Chapter 14

Perhaps his body hadn’t fully recovered, because by evening his fever had returned.

Sickened by a persistent nausea and an unpleasant thrumming arousal pulsing through his blood, Alex rummaged through the nightstand drawer where his father once kept medicine.

His father’s room reeked of stale sweat and lingering pheromones, the bed a tangled mess and empty beer cans scattered across the floor. It had looked like this even when his mother was still around, which perhaps made her departure only natural.

Yet Alex couldn’t bring himself to hate the man entirely, anchored by memories of a time when they had been happy.

The moments they had held hands at the zoo, or when his father had built a wooden swing in the backyard of their old house, those hadn’t been lies.

Even knowing those days would never return, he couldn’t help but stay by his father’s side, clinging to some foolish, desperate hope. It was just like how he had dragged out his feelings for Nathan until today, fully aware that it was a lost cause.

It’s a relief I didn’t confess.

Alex thought as much, pulling out what looked like digestive pills. No, I did confess, but I’m glad I didn’t do it properly. Confessing to someone who already had a partner was a terrible thing to do, but even if he had gone through with it, he would have undoubtedly only heard an apology in return. Wouldn’t that have been too pathetic?

Of course, it was something that never would have happened anyway; he would have hesitated even if he’d been certain Nathan liked him back.

He forced himself to look on the bright side, clinging to the vague, formless notion that everything would be alright. Rising to his feet, Alex was about to close the drawer when he spotted the medicine case his father had given him. He stared at it for a moment before picking it up. A quick glance at the bottom revealed the expiration date: it had expired over two years ago.

Taking in the date, Alex set the box back down and left the room, his stomach stinging with a phantom ache. He returned straight to his own bedroom and opened the pharmacy bag Nathan had given him. Carefully, he pulled the items out, lining them up on his desk one by one.

There were two unopened boxes of liquid suppressants, cold medicine, bandages, band-aids, and antiseptic. The very last item to emerge was a box of lychee juice, Nathan’s favorite.

A soft chuckle slipped past his lips, but he quickly pressed them into a tight line. He stared at the neatly arranged medicine for a long time, as if admiring a precious gift. Fearing they might wear away if he looked too long, he reluctantly tore his gaze away and opened his laptop.

His pale hands, marred by faint, lingering scars, began to type sluggishly across the keyboard. His fingers paused after typing How to. The cursor blinked steadily, vanishing and returning in a rhythmic pulse. The stark white glow of the Google search page painted his face in pale light.

It wasn’t until nine o’clock in the evening, long after the sun had fallen, that Alex finally managed to type something else. The sharp clatter of keys ceased, leaving a completed search query on the screen.

How to stop liking someone.

Dozens of articles from WikiHow and various other self-help sites flooded the screen. A wave of profound skepticism washed over him, acutely aware of how utterly pathetic he was for seeking relationship advice from an algorithm. However, that skepticism was swiftly swept away the second the agonizing image of Nathan’s apologetic face burned its way back into his mind.

After hesitating for a few seconds, he blindly clicked on the very first link. With a perfectly blank expression, his eyes dragged over the text. The advice was ruthlessly realistic and simultaneously, excessively rational.

Take time to grieve, pain is a natural process, accept the fundamental reality that you cannot control the other person’s emotions…

He mindlessly scrolled past sections that completely failed to resonate. If simply ‘accepting reality’ were actually possible, he would have successfully given up on Nathan ages ago. His scrolling abruptly halted when he reached the section detailing actionable ‘methods.’

Throw away any objects that hold sentimental memories.

Alex’s gaze drifted slowly across his desk. Aside from the medication he had received today, there wasn’t a single physical object that held any tangible memories. Everything he cherished was formless, safely locked away entirely within the vault of his own mind.

Clicking back, he methodically read through results from several other sites.

After reading sluggishly for over an hour, he realized the ultimate conclusions were all devastatingly similar. Out of all the advice, there were genuinely only two feasible methods he could actually attempt. The rest were completely useless for his specific situation, primarily because he and Nathan had never actually been a couple.

The first method was to completely cut off all contact and refuse to see the person who rejected him.

However, if he were being brutally honest with himself, that was entirely unrealistic. If possessing the willpower to just walk away were actually possible, he would have confessed and gotten rejected a long time ago. Furthermore, Nathan wasn’t just a crush; he was Alex’s one and only true friend. For the first time in his life, he genuinely resented his past self for failing to cultivate any other same-sex friendships outside of the Beta.

The second method was to simply start dating someone else.

Out of all the horrific options, this was the only one that was remotely viable. His eyelashes fluttered downwards in profound depression. He truly didn’t want to do it. His mind felt like a chaotic, tangled mess of black thread. But if he was destined to see Nathan’s face every single day at school, the only logical, foolproof way to forcefully erase his lingering feelings was to find someone new to obsess over.

Snatching up his phone, Alex glared fiercely at the screen before finally launching his messenger app. Jude Lawrence. Seeing the familiar green dot indicating she was online, he slowly opened their chat window.

—Hi, Jude.

The ‘read’ receipt popped up almost instantly. His hesitating fingers eventually managed to string together a single, desperate sentence.

—Nathan mentioned you know some Omegas who like me.

He had crossed the line.

—If it’s okay with you, could you introduce me to one of them?

Her reply came firing back with terrifying speed. A single exclamation mark popped up first, followed instantly by a rapid-fire barrage of messages.

—OMG!!! Really? Seriously? Okay! Leave it to me!!! Let’s talk about the details at school tomorrow!!! Do Tina and Nathan know? If they don’t, please let me be the one to tell them!!! Wow!!!

A relentless tide of exclamation marks continued to flood the screen. At the sudden mention of Nathan’s name, Alex shot up straight in his bed. He instantly moved to type out a desperate plea for her to keep it a secret, but his fingers froze over the keyboard. Releasing a low, trembling sigh, Alex simply turned the phone face-down on his mattress.

He didn’t feel a single ounce of excitement.

☂