Page 34 of One Last Chance

The blood in my veins turns to ice. My cheeks go prickly. All I hear is Mac’s ragged breaths and the pounding of my heart.

Don’t look at her. Don’t. Stay calm.

“Bad words? What did she say, Mac?”

He glances up at me and then back down at the ground, shaking his head. “Bad words,” he emphasizes. “So bad I would be in a lot of trouble.”

“How about you spell it?” I know I should stop myself. I should stand up and walk around to get a hold of my emotions before it all bubbles over, but I can’t.

Mac hums thoughtfully and takes a moment, thinking about it, inaudibly muttering letters to himself in preparation. “She called him an omega…H-O-R—”

“That’s all I need to know,” I snap more than I wanted to, so I quickly smile and place a kiss on Mac’s forehead. I lift him into his seat. “Wait here for a bit with Shawn, okay? I just need to talk to Mina. Calm him down. Cover his ears,” I order Shawn, who stares at me, white as a wall. He nods before I step back and close the door.

When I walk around the car and open Mina’s side, she recoils from me with fear in her eyes. She knows the severity of what she did. And she’s not getting away with it.

“Get out right now,” I say. My hands are trembling. I tighten my grip on the corner of the car door and focus on slow, deep breaths to control the storm taking place inside my chest. “Get - out.” I repeat with more urgency.

Mina shakily undoes her seatbelt and drops her headphones and phone on the seat before getting up. I see Shawn get in the back with Mac and put him on his lap before shutting the door behind her.

The moment the door slams close, I grab Mina by the arm and firmly pull her toward the front of the car. I let go when she squirms under my touch and don’t even care that she looks at me like I hit her. I don’t care about how firmly I held her. I’m just so…damn…done.

“What thefuckdo you think you are doing, making him keep secrets? Making your little brother overwrought with guilt about lying and keeping stuff from his family!”

I hoped she would just stand there and finally take responsibility; maybe listen for once, but no. She opens her mouth, trying to say something back, that goddamn stubborn combativeness already building up in her eyes, so I stop her.

“No!” I snap, smacking my hand over the hood of the car. Mina freezes. “You will shut your mouth and listen to me. I’m done with watching you become this awful person. I’m not dancing around it anymore, Mina. I am sick and tired of letting you hurt people.”

Something other than anger finally penetrates through into my voice, and I feel like breaking down. But besides the grief, there’s a rattling sense of injustice.It isn’t fair, a voice in my head screams. This isn’t fair to me, and me being her parent doesn’t change that.

What have I done wrong? Even in the worst, most emotionally volatile and confusing parts of my teenage years, I never could have fathom causing this sort of pain to my parents. Or anyone.

“You…you really care about these people more than us, don’t you?” She spits out words full of poison and bitterness, eyes filling with tears.

“This is not about them, this is about you, and aboutus!” I shout, pointing my finger at her. I could throw up from the frustration building inside my stomach. “You may be a teenager, but you’re not stupid! You gotta understand what you’re doing and what it means to hurt other people. To beat someone down day after day after day. It isn’t something you do without consequences!

“This isn’t about Dayton or about the fucked up shit you said to him—it’s about you being my daughter and continuously shutting me out, over and over again, no matter how much I try to connect and to understand. Where did you bury the happy little girl that loved making origami with me and why do you insist on being this miserable, hateful person instead?! Toward your own family, toward the people I care about!”

My lungs burn and tug by the time I vomit it all out. I don’t give a shit anymore if this isn’t how she should ever see me, or if it’s appropriate. I’m at the end of my rope with her.

I watch her clench her jaw and ball her fists while she fights to keep that headstrong, emotionless mask on her face, even though she’s fighting tears and shaking.

“And this has nothing to do with being an alpha or omega. You know that. It’s about being a person and treating otherhuman beingsthis way!”

“It has everything to do witheverything!” she finally counters in a high-pitched yell. Letting out a trembling breath, she shifts on her feet. “Everything! Are you not sending out your stupid pheromones all over right now just because you’re mad?! How can you say that? How can you act like it doesn’t matter?”

What? Why would she think that?

How would she even think about something like that without Hope pouring this garbage into her ear?

“No.” I shake my head firmly. “That has nothing to do with me deserving happiness. The same happiness your mother supposedly found. But yes, I guessthisis something you can’t comprehend, Mina. You don’t get why she doesn’t want me to be content, and why she uses you to achieve that, and the horrible fucking position it puts me in. You don’t get that beyond being an alpha and your father—who you know will let you step all over him no matter how much it pains me because of how much I love you—I’m a person with my own feelings, hopes and thoughts. You’re incapable, or unwilling, to look beyond yourself.”

I snort bitterly.Goddamn Hope. It should be you taking the brunt of this crap.

“You don’t get that because your mother convinced you this whole mess is nothing more than some stupid second gender bullshit. I wish life was that simple, but it isn’t. Until you can understand that, I am done letting you rule my life. So you get back in that car, apologize to your little brother for putting him in that horrible position, and do notdarespeak to me until youfind it in yourself to behave like a decent human being again, you understand?”

Something delicate and raw appears at the back of her eyes. She stares at me, breathless and quiet, until she forces down whatever it was and rushes to the car with a sniffling huff.

I slowly place my trembling palm firmly against the hood and lean over it, taking a deep breath. I might have just completely lost it…but I feel like I just woke up from some horrible daze.

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