This is exactly what I warned Akari I’d do: the backsliding. Carter Crane is not going to apologise because Carter Crane doesn't think he did anything wrong.
I roll over and grab my phone from the nightstand. New number, clean slate. No messages.
I open the browser.
I'm not sure what I'm looking for, exactly. I start with "prime match biology," which leads me down a rabbit hole of academic articles and forum posts. The science is complicated. It’s all about pheromone receptors and neural pathways, the way a prime match literally rewires your brain chemistry to crave your partner.
No wonder I can't stop thinking about him. I'm chemically addicted.
I search "breaking prime match bond." These results are less scientific and more desperate. I find forums full of people asking the same question I am, looking for a way out. Most of the answers are discouraging.You can't fight biology. The bond is permanent. Learn to live with it.
But there are other threads. I find names of compounds and suppliers that exist in the grey areas of pharmaceutical law.
I find a site that looks slightly more legitimate than the others, promising discrete shipping promised. They sell something called Severex. The description claims it dampens the neural pathways associated with prime match bonding, reducing the intensity of the pull.
The reviews are mixed. Some people say it changed their lives. Others say it made them sick, or didn't work at all, or left them feeling hollow and wrong. There's no FDA approval, no clinical trials, no guarantee of safety. Officially, it’s a vitamin supplement.
I should close the browser. This is both stupid and reckless. I'm a journalist; I know better than to trust anonymous testimonials on a sketchy website.
But I also know how even now, hours later and miles away, some part of me is straining toward him like a compass pointing north.
I can't live like this. I enter my information into the purchase form and put in my credit card details.
This is a bad idea. I know it's a bad idea. But I'm out of good ideas, and I'm so tired of wanting someone who's no good for me.
I press the button.
Order confirmed.
I set my phone face-down on the nightstand and close my eyes.
It's done. All of it. New number, deleted apps, a pill on the way that might finally sever the connection.
Now I just have to wait and see if any of it works.
14. Carter
The first week back, I don't contact Jamie at all.
I have better things to do than chase after an omega who stormed out of my cabin in a sulk. If he wants to be dramatic about a conversation thatheescalated, that's his problem. I said what I said. I'm not going to apologise for telling him the truth about how politics works.
I’m not the one throwing public accusations athisfamily.
Instead, I throw myself back into damage control for the mess he has created. The days blur together in a haze of talking points and media management.
I don't think about Jamie. At least, not as a lover.
Except I do. He comes to mind at night, mostly, when I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling. My body hasn't forgotten the week at the cabin. I wake up hard and aching, and no amount of cold showers or self-discipline seems to fix the problem.
By the end of the second week, I'm irritable and short-tempered. Warren asks if I'm feeling alright. My mother comments that I seem tense. Kate texts me a string of question marks after I snap at her when she sends me a particularly stupid meme about me and then I have to apologize for being an asshole.
On Friday night, I break. It’s not my fault. We established a pattern, Jamie and I.
There's no reason to disrupt it just because we had an argument. Arguments happen. They don't have to mean anything. It’s not like we were ever a couple.
I text him a hotel name, a room number and a time. It’s the same format as always. No greeting. Just the information.
I wait.
