"No, thanks. I'm good."
His jaw flexes. He pulls the bowl back.
Ragon doesn't look at me.
Jasper does.
His eyes take in the chair, the too-straight line of my spine, the way my body reflexively angles toward Eli's recliner and then corrects itself.
I watch the movie. I remember none of it.
At night, the house changes.
I lie in my nest—I still call it that even though it doesn't smell like them anymore—and listen to the world through plaster.
On Drake's nights, it's laughter and low murmurs from Marie's room. The rhythm of a bedframe shifting. The muffled sounds of sex.
They try to be quiet.
My ears don't care.
I stare at the ceiling and count imperfections in the paint.
The scent of the alphas has faded from my blankets. There's a ghost of Eli's tea at the edge of a pillowcase, the memory of smoke where Ragon used to bury his face in my hair, but it's faint now. Old.
The omega in me freaks out about that in small, persistent ways.
It wants fresh scent. Fresh claim. Fresh proof I belong.
I get none.
Sometimes I bury my nose in the blanket anyway, trying to recreate old comfort out of faded molecules.
It doesn't work.
I think about standing in Marie's doorway and telling them to shut up. That I can hear everything. That it hurts.
I don't.
The last time I defended myself, I ended up on my knees staring at a clock on the wall that didn’t seem to move.
So I lie in the dark and thinkthis is how it sounds when you're replaced.
This is worse than the first time.
Marie takes the opportunity the ban gives her.
She moves in.
Not dramatically. Small things at first.
Her mug shows up on the hook beside mine. Her cardigan lives on the back of a chair. The bathroom counter accumulates her skincare bottles where my hair ties used to be.
Then it's bigger.
My favorite mixing bowl gets relocated because "it made more sense over here." The throw blanket from the couch migrates to Marie's room because "it matches my sheets." The nesting store bag gets opened, contents divided: this for the main bed, this for the shared nest, this for the reading nook she talked Ragon into.
"Is it okay if I put some of my things here?" she asks one afternoon, holding a jar of something sweet-smelling.
