Fucking bastard. Fucking bastard! I slapped the tears off my cheeks as I drove, but they were coming too fast and eventually I decided I’d better pull over somewhere until I had a chance to get myself under control.

The mall parking lot seemed like the best of a bunch of bad choices, but if I parked in the far corner where the lights didn’t reach, maybe I’d have a chance to get my shit in a pile before I had to go home and tell my mother that he’d done it to me again.

That I’d let him do it to me again.

I pulled in and shoved the car into Park, then slammed my fists against the steering wheel until my hands hurt and the logical part of my brain was finally able to break through a little.

Weak. Yeah, that’s what they thought omegas were. I’d thought he was different.

“Well, Lew,” I muttered. “At least it didn’t take you three years to figure it out this time.” I couldn’t believe he thought I’d go with him to California and then just dump him for some other guy. I loved him. I had, anyway.

The tears started up again and I grimaced and jammed my fists against my eyes until they stopped. He wasn’t getting a single more tear out of me. Ever.

My heart began to slow its frantic beating and I leaned back against the seat and focused on breathing. Not thinking, not reacting, just breathing and letting my body come back to normal. Trying to ignore the urge to go back to him and yell some more, make him promise to never do that again. And what would be the point if I did? We were done. Over. How could I go back to someone who thought I didn’t love him enough to stick with him through temptation?

Where was a chicken place when you needed one?

My phone rang. Mom, checking up on me. Shit, I hadn’t told her I’d be late. “Hey, Mom.”

“Lew, what’s wrong? And don’t lie to me, I can hear it in your voice. Have you been crying?”

“All done now, don’t worry.” I sniffed and tried a laugh.

“You saw Mike again, didn’t you?”

“How’d you guess?” I wiped my eyes again and rested my head against the seat. “I’m such an idiot.”

“You have a heart as big as the sky. Come on home, we’ll have some ice cream.”

That made me laugh for real this time. Mom’s solution to all the world’s ills. “I don’t think I’m all that hungry.

“Then just come home.”

“All right. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” A shower would be good right now, and then my comfy pajamas and crawling into bed. Or just lying on the couch in the living room for the evening binge-watching something stupid.

“Love you, Lew. Never forget that.”

“I know. Thank you.” I tossed the phone onto the seat after the call ended and put the car in Drive again. Maybe I should talk to Mom about going to stay with my aunt for a while. Just a couple of months, to see what it was like. Portland was supposed to be pretty funky.

I drove home, feeling like I’d just had another death in the family, with that sense of something ending and having to find a way to go forward again with a hole in my life. To find a way to operate around it, until time wore it smooth. It seemed appropriate that it was Maddie’s death that had finally ended my one-sided love affair with Mike.

Now, it would be me against the world. A new job, a new life, and a new future.

I just wished I knew why that thought made the tears start running down my face again.