Heat duration: 18 hours, 23 minutes. Well within normal parameters. Your autonomy throughout was noted and respected.
Reading them again in the gray morning light, rain streaking the glass behind, I smile to myself.
The chamomile has grown. Bright green leaves unfurling from the pot, reaching toward what little light breaks through the clouds. The tulsi has germinated. Tiny shoots breaking through the surface, dark green and determined. Asha's legacy, growing in soil chosen for it.
The knock comes mid-morning.
Lila, holding a thermos and paper bag, rain-dampened hair escaping her bun in wild curls.
"You survived," she says. "Now we debrief."
Despite everything, a smile threatens. "Do we?"
"We do." She slips past me and into the room, already claiming the floor like she owns it. Cross-legged on the rug, thermos and bag between us when I join her. "I brought tea. Real tea, not the cafeteria swill. And pastries, because… sugar."
The scent rises from the metal cup—rooibos and vanilla, warming from the inside.
"So," Lila says, watching me over the rim of her cup. "How was it?"
No preamble. No dancing around it.
"Hard. Harder than expected."
Her dark eyes soften. "My first heat, sixteen and terrified, I slept through the whole thing." A shrug. "Woke up three days later with no memory and a splitting headache."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was the right choice for me then." She tears off a piece of pastry, offers half.
Memories surface. The waves. The ache. Already muting in daylight. "Ask me how I feel again tomorrow," I say.
"The alphas," Lila says eventually. "They stayed outside the whole time. It's not normal, you know. Most alphas would've pushed harder to be let in. Especially three of them. The instinct…" She pauses. "It's loud during an omega's heat. Louder for them than it is for us."
"I’m proud of them."
"So," Lila says, swallowing a mouthful of pastry. “What are you going to do about it?" Her eyebrows slide upward and disappear into her hair.
"I don't know." It’s almost true.
"You want to know what I think.” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “You already know what you want. And wanting it is scarier than not knowing."
She’s at the door before I can speak.
"Get some rest," she says. "And when you're ready to talk about it, I'm next door."
The walk to the greenhouse feels longer in the rain.
My hood is up against the drizzle that settled in around lunchtime. The air is sharp with October cold, the path slippery. I’ve missed lectures, but this feels more urgent.
Reaching the greenhouse, I pause outside, my hand on the door, pulse racing.
Have we changed in ways that can't be undone?
Only one way to find out.
Heat spills out, but the greenhouse is empty. Everything is exactly as I left it, what feels like an eternity ago.
No, not exactly.
