Page 23 of His Problem Alpha

Alex

" I t's nothing," I'd said, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. Now, with every crack in the sidewalk I cross, the "nothing" grinds like a stone in my gut.

I check my phone again, a sick compulsion. Finn's text stares back at me, five words that have methodically demolished the fragile peace I'd been building for weeks:

I'm in town. We need to talk.

Six years of silence, shattered by a text message. The timing is a special kind of cruelty. It had to be now. Just when I'd started to believe I could have something good. Just when the scent of Devon—citrus and sharp wit and sunshine—had started to feel like the only air I wanted to breathe.

The coffee shop looms ahead, its cheerful yellow awning a fucking mockery of the dread churning in my stomach.

Through the window, I spot him immediately.

Finn. He looks older, his sandy hair shorter than I remember, but it’s still him.

Still the kid who grew up three houses down.

My best friend. My brother's best friend.

A living, breathing monument to everything I destroyed.

For a second, I think about turning around. Just walking away. Going back to the apartment, back to Devon, and pretending none of this exists. But I can't. The past always finds you, no matter how far or how fast you run.

I push open the door and a bell jingles, the sound piercing through me, setting my teeth on edge.

The whole place feels too loud, an assault on my senses.

The hiss of the espresso machine, the aggressive clatter of spoons against ceramic, the meaningless chatter of strangers.

My audio engineer's brain catalogs each sound, a desperate, useless attempt at distraction.

Finn looks up. Our eyes meet across the crowded room. The world narrows to just us, the space between us charged with years of unspoken words.

"Alex," he says, standing. His voice is deeper. Warier. "You came."

"You didn't give me much choice," I reply, my feet feeling leaden as I move toward the empty chair across from him.

He gestures awkwardly. "Sit? I got you coffee. Black, right?"

I nod, sliding into the seat. The mug in front of me steams, untouched. I can’t imagine swallowing anything right now. "Why are you here, Finn?"

He fidgets with his own cup, turning it in slow, agonizing circles. "I've been trying to reach you for months. Your parents said you changed your number."

"I did." On purpose. A clean cut. It was supposed to protect them from me.

"Look, I know you don't want to be back in touch, but—" He sighs, running a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture I remember from when we were kids. "The ten-year reunion is next month. People are asking about you."

A high school reunion. It's so mundane, so fucking normal, that a laugh escapes me before I can stop it. The sound is harsh and brittle, and it makes a woman at the next table look over with a frown. "I'm not going to a fucking reunion."

"I figured," Finn says, his expression pained. "But I thought you should know. Everyone asks about you. And about Ethan."

He says the name, and the world goes sideways.

I flinch, a full-body recoil like I've been punched.

The coffee shop sounds warp around me, stretching and distorting.

The chatter fades to a dull, underwater roar.

The clinking of dishes becomes distant, muted.

All I can hear is that name, echoing in the sudden, cavernous silence of my own head.

Ethan.

I can't breathe. The air feels too thick, my lungs seizing up. Cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck. I’m not here anymore.

I’m not in this coffee shop with its stupid yellow awning.

I'm back there—six years ago, at a party that smelled of stale beer and cheap weed, my phone clutched in my hand.

"Alex?" Finn's voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a long tunnel. "Are you okay?"

I’d been so drunk. Too drunk to drive. My thumb had hovered over my parents' contact before sliding to Ethan's name instead. It was easier to call him. Less explaining. Less disappointment. Just my little brother, always happy to help, always looking up to me like I was something worth admiring.

"Hey, you still with me?" Finn's voice breaks through again, but I can't focus on his face. All I see is my phone screen that night, Ethan's name glowing in the dark.

"I'm fine," I manage, the words a useless reflex. My hands are shaking. I hide them under the table, pressing my palms flat against my thighs.

"It's been years, Alex," Finn says, his voice painfully gentle. "Ethan wouldn't want you living like this."

A hot, sudden anger flares up inside me. "Don't tell me what he would want," I snap, my voice low and vicious. "You don't get to speak for him."

Finn flinches but doesn't back down. "I'm not. But I knew him too, remember? We all did. And this—" he gestures at the wreckage of me, "—this isn't what he would have wanted for you."

