“I quit my internship today,” he says.
My mouth gapes open. That was the last thing I expected him to say. “What?”
“I realized it wasn’t what I wanted. Or needed for that matter.” He shrugs, then sits beside me. “Can I tell you what I need?”
When he looks at me, I can tell that something is different. He doesn’t seem as troubled, and there’s a new weightlessness surrounding him that relieves every molecule in my body. Still, I hold my breath and nod, waiting for his next words.
“I need to be home with my pack,” he starts. “I need to be around more, have time for my friends and my mates. I need to stop taking on everything all the time because I think it’ll define who I am.”
I think back to my conversation with Kit, how he said Sam doesn’t slow down because he thinks no one will want him if he does. How his actions are all to cover up something that made him feel unworthy. Just as I think that, Sam declares, “And I need to tell you about my past.”
My lungs immediately halt in their function, and a few moments go by before my brain remembers how to take in a deep breath. “Okay.”
We sit there for a few moments, the silence lingering on as he fiddles with his hands. I’m not sure why I do it, if it’s instinct, or if my omega doesn’t like to see her scent matchstruggle, but I reach over and take his hand in mine. He clutches onto it, desperate for the connection.
“I came out to my parents when I was thirteen,” he tells me. “They didn’t react well and they didn’t understand.”
“What did they do?”
“Well, first, they called me some names. My dad couldn’t understand why I had to tell them I was bisexual if there was a possibility I’d end up with a woman.”
“Bi-phobia strikes again,” I utter with contempt.
He cracks a tiny smile. “Unfortunately. He would have preferred I keep it to myself, but I knew who I was, and I didn’t want to hide it. That made them furious with me.” He shakes his head at the memory. “They forced me into the car—kicking and screaming—and drove me to a group home for runaways. They just dropped me off and left.”
The admission causes me to freeze. Both in visceral anger and surprise that he is telling me this. The gentle, studious alpha beside me is so strong for everyone around him. I never would have thought he had experienced something that awful. “I thought your grandma raised you,” I say in response.
“She did. After my parents dropped me off, things were eye-opening. I grew up in a very privileged home. My grandfather acquired a large fortune from being in finance, and I never knew what struggling meant. Besides being surrounded by toxic alphas, everything was grand. I had every opportunity I could ever want within reason. I could play any sport, had the best tutors, and always ate three meals a day. I didn’t know what the world looked like outside of that bubble, not until they left me at that group home.
“The kids in that home didn’t grow up like I did. They had scars deeper than anyone could ever imagine. Horrible things, horrible memories. I felt useless being near them. Like my trauma was just the result of my parents having a tempertantrum rather than something serious like what I witnessed there. I had accepted my fate by the time my grandma showed up to take me home.”
Despite knowing the details already, I find myself smiling. “That’s how you ended up with her? She came to get you?”
“She showed up about a week later. She was pissed, telling me that she would have come sooner if she had known, but my parents said I went to boarding school. She knew something wasn’t right when they started turning my room into a guest room.” He shrugs, like that detail isn’t a huge fucking problem that makes my blood boil. “She got my parents to relinquish their rights so she could take me in. She didn’t care about my sexuality and she loved me no matter what. So I moved in with her, she cut off my parents from our lives, and everything else is history.”
As he’s speaking, a lightbulb goes off. “Everything you do… all the charity and volunteering and studying law… is because your life could have been different. You could have stayed in that group home, and you didn’t.”
He nods. “I got a second chance. My grandma gave that to me, and I wasn’t going to screw it up. I may not have been living in those circumstances anymore, but many children are. Specifically, children who are victims of homophobia and designation abuse and other horrid things, all because people are more comfortable with their hatred and bias. I want to be a voice for them,always, just like my grandmother was for me.”
I’m amazed. This alpha in front of me has been through way more than I thought he had, and that doesn’t make him any less. Gosh, it makes him so much more. Everything about him is much clearer to me now. Every flaw, fault, and piece of beauty is so easily explained by this horrible moment in his past.
And he’s sharing it with me, putting everything he wantedto keep hidden on the line for me to inspect, despite the fear of it. And that’s left me feeling warm and honored.
“Why are you telling me this, Sam?” I ask, needing to hear him say it once and for all.
He gives me a soft look. “Because I was told recently that I needed to talk to the people closest to me. Let them in.”
I hold my breath.
“You’re important to me, Opal,” he says. “I needed you to finally know.”
Something cracks within me. Like a million unspoken words falling out of their abyss and right into the open.
“And before this can go any further.” He gestures between us, like there’s a physical link that binds us. “I need you to know that I’m not perfect. I try to be, and that’s my problem, because I’m anything but. I’m compulsive, a workaholic, borderline controlling. And I think it’s because I need to be the best prime I can to be worthy of my pack, but I’m starting to realize that isn’t true. That I can just beme.”
I swallow down a whine. “You can. That’s all your pack wants you to be,” I say, trying desperately not to include myself in the picture.
His solemn expression bleeds away and is replaced with a soft smile. “I’m sorry it took so long. I should have been here, helping you solve the issues that I avoided because they were proof of my flaws. I just hope it’s not too late?—”
