Chapter 5 Star
Chapter five
Star
My grandfather's been gone three years, yet coming to his cabin feels like running into his arms after a bad fall.
I drop my bag on the bare mattress. The thud echoes.
That's the only sound. The silence isn't peaceful.
It's a mirror. I came here to breathe. To think.
To exist outside of him. Instead, I'm tearing through my duffel before the sun even sets, hands shaking, like an addict.
I find the pillowcase first. Can't look myself in the eye as I press it to my face. It still smells like him.
Barely.
That's what cuts. The barely.
I sink to the floor, back against the bed frame, and let myself do what I haven't done since I left the shop: I ugly cry, the kind that comes from beneath my skin in broken, heaving waves, straining my ribs and burning my throat, each sob clawing its way out faster than I can draw breath, until there is only noise and need and the animal sound of an omega mourning what she cannot have.
I cry until I'm empty. Wrung out. The pillowcase is soaked with tears and snot but it doesn't matter.
I build a nest anyway.
Not on the bed because at this point, I'm just an animal following instinct.
I build it on the floor in the corner of the tiny bedroom, on the bare floorboards where the afternoon sun makes a square of warmth.
I drag the sheet I stripped from our bed—our temporary bed, the one we shared for three days that might as well have been three lifetimes—and use it as the base.
I add the towel from Saturday morning that I refused to wash, even when Paula side-eyed me for shoving it in my bag.
I couldn't get rid of it. Couldn't surrender the last wisps of his scent.
Now I know why.
I curl the fabric into a shape. A hollow. A place to fold my body into when the bond pulls so hard, it tugs at my veins, trying to reel me back to him like a fish on a line.
I'm pathetic.
No. I'm just another omega whose bond became a chokehold.
Omega of the goddamn year. Scent-drunk and nesting on a floor.
The words are sharp in my head, but they don't stop me from burrowing into the fabric.
From breathing in the last traces of him.
Because when it's gone, there will be nothing left of him.
I bury my face into the pillowcase until my lungs burn.
This shouldn’t hurt this much. Shouldn’t feel like swallowing burning coals.
I’ve always heard that losing your alpha can make an omega go insane.
I think of his father. Liam told me he waited by his omega’s bed, hoping to hold her scent for as long as he could.
Holding on for his five children until he couldn’t hold on anymore.
When Liam shared his story with me, I was furious.
I sat quietly and listened, but inside I fumed.
His selfish act cost Liam and his brothers so much.
I didn’t get it, now I do. At least his father had the solace of knowing that it wasn’t his wife’s choice to leave. I don’t have that comfort. As bad as it is, it’s so much worse knowing my mate could be here but chose someone else.
I try to function. I walk the property the next morning.
Eight acres of nothing but trees and a creek that's more rocks than water this time of year.
I count my steps. Two hundred to the creek bed and back to the cabin.
I name the birds I don't recognize. Chirpy bird.
Pretty bird. Bird that sounds like it's mocking me.
I avoid thinking about Liam and fail.
Constantly.
I think about the way his thumb traced my jawline in the kitchen at 2 a.m., slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing the shape of me.
I think about the sound he made when I took him in my mouth, that broken groan that felt like victory.
I think about the look on his face when he said I can't. The way the door closed behind him.
He's here but not here. He's in the creak of the porch steps when I walk outside. In the way the wind rattles the back window at night. In the empty space beside me in the narrow bed. In the weight of an arm that used to sling over my waist like it belonged there.
Stop. Stop it.
I don't.
Omegas are built for this. Built to fixate. We're nesting creatures, pair-bonding creatures, and I've been denied my bond, denied my alpha, denied the closure of a proper goodbye. So my body does what bodies do when they're grieving. It mourns.
I'm boiling water for instant coffee when my phone buzzes on the counter. I almost ignore it. Paula's been texting since I left—gentle check-ins, memes she thinks will make me smile, updates about the shop. I've been responding with single words. Fine. Yeah. Later.
