Chapter 13 - Bridget
No matter what I'd told Nathan, I was not going to just roll over and do what Lisbeth said. I would smile and nod and make everyone think I was, but I’d learned as a child there was plenty of secret rebellion I could do while pretending to follow the rules. The key was just not getting caught.
Whenever I had misbehaved badly enough, my fathers would lock me in my closet. I was never sure of the rationale behind it, but it had been excellent at curbing my outward displays of defiance.
Growing up, I didn’t have any context for how awful that was as a punishment.
I had never told any of the girls I was allowed to socialize with — the daughters of other important Alphas — because they were so confident and poised I was sure they never had to be punished like I was.
I’d never forget the look on my therapist Linda’s face when I mentioned it in passing.
It felt strangely good to have someone else verify how wrong that had been.
But along with the claustrophobia, those hours spent locked away in the darkness had given me two skills: the ability to entertain myself and to pick locks.
I started hiding bobby pins in my clothes and learned to jimmy the lock open one broken pin at a time.
I flushed the broken pins down the toilet to hide the evidence.
Once I could manage the lock on my closet, I figured out the lock on my bedroom door.
A world of exciting possibilities opened.
I would creep out in the middle of the night to wander the rooms of our house like a ghost in the frilly white nightgowns they forced me to wear.
I would haunt one of two rooms: the library, where I could sit in the window seat and read by the light of the streetlamps outside, or the living room, where I could watch television with closed captions, my hand clenched on the remote, ready to turn it off if I heard any sounds coming from my parents’ bedroom.
The classic movie channel became my obsession.
Everyone was witty and beautiful. There was usually a happy ending.
My favorites were Katharine Hepburn films: The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, Bringing Up Baby, Holiday.
The one time I’d been caught sneaking around, it hadn’t been by my parents.
My mother and Sebastian had taken a rare trip, leaving me with Domenic.
The tension of sitting alone with him at the dinner table had made me restless.
Even at twelve, I knew there was something wrong about the way he looked at me.
That night I’d crept downstairs and switched on the TV for a much-needed escape, all without noticing the boy on the sofa.
“What are you watching?” he asked, and I spun, my hand pressed over my mouth to stifle my scream. The boy was small, younger than me, with dark hair that stuck straight up as he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. I would have been scared of him, if he hadn’t looked so fragile.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“Marco,” he said, with the matter-of-fact innocence of a child. “Who are you?” He couldn’t have been more than six.
“I’m Bridget. Why are you sleeping on the couch?” I wanted to ask why he was in my house, but it’s not like he could have gotten in on his own.
“I was waiting for my mom and I fell asleep. Do you know when she’ll be…
done?” He sounded apologetic. My stomach twisted with an emotion I couldn’t understand, but I knew it was wrong for a woman to be with Domenic, alone and at night, while my other parents were gone.
But I swallowed my anger. It wasn’t Marco’s fault.
“No.” I looked at the clock. It was just past midnight. Uncertainty gripped me; how was I supposed to entertain a little boy? I knew I couldn’t go find his mom without Domenic getting angry. “Want to watch cartoons?”
It was the first and only time I spent with another child, outside of the strictly controlled social interactions with other packs’ children. Marco and I sat on the couch watching cartoons on mute.
“She says he’s my dad,” he whispered after a few minutes. “Do you think that’s true?”
“I don’t know.” But I studied his profile in the glow of the TV. Maybe that was Domenic’s nose.
Marco eventually fell back asleep, his head slumping onto my shoulder.
My heart had clenched with tenderness for this little boy with dark hair and sad eyes as I tucked him under a throw blanket and crept back upstairs.
In the morning, he was gone, and I knew better than to ask any questions about him.
But no one else interrupted my nighttime wanderings. If my parents ever wondered why I slept so late each day, I’m sure they just attributed it to laziness.
As I got older and learned to swallow my rage, my disobedience branched onto new and interesting paths.
Ever since the expensive, controversial blood test that showed the latent Omega cells lurking in my body, my parents were obsessed with the idea of my eventual presentation as an Omega.
