, feeling some sort of way.
I imagine what life would be like after.
Assuming I get my inheritance, we’d be set.
Heck, even if I didn’t have a dime to my name, Asher and Mason would be able to take care of me.
I don’t know Rourke’s situation, but together, we could make a decent life.
A decent pack.
A good match.
Man, if anyone would have come up to me at my last stint at the Omega Garden and told me this is where I’d be shortly after, I’d have laughed right in their face—and probably punched them.
Stepped my heel on their foot or something.
Kneed them in the groin if they were a guy.
Either way, I didn’t think I’d ever be where I am now, in a house with three alphas who are more than willing to compromise and take care of me.
I mean, it can’t be easy for an über to come along, find his scent match, and then decide it’s okay to share her.
If that über was already in a pack, I’d understand it a bit more, but Rourke is a lone wolf.
Not your typical lone wolf, sure; most lone alphas you hear about are mean and rude, maybe even cruel.
He’s not like that. Dare I say, he’s the opposite.
My thoughts are a whirlwind as I eat the food Asher brought me. For the first time in what might be ever, I actually feel good. I feel okay. Lighter, as strange as it is.
Maybe I can do this.