Page 6 of Conflicting Lyrics (Heartbreak Melody #1)

“Breathe,” Lisa, one of the workers from the Omega center, encourages us as we walk out of the courtroom. We stop, off to the side of the door, and she moves to stand in front of me, her hands giving my shoulders a squeeze. “It’s over. You don’t have to worry about them ever again.”

She gives me a smile, and as much as I wish her words were comforting, they’re not.

The past few months have been a rollercoaster of emotions.

The day my parents were carted off to the police station, I was taken in to give a statement.

After a few hours, a conversation with a social worker, and some time to let everything sink in, I was finally able to speak.

With my lawyer by my side, one provided to me by the Omega center, I told them everything I could think of that ever involved my parents.

From the lifestyle they live, to the church they follow, to how they’ve treated me, not only my whole life, but every detail I could remember of the past few months.

By the end of it, I knew it was enough to put them away, but the question was, for how long?

They were charged that night, locked up somewhere they weren’t able to get to me. And I was escorted to the nearby Omega center.

It’s been an adjustment, but I feel safer in this place full of strangers than I ever did with my own parents.

I was surrounded by people who understood. Not just with me being an Omega, but what I was going through regarding my parents and their church.

There were around five Omegas with similar stories to mine. While I haven’t really given myself the chance to form any friendships, I’ve gotten to know them through our group therapy.

Along with group therapy and a lot of one-on-one counselling, I’ve been learning how to deal with my trauma and becoming more informed about my designation.

Being an Omega is a completely brand-new experience. I wouldn’t really say a bad one, but it's been pretty challenging.

There are so many different emotions I’ve never felt before.

Lisa says the same words I’ve heard so many times before, I don’t have to worry about them .

It’s not that easy. It will never be that easy.

Yes, they’re going to be behind bars for years, but the fact that the church is fighting for them, challenging the system, and demanding another trial and promising not to give up until they get my parents free, makes me sick to my stomach.

I know I shouldn’t, I know who it is, but hushed arguing has me looking over my shoulder.

My stomach sinks when I see the wife of the pastor who helped my parents ruin my life.

She glares at me like I’m the devil himself, her lips peeled back into a snarl.

Because not only did I get my parents behind bars, but the investigation opened a whole other box of the church’s deep, dark, and depraved secrets.

The pastor, who has people following him so devotedly, is facing a possible sentence of a lifetime in prison.

And I’m the reason for it. I was the opening that the police have been looking for for years.

After diving deep, they were able to charge him for a lot of fucked up things.

So many things that I didn’t even know were going on behind the closed doors of that church.

It makes me want to puke just thinking about all of what was revealed in court.

This case has been reported nationwide at this point. Every news outlet is covering the story, demanding answers to questions that everyone has.

Answers I refuse to give them.

I don’t want to talk about it anymore; I don’t want to think about my past.

I just want to move on with my life, to feel safe for once, without having to look over my shoulder and wonder if someone’s going to snatch me off the side of the road and drag me back to that hell.

My parents may have a chance at getting out someday, but her husband doesn’t.

She looks at me like I’m the evil one. Did she not hear the sick fucked up things her husband did?

Maybe she was in on it. I’m almost positive she was.

Shouldn’t she be charged too? She’s just as bad, sitting by and letting it happen.

Lisa says I’m free, that I’m safe. But I’m not.

That look in this woman's eyes promises that she isn’t going to let this go.

The church will go on. She and other members will make sure of it. They’re just going to have to be more careful now that they have eyes on them.

I’m not sorry. Not a single bit. The whole place should be burnt down, and anyone involved should be locked up for the fucked up part they played.

Some were brainwashed, not knowing any better. Hopefully, this has brought everything to light for them.

“God will smite you,” Mrs. Welsh hisses. “God sees you for what you are, Lucinda. And he will make you pay. The devil may have won this battle, but he will not win the war.”

