Page 28 of His Problem Alpha

Alex

T he apartment door clicks shut behind me, the sound deafening in the silence.

I stand frozen in the entryway, keys digging into my palm. The silence is suffocating, pressing in from all sides. No sarcastic commentary from the kitchen. No documentary droning on from the living room. No soft breathing from the bedroom.

Just… nothing.

This is what you wanted , I tell myself. This is how you keep him safe.

The apartment already feels wrong. Too big, too quiet, too cold—empty in a way that has nothing to do with square footage.

Devon's scent still saturates everything. It clings to the couch where he curls up with his laptop. It lingers on the kitchen counter where he perches while drinking his morning coffee. It’s embedded in the fucking air.

I drop my keys on the entry table. They clatter against the wood, the sound a gunshot in the stillness. I should feel relieved. I did it. I cut the cord. I protected him from the destruction that follows me like a shadow.

So why does it feel like I’ve just sawed off my own arm?

I move through the rooms like a trespasser in my own life, cataloging all the ways Devon has infected this space.

His design books stacked haphazardly on the coffee table.

His ridiculous collection of coffee mugs, each one bearing some smartass saying.

His jacket thrown over the back of a chair, the soft flannel still holding the shape of his shoulders.

I pick it up, my fingers tracing the worn fabric. Without thinking, I bring it to my face and inhale. I nearly stagger. Pure Devon fills my lungs—his fancy shampoo and that weird tea he drinks during late nights. My eyes burn. My throat closes up.

Stop it. This is pathetic. You're doing him a favor.

I drop the jacket like it’s on fire. This isn't helping. I need to get him out of here. I need to erase him so I can breathe again. So I can stop seeing his ghost in every corner.

I find a dusty cardboard box in the hall closet and start in the living room, gathering his things with a cold, mechanical precision I don't feel. His sketchbooks. His tablet. The stupid little figurines he collects from thrift stores and arranges on the bookshelves. Every item I touch brings back another memory I can’t escape.

This ceramic frog—he found it at that vintage market three weeks ago, held it up with that crooked smile, the one that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. "It's so ugly it's actually kind of cute," he'd said. "Like you in the morning."

I’d flipped him off, but later, when he was in the shower, I went back and bought it for him. Left it on his desk without a note. He knew it was me. He always knew.

I shove the frog into the box with more force than necessary. It clinks against something else—a mug with "I'm silently correcting your grammar" printed on the side. He used it every morning, watching me over the rim with those sharp eyes that never missed anything.

The box is filling up, but it doesn’t help.

Every thing I pack just screams that he's gone.

I move to the kitchen, yanking open drawers.

His favorite spoons. The fancy tea he orders online.

The sticky notes he leaves on the fridge, little reminders and sarcastic comments about my milk-drinking habits.

My hand brushes against a crumpled piece of paper in his jacket pocket as I move it.

A ticket stub. From that indie movie he dragged me to last month, the one I pretended to hate but secretly loved.

I can still feel his shoulder pressed against mine in the dark theater, his quiet laugh a warm puff of air against my ear.

A memory of a life that isn't mine anymore. A life I deliberately destroyed.

I crumple the stub in my fist, the sharp corners digging into my palm. This isn't working. This is torture. The apartment feels like a crime scene, the chalk outline of him everywhere I look.

I move to the bathroom, the most intimate space we shared. His toothbrush in the holder next to mine. His expensive face wash that smells like mint. The comb with strands of his dark hair still caught in the teeth.

I open the cabinet under the sink, intending to sweep all his products into the box in one go. My hand freezes mid-reach.

There, in the small trash can, is a white plastic stick.

Time stops. The world narrows to that single object. I know what it is even before I reach for it with trembling fingers. I've seen one before—just weeks ago, when Devon thought... when we both thought...

Two pink lines.

Two. Pink. Fucking. Lines.

Not one. Not negative. Positive .

Devon is pregnant.

Devon is pregnant with my child.

I can’t breathe. The truth hits me like a punch to the gut, driving the air from my lungs. My knees buckle. I grab the edge of the sink to keep from falling, but my legs give out. I slide to the floor, the cold tile a shock against my skin.

