Page 122 of Knotting the Cowboys

I nod, then remember he can't see me.

"Yeah. Not picnics exactly, but we'd stargaze." A laugh escapes, more wistful than bitter. "I loved it because under all those stars, I could wish for anything. Dream about all the opportunities waiting for me out there. I was so confident it was possible, you know? That I could be more than what everyone expected."

My fingers find a rough spot on the truck's paint, picking at it absently.

"But then I'd go home, and it was like stepping back into this bubble of negativity and disappointment. The stars might promise infinity, but my parents' house only had room for one future—finding a proper Alpha pack and being a proper Omega."

The flashlight clicks off, and Austin's footsteps crunch on gravel as he moves closer.

Not touching, just... present. Waiting.

"Want to know something fucked up?" The laugh that bubbles up now has sharp edges. "I was almost named William. My parents were so desperately sure they were having an Alpha son that they didn't even pick out girl names. When I came out wrong—" I gesture at myself, all Omega curves and borrowedsilk, "—they apparently stared at me for a full five minutes before Mom said 'Willa, I guess.'"

"That's..." Austin starts, then stops, like he can't find words harsh enough.

"The nurse probably side-eyed them so hard," I continue, picturing it. "This couple so disappointed by their newborn's designation that they couldn't even give her a real name. Just the feminine knockoff of what they really wanted."

My hands lift in the intermittent hazard light, and I stare at my wrists like I can see through skin to the memory of metal. "You know what I wish? I wish I'd taken the initiative to accept myself long before society brought me down to the level of taking everything Blake and Iron Ridge dished out. If my self-esteem hadn't been so low, so practically non-existent..."

The words stick in my throat, but I force them out.

"If I'd had even a little confidence in myself, it wouldn't have led to me being handcuffed to the bed that night."

Austin makes a sound—sharp, pained—but I can't stop now.

The stars witness my confession, silent and eternal, and somehow that makes it easier. Like telling the universe instead of the man whose opinion has started mattering too much.

"The marks faded," I say, still staring at my wrists in the amber light. "But sometimes I still feel them. Especially on nights like this, when everything feels too good to be true. Like maybe I'm still there, hallucinating this whole thing while smoke fills my lungs."

"Willa—"

"I learned something that night," I interrupt, needing to finish. "You really don't know how resentful you are until you're faced with death and realize you have no way out."

The words hang in the cold air between us, and I press on, unable to stop the flood now that the dam has cracked.

"I expected anger, you know? When my lungs started burning and I couldn't get enough air. I thought I'd be furious—at Blake, at Iron Ridge, at the whole fucked-up world that let them think they could throw me away like trash."

My fingers trace the delicate bones of my wrist, following paths that once bore purple bruises.

"But no. What hit me in that moment wasn't rage. It was this immense, crushing regret. Disappointment in myself for not living the life I knew I deserved."

Austin shifts closer, and I can feel his presence like a warm wall at my back, but he doesn't speak. Doesn't try to fix it or minimize it or tell me how I should feel.

He just exists in this space with me, holding my pain without trying to take it.

"The smoke was so thick," I continue, voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "I could taste it with every breath—acrid, chemical, nothing like woodsmoke from a fireplace. And all I could think was: this is it. This is how I die. Not as Willa who studied the stars, or Willa who dreamed of being more. Just another dead Omega who couldn't keep her Alpha pack happy."

My hands shake now, and I clasp them together, feeling the strength in my own grip.

"I don't know why I forgot that sensation when they pulled me out. Why I let it go when I was released from the hospital with lungs full of scar tissue and a voice that would never sound quite right again."

The memory of that courtroom floods back—sterile fluorescent lights, the smell of industrial floor cleaner, Blake sitting across from me in his best suit like he hadn't tried to murder me two months prior.

"The divorce hearing was the worst part. You'd think facing death would be rock bottom, but no. Rock bottom was sitting in that courtroom, watching Blake tell the judge how difficult I was.How I'd neglected my duties. How the fire was really my fault for being careless with candles I never even lit."

"And no one stood up for me. Not one person in that room said 'hey, maybe we should investigate why an Omega with no history of negligence suddenly became so careless.' The pack members who'd eaten at my table, whose books I'd balanced, whose businesses I'd saved—they all sat behind Blake, nodding along to his lies."

I lean harder against the truck, needing its solid presence to anchor me.

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