But I resented my body. It felt like a ticking time bomb, ready to destroy my future and trap me forever with new Alphas who would control me just as much as my fathers did.
So I learned to control my body instead. I would spend hours pacing the floor of my room, touching each wall as I made laps. Or I’d stand on one leg, as still as possible, until my muscles shook.
When I started learning about biology in my homeschool curriculum, including the physiological differences between Alphas, Betas, and Omegas, an even more enticing idea emerged.
If low body weight, like that of female gymnasts and dancers, could delay menstruation in Betas, could it delay presenting as an Omega?
I embarked on my first scientific study to find out.
I excelled at not eating. To my mother’s delight, I was naturally thin.
My “delicate” appetite, which became even more discerning, didn’t raise any flags.
The same closet where I’d been locked as a child became a stash for the sweetener packets my mother used in her coffee.
Whenever I craved something sweet, I could eat two or three to tide myself over.
Recovery from anorexia is always tricky.
As a biologist, I knew it was difficult for the brain and body to fully return to normal.
But I thought it was even harder when I was pretty sure the eating disorder saved my life.
I would have been bonded to Alphas just like my own fathers had I not stunted my presentation.
Linda didn’t like that I credited my illness with any good.
“Look at all the trouble it’s caused you,” she would say, as if all my issues were laid out on the battered coffee table between us in the therapy room.
First, there were the hormonal problems that meant I’d never had a true heat, didn’t have proper Omega pheromones, and would probably never have children.
Then, of course, the body dysmorphia that made looking in the mirror a daunting prospect.
The lingering bradycardia that gave me the resting heart rate of an athlete when I was anything but.
Given the choice, I’d do the same thing all over again to secure my freedom.
Luckily, I was mostly in recovery. Eating in front of other people or looking in mirrors was challenging, but I had stopped restricting. I did Pilates a few times a week, ate three square meals and two snacks every day. I even used sugar in my tea instead of artificial sweeteners.
But the new, unsettling reactions I was having to Nathan, Andrew, and Gabriel were messing with my head. I was feeling the urge to restrict again, to put my traitorous body back in its place.
That wasn’t an option, so I would take control of my work situation instead.
The night of the ill-fated meeting with Lisbeth, I started my research. Axion Biostorage, the new supplier, didn’t have a large online presence, just a vague website with stock photos of people in PPE and a contact form to learn more about their services.
I filled out the form with a fake email account and got a canned response email that just said, “Thank you for contacting Axion Biostorage; someone will be in touch soon to discuss your request for information.” I didn’t have high hopes that anyone would be in touch.
The address for the lab was in the city, way uptown. I briefly considered going to check it out, then realized I could just look online. The building was beige and looked like a random, nondescript warehouse, especially with the two rolling garage doors.
I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. The website listed all the right accreditations and qualifications. Was I expecting a glaring sign on the door saying, “We cross-contaminate our specimens”?
I shut my laptop, annoyed, and resolved to do more extracurricular research at the lab.
Except I didn’t have a chance to do anything, because another MSC sample was causing immune responses. And, once again, Lisbeth was nowhere to be found.
“This is not okay. Don’t you want to know why she doesn’t care? I know it probably won’t hurt anyone now, but we’re lying to people. And if we don’t tell someone, and they start human trials on direct Omega bone marrow transplants—”
“I know.” Nathan cut me off with a glance at the prep lab door. “I’ll talk to Lisbeth again, or go to IRB. Just… let me handle it.”
That really piqued my anger. I was used to being treated as if I were incapable of managing things. But it hurt even worse coming from Nathan.
“Does this mean the study is over?” Anvi interjected. She looked panicked, and I understood. The prospect of the study dissolving would mean a lot of work finding a new one to take her on as an intern. “It can’t be! Lisbeth said—”
“Enough,” Nathan said, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. “This is not the time or place for this conversation.”
Well, that was me put in my place. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest to keep from yelling at him in front of Anvi.