The test is clutched in my hand, those two pink lines staring back at me with damning clarity. This can't be real. It can't be. But it is. It's right here, undeniable proof of what we created. Of what I just walked away from.

Oh god. What have I done?

I see Devon again, pale and terrified, his hands shaking as he held that negative test. The relief we both felt. The way we'd fallen into each other afterward, desperate and grateful and so fucking stupid.

But this test isn't negative. The other one was. This one isn't. And Devon knows. He saw these two lines. Was he trying to tell me? Before I shut him down? Before I said those cruel things to push him away?

I destroy everything I touch.

The voice in my head is my own, repeating the same bullshit I've told myself for years. The same excuses. The same self-hatred. Only this time it’s not just about Ethan.

It's about Devon. It's about the baby— my baby —growing inside him right now.

The child I just abandoned before I even knew they existed.

I break. Finally, completely break. The dam I've spent years building, brick by brick, to hold back the grief and guilt and rage. It crumbles all at once, and everything I've been suppressing comes rushing out in a flood.

I curl in on myself, the test still clutched in my hand, and I sob.

Not quiet tears, but raw, animal sounds I didn't know I could make, torn from my throat.

My chest heaves. My hands shake. I haven't cried like this since the funeral.

Not even then. I held it together for my parents, for the mourners who kept saying what a good brother Ethan was, what a tragedy, what a waste.

But I'm not holding it together now. I'm coming apart at the seams, unraveling on the bathroom floor of an apartment that still smells like the omega I love and just drove away.

The omega who's carrying my child.

A fresh wave of grief hits me as another memory surfaces—the last phone call with Ethan. I can hear his voice like he's right next to me—sleepy but immediately alert.

"Where are you? I'll come get you."

No judgment. No lecture. Just immediate, unquestioning support. I had been so drunk, fumbling with my phone, relieved when he answered on the second ring.

"You're the best, E," I'd slurred. "The absolute best. Love you, man."

He'd laughed, that bright, easy sound I'd taken for granted every day of my life until it was gone. "Yeah, yeah. Just stay put. I'll be there in fifteen."

He never made it. Fifteen minutes later, a drunk driver ran a red light and hit him broadside. He died instantly, the police said later, as if that was supposed to be a comfort. As if knowing he didn't suffer was supposed to make it okay that he was gone.

A car horn blares on the street outside, and the sound transforms in my head, warping into the high-pitched squeal of tires, the imagined, sickening crunch of metal on metal, the shattering of glass.

I wasn't there. I didn't hear it. But my mind has filled in the blanks a thousand times, creating a perfect horror movie that plays on repeat in my darkest moments.

But there's something else now. Something Finn said that I couldn't bear to hear.

"He was singing in the car, Alex. Your mom heard him leave. He was singing because he was happy to be the one you called."

Ethan was happy. He was singing. His last moments were filled with joy—joy at helping me. That's what killed him. The very best part of him was destroyed because of me.

And now history is repeating itself. Devon, with his sharp wit and his soft heart, carrying my child. Another life I've ruined before it's even begun.

I can't do this again. I can't be the cause of more pain, more loss. I can't—

My phone buzzes in my pocket, startling me out of my spiral. I ignore it. It buzzes again, insistent. With shaking hands, I pull it out.

It's Finn.

I know you're pissed, but please call me. I'm worried about you.

I stare at the message, my vision blurring with fresh tears. Finn. My oldest friend. The one person who knew me before, who knew Ethan, who's been trying to reach me for years while I've been running from everything that reminds me of what I lost. What I destroyed.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I hit call.

He answers on the first ring. "Alex? Are you okay?"

"No," I choke out, the word barely audible. "I'm not okay. I'm so fucking far from okay."

"Where are you?" His voice is tight with concern. "Do you need me to come over?"

"I need—" My voice breaks. What do I need? Absolution? Forgiveness? A fucking time machine? "I need to talk to my parents."

There's a pause, heavy with surprise. "Your parents? Alex, you haven't spoken to them in—"

"I know." I cut him off. "I know how long it's been. That's why I need to talk to them now. Do you... do you have their number?"

Another pause. "Yeah, I have it. Are you sure about this?"

"No," I admit, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "But I have to do it anyway."