It’s one of the only times my house feels alive.
What they don’t understand is that just because I don’t leave my house doesn’t mean that I am without friends.
Sax doesn’t count. He’s more than a friend now. He’s family. Even if he never feels the way about me that I do about him, he’s in my life for good. He’s made that more than clear.
My best friend, Marlie, visits me all the time. We met in middle school and have been close since. She tries to get me to go out, but she also accepts my no and doesn’t push me. It would have been easy for her to cut me out of her life, but she never did.
I love her for that.
I also have my gaming buddies, Victor and Julie. Victor became a bit of a public figure earlier this year when he went on the reality TV showKnot What You Expectedafter posing as an Omega named Tif to get revenge on his high school tormentor.
Except he caught real feelings, and was terrified that Kit wouldn’t forgive him for the duplicity.
Spoiler alert: he did.
Marlie came over every Tuesday and Thursday to watch the episodes as they aired, and damn, it was good TV.
Knot What You Expectedis one of the most popular shows in the nation right now. The hosts, Bridgette and Bradley Wilcox, a married Beta couple, bring together people who chatted online but have never met in person and put them in a house together for a week to find out if the person on the other side of the screen is who they claimed to be.
While some cast members have been exactly who they say they are, most were keeping major secrets. Victor was lying about his gender, there was a contestant who was the best friend of the person they were talking to, and one where it was even the Alpha’s own mother.
It’s all very salacious.
I can’t imagine finding out someone I thought I knew was lying to me and then being trapped in a house with them. It’s a nightmare. But damn if it’s not entertaining when it happens to someone else.
I have had brief thoughts about applying as a way to meet Sax, but there is no way I can do that. Going from a shut-in to being on national television? Absolutely the fuck not.
And I don’t need a TV show to meet him. If I wanted to, I think he’d meet up with me in a heartbeat. He’s stopped asking because he doesn’t want me to feel bad about it, but I know he’d be happy if I came to visit.
Except I need to get out of my house and travel to him.
Besides, I’ve seen him. We talk on video calls at least once a week. We know what each other looks like, what we sound like. He’s not hiding his identity from me. We’re using nicknames for one another. It’s sweet.
Calvin called me little Onion from birth. He said my head was shaped like one when I was a baby, and when I’d scream, I’d turn all purple like one. I hated it for the longest time, but I embraced it as I got older. Now that it’swhat Sax calls me, too, it feels as much like my name as Ariana is.
The doorbell rings, and I shoot Julie a message that I’m going to be away from my keyboard tonight, and I’ll catch up with her tomorrow.
“Wake up, bitch!” Marlie slams my door open before I have a chance to answer it. She’s had a key for years. I don’t know why she bothers ringing the doorbell, since she never waits for me to open it. “I’ve brought tacos!”
I roll my eyes at her as I pull her into my arms. “Tacos on a Tuesday, what a revelation. You’re a real trendsetter.”
“Hey, if you don’t want it, you can go pick up something else.” She fists her hips and glares at me, trying to puff her chest out to look more intimidating. She couldn’t scare me if she tried.
Marlie is an Omega, like me, but she’s tiny. I’m not exactly tall, and I still tower over her slight frame. She’s adorable, with sun-kissed skin and bleached-blonde hair, looking more like she belongs in Hollywood, California, than Hollywood, Florida.
“You know I’m just kidding. I love tacos.” I grab a couple of beers from the fridge and two plates. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
“Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe what happened today.” She talks through a mouthful of carne asada. “That student I told you about, Robby? He presented at lunch and was mortified. Before I could get him out of there, he scent matched with Jackson.”
Marlie loves telling me high school drama, but sometimes I think she embellishes it a little, because there is no way her school has that much going on. “Isn’t Jackson the captain of the football team?” Memories of my own less-than-stellar presentation come to mind, but I shove them down.
“Yeah, and the one who has been teasing Robby mercilessly about how he was definitely going to be an Omega, so he shouldn’t bother doing anything other than learning to be a homemaker.”
“Ew.” Backward attitudes toward Omegas still exist, but I was hoping they would be few and far between by this point. Except kids who are raised with prejudiced parents end up spewing those ideas themselves until they are shown that what they’ve always believed is wrong.
And sometimes they refuse to see it, even when the truth is right in front of them.
“What happened then?” I squeeze a lime over my carnitas taco before adding more cilantro. I don’t care what anyone says, cilantro is the best thing in the world, and if someone thinks it tastes like soap, then their tongue must be broken.