I’ve spent my whole life biting my tongue, watching my words, and being the good girl my parents demanded me to be.

That day, after I was brought to the Omega center, everything inside me shifted. I changed. I’m no longer that quiet, docile girl.

I might not know exactly who I am yet, still needing some time to find myself, but I’m starting to.

A scowl of disgust curls my lips. “Really, Karen? You wanna go there? You want to stand here and make me the bad guy when your husband has been raping young girls with some sick fucked up belief that he can help breed more Betas? Some of those women were children, not only children but his own daughters!” I spit, so fucking over this crazy bitch.

It took everything inside me not to crawl over the benches and claw her eyes out while she was up on the stand, sobbing her eyes out while trying to defend her husband's actions.

She’s sick. She’s just as fucked up as he is.

She goes to open her mouth, but police officers grip her by the arms and escort her and some of the other women of the church outside.

“Hey,” Lisa’s soft voice penetrates the ringing in my ears.

I didn’t even realize how heavily I was breathing, the way my body is vibrating with anger.

“Breathe, Lulu, in and out.”

Snapping my eyes shut from where I watched the woman walk outside, I do as Lisa says and take deep breaths.

“That's it. Relax. Breathe. Don’t let them get to you. They’re wrong. They’re misguided and messed up. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I know I haven’t,” my voice cracks, tears stinging my eyes. “I know.”

She rubs up and down my arms in a soothing touch, allowing me to get a handle on my emotions before I’m finally able to leave and follow her out to the parking lot.

There are people yelling my name, cameras flashing in my face as the paparazzi shout questions at me, demanding answers.

I don’t say anything, ducking my head as the police escort us to the car.

The moment the car door closes, I shut my eyes and take more deep breaths.

They’re the reason I haven’t left the center since I’ve gotten there, except for when I had to come here for the hearings.

I hate the attention, I hate all eyes on me.

I don’t want anyone to know who I am or what my life is like.

Sadly, in this situation, I don’t really have any say in that.

Being the daughter of monsters who abused her, monsters who followed an even bigger monster, being the victim of a cult, is something the media has been eating up like starving, wild animals.

A hand gives my knee a squeeze. I look over at Lisa, who’s giving me a sad smile. “Are you okay?”

Am I okay? No. No, I’m not. I’m not sure when I’ll ever be.

I just give her a weak smile and nod. She doesn't believe me, but thankfully, she doesn’t push, starting the car up and getting us away from this place.

Becoming an Omega changed me in all the best and worst ways.

My hormones are still all over the place, something the doctors say may take a while to even out. Between the changes to my body and the meds my parents pumped into my body, everything is a little all over the place.

They’ve offered suppressants, but I flat out refused. I will never put another pill inside my body that's not some sort of mild pain medication or some life-saving drug.

I don’t want to ever feel that lifeless, dull feeling again. The way I didn’t care if I lived or died, becoming a robot with no emotions or feelings.

I’m an Omega. And I’m not ashamed of it.

It’s something my therapist has been working with me on for a while now.

Still, there’s a lot of deep, unresolved trauma hiding inside the back of my mind, shit I’ve pushed down and buried because it was so horrible that my subconscious didn’t want me to remember it ever again.

But therapy has been bringing it all back up. I didn’t realize just how fucked up my childhood was until now.

Ally really did save me in more ways than she will ever know. The things I remember now about my life from just before she came into it make me want to cry, throw up, and claw at my skin with shame.

She was my escape, my way to forget. My light in the pitch darkness that was my life.

As we drive back to the center, I lean my head against the door, closing my eyes as tears spill down my cheeks.

I don’t cry for myself, for what happened to me in the past, or for what's become my life. I cry because there hasn’t been a day that my heart hasn’t hurt, hasn’t stopped yearning for her.

With my life imploding, I haven’t had the time to reach out to her. I could have easily found her number and called her. To tell her that I was sorry for even hesitating for a moment. That if I could go back, I would have said yes before she was even done speaking.

