Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
I was seventeen when I fell in love for the first time.
It wasn’t “teenage love”, even though we were teenagers.
And even if it were just teenage love, is there anything wrong with that?
The media tries to downplay the way teenagers feel for one another, as if the kind of hurt that results from it doesn’t matter. At that age, emotions are cranked up to eleven, so when it falls apart, it feels like your life is ruined.
I was seventeen when I fell in love with words on a screen. Onion. I knew her as a screen name. Someone I argued with on public forums until we brought it to private messages, where the arguing gave way to meaningful conversation.
Which then became texting.
Phone calls.
Video calls.
Every piece of Onion I got made me crave her even more. There was no limit to my affection for her.
I presented as an Alpha a few months after her brother died. She was still deep in her grief, and I truly believed that her fear and anger toward Alphas would lessen as time went on. It felt, at the time, that it was the right call to lie to her about it.
It wasn’t supposed to be forever, just until she had healed enough for the truth of my designation not to sting as much.
I didn’t want her to cut me out of her life. I loved her, and she needed me. She couldn’t talk to her parents. They were grieving as well, and she refused to burden them.
Sometimes, it’s easier to spill your guts out onto a keyboard than it is to hold someone’s hand and flay yourself open. And when you’re already held together with tape, it feels impossible to allow yourself that sort of vulnerability.
I wanted nothing more than to hold her every time she cried.
But I couldn’t.
Her fear of Alphas worsened by the day. She attended virtual school after Calvin died to avoid Alpha exposure. When she opted out of attending college in person and chose to take only online classes, I worried I’d never have the chance to tell her the truth.
Then I met Grant.
How was I supposed to tell her I met my scent match? Betas don’t match with other Betas, and so my options were to tell her I matched with an Omega, which would break her heart, or that I matched with an Alpha, and she’d leave me.
I’d never get the chance with her, because being with me meant proximity to an Alpha.
So I pulled away.
I thought I was doing right by both of us, but I wasn’t. I was miserable. Grant convinced me to start talking to her again, and he quickly became enamoured with her. He’d sit at my feet while I video called her, hanging onto her every word.
I was nineteen when I fell in love for the second time. With a beautiful Beta with soft skin and kind eyes, who wanted me to have the Omega of my dreams. Who wanted her just as much as I did, even though he had never spoken to her.
I don’t think I could’ve fallen for him if I thought he wouldn’t accept Onion. The first time I heard her voice, I knew she was mine.
And now I’m faced with the possibility that I have ruined everything.
I won’t force her to be with me, Foresaken Omega Syndrome be damned. I will undergo a pheromone extraction every day for her if it means she can choose for herself.
I won’t let her body force her into a decision she doesn’t want to make.
The bottle of water sweats in my hands, making them clammy. I knock on the bedroom door several times, but only silence greets me.
“Ariana.” I press my shoulder against the door.
“It’s Derrick. I know you hate me. I know I’m the last person you want to see and talk to right now.
But please, let me in. Please. Please. Yell at me.
Throw things at me. Scream. I will gladly take whatever you need to do to feel comfortable around me, but please let me in. ”
She’s right here, on the other side of a panel of wood, and yet this is the farthest I’ve ever felt for her.
The door flies open, making me stumble and struggle to regain my balance.
My Omega stands before me with red cheeks and furious eyes. “You want me to yell? You want me to throw things?”
“I don’t want that. But I deserve it. I’ll accept it.”
“Oh, how noble of you.”
I don’t exactly force myself in, but now that the door is open, I’m not going to be on the other side of it, so I follow her as she strides away.
“I don’t hate you, Derrick. Don’t you get that?
If I hated you, this would be easy. We’d stay here for a week and go our separate ways, and this nightmare would be over.
But I don’t hate you. How can I? How can I hate you when it’s your face that I’ve pictured every night as I’ve fallen asleep for as long as I can remember? ”
I close the door behind me, pressing my back against it as she paces around the space. I don’t interrupt her. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. She’s talking so fast that it’s all I can do to keep up with her.
“I’m in love with you. Y’all? I don’t know.
That’s what’s frustrating! Who the fuck was I talking to?
Was it mostly you, but sometimes them? Was it equal?
Grant doesn’t take cream in his coffee. That’s you.
Are you the one who is allergic to kiwi, or is that Ivan?
