26. Wild Loving Nesting Part Two
Wild Loving Nesting Part Two
~WILLA~
T he truck door creaks when I push it open, and the October air hits my overheated skin like a blessing—sharp and clean and nothing like the recycled warmth we've been breathing.
My legs shake when they hit the gravel, whether from hours of dancing or the adrenaline crash I can't tell, but I need this.
Need the space, the air, the momentary distance from Austin's magnetic presence to gather the scattered pieces of myself.
"I'll check under the hood," Austin says, already moving around to the front of the truck. The hazard lights click on, casting intermittent amber glows across the empty road. "Might be something simple."
I lean back against the truck's side, the metal cold through my ruined silk dress, and that's when I see them.
The stars.
Out here, miles from town with no streetlights or neon to compete, they spread across the sky in a display that steals what's left of my breath. The Milky Way cuts through the darkness like spilled diamonds, so bright and numerous my eyes can't process them all at once.
"Jesus," I whisper, tilting my head back until my neck protests.
When did I last really look at the stars? Not just notice them in passing but actually look, the way Grandpa taught me?
The hood pops with a metallic groan, and Austin's silhouette appears against the engine's dark cavity, flashlight beam dancing across mysterious mechanical parts. But I can't look away from the sky, from this tapestry of light that makes me feel simultaneously infinite and infinitesimal.
"Cassiopeia," I murmur, voice rougher than usual from the night's exertions and the ever-present rasp that smoke damage left behind.
My finger traces the distinctive W shape in the sky.
"The vain queen. And there—" I shift, pointing northeast, "—Perseus, coming to save Andromeda from the sea monster. "
"You know the constellations?" Austin's voice carries surprise, though he doesn't look up from whatever he's examining.
"Grandpa taught me." The words come easier in the darkness, with his attention focused elsewhere. "We'd lie on blankets in the back pasture, and he'd tell me their stories. Greek myths, Native American legends, even made up his own sometimes when I got bored with the traditional ones."
I track Orion's belt, remembering Grandpa's patient finger pointing out each star. "I wanted to be an astronomer when I was seven. Then a NASA engineer at nine. By eleven, I'd decided on astrophysicist because it sounded the most impressive."
Austin chuckles, the sound muffled by the hood.
"What happened to those dreams?"
"Reality." The word tastes bitter as burnt coffee. "Hard to study the stars when your parents think anything beyond basic education is wasted on an Omega."
The flashlight beam stills, and I know I have his attention now even though he keeps working. The silence stretches, filled only by the tick of cooling metal and the distant cry of some night bird.
"I used to wish they'd take me on night picnics," I continue, surprising myself with the confession.
"You know, those romantic ones you see in movies?
Blanket under the stars, little battery-powered lanterns, maybe some hot chocolate in a thermos.
But they weren't into those kinds of hobbies. Too frivolous. Too...soft."
"Did you ever go with William?" Austin's question is gentle, carefully neutral.
I nod, then remember he can't see me.
"Yeah. Not picnics exactly, but we'd stargaze.
" A laugh escapes, more wistful than bitter.
"I loved it because under all those stars, I could wish for anything.
Dream about all the opportunities waiting for me out there.
I was so confident it was possible, you know?
That I could be more than what everyone expected. "
My fingers find a rough spot on the truck's paint, picking at it absently.
"But then I'd go home, and it was like stepping back into this bubble of negativity and disappointment. The stars might promise infinity, but my parents' house only had room for one future—finding a proper Alpha pack and being a proper Omega."
The flashlight clicks off, and Austin's footsteps crunch on gravel as he moves closer.
Not touching, just... present. Waiting.
"Want to know something fucked up?" The laugh that bubbles up now has sharp edges.
"I was almost named William. My parents were so desperately sure they were having an Alpha son that they didn't even pick out girl names.
When I came out wrong—" I gesture at myself, all Omega curves and borrowed silk, "—they apparently stared at me for a full five minutes before Mom said 'Willa, I guess. '"
"That's..." Austin starts, then stops, like he can't find words harsh enough.
