Page 43 of Glitterati Omega

Charli’s talk just reminded him that what he wanted didn’t really matter, at the end of all things. Just like it hadn’t with Thomas—he’d wanted to try therapy, but Thomas saw no point. All of his friends thought he was a fool for even suggesting it. Thomas had cheated; there was no coming back from that, working things out. Alphas didn’t change. So divorce it was. And now this—it didn’t matter if he had misgivings about taking out all his reproductive organs, because he was still vainly hanging on to the hope he might be able to have a child someday; he was a fool for not doing it sooner.

He managed not to cry through the appointment with Dr. Arendse, as she told him all his markers were normal, that he was still in remission. But that could change, she warned, at any time. The other ovary might have been affected already. And besides, he probably didn’t have any ovarian function left. Despite the precautions they’d taken, chemotherapy was harsh on the body.

“But I just had a heat,” he protested finally.

“That can happen,” she said without looking at him; she peered at her notes instead. “But it was probably anovulatory.”

He frowned. Why would he have a cycle if there wasn’t an egg? That didn’t make sense to him.

She tapped on a few keys. “Besides, what’s the likelihood of you becoming pregnant? And even if you did, with your history, there’s a high likelihood you won’t ever carry to term. Are you sure you want to keep taking such a big risk on a maybe?”

Rupert sighed, his brows crunching. Winston’s words seemed to echo in his ears. Better to do it sooner than later, lest the organs try to kill him again.

That comment still didn’t make much bloody sense. “I suppose not,” he murmured, feeling cowed.

She smiled and clicked her pen. “So, let’s talk appointments and surgery prep.”

“Can … can we at least freeze the eggs?”

She tilted her head from side to side. “We can see. They might not be much good. We tried with the chemo, but …”

He lowered his head, feeling utterly defeated. “Of course. All right. Well. I’d like to, if … if there’s any point in keeping them.”

“Sure,” she said, like it was easy. Like any of this was easy. He felt like less of an omega, less of a person with every word she said. He didn’t even want to think about how he’d feel after the surgery.

He left the office feeling lower than he had going in. He tried to think of something, anything to distract him, but the internet was awash in stories about how Thomas and his new fling were expecting. He stared at the screen on his phone for a while, then turned and stared out the window for a very, very long time.

Maybe he should just off himself. Not worry about any of this. Not worry about needing to get his organs out, not worry about if the cancer was coming back. Not worry about whether he would ever have a baby to cradle in his arms. Not even think about how an alpha might try to accept him without his organs—some kind of … half-omega, non-omega … thing.

What was he even? He didn’t know. He’d wanted to be a mother ever since he was a toddler. He remembered, vividly, playing with dolls—dressing them, brushing their hair, rocking them to sleep, putting them in the pram and taking them on walkabouts in the garden, feeding them and changing “soiled” nappies. Charli had always said he was a good little mother.

His problems weren’t necessarily a surprise—he was an only child for a reason. His mother had had endometriosis, the same as he did, and it made it difficult for her to get pregnant and carry to term. His father had been disappointed that their only child was an omega; it was why he’d always been so distant with Rupert. Rupert wasn’t the heir that he’d wanted. And Mama had tried, desperately, to have another baby, but she’d only suffered more miscarriages. And then his father had been cheating on her anyway, so she’d committed suicide.

Rupert understood why Charli worried so much about him; his path was too similar to his mother’s for comfort.

Charli praised him, repeatedly, like he was still a child who needed to be commended for doing what he’d been told. He barely ate at dinner, too out of sorts and entirely sick to his stomach about … everything.

He tossed and turned all night, and he felt perfectly ridiculous. He was like some waif in one of those old Victorian novels, the dusty tomes in the library at the main house—sighing, unable to eat, unable to sleep, wasting away with some mysterious illness.

He wondered now if Dickensian waifs were just suffering a bout of depression. God knew their lives were miserable enough. Rupert supposed his shouldn’t have been quite so miserable—not with all the modern technology and equality laws and such available to him, but he was. He’d been very miserable for a long time now, and the pills didn’t seem to help.

It all seemed fairly … pointless. If he didn’t pull his organs, he might get sick and die. If he took them out, he was only guaranteeing he’d never have a baby; endometriosis could come back, elsewhere, and so could cancer. So all he could guarantee was that he’d never have the one thing he wanted.

There was surrogacy (if his eggs weren’t as damaged as Dr. Arendse thought) or adoption, but those didn’t give him the same satisfaction. Yes, he’d have a child to care for, but someone else had cared for it to start.

Maybe it was because he’d always wished he’d hadhismother. He didn’t know. He wasn’t the sort of omega who spent much time psychoanalyzing himself, although he’d been doing a lot more of it since Thomas had left him, mostly because he wanted to know what the hell was wrong with him.

He was supposedly fairly pretty (he didn’t believe anyone; no alpha wanted a broad-shouldered omega, whether the omega was a man or a woman); he was wealthy beyond measure. He thought he was usually good company; he wasn’t maybe the smartest, but he tried to be optimistic and upbeat, even when others mocked him for being naive. He tried to be nice, or he thought he did at least. Maybe that was his problem—he wasn’t nice enough.

Then again, Elise and Alina told him he’d beentoo niceto Thomas; Alina would have kicked the prick to the curb a long time ago. He thought about his interaction with Pearl at the gala, though, and no, he wasn’t nice enough. He’d have to write and tell his advisor to increase that donation.

And there were the times in the field, on missions, when doctors and patients alike had been mean to him, probably because he just hadn’t been quite accommodating enough or nice enough. Although he’d been plenty nice, when patients had gotten handsy with him or the time he’d had to sit through a procedure with a bloody nose after the patient had punched him because they thought the doctor was trying to poison them.

And then there had been times when Thomas had told him he was cruel, too—usually when he tried to fend off the alpha’s advances, said he had a headache or he was tired. He always ended upobligingThomas anyway. Just like he deferred to his husband when it was time to choose what was for dinner or what he was going to wear—Thomas had preferred him buttoned up, which was appropriate, because Rupert was a married omega, but Thomas had always liked drab colors too. And he’d always make some critical comment about Rupert’s appearance, or maybe he’d make a snide comment about a meal and how it shouldn’t matter what Rupertwantedto eat, because omegas really shouldn’t have been having much more than a taste, especially not an omega of Rupert’s size.

And that wasn’t even the worst of the horrid things Thomas had said to him—accusing him of sleeping with almost anyone, having affairs with doctors on missions, or the hurtful comments about him being useless. An omega was good for one thing and one thing only, and Rupert couldn’t do that.

Even now that Rupert was rid of Thomas, he still felt like no one was listening to him. Charli had dismissed his concerns about having a baby; Dr. Arendse seemed convinced the procedure was the only way forward. Rupert wasn’t sure it wasforwardso much as it was condemning himself to some sort of hell for the rest of his life.