Page 3 of Such a Lovely Omega

“Makes having a mate sound pretty good, doesn’t it?” Samuel asked, also watching Talon walk away.

“What?” I blinked. “No, I mean sure, but fateds are hard to find.”

“Yeah.”

Chapter Three

West

“What’s on your mind today, West?” Dr. Braden crossed his legs and used his chin to click his pen.

I took a seat on the couch but refused to lie down. Sometimes I thought my therapist watched too many old movies and sitcoms. Did people really lie on the couch for their sessions in this century?

I wasn’t sure.

But nights were restless at best, and I was afraid I’d simply drift off if I lay back. “Selling off everything I own. Moving across the country or to another country and starting all the way over. Hell, I might even change my name.”

“Why is that?” he asked.

He knew why. Emile had been gone for almost a year, and eight months of that year I’d been here, weekly. In the beginning, it was two or three times a week.

My answer to him was a stern look and a tilting of my head in derision.

“The business is still not doing well?” he asked.

“The business is not doing well. The bills are piling up. Things are breaking in the house, and I have to call people in to fix them. I’m tired of gasping for air.”

“Nothing is improving?” the doctor prompted while taking furious notes. His handwriting was atrocious. He’d made me a list of ways to calm down when I was upset. That day, I laughed hysterically on the floor. I couldn’t read a single one of his suggestions.

His handwriting still took second place to the annoying pen-on-the-chin thing.

Still, he had helped me when I needed someone most. He’d given me some medicine that made me feel like I wasn’t going to crack in half anymore.

“Nothing is improving. Every day is more of the same. Except now, instead of having a simple, happy existence, or what I was telling myself was happy…now I’m flailing—running—but getting nowhere. The moment I think I have things semi-settled, something new pops up. Yesterday, I had someone knock on the door to tell me if I didn’t pay my electricity bill within the hour, it would be turned off. Emile would’ve never allowed this to happen.”

Dr. Braden put down his notebook and uncrossed his legs. He leaned his elbows on his knees and took a long breath. “What about hobbies? Something fun? What could you do to take your mind off your stress?”

I scoffed. “I barely remember what I like to do anymore. I remember what Emile loved to do. We did those things while my hobbies got delayed or ignored or…”

“Or what?”

I shook my head and scrubbed my hands down my face. “I don’t like talking badly about him. He’s gone. Not even here to defend himself or explain. What kind of omega would I be if…”

The doctor nodded. “Then let’s not. What are these hobbies that you once liked to do?”

“Reading. Going to museums. Watching crime documentaries. Going to poetry readings. Book clubs.” The way my past interests reached out from the grave I’d put them in shocked me. Maybe I was the same person I had been when I met Emile. Perhaps I’d just lost myself along the way. No, I’d made myself little so he could be big.

“Those sound like good things. Maybe minus the crime documentaries.”

I laughed, barely recognizing the sound. “I’m just supposed to resume this life, regain this person I left behind.”

“Yes.” His answer was simple. “Or become a different version of him.”

A pause hung between us.

“West, do you have any friends? You’ve never mentioned anyone. Someone to talk to? Someone to do these things with?”

I leaned back. “We hung around with Emile’s friends. I didn’t have many to begin with, and the ones I did…I lost contact with them once we moved here.”

---