Page 52 of His Problem Alpha
No. I’m done crying over Alex Matthews. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I blink back fresh tears. He made his choice. Now I have to make mine.
I dump the coffee down the sink, the dark liquid swirling away. I rinse the mug and set it in the dish drainer. A stupid thing to care about now, but I do it anyway.
I’m at the door when I hesitate. I turn back, grab a piece of paper from the notepad by the fridge, and scrawl a few lines.
Alex,
If you come back, I'm gone. I'm not waiting for you to decide I'm worth the risk. I deserve better.
Devon
I leave the note on the counter, weighted down by my key.
I take one last look around. The place where I hated him, then wanted him, then loved him. The place our child was conceived. The place I have to leave behind.
“Goodbye,” I whisper to the empty rooms.
Then I shoulder my backpack and walk out.
Staring at the two pink lines that have changed everything, I slide down to the cold tile floor. My hand goes to my flat stomach, a shield against the echoing silence of the apartment. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Okay, baby. It's just us now.
Alex
The apartment door clicks shut behind me, the sound deafening in the silence.
I stand frozen in the entryway, keys digging into my palm. The silence is suffocating, pressing in from all sides. No sarcastic commentary from the kitchen. No documentary droning on from the living room. No soft breathing from the bedroom.
Just… nothing.
This is what you wanted, I tell myself.This is how you keep him safe.
The apartment already feels wrong. Too big, too quiet, too cold—empty in a way that has nothing to do with square footage. Devon's scent still saturates everything. It clings to the couch where he curls up with his laptop. It lingers on the kitchen counter where he perches while drinking his morning coffee. It’s embedded in the fucking air.
I drop my keys on the entry table. They clatter against the wood, the sound a gunshot in the stillness. I should feel relieved.I did it. I cut the cord. I protected him from the destruction that follows me like a shadow.
So why does it feel like I’ve just sawed off my own arm?
I move through the rooms like a trespasser in my own life, cataloging all the ways Devon has infected this space. His design books stacked haphazardly on the coffee table. His ridiculous collection of coffee mugs, each one bearing some smartass saying. His jacket thrown over the back of a chair, the soft flannel still holding the shape of his shoulders.
I pick it up, my fingers tracing the worn fabric. Without thinking, I bring it to my face and inhale. I nearly stagger. Pure Devon fills my lungs—his fancy shampoo and that weird tea he drinks during late nights. My eyes burn. My throat closes up.
Stop it. This is pathetic. You're doing him a favor.
I drop the jacket like it’s on fire. This isn't helping. I need to get him out of here. I need to erase him so I can breathe again. So I can stop seeing his ghost in every corner.
I find a dusty cardboard box in the hall closet and start in the living room, gathering his things with a cold, mechanical precision I don't feel. His sketchbooks. His tablet. The stupid little figurines he collects from thrift stores and arranges on the bookshelves. Every item I touch brings back another memory I can’t escape.
This ceramic frog—he found it at that vintage market three weeks ago, held it up with that crooked smile, the one that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. "It's so ugly it's actually kind of cute," he'd said. "Like you in the morning."
I’d flipped him off, but later, when he was in the shower, I went back and bought it for him. Left it on his desk without a note. He knew it was me. He always knew.
I shove the frog into the box with more force than necessary. It clinks against something else—a mug with "I'm silently correcting your grammar" printed on the side. He used it everymorning, watching me over the rim with those sharp eyes that never missed anything.
The box is filling up, but it doesn’t help. Every thing I pack just screams that he's gone. I move to the kitchen, yanking open drawers. His favorite spoons. The fancy tea he orders online. The sticky notes he leaves on the fridge, little reminders and sarcastic comments about my milk-drinking habits.
My hand brushes against a crumpled piece of paper in his jacket pocket as I move it. A ticket stub. From that indie movie he dragged me to last month, the one I pretended to hate but secretly loved. I can still feel his shoulder pressed against mine in the dark theater, his quiet laugh a warm puff of air against my ear. A memory of a life that isn't mine anymore. A life I deliberately destroyed.
