And of course, I feel like crying.
But that’s nothing new for me. Yeah, yeah. This is just who I am. A pathetic alpha. People have always sensed it in me. The weakness. The emotionality. The sensitivity. Nobody ever wanted the mess that I am.
Omegas always picked up on it instantly and rejected me outright. Maybe Blue was right. Maybe I really do project the kind of energy that makes people lose respect for me.
The weakling. The damn crybaby. That’s me.
Then I start the well-known session of self-torture, replaying in my memory all those interactions with my cousins, uncles, and friends, stabbing myself with them. How I was always brushed aside, mocked, treated like a fifth wheel.
And when I tried to approach an omega and talk to him, I would see it in his eyes: what do you want from me, loser? You’re so awkward, get lost. It was always there, underneath everything.
Today I tried again to dive into the deep end. I actually told another omega I liked him, and look what happened.
Maybe I should just give up.
Romance is not for me.
Because one thing is for sure: the way I am, nobody will ever love me.
???
The next morning feels like the North Pole. Blue is silent and distant, and even though we swim in the indoor pool like always, he doesn’t say a single word to me. We also kind of avoid each other’s gazes.
Super awkward, super weird.
The whole thing with not being able to ‘read’ him like I did before is too puzzling to even try to understand. It all strangely fits with Mate Rejection and the breaking of some awakening Bond between us that once allowed me to sense him so clearly. Now it’s gone, and I have no idea how that was even possible in the first place.
After the pool session comes the meeting with Simon, and the whole ritual of the usual daily briefings begins, people reporting to Blue, followed by two hours in the lab, where he’s bent over a microscope.
The entire time, there’s a persistent silence between us aside from the absolute minimum communication about where he’s going.
Everything friendly that had started to form between us is gone now.
And it feels like a painful void, but I don’t have the courage to break it.
Around midday, we head out to a meeting with the professors Blue is scheduled to see.
It’s being held in one of the college buildings where they teach.
I walk in with Blue into a fairly large room, accompanied by a man named Adams, the head of development, a very short, chubby omega in his fifties, and of course Simon.
The men he's meeting with include a dean, who’s an omega, one beta, and two alphas, all professors.
From the start, the atmosphere feels tense, or at the very least, extremely formal.
They begin discussing internship conditions organized on a large scale by Malden Pharmaceuticals, and it is clear they are trying to negotiate higher pay for the interns.
Blue and his team seem very well prepared for this conversation, and soon Simon activates a portable projector, displaying statistics on the wall showing overall intern attendance, how many of them arrived late or left early, took prolonged breaks, and took leave, while Adams emphasizes the average level of work performance along with their constant involvement in mating-related distractions.
The college staff sits there stiffly, watching for a while. But when the last data table disappears from the screen, a furious gasp can be heard.
One of the alphas reacts particularly aggressively. He accuses Blue of causing the interns’ lack of motivation through low pay.
Adams steps in, pointing out that the bioengineering department had higher pay in one of their divisions and the results were not significantly better.
The alpha latches onto the word "significantly" and launches into an argument that Malden is devaluing students’ work, exploiting young people and their labor.
Blue counters that their program is clearly challenging for students, providing very ambitious opportunities for the best ones, and that having Malden on a résumé carries weight.