Because I loved her, she was it for me. My everything.

But I was too fucked up after everything came to the surface. I needed to deal with my own shit before trying to drag her into it.

Ally had wants and dreams, and I wasn’t going to be the roadblock that got in the way of that.

I knew I needed to get my life together, to get my head settled and put all my bullshit behind me before I even thought about reaching out.

Still, that didn’t stop me from searching her up on social media last week.

What a big mistake that was.

Her name popped up right away. It was a news article about the competition, and she had become a finalist in it.

Not only did she end up making it to the top three, but she won the whole thing.

By the time I was done reading the article, I was a sobbing mess because I was so happy for her. Everything she worked so hard for came true. She was following her dream.

It wasn’t just the competition she won. She also ended up with a recording contract with her uncle's record company and was currently in the works of producing her first album.

I knew at that moment that the need to reach out to her would have to be squashed.

I can’t. There’s no way I’m going to bring my complicated life with all my trauma and baggage down on her.

She deserved the world, and I couldn’t offer her anything but a life with complications.

Once we get to the center, I’m bombarded by other members. Sweet people who’ve become sort of friends to me, asking me how everything went and wondering if I’m okay.

Thankfully, Lisa told them all to let me be and give me time. After a few sympathetic looks and some ‘I hope you feel better’s, I’m able to escape to my room.

Locking the door behind me, I try to hold back the tears as I pull off the dress I wore for the trial, tossing it into the dirty hamper.

Needing to get this grimy feeling off me, I head right for the shower in my connected bathroom.

One of the things I love the most about this center is their respect for an Omega’s space.

Each living space is the size of a bachelor's apartment. It’s small, but it’s everything we need. Our own bathroom, a little kitchenette, a living space, and a bed in the corner.

My favorite part is a large closet-sized space meant to be our nest.

Some Omegas feel like their room is a good enough space, but not me.

The first night in this room, I grabbed everything off the bed and dragged it into that space, making a makeshift nest for the time being. It’s where I curled up and hardly left for days.

Eventually, I was in a better mindset to head to the lower level where the center has its own store. Yup. A store just for the Omegas with pretty much any materials you might need to make a nest. And all of it is free. The only rule is, don’t take more than you need.

Over the past few months, I’ve slowly been working on making my nest perfect.

After I shower, I feel a lot better. Any time I’m in a room with my parents or Pastor Don, I get this gross feeling. A feeling of wrongness. And it only goes away after a good hot scrub.

Throwing on a big, fluffy robe, I pile my wet, blonde curls into a towel and head out to my dresser.

I dig through my drawers in search of something to wear, grabbing underwear and a pair of fuzzy socks.

Knowing it’s pointless, but doing it anyway, I make an effort to look for a pair of pajamas. But like always, I reach for my favorite T-shirt.

One I’ve been wearing every night for the past month since the day it came in the mail.

Holding up the black and pink tie-dye shirt, my stomach swoops when I read the words.

“Fuck the world, and all the haters in it!” Down at the bottom is a printed signature.

Ally Cat.

She used my nickname, the one I gave her, as her stage name. A name she’s turning into her brand.

That has to mean something, right?

Pulling the shirt over my head, I snuggle into it and sigh, letting myself be delusional in believing that maybe, just maybe, the girl who haunts my dreams, and every waking moment of my life, just might, still feel something for me.

Yeah, Lulu, hate. She feels hate. Because how could she still want anything to do with you when you shattered her heart?

Letting out a heavy sigh, I make my way over to my nest. Snuggling up in my favorite blanket, I turn my fan on and close my eyes, trying to focus on the sound of the hum and the cool breeze against my face as I pray for a dreamless sleep.

It doesn’t happen. It never does.

On repeat, in my mind, is the devastated look on Ally’s face when I hesitated and ruined everything.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, half asleep. “I’m so sorry.”

And I was. Always will be. Until my last dying breath.