Page 25 of My Defiant Mate
"So be someone else," Jionni says, his voice raw with intensity. "Be who you really are, not who they want you to be."
"That's easy for you to say," I retort, the words lashing out, cruel and unfair. "You don't have to worry about disappointing anyone. You don't have anyone counting on you."
The words hang in the air between us, ugly and poisonous. I regret them the second they leave my mouth.
"Jionni, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"No, you're right," he cuts me off, his voice hard as stone, but I can see the crack. "I don't have anyone counting on me. I don't have anyone at all. Except, I thought, maybe... you."
The raw hurt in his voice makes my chest ache so badly I can't breathe. I want to reach for him. I want to take it all back. But I can't. This is bigger than us. Bigger than what I want.
"I can already see my mother's face," I choke out, the words tasting like ash. "That quiet disappointment that's so much worse than anger. The way my father will nod and say it's okay, even though it isn't. All those extra shifts they took... for what? So I could throw it all away for an alpha I met a few days ago?"
Jionni's face crumples. He reaches for me, his hand outstretched, his expression pleading. "Toby, please."
My body betrays me. Every cell screams to lean into him, to let him hold me, to let him fix this. My skin aches for his touch.
But my mind—my terrified, logical, duty-bound mind—wins.
I flinch back, a small, violent jerk away from the one thing in the world I want.
The movement is tiny, but it feels like I've ripped myself in half. I see the impact in his eyes. The confusion vanishes, replaced by a raw, animal hurt so profound it takes my breath away. He stops, his hand frozen in the air between us.
"There is no 'together,'" I repeat, each word a knife twisting in my own heart. "There's... reality. And the reality is, I can't do this. I can't be what you need me to be."
"I need you to be you," he says, his voice a ragged whisper. "That's all I've ever needed."
"This is me," I say, gesturing to the box, to my room, to the ruins of my carefully planned life. "This is who I am. Someone who follows the rules. Someone who doesn't risk everything for... for feelings."
He stares at me, his own heart breaking in his eyes. He slowly lowers his hand. He doesn't try to touch me again.
"Please," I whisper, the word shattering on its way out of my throat. "Just... go."
Jionni
The door clicks shut behind me, and the sound is the end of the world.
For a second, I just stand there, frozen in the hallway. I stare at his door like an idiot. Like if I wait long enough, he'll open it and take it all back. But it's just a door. A stupid, institutional door with his name printed on a neat, laminated tag. Toby Song-Gi, Resident Advisor.
My hand lifts on its own, fingers curling into a fist, ready to bang on the wood. To beg. To plead.
Pathetic.
I drop my hand and turn away. My boots are too loud on the linoleum, each step an echoing accusation in the dead quiet of the hallway. Each step drags like I'm walking through concrete.
I don't remember taking the stairs to the roof. One moment I'm in the suffocating hallway, the next the cold night air is hitting my face like a slap, raw and biting.
The whole campus spreads out below me. Lights in windows, people living their lives. None of them are falling apart on a rooftop.
I walk to the low parapet at the edge and sit, letting my legs dangle over the five-story drop. The wind whips at my hair. Somewhere below me, in one of those glowing squares, Toby is choosing his future. Over me.
"So I could throw it all away for an alpha I met a few days ago?"
His words are a jagged knife twisting in my gut. He's right. That's all it's been since he showed up at my door, all righteous indignation and a clipboard, ready to write me up. Since the world stopped spinning on its axis and decided to revolve around him instead.
Two days to find him. Two days to lose him.
A harsh, broken laugh rips out of me, swallowed by the wind. This is exactly what I always knew would happen. This is the punchline to the universe's cruelest joke. I spent my whole life seeing the trap, vowing I'd never get caught in the same "fated mates" bullshit that turned my parents into monsters.
