Page 18 of Freeing My Alpha

Maybe I can’t, I tell myself. I can’t be certain.

My stomach gurgles.

“If you had to pick one thing you heard the most, what was his top belief about male superiority?” Noah asks quietly.

My focus flickers across the carpet, struggling to sum up years of Steven’s indoctrination. But Noah and I planned to rapid-fire speak without allowing OCD or PTSD to tag team too long, and it’s proving necessary; both disorders pour doubts into my mind. What if I made all this up? What if I was wrong about feeling harmed, and Steven was right about everything—that I was a delusional, whiny girl?

But in my heart, I know the truth.

My voice shakes as I spout it. “Everything went back to one thing with him: that men are inherently owed many things, and not giving it to them was unjustified, especially as a woman.”

I huff through the silence. I expect Noah to write something down, but his notepad remains stationed in his lap.

And his tender eyes remain on me. “You okay?”

I nod, giving him a soft, quick smile. “Keep going.”

He glances between my eyes. “What would he do if you challenged those beliefs?”

Anxiety burns my veins, so I pick at my nails. “He’d make it really personal. Saying stuff like how I like to make everything about me, or that women complicate the simplest things.”

Noah frowns. “So he’d shift the blame? Would he always make it about your gender or sex, or was it all different personal things about you?”

I open my mouth to say it wasn’t always about gender or sex, but then I shut it again. “Actually, now that you say that, I think it was both. He’d dig at little things I’d do wrong, and it felt so personal, but from a distance, I can connect them all to things he found irritating about women, in general. I walked away from that relationship feeling like trash, not just because of what he did, but because I felt like trash as a woman.”

A flicker of hurt races over Noah’s features. He places his hand over mine. “Do you still feel like trash?”

My heart flips. I wriggle where I sit, uncomfortable with my answer. Eventually, I spit it out. “Only when I think about that day he broke in.”

With that, Noah scribbles additions to his notes at the bottom of our list, his jaw clenched hard enough to bulge a vein across his temple.

- generally a wimpy ass coward

- classic abuser:

judgmental, hyper-critical

lack of morals around how to treat others: highly objectifying.

manipulative, word-twister

demands power, control, and dominance, especially over women***

doesn’t like to face problems head on—could use to our advantage when confronting him

***fixated on beliefs to the point of violence→proof of potential to hurt others

Once he’s done, Noah allows me to take the notepad from his hands. I suck in a shaky breath in anticipation of how I’ll respond, but this list feels surprisingly neutral.

It’s more than the list; I was afraid of serious trauma fallout within myself from today’s continually triggering conversation, but the more we’ve written down, the lighter I’ve felt. And I know why.

With one glance at my mate beside me—his brooding stare tracing the ceiling as if it’ll help him solve this puzzle—I truly feel it: I feel believed.

Cupping my hand around my mouth does nothing to stop a sob from escaping. Noah jolts upright. Within seconds, I’m tucked into his lap, my chest squeezed against his in a tight embrace.

“I’m so sorry,” Noah whispers.

The ache in his heart pangs through me. I squeeze him back twice as hard.

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