The memory crashes over me again. Ethan's voice, sleepy but immediately alert when I called.

"Where are you? I'll come get you." No judgment. No lecture. Just immediate, unquestioning support. I should have called someone else. I should have walked. I should have slept on a fucking couch. But I was a selfish, drunk prick and I took the easy way out. I used my little brother’s love for me and got him killed.

"It doesn't matter what he would have wanted," I say, my voice hollow. "He's not here to want anything."

"Because of the drunk driver who hit him," Finn says firmly, his gaze unwavering. "Not because of you."

"I called him," I say, the words scraping my throat raw. "I'm the reason he was on that road at that time."

"Alex—"

"If I hadn't called, he would still be alive." It’s the truth I’ve carried for 2,190 days, a weight that has crushed the very marrow from my bones. "He died because of me."

Finn leans forward, his eyes intense. "He died because some asshole got behind the wheel drunk. The same thing could have happened if he was driving to get ice cream, or coming home from a movie."

"But it didn't," I insist, my voice cracking. "It happened because I called him."

Finn is quiet for a long moment, the silence stretching between us. When he speaks again, his voice is soft, and it’s the softness that undoes me. "Did you know he was excited when you called?"

I look up, my throat tight. "What?"

"Your mom told me," Finn continues, his voice thick with memory. "After the funeral. She said when you called, he was so happy that you needed him. That you trusted him enough to ask for help."

Something inside me breaks. The dam I've spent years building, reinforcing with guilt and self-hatred, crumbles to dust. "No," I whisper.

"He was singing in the car, Alex," Finn says, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "Your mom heard him leave. He was singing because he was happy to be the one you called. The last thing he did was smile because you needed him."

Each word tears through me like a bullet.

There's a flash of a memory I didn't know I had—Ethan, grinning, tossing me the keys to his beat-up sedan, telling me I could borrow it anytime. The image is so clear, so full of life, and it’s followed immediately by the crushing weight of what Finn just said.

He was happy. He was singing. His last moments were filled with joy—joy at helping me.

I can’t bear knowing this. He died because he loved me. Because he wanted to help me. That's what killed him. The very best part of him was destroyed by the very worst part of me.

"Alex, breathe," Finn says, his voice sharp with alarm. "You're hyperventilating."

I can't get air. The coffee shop is spinning. The espresso machine screams like sirens. Cups clatter against saucers like breaking glass. The voices around me distort into the memory of my mother's wail when the police came to our door, a sound that has haunted every quiet moment of my life since.

"I have to go," I choke out, standing so abruptly my chair scrapes against the floor with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. "I can't—I have to go."

"Alex, wait," Finn says, reaching for my arm, but I’m already backing away. "Please, just talk to me. Let me help."

Help—just like Ethan wanted to help, and look where that got him.

"Stay away from me, Finn," I say, the words thick in my throat. "Just... stay away."

I push through the door, the bell jangling a frantic, discordant alarm. Outside, the air is no easier to breathe. My chest is a vise. My vision blurs at the edges. I walk blindly, no destination except away .

Ethan was singing. He was happy to help me. The last thing he felt was joy because I needed him.

Knowing this twists like a knife in my gut.

All these years, I've carried the guilt of causing his death.

But this—knowing he went willingly, happily—is a thousand times worse.

Because it confirms what I've always feared: loving me is a death sentence.

Caring about me is a direct path to destruction.

And then it hits me, all at once—Devon. Oh god, Devon.

I see him in my mind, a flash of him laughing at some stupid joke I made, his head thrown back, his eyes bright.

I see him sleeping in my arms, his face soft and peaceful, his scent a comforting anchor in the dark.

I've been letting him in. I've been marking him, claiming him, building something with him.

Creating a connection that could destroy him just like it destroyed Ethan.

I’ve been selfish again, letting myself feel something good at the risk of someone else’s safety. The marks I left on his throat, the possessive words I growled against his skin—they weren't protection. They were a target. A bullseye for the disaster that follows me everywhere.

By the time I get home, I know what I have to do. I have to end this. I have to push him away before what happened to Ethan happens to him. Before my curse claims another victim.