Page 3 of Leave Me
“Blue Lake has two thousand three hundred and forty-four residents now. If you come home, it will be two-three-four-five, and isn’t that such a well-rounded number?” She argued, as if the small population was a draw.
Living in the city was a challenge for a shifter, to be sure, but I had it good. Hudson and I had our own shop, the oil and gasoline driving out other smells. We had our apartment with natural light, Golden Gate Park, and Ocean Beach nearby when I needed nature, and no one to pay rent to. He wasn’t a full-shifter, not even truly knowing what kind his mom was, though we guessed a selkie, or seal. But he had heightened senses as well. We could be our hypersensitive selves together without worrying, right in the middle of San Francisco.
Then came Mateo Martin.
The boy was impossible to dislike. Matty was trans, like me, but still at the beginning of his journey. His generation was lucky to have the internet and all the knowledge and words to describe themselves. Iwasn’t old, but growing up so sheltered meant I was not part of the tech boom from my childhood group.
Matty stumbled across our path in a way I could only describe as kismet. In a blue fox costume, with no knowledge of shifters or alphas, without a clue that he was an omega going into heat. I didn’t have the same reaction as Hudson and immediately thought of my mother’s stories of fated mates.
Hudson was drawn to the omega before we even saw him, protective on instinct, and defensive of other alphas around the boy. Even me.
It hurt when my best friend, my chosen brother, growled and kept me at a distance. Nevertheless, I didn’t begrudge him. One week of space and having to overhear their explosive heat sex, smell their joint scent in our apartment, was nothing compared to the almost ten years I’d had with Hudson. I reasoned that Matty’s heat would pass, and things would go back to the way they were.
Life wasn’t the same after Matty’s heat, though. Hudson was miserable, detached from any attempt at conversation, and almost sick with missing the omega. He thought I didn’t know, but he visited the boy each day just to look at him. Hudson would return looking refreshed, like he finally had a good night’s sleep. That was when I knew. Matty and Hudson were fated mates.
If they stayed apart, according to my mother, they had two options: they were fulfilled in other ways and the longing subsided, or they withered away without each other. I liked to think Hudson had a fulfilling life, but I couldn’t take the chance. I’d been on the edge oftelling him we should show up on Matty’s doorstep or hire a skywriter when the boy came to our shop.
They reconnected, and Hudson was the happiest and most settled I’d ever seen him. We moved Matty in and became a pseudo-family. Still, I was on the outside looking in. I missed having a pack more than ever, and didn’t know where to go from there.
It was May, and Matty was graduating from college. He was currently trying on his cap and gown in the living space, so I was giving them space again by staying in my room. I knew he was happy about sharing everything with Hudson, but I felt like a third wheel. In the way, and no longer a bike.
My phone pinged with a message in the tone I set for my sister, but I ignored it. She was eighteen and about to graduate high school, still set on getting me to come home. Despite getting a scholarship to a university in California, she told me the plan was to stay home and commute to the closest junior college. She’d hinted at needing to be there as a caretaker, but didn’t clarify. We didn’t talk about our father.
When the tone played again, I sighed and pulled the device out. There were three messages from her, which wasn’t uncommon, and I had nothing better to do. I opened the app, and my blood ran cold.
Lil Sis Channing
You need to come home.
Lil Sis Channing
This is serious, Fowler.
Lil Sis Channing
Dad died. We need you.
I never planned to go home again.
When I came out as trans to my father during the spring of my senior year in high school, he banished me. Sure, he didn’t use the exact word, but the message was clear in his rage when he told me to get out of his pack and that he never wanted to see me again.
Dad had devolved from a competent father, devoted pack leader, and Motorcycle Club President to an alcoholic gambler when my mom died. I was only ten with a newborn sibling, but he coped with grief by drinking instead of taking care of us. My baby sister and I were fully moved in with our grandparents before I was thirteen. Eventually, he’d moved back into the family home when Grandma passed, and Gramps’ grief led to his being paralyzed. Then I had three people to care for instead of only one.
When I put male on my driver’s license when I turned eighteen, Dad found out I was transgender, and I had no choice but to tell him the obvious. I stayed only two more weeks to finish high school, and I never looked back.
Until my father died, and my sister sent me the letter. The letter that had me heading home also had me bawling with the first word.
Son,
First, I’m sorry. Sorry for not being there for you and running you off when you needed support the most. I always wanted a son, but I was too stuck in my own grief and addiction to realize I already had one. Your mom would never have accepted the way I treated you and your sister, and I’m sorry for that as well.
I’m dying, and it’s my own damn fault. An Alpha should have a long life, but I’ve squandered mine. Life didn’t feel worth living without your mother in it, and I always wished it was me who’d died. It’s not an excuse, only an explanation. I know it does nothing to heal the harm I did to you, our family, and the whole pack.
You were always the best part of her, with your charm and smarts, but you got my stubbornness as well. Maybe it comes with being an Alpha? Either way, Ihope you can see past yours to come home when I’m gone.
One of the only joys in my life is knowing you are both thriving, despite my influence. Channing may be an omega, but she runs the pack house with an iron fist while excelling in school. She won’t tell me what you talk about, but I know how you run your own shop in the city.
You’ve become an amazing man.
