Page 131 of My Unhinged Alphas
“That doesn’t get to be your decision.”
“No,” he says. “But it is.”
I almost argue. But there’s something in his voice now I haven’t heard before. Not control. Not guilt exactly. Something heavier. Older. The sound of a man standing guard in front of the worst room in his own house.
And suddenly I know with total certainty that whatever he’s leaving out, he carries it like blame seared into his chest.
I swallow. “You think it was your fault.”
He says nothing. Which, with him, is almost the same as yes.
I push up slightly on one elbow. “Vale.”
Still nothing.
Then, finally: “I think I should have done something differently.”
There it is.
Not a confession. Not fully.
But enough.
The words are careful, but the feeling under them isn’t. I can hear it now. The old, rotted edge of self-blame. The kind that doesn’t fade because it found a permanent home and built a life there.
“You were seventeen,” I say.
“I was old enough.”
“For what?”
He doesn’t answer.
I ask anyway. “To stop him? To save yourself? To know better? You were a boy in a fire, not a man failing a test.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s not how it feels.”
“No,” I say. “I know.”
The room is almost completely dark now, just a thin strip of parking-lot light cutting under the curtain and laying a pale line across the bed. It catches the edge of his scar. The line of his mouth. One shoulder. The rest of him is shadow and breath and that low, steady ache in his voice.
I don’t think before I move.
Maybe that’s the only reason I can.
I slide a little closer across the mattress, slow enough that he can stop me if he wants to. He doesn’t. He goes still, but not with resistance. More like disbelief.
My fingers find his wrist first. Warm skin. Tension under it.
“Lena,” he says, and my name sounds like warning and prayer at once.
“I know,” I whisper.
I lift his hand and press it lightly against my chest, right over my heartbeat. It’s too fast. He’ll feel that. Good. Let him.
“You don’t have to tell me the rest tonight,” I say. “But you can stop carrying it alone for five minutes.”
Something changes in his breathing. I can feel it.
