Chapter Fourteen

Wiping the soap suds o my hand against a kitchen towel furiously, I turned to the handsome devil in front of me. “I can’t be what you want me to be Alpha Elijah.”

 It’s being a whole month of Alpha Elijah ruthlessly chasing after me in frenzied acts of romance and seduction and I was about tired of it all. Take for example today. I was in the kitchen washing dishes and he decides he wants to do all of his Alpha duties here today . He had created a workplace made of a kitchen table ridiculously close to the sink. Why yo might ask- He wanted to be closer to me. The man was trying to drive me nuts.

He looked up and pulled his brows together in amused confusion, “Whatever do you mean?”.

Seeing the pointed look in my eyes, he sighed and stood up fro his makeshift desk.

 “Aegis,I’m not asking you to be anything but yourself. I’m not asking you to change…….”

“Just stop already!” i snapped. “ You can’t fix me okay. I’m broken. Damaged. And yet here you are, acting like you can just love me enough to fix it all. It doesn’t work like that. It’s never going to work like that.”

Elijah’s jaw tightened in controlled frustration. He took a step closer, his voice sharper than before. “ Are you not listening to me. I’ve told you like a thousand times, I’m not trying to fix you, Aegis. Will you stop pushing me away like I’m a pup.”

I pointed at him with trembling hands . “You don’t understand. You will never understand what it’s like to be rejected by the one person you thought you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with. To feel like you’ll never be enough, no matter what you do.”

My voice cracked but I was unable to stop . “You don’t know what it feels like to wake up every day with the same emptiness inside you, knowing you’ll never be whole again. And you…..you just keep coming back, like I’m some kind of pity project for you to work on. Well, I’m not! I can’t do this, Elijah. I refuse to.”

The silence that followed was thick. Elijah’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I’m trying Aegis,” he said, his voice dangerously low and tempered. “I’m really trying to be patient with you. I’ve given you space, time, everything you’ve asked for. But at some point you are going to have to stop using the past as an excuse to shut everyone out.”

“It’s not an excuse,” i shot back. “It’s my reality.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw and his knuckles turned white. “You think you’re the only one who’s been hurt? You think you’re the only one who’s lost something? I’ve been there, Aegis. I lost my mate too and you don’t see me moping around especially not over that idiot you call a mate.”

“I didn’t ask you to wait!” i yelled and my voice broke at the pain in his eyes. I was hurting him. I softened my voice to a quiet whisper “I can’t go through that again, Elijah. I can’t survive another rejection. I won’t survive it.”

His expression softened and he ran a hand through his hair, turning away from me as if to gather himself. When he faced me again, there was a steely edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Then what exactly want from me, Aegis?” he asked, his tone sharper now, his patience all but gone. “Because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep standing here waiting for you to let me in only for you to slam the door in my face every single time. It’s been nine months Aegis. Nine months!”

“I never asked you to wait!” I whispered brokenly. “I never asked you for anything!”

Elijah shook his head in resignation “No, you didn’t. But you also never gave me a real reason to walk away. You keep me hanging on to hope that one day you’ll let me in but it seems all you ever do is pull me closer and then push me away.”

“I’m trying to protect you!” I cried. “Can’t you see? I’m not good for you. I’m not good for anyone.”

“That is not your decision to make,” Elijah shot back, his voice rising with all the anger he’d been holding back. “You don’t get to decide how I feel, or what’s. But fine, if that’s how you feel then maybe I’ve been a fool for waiting this long.”

The harshness of those words cut me deep enough to silence me.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Elijah said quieter now. “I can’t keep waiting for something that’s never going to happen. You say you’re protecting me but the truth is that you’re just too scared to try.”

He turned away from me running a hand through his hair again. “I’ve been patient, Aegis. I’ve done everything I can. But maybe you’re right. Maybe I am a fool for waiting.”

“Maybe you are.”

My heart ached as i watched him go.But even as the tears filled up my eyes, I didn’t move. This was for the best.

Even if it didn’t feel like it was.

#

I sat on the edge of the bed in Evangeline’s cabin later that day.My hands trembled as they clutched the edge of the blanket. The room was warm but i felt cold. Hollow.

Evangeline sat across from me stealing glances at me. She hadn’t said much since i arrived but I knew it was coming. After awhile of silence she finally asked.

“What happened?” in a cautious tone.

My throat tightened in painful panic.I came here to escape but now sitting in front of Evangeline, the entire dam threatened to break all over again.

“Nothing”

She gave me a pointed look and I caved.

“I pushed him away,” I whispered in a barely audible voice. “Again.”

Evangeline didn’t react. She simply nodded, encouraging me to continue.

“I… I can’t let him in Evangeline,” Aegis said, her hands clenching tighter around the blanket. “No matter how hard I try, I just… I can’t.”

“Why not?” Evangeline asked softly, even though she already knew the answer.

“Because I’m scared!” I burst out, the words slipping out before i could stop them. Tears welled up in her eyes and my voice trembled . “I’m scared of getting hurt again. I’m scared of opening myself up and watching him leave, just like before. I can’t go through that again, Evangeline. I can’t.” I was full on sobbing now.

 The rawness of the pain in my voice and heaving of my chest as the words tumbled out left me breathless. Evangeline leaned forward with a sigh and gently placed a hand on my knees.

“You’re not the same person you were when you were rejected, Aegis,” Evangeline soothed gently rocking my knees with her hand. “And Elijah isn’t your old mate.”

Tears spilling down her cheeks as I shook my head recklessly. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. The hurt… it’s still there. I can still feel it, every day. It’s like a weight that won’t go away. I’m still broken, Evangeline. I thought time would heal it, but it didn’t. It just… it lingers.”

Evangeline’s eyes softened with sympathy but her voice remained steady. “That kind of pain doesn’t just disappear, Aegis. It takes time, and it takes a whole lotta strength to let it go. But it’s not fair to punish Elijah for the mistakes of someone else.”

The room was quiet for a bit before I spoke again biting down on my lip. “He deserves better than me,” I muttered under my breath but I knew she heard me. “He deserves someone that isn’t afraid, someone who can give him all of her without holding back . And…. I… I can’t be that person.”

Evangeline’s hand tightened slightly on my knee. “Do you like him?”

The question hung in the air for a bit. I didn’t answer immediately, I couldn’t. I did like Elijah—I liked him a lot. But I was stll scared. How can I admit that when I still wasn’t sure i could ever act on it?

“I don’t know,”I finally whispered and I think even she knew I was lying. I did know. I had known for a while now. 

But the fear was stronger. It was always stronger.

Evangeline sighed softly,. “It’s okay to be scared, Aegis.Hell It’s okay to not be ready. But if you keep holding on to the past, if you keep letting that pain control you, you’re going to lose more than just Elijah. You’re going to lose yourself.”

 I shook my head, tears falling freely now. “I’m already lost, Evangeline. I’ve been lost since the day I was rejected. And no matter how much I try, no matter what I do,I can’t find my way back.”

Evangeline stood up from beside me and pulled me up with her. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders in a hug close to her like a mother comforting her child. “You’re not lost, my dear,” she whispered in a warm voice wiping the tears on my face away. “You’re just afraid of being found.”

We continued folding the clothes but my mind kept spinning round and round

. What does it mean to be found. How?