Page 53 of His Problem Alpha
I crumple the stub in my fist, the sharp corners digging into my palm. This isn't working. This is torture. The apartment feels like a crime scene, the chalk outline of him everywhere I look.
I move to the bathroom, the most intimate space we shared. His toothbrush in the holder next to mine. His expensive face wash that smells like mint. The comb with strands of his dark hair still caught in the teeth.
I open the cabinet under the sink, intending to sweep all his products into the box in one go. My hand freezes mid-reach.
There, in the small trash can, is a white plastic stick.
Time stops. The world narrows to that single object. I know what it is even before I reach for it with trembling fingers. I've seen one before—just weeks ago, when Devon thought... when we both thought...
Two pink lines.
Two. Pink. Fucking. Lines.
Not one. Not negative.Positive.
Devon is pregnant.
Devon is pregnant with my child.
I can’t breathe. The truth hits me like a punch to the gut, driving the air from my lungs. My knees buckle. I grab the edge of the sink to keep from falling, but my legs give out. I slide to the floor, the cold tile a shock against my skin.
The test is clutched in my hand, those two pink lines staring back at me with damning clarity. This can't be real. It can't be. But it is. It's right here, undeniable proof of what we created. Of what I just walked away from.
Oh god. What have I done?
I see Devon again, pale and terrified, his hands shaking as he held that negative test. The relief we both felt. The way we'd fallen into each other afterward, desperate and grateful and so fucking stupid.
But this test isn't negative. The other one was. This one isn't. And Devon knows. He saw these two lines. Was he trying to tell me? Before I shut him down? Before I said those cruel things to push him away?
I destroy everything I touch.
The voice in my head is my own, repeating the same bullshit I've told myself for years. The same excuses. The same self-hatred. Only this time it’s not just about Ethan. It's about Devon. It's about the baby—my baby—growing inside him right now. The child I just abandoned before I even knew they existed.
I break. Finally, completely break. The dam I've spent years building, brick by brick, to hold back the grief and guilt and rage. It crumbles all at once, and everything I've been suppressing comes rushing out in a flood.
I curl in on myself, the test still clutched in my hand, and I sob. Not quiet tears, but raw, animal sounds I didn't know I could make, torn from my throat. My chest heaves. My hands shake. I haven't cried like this since the funeral. Not even then. I held it together for my parents, for the mourners who kept saying what a good brother Ethan was, what a tragedy, what a waste.
But I'm not holding it together now. I'm coming apart at the seams, unraveling on the bathroom floor of an apartment that still smells like the omega I love and just drove away.
The omega who's carrying my child.
A fresh wave of grief hits me as another memory surfaces—the last phone call with Ethan. I can hear his voice like he's right next to me—sleepy but immediately alert.
"Where are you? I'll come get you."
No judgment. No lecture. Just immediate, unquestioning support. I had been so drunk, fumbling with my phone, relieved when he answered on the second ring.
"You're the best, E," I'd slurred. "The absolute best. Love you, man."
He'd laughed, that bright, easy sound I'd taken for granted every day of my life until it was gone."Yeah, yeah. Just stay put. I'll be there in fifteen."
He never made it. Fifteen minutes later, a drunk driver ran a red light and hit him broadside. He died instantly, the police said later, as if that was supposed to be a comfort. As if knowing he didn't suffer was supposed to make it okay that he was gone.
A car horn blares on the street outside, and the sound transforms in my head, warping into the high-pitched squeal of tires, the imagined, sickening crunch of metal on metal, the shattering of glass. I wasn't there. I didn't hear it. But my mind has filled in the blanks a thousand times, creating a perfect horror movie that plays on repeat in my darkest moments.
But there's something else now. Something Finn said that I couldn't bear to hear.
"He was singing in the car, Alex. Your mom heard him leave. He was singing because he was happy to be the one you called."
