Page 49 of Patiently Yours
Stacia (3:08 pm) I blocked you for a reason, Derek. I don’t want to see or talk to you.
I go to delete the thread and call one of my boys but my phone buzzes again. I compulsively check the response.
A glutton for punishment, apparently.
Unknown (3:09 pm) Are you cheating on them, too? I really thought you were one of the good ones, Stacia. What the fuck happened to you?
I swallow roughly. His responses always leave me confused. Every time we fought, even after I would forgive him, even after he said he would never say or do the things he did again, he would always turn it back on me. My character. My interests. My clothes. Mydesires. It always set him off whenever I decided to have my own autonomous thoughts. I sincerely have no idea where he got the idea that we had anything in common.
Stacia (3:11 pm) You never make any sense. I have always been the same person. /You/ are the one that changed.
My omega is screaming at me to ignore him, yelling at me to block the number. It’s hard to listen. I just need to knowwhy. What didIdo wrong?
What have Ieverdone wrong?
My father was always a cold man. He only understood finances and etiquette (his own version of it). But, until my designation presented, I was mainly ignored, discarded over to nannies or family friends. I never knew that things could get worse than abandonment until I officially became an omega. It was like no matter what I did, it would never be right.Iwould never be right. And I guess I wouldn’t be.
Why have kids if you’re not going to love them unconditionally? What made them so deluded to think that I would turn out to be a beta just like them both? There’s never been any biological evidence supporting their delusions, him and my mother both. The fact that they let it be known, too, really pushed me past the point of understanding.
My omega always whimpers inside me whenever I think of my parents.
Is it really me? Was I just not meant to be who I am?
TWENTY-FIVE
There’s a bunch of noise as Kendall and Ciro battle each other on Mario Kart. Atlas is reading something in the recliner. His scent is elevated as his eyes dart between each word. He’s always reading in his free time, but I don’t recognize the book in his hands. It makes me pause.
“What are you reading?” I ask, trying to get a better look at the cover.
Atlas sends me a subtle glare to shut up. Ciro looks over to inspect him despite being mid-game and huffs a laugh.
“Why is there a shirtless guy on your book cover?”
I slant my head. That’s exactly what it is.
Atlas’ cheeks turn a pink hue.He’s blushing.
“Oh my god, you’reblushing,” Kendall jeers at him, taking the words right from my brain. He puts his controller down and puts his hand out. “Let’s see it then.”
Our prime gives us a look that could kill. His hand tightens slightly on the spine of the book before he puts it protectively to his chest.
“Your alpha becoming possessive over a book lets us know that it has something to do with Stacia, so just spit it out,” Cirosays, his own controller now lazily hanging from his fingers. “She’s into reading, I’m guessing you got that from her?”
The hue on his cheeks darken even further. “Not exactly.”
“What did you do, Atlas?” I ask. He’s normally not so tight-lipped with us. His demeanor screams of his self-consciousness.
“I bought it.” He pulls it away from his chest and looks at the cover. “It’s stupid, but I saw her carrying this the last couple days and I wanted to… I don’t know, feel closer to her when she’s not around.” He finally hands the book to Kendall, looking at the ground in shame. Kendall opens up to his bookmarked page and starts to read its contents.
“Why are you embarrassed about that?” Ciro’s sincere question lingers in the air as Atlas thinks of a response.
“I’ve been feeling…unsettledwhen she’s not around.” He swallows audibly. “My instincts have been going haywire. My alpha needs to know where she is and what she’s doing, and it’s been utter torture to rein him in. I thought maybe if I read the book she’s reading right now, it would feel like we’re in the same place, and that it would maybe abate my alpha and give him some peace.”
I look at him, seeing the anguish in his face. I understand it, too. It’s been absolute torture for me. I’ve felt like an animal for having such primal instincts when it came to her. She doesn’t deserve that type of possessiveness after what she went through with her ex, and here we are, acting like cavemen who can’t be away from her for a few hours.
“And is it helping?” I ask him, now eyeing the book in Kendall’s hands.
Atlas gives an amused chuckle. “Sort of. It works for different reasons. It’s also utter torture for other reasons?—”
