Page 107 of Impossible

I’m panicking.

It’s almost a relief to realize. No thought is safe. I try to conjure safety, to remember the last time I felt it. Everything comes up Leon. In his arms, across his desk, next to him,nearhim. I dig back in my memory, trying to think of Adams. It feels so long ago. Rose and Cam weren’t safe. My room was lonely and comfortable, but safe? Nothing compares to the memories of Leon’s broad chest against me, the rumble of his purr rolling into my body. His cloves and cedar and quiet, solid presence.

I try to go back and rewrite those moments. I try to make them dangerous. Sitting in the doctor’s office with my knobby knees and hairy legs, he wasn’t undressing me with his eyes. HestoppedRisk from kissing me, fought his own packmate just to keep me safe. He pulled back from my silent begging on Wednesday night, refusing to kiss me. He tried to get me to choose another pack, any other pack, for my heat. How hard must that have been for him, to tell his fated mate to give herself over to another pack?

Last Friday. Only eight days ago.

He saved me.

Not just on the hillside. Afterwards. My life as I knew it ended, and he was there. Through Wilder acting like a jerk, through his own flashback, he was there. He purred for me.

I want to hit myself. How did I not realize? After reading the textbook, the section on purring the next day? What kind of moron am I?

I take a deep breath. Then another. I burrow into my little pseudo-nest and inhale, letting Leon’s scent wash over me. I try to imagine the me of eight days ago finding comfort in an alpha’s scent, sniffing at his clothing like a dog. It’s a foolish thing—the me of eight days ago was so much less than the me of now.

I try to find the breaking point. When did my wanting become fear? I wanted him at my doctor’s appointments. I wanted to eat lunch with him. I wanted him to kiss me.

I was enjoying the bubble of not having my heat yet, enjoying the attention of Midas Pack without any pressure that it might be a real romantic possibility. Not worrying that they’d see me, every ugly, vulnerable part. They weren’t deluding themselves though. They never played pretend, not like I did. Right from the start, they’ve known me, all of me, even the parts I tried to pretend I didn’t have. I thought I had them fooled, that they respected me because of how I denied my omega self. But that wasn’t the case at all. They cared for me, even the parts I thought I was hiding,especiallythose parts. They treated me so tenderly, so sweetly. They didn’t want to rush or force me. So they just… were there. Giving me what they could, when they could.

I swallow around something viscous in my throat.

It was so obvious to Risk, he let it slip. Like it’s inevitable.When you have the bond.

There was no urgency there, no threat. When, not if.

What happened was a worst-case scenario for all of us. Me, because I couldn’t deny my nature anymore. Them, because my delusion finally imploded. As they had to know it would.

The panic is gone now. It’s replaced by pressing urgency in my chest. I need to talk to them, to apologize. I curse my lack of phone. I curse the Complex, the Coalition, Wilder, everybody putting up obstacles between me and my pack.

I am powerless. No way to contact them, no way to choose them, not even now, knowing they’re my fated mates. The injustice of it has me restless. I practically fall out of the nest and rush to get ready for bed. When I burrow back in, I can tell sleep is nowhere close. I drink in Leon’s fading scent and toss and turn and eventually sit up and grab the book of poems Joshua gave me.

I open the inside cover and read his penciled-in thoughts. He didn’t follow any lines or make neat bullet points; every thought is just a blob on the page, with subsequent thoughts added around the original blobs until every square inch of white space is covered. I have to turn the book to the light and squint to read what he wrote. The first thing that catches my eye is just Leon’s name, over and over and over again. Cursive, block letters, print, calligraphy, every possible take on font that a teenage boy could muster.

Two other names come up a lot, but not with the same ardent attention as Leon’s: Thomas and Gareth. I wonder who they are. Under one occurrence of Thomas’s name, Joshua wrote: “Don’t do hair, unlaced shoes, white t-shirts, loose jeans, chain, but not dainty, touch girls more, smell bad on purpose”.

His other notes are more cryptic: “darling damaged”, “little bit of whimsy, little bit of melancholy”, and “care less please just care less”.

Some of the words are indented deeply in the page, pressed hard by an anguished hand, while others are whisper light, barely present between their darker companions, like he was afraid to write them at all. My own anxiety fades as I realize that he felt it too. He had all this love inside of him and, from the looks of it, he was unsure who it was safe to give it to. Did he crush on Leon? Like me?

It seems obvious that Risk and Joshua are together romantically, but I don’t know about the others. Risk seemed to flirt with them as much as with me, but Hollis and Leon didn’t seem to reciprocate. Are they queer as well? Did Joshua ever get to resolve the feelings he penned into these pages for Leon? I can’t imagine what sharing a bond would be like if they went unrequited all these years.

Leon did say they’d all been sleeping in the pack bed together.

I remember the bare column of Risk’s throat as he slid down the wall earlier. The way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he groaned. He was so overwhelmed by all of us. His eyelashes were so thick, the gold hoop hanging from his septum catching the low light of the room.

I remember the sturdiness of Leon’s chest against me. How even as I began drifting in the haze of my own hormones, he was rock solid. The edges of his tattoo peeking from the collar of his thermal shirt. I wonder what the tattoo looks like.

To see the whole thing, he’d need to be shirtless.

The restlessness returns. My legs won’t stay still. Joshua’s words touch a glowing pulse inside me.

His curls. I wanted to reach out and pull one, watch it bounce, reshape it and lay it against the others. I remember the rasp of Leon’s stubble against my palm. I want it again, I want his face looming over mine, his breath mixing with my own. I want to inhale every part of him.

I don’t realize my hand is between my legs until the pages of the book flutter closed. Iache.

I miss Hollis’s amiable smile across the chess board, his shame-faced delight when he won. The furrow in his brow when Risk destroyed him. He stood so tall on Wednesday night, when those assholes in suits came and yanked Joshua away. He stood up to them, perfectly calm, protecting his pack.

The memory sends flutters through me. I’ve never touched myself before, always ashamed of the shapes my body would make, the rolls and angles and disgusting baseness of it. But I’m not even thinking of myself as my fingers begin exploring, feeling the parts of me I’ve been so ashamed of.

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