I ignore it. It buzzes again. And again until I pick up the phone.
PAULA: You sitting down?
PAULA: I'm serious. Sit.
PAULA: Bethany Lyles eloped.
The water boils over, hissing against the burner. I don't move to turn it off. I read the text three times before my brain processes the words.
ME: What?
PAULA: Check the news.
She sends a screenshot. I don't need the article. The headline is enough.
BETHANY LYLES ELOPES WITH SINGAPOREAN BUSINESSMAN. ENGAGEMENT TO LIAM VAUGHN DISSOLVED.
The water keeps boiling. The hiss becomes a scream. I reach over and twist the knob. The silence is worse.
The news processes as cold, empty static behind my eyes. Then comes the bitter satisfaction, because apparently I'm petty like that. Good. You didn't get your perfect little dynasty wedding either, you bastard.
Then the real hit. The one that drives my knees into the cabinet below the sink.
He's free now. The bond, that yawning, aching thing in my chest, doesn't care about logic.
It doesn't care about anger or pride or the fact that he left me standing in my shop after kissing me like the world was ending.
It howls. It wants to call him. To croon.
To fix this, now that the obstacle is gone.
My brain—treacherous bitch—whispers: He'll come back now. Now that he can. Now that she's not—
I yank the thought out by the root.
No.
I will not be the fallback omega. The consolation prize. The, oh well, you'll do. I pour the scorched coffee and drink it black. It sears my tongue, bitter as poison. I stare at the article until the words blur into meaningless shapes. I am not a spare. I am not a second choice.
ME: Doesn't matter. Liam Vaughn can kiss my ass.
The three dots appear immediately.
PAULA: Something I'm sure he wouldn't mind. And when he's finished, you guys can get on with your life.
ME: No. Not that simple.
PAULA: When he came here looking for you, he seemed broken up.
I set the coffee down before I drop it. I want to believe it so bad my hands are shaking. I need this. Need to believe that I meant more to him than his fancy, rich girlfriend. But I can’t. Maybe that’s reason enough to hate him. He stole my belief in fairy tale endings.
ME: Was that before or after he got dumped?
The three dots flicker. Back and forth. She's typing. Deleting. Typing again.
She has no answer.
Neither do I.
I turn my phone face-down on the counter and walk outside.
The next days blur.
I try to sleep in the nest and end up staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster.
I try to eat the granola bars I packed, managing half of one before my stomach rebels.
I try to read the paperback I brought—a thriller about a woman on the run—and give up after reading the same page four times.
I stand under the shower spray until the water runs cold.
Stare at the mark on my throat in the foggy mirror.
His teeth left a perfect crescent, already fading.
In a few weeks, it'll be gone completely. Like every other trace of him.
The call comes the next morning while I'm pressing his towel to my face like a compress. The ringtone shocks me—an actual call, not a text. Mom. I shouldn't answer, but it's Mom, and I've hidden long enough. I've got to start facing the world.
"Starry." She says my name like she's tasting it. "You sound thin."
"I'm just tired."
"No, baby. Faded." Static crackles the line. Around her voice, I hear the warmth of her kitchen, my father's low murmur nearby. Settled. Complete. "You know your grandfather built that cabin for my mother? Drove every nail as a gift to her. That place was never a hideout. It was a honeymoon."
My tearless eyes burn. The mark on my throat throbs. My inner omega keens, hearing a bond that works.
"Mama said the bond was like settling into a warm bath," my mother continues, reverent. "Muscle by muscle, surrendering until you don't know where you end and the water begins. It anchors you."
The words carve me open. “My bond feels like the water is drowning me.”
"Oh, Starry," she sighs. A small exhale that almost unleashes a flood of tears. "You aren’t sinking, baby. The bond is a life vest. It’s what keeps us, alphas and omegas, afloat."
When she hangs up, I sit in the silence of a space built for love.
The damp towel hangs limp in my hands. If this is what the bond is supposed to feel like, then mine is ruined.
