Page 103 of Game Over

“Jesse,” I called, my breathing ragged from the running as I approached. For the first time in, I thinkever, he didn’t look at me with a bright smile. Only that blank expression I’d only ever seen pointed at others.

Before, I thought it was better than being screamed at. Because as the very least you could have a conversation. But now, I realized, this was infinitely worse.

If he was angry, at least he would’ve said something, even if it was by shouting. But in this moment, I’m left with this cold, unfeeling person that I don’t know at all. A complete stranger.”

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk right now, Tara,” they said, ordering a car from their cell phone.

“Look, I’m really, really sorry we lied. But there was never any malice behind it, we just didn’t want to make you feel some kind of way.”

“And you thought I couldn’t handle it? That having me find out like this was a better option to what, exactly? An honest conversation between adults?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” I sighed. “Look, how about you cancel your ride and we can talk?”

He turned away to look down the road, probably for his ride. “I don’t think so. Why don’t you just go back to Charlie.”

Now I was getting angry. “We’re a pack. I don’t just want Charlie, I want you both. I want us to work this out.”

Suddenly a small white sudan pulled up to the curb in front of us. “I just… can’t do that right now. I need time.”

Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but I held them back, my voice tight. “Okay. Yeah. I get it. I love you.”

They sighed. “I’ll… see you around.”

Jesse opened the door and got into the car and I watched as it drove away, each second feeling more like it was taking my heart with it.

Something wet fell to my chest.

At first, I thought it was raining, but when I reached up, I realized I was crying for real, something I didn’t really want to do on the street.

I pulled out my phone and booked my own car, finding that there were about a half a dozen within a couple city blocks

When it arrived two minutes later I got in, everything numb.

I wrapmyself up in my third blanket, letting the quickly fading scent of Charlie and Jesse hit my nose. Neither of them had been here in a week, yet their scents still lingered on a few of my things still.

Without that, I was sure I would have gone crazy by now. Being away from either of them at first just felt like I missed them to a terribly strong degree. That quickly turned into feeling like one of my appendages was gone. I hadn’t left my bed in days, barely able to move. I’d piled all of my pillows–even my couch cushions–around me until I had a nest of everything cozy in my apartment. Luckily I was a collector of cozy, so I was very prepared.

The credits rolled to another movie I’d let autoplay. I had no idea what it was about, but the company was nice. Inky curled up next to me as she had been the whole week, probably sensing something was off. I pet behind her ears and she purred loudly, sounding like the world's cutest motorboat.

I pulled out my phone. Charlie had been texting me since I left. He tried to come over a few times, but I insisted I needed space–no matter how much it felt like it might kill me.

Everything just felt so… messed up. I couldn’t believe Charlie lied to me all of that time. And not to mention the fact that he didn’t even call me. He had my number and did nothing but watch my streams behind his fake profile. Did he think all of the money would make up for that? I couldn’t be sure, but I knew I needed to sort through what it all meant.

Especially because it felt a little hypocritical, considering our lie to Jesse. I just… couldn’t imagine hurting him, especially after we bonded. We were trying to protect them, and now it felt like it made an even bigger mess of things. Just thinking about it all made me want to crawl into a cave and never come out.

Not only Charlie had he been texting me, but he had been sending me things too. At first it was a bit annoying. I was trying to stay mad while getting showered with gifts. But on the second day he had chocolates sent to me. It was an array, with different kinds of bonbons and filled chocolates. They were all really good, but the blueberry filled one in particular was amazing, and I needed more.

I went to order some and my eyes widened at the price. Why was this chocolate so,soexpensive? In my anger at my inability to get it, I messaged Charlie and demanded a box of them.

My Alpha - Yes mistress

The message had made me warm all over, and sure enough a few hours later they were at my door. After that the urge to text him my every want became exhilarating. He ordered me breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention any snacks I needed.

Yesterday I told him I wanted new sweatpants. I was mostly joking, but sure enough a few hours later four entire sweatsuits showed up, all in different shades of purple. I was sad that noneof them smelled like him, but he did just order, so that made sense.

So now I was walking around in my lavender sweatsuit, playing with the necklace I was stuck wearing forever. Though it did warm me to think it came from Charlie, even if he was deceiving me.