Rejected as Weak: The Alpha Wants Me Back

If I Stay

The walk back to the medical wing took longer than it should have. My legs felt heavy, and the headache had settled behind my eyes like a stone I couldn't blink away. The training hall had emptied, but the noise still rang in my ears. I kept my hands in my sleeves, where Elin wouldn't see them shaking.

She was waiting by the intake desk when I pushed through the door. One look at my face, and she set down the chart she'd been holding.

“You came back worse.”

“I'm fine,” I said, but my voice came out thin.

“Sit.” She pointed to the exam bed. “Now.”

I sat. The paper crinkled under me. Elin pulled her stool close and took my wrist, her thumb pressing hard against my pulse. She didn't speak for a long moment. Then she let out a slow breath.

“Your hands are cold. You're paler than you were when I let you leave.” She looked at me. “You told me you were going to observe.”

“I did.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Mostly,” I added.

The corner of her mouth twitched, but she didn't smile. “Mostly isn't good enough, Mara. I checked you an hour ago. You were stabilizing. Now you look like you've been awake for two days.”

“I helped one of the boys. Cale. He was losing control during the demonstration. I couldn't just sit there.”

Elin’s expression softened, but only a little. “I know you couldn't. That's the problem.”

She reached for the blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around my arm. The room went quiet while she worked. I watched her face, looking for the moment she would tell me I was overreacting, that I just needed sleep. That moment didn't come.

“I've been going through your records for weeks,” she said, releasing the cuff. “Your symptoms don't follow a normal pattern. I can't find a medical reason for the crashes. But I know what happens to a body that doesn't get real recovery. Repeated exhaustion without rest can cause lasting damage. You're not bouncing back cleanly anymore. Every time you push through, you lose a little more ground.”

She leaned forward, her eyes steady on mine. “If you keep treating every warning like something you can sleep off, one day you may not bounce back at all.”

The words landed heavy in the small room. I pulled the edge of the paper sheet between my fingers.

“I can cut back,” I said. “I'll skip a few sessions. I'll sleep more.”

“Which sessions?”

“I don’t know. The inventory work, maybe. The evening group.”

“What about Noah?” she asked. “What about Cale? The parents who call you in the middle of the night? The youth coordinator who treats you like part of the training staff?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Every answer had a face attached to it.

“I can set limits,” I said finally.

“You've been saying that for years.” Elin's voice wasn't cruel. Just tired. “Every time someone asks, you go. And then you end up back here.”

My phone buzzed against the exam table. Then again. I turned it over.

A message from the youth coordinator: Cale's mother is worried he’ll regress tonight. Can Mara check in before bed?

Another from Noah: You still coming tonight? I can't stop shaking.

I stared at the screen. My thumb moved to type Yes. Then it stopped.

I didn't send it.

Elin watched me without speaking. The phone buzzed a third time, and I let it sit there, face up, the messages glowing between us.

“That's what I mean,” she said quietly. “You're sitting in a medical room, and they're already lining up tomorrow for you.”

“What am I supposed to do?” The question came out before I could stop it.

Elin shook her head. “I can't answer that for you. I can only tell you what your body is telling me. You need real rest. Not a few hours. Not a day. Weeks, maybe longer. And you can't get that if you stay reachable.”

I left the medical wing with her words still pressing against my ribs. She hadn't forbidden me from anything. She hadn't ordered me to go. But she had made one thing clear: the way I was living wasn't something my body could survive forever.

Back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the small space I'd known for years. The worn blanket. The stack of books on the nightstand. The schedule pinned to the wall, already marked with tomorrow's tasks. It was all familiar, and it all felt like a net.

I thought about cutting back. I'd tell them I needed a few weeks. I'd say no more often. I'd set limits, just like I'd told Elin. But I'd still be here. I'd still walk the same halls. The same people would find me. The same phone would light up with the same needs. Rowan had made sure of that.

Nothing else has to change.

He'd said it like a gift. Like protection. But that was the whole problem. If I stayed, nothing would change. I'd wake up tomorrow and the next day and the next, and someone would need me, and I'd go, and I'd lose a little more of myself each time. Maybe not enough to notice at first. Maybe not enough for anyone else to see. But I would feel it.

I thought of Noah’s face when he saw me in the hall. The way his shoulders dropped. The way he said, You're still here, like my presence was the only thing keeping him upright. I thought of Cale reaching for me with too-long claws and too-afraid eyes. I thought of my mother in that hospital bed, and how Rowan had stayed with me, and how he'd promised, You'll always have somewhere to come back to.

Blackridge had been that somewhere. For most of my life, it had been.

But a place you can always come back to isn't the same as a place where you can keep bleeding dry.

I pulled out my phone and opened the Pack administrative portal. The familiar Blackridge crest filled the screen. I navigated with my thumb, past the announcements and the duty schedules, until I found the section I'd never looked at before.

Membership / Withdrawal.

The form was simple. Name. Current residence. Effective date. Reason for withdrawal. Optional. I tapped through the fields, filling them without letting myself think too hard. My hands were still cold. My headache had settled into a dull, pulsing rhythm behind my eyes.

The final screen asked if I was sure.

I thought of tomorrow. The same requests. The same guilt. The same exhaustion. The same weight of being needed in a hundred small ways that never added up to enough.

Then I pressed Submit.

The confirmation appeared, white letters on a gray background.

REQUEST SUBMITTED.

I stared at the words until the screen dimmed.

I still didn't take it back.