I don't want to carry this biological ache any longer, even if it means scrubbing him from my life. I know exactly how to end it. There’s a bond-breaking clinic three hours north.
Simple process. Walk in. Walk out empty.
I get dressed. Make more coffee and contemplate ending a life bond. Pain walks with me to the creek, constant as a second pulse. Paula texts again that night.
PAULA: How are you holding up?
ME: Surviving.
PAULA: That's not what I asked.
I stare at the phone. At the blinking cursor. At the lie I’m typing.
ME: I'm fine.
PAULA: Liar.
PAULA: You want to know what I think?
ME: Not really.
PAULA: I think you're sitting in that cabin trying to convince yourself you don't want him to come after you.
My throat clogs. I set the phone down. Pick it back up.
ME: What if he does?
The response is immediate.
PAULA: Then you kick his ass and make him grovel. And when you decide you’ve had enough of his begging and crying, take him back. Live the rest of your very happy lives.
Me: Alphas don’t beg.
PAULA: They do when an omega makes them.
I turn off the phone.
A few days later, I hear a car. I'm at the swollen creek, skipping rocks across the water, when the sound of an engine roars up the driveway. Too fast. Too loud. Destroying the peace.
It's him.
I don't even have to look to verify. My body electrifies. Every nerve ending lights up like someone flipped a switch. The bond mark pulses. My heartbeat races. My skin flushes. Pheromones I can't control begin to sweeten the air around me.
He's coming.
I could run. Could throw the duffel in my car and be halfway to the state line before he reaches the cabin. Could deny him this. Deny us this.
I don't.
Instead, I walk inside. Wash my hands at the sink. Stare at myself in the reflection of the window above the basin. I'm in a worn tee and boy shorts. Hair is a mess. No makeup. Dark circles under my eyes.
This is what's left of me. If he's here, he gets this. This. Raw. Exhausted. Done version.
I don't pace. I sit at the kitchen table.
Fingers drumming a rhythm that matches the accelerating thrum of the bond.
My body is screaming. Open the door. Bare your throat.
Fix this. Fix him. Fix us. I clamp down on it with everything I have.
Bite the inside of my cheek until I taste copper.
It cannot be this simple or easy. I strangle the hot biological discord trying to slip away.
The truck door slams outside. Not a polite sound. A violent one. The knock is worse. Three hard raps that rattle the frame. Not a request. A demand.
I don't move. Not yet. Let him wait. Let him stand on my grandfather's porch and feel what it's like to be on the outside for a change.
The second knock is heavier. "Open this fucking door, or I will break it down."
The growl surprises me. He's been controlled since we met. Disciplined. Even when he was pissed about the flowers, he was contained.
This is not contained.
I walk to the door. Force my trembling limbs to move with slow, steady steps. Grab the cold metal of the knob and turn.
He looks like hell. His lips are a thin, flat line. Stubble that's less intentional and more haven't slept in days. Hair wild like he's run his fingers through it a hundred times. His shirt is wrinkled, untucked.
The scent of him—real, live, not a memory—sucks the air from my lungs. The bond howls in triumph. There. There he is. Fix it.
His eyes rake over me. My bare legs. The thin cotton shirt.
Somewhere behind me, the bedroom door is cracked open, the nest visible in the corner—sheets and towels twisted into a hollow of biological surrender—and panic lurches hot and humiliating through my chest. If he sees it, if he understands how thoroughly I've unraveled, my defiance will crumble to nothing.
His nostrils flare. Catching the way my body has already begun to betray me. The slick response I can't suppress.
His jaw tightens. A muscle tics. When he speaks, there’s no apology, no pleading, only a river of coursing anger.
"Who the fuck," he rasps from the raw edges of his throat, "is Robert Campbell?"
The bond wants me to fold. To explain. To soothe.
Fuck that.
"None of your damn business," I say.
I mean it with every fiber of my failing, traitorous, omega heart