Griffin
The work week rolled around, but I couldn’t focus on my job. That was typical as of late, with all the thoughts of Jake, and now our pregnant shared-custody cat Lilith on my mind. Knowing that poor cat was dumped just two weeks before she was due to give birth filled me with anger and sadness. But I wasn’t going to let her story end badly. I would do anything to make sure she delivered a healthy and happy litter of kittens.
My eyes lazily slipped off the screen of numbers and spreadsheets, and towards the desk calendar. I had pencilled in Lilith’s vet appointment on the 15th, and it shone like a beacon of hope right next to the blacked out blob of Valentine’s Day. I realized with a stroke of joy that I was hardly thinking about Heath at all. With all the commotion in my life recently, it had completely taken my mind off my ex - and everything he’d done to me.
I smirked, feeling a bit smug. Maybe he and his memory were finally losing control of his grip on my emotions.
No longer did I feel sick with sadness at the thought of what he did - both to me, and to our unborn child. But why? Just recently, I’d felt so horrible that I’d blacked out the anniversary of him leaving me. Nothing huge had happened in the span between then and now, except…
Jake’s smile flashed in my mind. My heart beat a little faster.
Maybe the wound was finally scarring over, slowly but surely. The healing process had only taken a year, and a pregnant cat, and an omega I was growing to care for…
I sat bolt upright in my seat.
No,I thought.I can’t think about Jake that way.
“We are not a couple,” I muttered to myself out loud, to make the words more real.
Even though Skylar and Rafael - our respective closest friends - had assumed we were dating by this point, they were both wrong. Although Jake and I didn’t quite knowwhatwe had between us, it certainly wasn’t a romantic relationship. It couldn’t be.
Could it?
There had to be something more going on. Maybe it was overly sentimental of me, but I felt light and happy whenever Jake was around - a feeling I hadn’t experienced since I first met Heath. But for the longest time, I closed myself off to happiness because I was afraid of history repeating itself. The pain of Heath’s betrayal was an agonizing wound in my heart that had only barely begun to heal. Could I risk having it happen again with Jake?
My mood began to deteriorate and I slumped back in my chair.
Is this just how my life is going to be?I thought bitterly.Never being happy with someone again because I’m too afraid to let it happen?
In my heart, I knew I truly did yearn for a relationship. The only problem was that I didn’t know if Jake could give it to me. When we first hooked up, the message was clear - we were each other’s one night stand.
Then I frowned when I realized there was another very big problem. A problem that was a huge deal breaker for any potential relationship between us.
Jake made it crystal clear he didn’t want children, and Skylar even confirmed this when we found Lilith. When we had unprotected sex, he pointed out he could simply take a morning-after pill to deal with the ‘problem'.
Could I settle for that? Heath’s aversion to bearing children was the reason our relationship viciously shattered. I wanted a family. I wanted babies to hold and protect. But Heath didn’t want them, and apparently, neither did Jake.
For a moment, I shut my eyes and let myself indulge in my own misery.
“Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked myself pathetically. “Why can’t I just find a nice omega whodoeswant kids?”
I stared at the calendar. Two dates stared back at me - the black blob of Valentine’s Day, and the anniversary of Heath leaving me, and the day after for Lilith’s vet appointment. The two seemed to war against each other, dark and light.
Or maybe I was just being dramatic.
A knock at my door wrenched me out of my misery, and I sat upright again. “Come in.”
To no surprise, it was Rafael who walked through the door. But something seemed off. He didn’t carry his usual happy-go-lucky air. Maybe he was just having a rough morning, but since he was attempting to at least smile at me, I figured I wouldn’t press the issue.
“Hey, Griffin,” he said. “You up for lunch?”
I didn’t realize how much time had passed while I was drowning in my thoughts. Though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I knew logically that getting some air and stretching my legs would do me good.
“Sure.”
We grabbed our jackets and headed out to the main street. It was brutally cold, which meant the streets were less crowded for the lunch time rush. We sat down at a local casual pub for a quick burger and some fries.
“So, how’s your cat?” Rafael asked.