Who was it that helped me prepare for job interviews?
Who did I tell my secrets to? Who knows my fantasies? ”
She collapses onto the bed and buries her face in her hands. I wish I could block her from the cameras. I wish we didn’t have to have this conversation in front of an audience.
I should’ve told her the truth a long time ago.
I let this go on too long, and she’s hurting all the more for it.
“I’m embarrassed, Derrick. Mortified. The whole world is about to know that I am a sucker.
That I was terrified to leave my home for years.
And I knew that in coming here, my fears and faults would be made public, but it would be worth it if I finally got to meet you.
You were going to be worth it. All of the risk, all of the fear, all the tears.
It didn’t matter because you were at the end of that road.
Do you know how many Alphas I came in contact with before you walked through that door? ”
She wipes tears away from her face. No one is a pretty crier, but Ariana looks breathtaking.
“Do you want to know what the worst part is? If you had told me the truth, that you’re an Alpha, I probably still would have risked it for you. Instead, I’ve learned the intimacy we shared was a lie. That everything I ever told you became a topic of conversation at the dinner table!”
Her scent is sour with distress, and I am fighting my instincts not to gather her in my arms, bury her face in my neck, and purr for her.
But I can’t. I know that. That is not a privilege I have earned. My arms ache to hold her, but I may never get that chance.
I lower myself onto the bed beside her. Not right next to her, but within touching distance.
Close enough that I can whisper, in an attempt to keep microphones on the cameras from picking up what we say.
I always thought that on shows like this, the people had to wear microphones, but we were told that they’re hidden inconspicuously around the house, and the ones on the cameras are super sensitive.
This may not stay between us, but I’m praying it will.
“You were never idle gossip, Onion. You were our obsession. Our greatest desire. You were what drove us to do better, to be better. It got out of hand. I never should have let it go on so long. I should’ve told you the moment I met Grant and introduced you to him so you could fall in love with him the way I did.
When Ivan came along, I should have let him video call you so you could see his smile, the way his eyes lit up when he heard you laugh. ”
It’s killing me not to touch her. I want to hold her hand, to stroke the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. She’s shifted toward me, almost closing the distance, and I worry that a wrong move will have her flying across the room.
“But I didn’t share all of you. How could I, when you were whispering your darkest desires to me with your hand between your thighs? I was the one who talked you through it. Every. Fucking. Time. I would never have deceived you about that.”
There were several times when she was in heat, Onion would call me while out of her mind with desire.
I’d tell her everything I’d do to her if I were there.
I’d listen to her fuck herself. I’d sit there with my cock about to rip through my pants, my knot sore and aching, and imagine what she tasted like.
I’d lock myself in my room, unwilling to break her trust by involving the other two, and listen to her come over, and over, and over, until she passed out in a haze of heat.
She would always wake up mortified that she called me, and we’d pretend like it never happened. We’d go back to business as usual, as if I didn’t know what she sounded like when she came. Ignoring how much we wanted each other.
Her chest hitches at my words, making her voice breathy. “That doesn’t mean they don’t know.”
Deciding to risk her rejection and her anger, I gently kiss her shoulder, teasing my nose along the curve of her neck.
“You’re right. They do know some of it. It wasn’t always me you were texting. But they don’t know what you sound like when you come. I do.”
Her hand grips the front of my t-shirt, and I think she’s going to use it to shove me away, but instead she pulls me closer and crashes her lips to mine.
Kissing her is like coming home.
Every dream I had, every fantasy, pales in comparison to this.
To the unequitable rightness of this moment.
She’s aggressive, nipping my lips and refusing to let me take control. It’s a punishment of a kiss, and I will take my lashes every time if it means I get to feel her body pressed against mine.
“I never shared the photos,” I whisper against her lips when she lets me up for air. “Those were only for me.”
“You didn’t have a knot.” She grips me over my pants, right on top of my knot. “Was that Grant’s cock?”
“All me, honey. Just with some clever angles, clothes, and hand placement.” I chase her mouth with mine, savoring her gasp as I buck my hips into her hand.
Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I realize this is too fast. That she may hate me more than she already does if this goes further. That even if she doesn’t, this won’t fix the problems I caused.
But then she shoves me onto my back, swings a leg over my hips, and I lose all reasonable thought. My world begins and ends with the taste of her lips.