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He was lying.
Not meeting my eyes is his tell that he’s lying. I didn’t notice it, too focused on that four letter word and all I thought it promised.
And now they’re telling everyone that I’m unstable, that I’m not good enough for them. Not good enough to be a part of their pack. Everyone in Granton will read that, all of my friends, acquaintances, future employers, other packs. Everyone.
I look up at my grandmother, who’s still snarling at me. “I didn’t know… I thought they loved me.”
She shakes her head. “Everyone will see this, Sylvie. None of the packs in the area will want you. You’re useless to me now.” She thrusts a piece of paper at me and a twenty-dollar bill. “I bought you a bus ticket. It leaves in thirty minutes. Get on it and never come back.”
“I-what?” I look at the paper with the printed ticket on it. When had she even printed this? Did she leave the room? She must have while I was crying.
She straightens her back and looks down at me. “You are no longer welcome in my house. The pack you were courting doesn’t want you. No one will want you ever again. There is nothing for you here, so you have to go. It will be better for everyone.”
I shake my head. “I can’t go.”
She sighs and the frown on her lips eases. Pity lights up her eyes. “You want to stay, Sylvie? Really? You want to watch them settle in with Yasmin? Hear about their bonding ceremony? Watch as she grows round with their child? If you go somewhere else, you have a chance at starting over, finding someone new.”
Tears slip down my face at the bleak picture she’s painted. She’s not wrong. That is the future for me if I stay. Yasmin doesn’t like me, it’s not like she’ll be okay with me spending time with them, being with them. Beyond that, I deserve more than to be their second choice. Don’t I?
Do I want to risk staying in town, running into them on the street? Would I be able to handle that?
No.
I don’t think I would, not if the way my heart is throbbing in my chest at the mere idea of it is any sign.
“Where should I go?”
Any softness that had been present on my grandmother’s face fades in an instant. “Frankly, I don’t care. Just so long as it’s as far from here as possible.”
Her words should hurt, I should feel something at the casual dismissal from my one living relative, but a numbness is creeping over me, a fuzziness at my edges that makes it feel like this isn’t my life, this is happening to someone else.
I push to my feet without another word and head up to my room, but once I’m there, I’m not really sure why I came. There’s nothing here that I need, nothing I must bring with me to my new life. But still I move on auto pilot, kicking off the heels and replacing them with my beat up navy chucks, pulling out a ragged weekender bag and stuffing clothes into it. My fingers reach for a sweatshirt that belonged to Ford before I stole it, but I stop before I can add it to the bag.
I can’t bring it. I shouldn’t bring anything that once belonged to them, nothing that they gave to me. It wouldn’t be right. Not when they don’t want me. If I’m going to do this, I need a clean break.
The omega inside me, still half asleep, protests, but I push it aside. I haven’t even presented yet, she’ll get over this. I’m sure of it.
I rifle back through my bag and pull out whatever I’d packed on autopilot that has any ties to them, and then replace them with my own clothes, bathroom stuff, my e-reader, and finally my small stash of cash from working at the ice cream parlor. I’d been saving up for a car, but now it appears my little rainy day fund is going to be my ticket to starting a new life.
My eyes fall on the photos wedged in the frame of my mirror, the ones where we’re all happy and carefree. Frozen moments of every time I believed that they truly wanted me. Tears form in my eyes, looking at my stupid, gullible face, my wide smile, my sparkling eyes.
My mouth parts on a silent cry as I rip the images from the mirror and crumple them in my hands, wanting those shiny memories to reflect how I feel in this moment: torn, bruised, marred beyond repair.
I toss them on the bed, letting them rain down on the pile of clothes.
This is it, I think. This is the end of the dream. You knew this would happen eventually, Vee. You don’t deserve to be happy.
I reach for the strap of my bag, and the glint of metal on my ring finger has tears spouting in my eyes all over again. A thin gold band twisted into a heart-shaped knot on my left ring finger. It was supposed to be a promise, their promise to me, that they truly wanted me, that I belonged with them.
And like an idiot, I believed it. Believed them.
A choked sob grinds from my chest as I yank the ring off my finger. Dropping it with the rest of the reminders of them, I grab my bag and spin on my heel, ignoring the way it feels so wrong to not have that ring on my finger.
I feel untethered without it, adrift, like that slim bit of metal was somehow keeping me grounded in the promise of them.
But it’s only a flimsy object, a lie. They didn’t mean it when they gave it to me, and now it’s only a piece of metal. Nothing more.
The house is silent when I leave, my grandmother apparently done with me. She doesn’t even want to say goodbye. But then, I’m not surprised. The only reason she took me in after my parent’s deaths was to seize her second chance at having the perfect omega daughter.
