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“Is that true, Devin?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She’s still crying all the time,” Rey supplied, crouching nearby though he didn’t dare touch Devin just now. “He screams every time she holds him, and… And I think she thinks he hates her. She refuses to do anything with him now. Just pumps, and that’s it.”
“He doesn’t want me,” Devin said, the betrayal thick and suffocating her by degrees as it lodged in her throat. She shouldn’t have expected Rey to let her keep this shame private. No, she deserved it being public, for all to see what she really was.
“Gabriel is an infant, Devin,” Annan said with caustic baldness, drifting nearer under the guise of checking Devin’s pulse. “He doesn’t know what he wants.”
Devin didn’t know how else to explain it and refused to delve into her own emotions on it. Gabriel did hate her. So did Rey. She was alone, bereft, and she would suffer every second of it if it kept her near Rey for just a moment longer.
Annan sighed and scrawled something on her pad, taking Rey off to the side. They murmured in low tones, excluding Devin from their conversation. Leaving her to stare at the cold floor as Gabriel napped.
No one wanted her.
Blinking back the tears as Rey came to stand at her side, she stood and followed him out into the sunny, brisk day with Gabriel hanging between them. A gulf of emptiness separating them as she stood back for him to attach the seat to the backseat once more before Devin clambered in beside it.
Hours later, Beau appeared. Just for a minute, but he took one look at Devin as she rounded the corner with her fresh load of milk and hissed through clenched teeth as his cerulean gaze travelled over her body.
Something too close to revulsion lingered in those blue eyes, sending her hurrying into the kitchen. Her humiliation would know no bounds. It was only right.
“Take these,” Rey demanded, not even waiting for Devin to turn to him as he shoved two pills past her lips. Pushing the pressed powder deep into her mouth, he gave her no option but to swallow them.
Suppressants maybe, so he wouldn’t be taunted by her dynamic as he tried to raise his son. Swallowing the pills dry, Devin abandoned the precious milk and the kitchen both to curl up in bed.
No one needed her.
* * *
Devin stretched and groaned as she came awake, the sucking guilt lifting for a long moment before she remembered who and what she was. Collapsing back into the bed, she glanced at the clock, brows drifting down to scrunch over the bridge of her nose. It was very late in the morning, and nothing had woken her. Not Gabriel’s fussing coming through the monitor, or his enraged screams when he was hungry for his first feeding. She had no idea when Rey left the bed, but his pillow was cold and hard beneath her fingers.
Feeling even more alone, she crawled from between the sheets and dragged on the baggy sweats she still favored. It took her a little time to pump, dragging herself through the motions before she slogged her way into the kitchen.
“Pills are on the counter,” Rey said, not looking away from where Gabriel’s mouth worked hard at the bottle.
Devin stifled her sigh, palming the pills and shoving them in her mouth, allowing herself the small sip of water from the nearby glass to swallow them down. Three weeks this had been going on. She’d taken suppressants for literal decades. She didn’t need someone to remind her daily to take them. Though why she had to take them morning and night was strange.
“I have a woman coming by today,” Rey began, and Devin could feel the tension vibrating through the air to suffocate her. “A Beta. To help with Gabriel.”
Devin swayed, gripping the countertop with white knuckles to keep from collapsing in on her grief. He’d finally given up. He was bringing some woman into his house to care for his child. It was only a matter of time now before he gave Devin up to Gods knew what.
He was still talking, explaining things, but she only heard what it all meant.
The sound of Beau’s name snapped her out of her confusion, her sole focus on the words shaped by the perfection of his lips.
“What about Beau?”
“He’s coming to get you later. You need to be dressed and ready by one.”
Gods, he already had it all planned out. Beau would come and take her away to some place unknown, do something with her. Get rid of the problem.
Devin swallowed hard, the pills threatening to come back up as she gave a stiff nod. He’d let her sleep late for a reason, and as she drifted back into the bedroom in the midst of an ever darkening cloud, she noted the monitor turned off. He hadn’t wanted her to wake. No time to hear her pleading, her tears.
She wouldn’t burden him with that.
Forcing herself into motion, she debated a shower for a split second before she realized there was little point. What did it matter if she was clean and fresh? Dragging on a fresh pair of clothes, her only concession was to wear jeans and a baggy sweatshirt instead of the matching set she wanted. Toeing on her scruffy sneakers, she shuffled past Rey in the kitchen doorway to wait in the sitting room.
It wouldn’t be too long before Beau arrived, and he hadn’t ordered her to pack anything. Maybe it would all be sent over, if he decided to give her any of it at all. Curled over her middle, shoulders hunched against her ears, she waited for the blow to land.
