Page 95 of Glitterati Omega

He screwed his eyes shut, because hewaslonely, because he’d been abandoned even from the time he was born, and his heart was breaking, thinking about Ndileka shunning her grandchild, shunning Winston.

“Hush,” Mama Thandiwe whispered to him. “What are you crying about now? You’re a goose. Hush, this is bad for the babies.”

He couldn’t stop. He looked at her pathetically. She grimaced, then took his hands, gently guiding him up. “Here. You’re tired. You have traveled far. Let’s go rest.”

She led him into the big bedroom. She instructed him to lie down on his side, and he wriggled around, then cried more because nothing was comfortable. Everything ached, from his feet to his head, and he felt awful enough without Ndileka making him worry about whether his child would be loved, whether their own family would accept them.

“Oh, hush,” Mama Thandiwe scolded, then dropped to her knees beside him. “Here now, you’re being silly. Mother is harsh, but she is only telling you the truth.”

“I don’t want the baby to be lonely,” he whispered. His own father had hated him. His mother hadn’t loved him enough to stay with him. Charli had tried, but she’d been too scared and he was too oblivious.

He’d spent a long time being lonely—he’d survived it this long. All he wanted was to make sure his child never felt unloved, not even for a second.

He wasn’t enough. He’d never been enough, not for anyone, and what if he died? Winston was right; this was dangerous. He’d been sick before; what if he got sick again? What if he died like Ndileka’s first wife, Winston’s birth mother? He loved the baby, there was no question—but it wouldn’t be enough if he was gone, and he was suddenly terrified that he was going to bring this helpless thing into the world and then die, leave them alone.

Thandiwe shushed him again. “What are you scared about?” she asked, leaning over him.

“Everything,” he whimpered, “everything. What if nobody loves them?”

“You love them,” she said.

“What if I die?” he asked, and she looked down at him. “What if I die and there’s nobody to love them? I’ve almost died, Winston said his mother died, Winston said he couldn’t love them then, he’d hate them, and I—”

“Sh,” she said. “Who told you that you are going to die? You’re not going to die. You have me.”

He clung to her, whimpering because there were no words; he couldn’t speak around the lump of fear in his throat. “You’re ridiculous,” she told him huffily, stroking his hair. He started to sob again. She pressed his head against her chest, and he cried there for a while, until he didn’t think he had anything left to cry. She said nothing the entire time.

Eventually, she left him; he curled up more, as much as he could, when she disentangled. He heard soft voices in the other room, and he felt very much like a child again, listening to his parents argue in the other room.

Mama Thandiwe trundled back in. “Here,” she said, offering him a cup. “You cried too much; now you need water or you’ll have contractions.”

“Contractions?” He forced himself up, embarrassed by how difficult it was to get to seated.

“False contractions,” she said. “They happen when you don’t have enough to drink or eat.”

He sipped at the water in the cup, watching as she set down a plate with various fruits on it. He sniffled a few times, then dabbed at his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She shook her head. “Alphas don’t understand,” she said. She frowned at him. “They’ll kill you.”

“Huh?”

“They’re killing you right now. Bad advice, bad advice. Ndileka is cruel to you in this. You got bad advice from the doctor too—they said you’re only having one, but that is untrue.”

Rupert sniffed again. “But—”

Mama Thandiwe firmed her lips, then nodded. “You’re an omega. You think you need to listen to these alphas. Pah—what do they know? Even my son. He means well, but he is a fool.”

“I don’t understand,” Rupert said.

She glanced him up and down, perhaps evaluating. “What you need to understand right now is that no alpha has ever had a baby, so they can tell you nothing. Even other omegas—they do not know what you feel in your body right now. But you know.”

She closed her eyes. “You know when you are hungry or when you’re tired or when something hurts. You know many things, if you’d just be open to listening. But that is not what you’ve been taught—you think the body knows nothing, it is only themind.”

“Well,” Rupert started, but she held up her hand.

She seated herself cross-legged, then took his hand. “Tell me, what do you think?”