"The nurse probably side-eyed them so hard," I continue, picturing it. "This couple so disappointed by their newborn's designation that they couldn't even give her a real name. Just the feminine knockoff of what they really wanted."
My hands lift in the intermittent hazard light, and I stare at my wrists like I can see through skin to the memory of metal.
"You know what I wish? I wish I'd taken the initiative to accept myself long before society brought me down to the level of taking everything Blake and Iron Ridge dished out.
If my self-esteem hadn't been so low, so practically non-existent. .."
The words stick in my throat, but I force them out.
"If I'd had even a little confidence in myself, it wouldn't have led to me being handcuffed to the bed that night."
Austin makes a sound— sharp, pained —but I can't stop now.
The stars witness my confession, silent and eternal, and somehow that makes it easier. Like telling the universe instead of the man whose opinion has started mattering too much.
"The marks faded," I say, still staring at my wrists in the amber light. "But sometimes I still feel them. Especially on nights like this, when everything feels too good to be true. Like maybe I'm still there, hallucinating this whole thing while smoke fills my lungs."
"Willa—"
"I learned something that night," I interrupt, needing to finish. "You really don't know how resentful you are until you're faced with death and realize you have no way out."
The words hang in the cold air between us, and I press on, unable to stop the flood now that the dam has cracked.
"I expected anger, you know? When my lungs started burning and I couldn't get enough air. I thought I'd be furious—at Blake, at Iron Ridge, at the whole fucked-up world that let them think they could throw me away like trash."
My fingers trace the delicate bones of my wrist, following paths that once bore purple bruises.
"But no. What hit me in that moment wasn't rage. It was this immense, crushing regret. Disappointment in myself for not living the life I knew I deserved."
Austin shifts closer, and I can feel his presence like a warm wall at my back, but he doesn't speak. Doesn't try to fix it or minimize it or tell me how I should feel.
He just exists in this space with me, holding my pain without trying to take it.
"The smoke was so thick," I continue, voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
"I could taste it with every breath—acrid, chemical, nothing like woodsmoke from a fireplace.
And all I could think was: this is it. This is how I die.
Not as Willa who studied the stars, or Willa who dreamed of being more.
Just another dead Omega who couldn't keep her Alpha pack happy. "
My hands shake now, and I clasp them together, feeling the strength in my own grip.
"I don't know why I forgot that sensation when they pulled me out. Why I let it go when I was released from the hospital with lungs full of scar tissue and a voice that would never sound quite right again."
The memory of that courtroom floods back—sterile fluorescent lights, the smell of industrial floor cleaner, Blake sitting across from me in his best suit like he hadn't tried to murder me two months prior.
"The divorce hearing was the worst part.
You'd think facing death would be rock bottom, but no.
Rock bottom was sitting in that courtroom, watching Blake tell the judge how difficult I was.
How I'd neglected my duties. How the fire was really my fault for being careless with candles I never even lit. "
"And no one stood up for me. Not one person in that room said 'hey, maybe we should investigate why an Omega with no history of negligence suddenly became so careless.
' The pack members who'd eaten at my table, whose books I'd balanced, whose businesses I'd saved—they all sat behind Blake, nodding along to his lies. "
I lean harder against the truck, needing its solid presence to anchor me.
"The judge—another Alpha, surprise surprise—looked at me like I was wasting his time.
Granted the divorce in under twenty minutes.
Gave Blake seventy-five percent of assets I'd built because 'an Alpha needs resources to maintain his pack.
' Left me with just enough to not be considered destitute, because that might reflect badly on them. "
"Maybe that's why I let it go," I say, the realization crystallizing as I speak.
"Why I packed away that moment of clarity from the fire along with everything else.
Because I knew I could never win. Not in a society that sees Omegas as property with delusions of personhood.
Not when the whole system is designed to keep us grateful for scraps. "
My right hand clenches into a fist, nails biting into my palm, and something shifts in my chest. Not healing— that's too simple a word —but maybe the beginning of reclaiming. "But being here..."
I turn finally, meeting Austin's eyes in the intermittent hazard light.
His face is a study in controlled emotion—jaw tight, eyes blazing with suppressed fury on my behalf, but holding himself back from taking over my moment.