Ollie’s POV
Not long after his reprimand, Wes turns away from me, signaling is conversation is over.
Thank the gods. Truly, I wasn’t sure I could take much more.
Hastily, I turn to Diana and hurriedly say, “I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean to disrespect her in any way. I only wanted the truth. Though, now that I have it, I’m not sure if I feel better or worse.
My humiliation feels as if it’s burning a hole through me, straight rough my skin down to my heart. I can’t stand to be here anymore, not standing next to Diana, who looks away from me, clearly dismissing me. Or Wes, who also has stopped paying attention to me. Or the other brothers, who I cant see walking out the door, arched protectively around Sylvia.
I don’t want to be here anymore, standing in the shadow of the place where I’ve accrued this new title, this new shame.
Omega. The lowest ranking of the pack.
So I turn and I leave. I don’t want to go back to the estate, to that place that doesn’t feel like a home anymore. But I don’t have anywhere else to go. The high school would be locked up tight today, and all of the stores and restaurants closed in honor of the
coronation.
I wander without intent or purpose. Eventually I find myself in a park where as children, the quadruples, Ella, and I spent a lot of time playing on the swings and the jungle gym. That feels like a lifetime ago now.
As the park is empty, everyone likely either at the venue or watching the coronation coverage on their televisions at home, I move into the park itself and plop down on one of the swings. It sways beneath me so I grip the metal chains.
I’m there alone for a while, lost in thought, replaying every moment that seemed to lead to this one. Was there anything I could have done differently? Or was my fate predetermined, always destined to end up here like this with my future looking so very bleak?
I can’t speak for the past, as there’s nothing I can do to change that now. But I do know what’s changing in the here and now. I can feel it deep inside of me, this bubbling resentment. Whatever strings of hope I still had connecting me to this family were finally cut.
I no longer feel any attachment to the family that adopted me.
After some time, the swing next to mine creaks, dragging my attention out of the dark interior of my mind and back to the park.
Ella sits on the swing beside mine. She’s not looking at me, but instead out ahead at the horizon.
Ella was declared a Beta, like her father, which is one of the higher rankings within the pack. I feel no jealousy toward her, just pride. Though perhaps that does make me mourn my own situation more.
With our rankings in the pack so different, it might be difficult for us to remain friends. Ella will have a lot of expectations placed on her. To be connected to me in anyway might turn more than a few heads and earn her some scrutiny. She’s not the type to care about that, but I hate her having this new pressure just because she’s friends with me.
“This sucks,” she says so suddenly that I almost laugh at the shock of it. I might have, were it not for the absolute misery holding me down.
“The universities I was looking at don’t accept omegas at all, especially from other packs,” I say.
“Does the university here…?”
“No.”
She exhales long and slow, showing her frustration. A feeling I know well.
“There has to be a university somewhere that will take another pack’s Omega,” Ella says. “Maybe it won’t be your first choice
school, or your second, or even your tenth. But I can’t imagine that
school, or your second, or even your tenth. But I can’t imagine that every pack is as backwards as this one.”
