THE ALPHA I REJECTED

Chapter 11: Margot Speaks

Margot waited until closing time.

Aria had come to recognize this as a tactic — Margot saved her opinions for the end of the day when escape routes were limited and both of them were tired enough that defenses ran low. She'd done it three times in the past month, each time with the measured approach of someone who'd identified the optimal conditions for a difficult conversation.

She started shelving the returns in silence, which was also a tactic. The silence meant something was coming.

"You're miserable," Margot said, to the shelf rather than to Aria.

"I'm tired. It's been a long week."

"You've been tired for three weeks. That's not tired, that's something else." She turned around. She was younger than Aria by four years and sometimes it showed and sometimes it absolutely didn't. Right now it didn't. "You rejected him."

"Correct."

"And now you're watching him potentially move toward someone else and you're acting like it has nothing to do with you."

"It doesn't have anything to do with me. That's the logical consequence of the choice I made."

"Aria." Margot set down the books she was holding. "Why did you reject him?"

Aria opened her mouth.

"The real reason," Margot said. "Not the version you've been giving everyone else. The one you haven't said out loud yet."

The shop was very quiet. Outside, the main street was emptying into evening, the last shoppers heading home, the lights coming on in the restaurant across the road.

Aria looked at the shelf. "Because I was afraid," she said. It came out smaller than she intended. "Because the moment I felt it — the bond, the recognition, all of it — I understood that it was real and I understood what real meant. Real meant I could lose it. Real meant it had the capacity to undo me entirely." She paused. "I've spent my whole life making sure nothing had that capacity. And then there he was."

Margot was quiet for a moment. "So you rejected him before he could hurt you."

"I rejected him before the situation could become one where being hurt was possible."

"That's the same thing."

Aria didn't argue. She couldn't, because Margot was right, and she'd known Margot was right for three weeks, and knowing hadn't made it easier to do anything differently.

"What do I do with that?" she asked. It wasn't rhetorical. She genuinely didn't know.

Margot picked the books back up. "You could try telling him."

"I can't take the rejection back."

"No. But you could tell him why you gave it." She turned back to the shelf. "He's been honest with you. Maybe it's your turn."

Aria stood in the middle of the shop for a long time after Margot left, turning that over — the strange and uncomfortable weight of being the one who owed the honesty for once.