My eyes flew open as I felt the morning sunshine seeping into my skin, my eyelids have never been heavy. I don’t know how much I cried last night. I fell asleep while doing so.
“You’re breaking up with me on the phone?” My eardrums seemed to be almost shattered by Lucien’s screaming the previous night too.
“Yes!” I exhaled. “If you can party with another woman kissing you while I wait for you to show up on our dinner date, I have all the right to break up with you on the phone!”
After ending our call last night, I also bombarded him with messages that I know what he’s been up to and that the party is never a part of the business.
Charmaine is HIS business!
I poured myself a glass of water after getting out of bed. I deem it necessary, especially with the bawling and sobbing I wasted on Lucien last night.
My phone rang. I only took one look at it before shoving it into my drawer.
With a heavy heart, I straightened and began packing my things.
***
I’m now back in my old apartment, one side facing a river and another the main road.
I don’t care if it’s so far from the penthouse we shared. I just want to get away from him as soon as possible.
I checked my phone. I’m not surprised that I have thirty-three missed calls and a couple of voicemails. I opened one.
“Vesta, where are you? You know that Charmaine is Beta Vincent’s only daughter. I’m just gaining favor from him since he’s also one of the pack’s elders. I promise we are just friends. You’re my girlfriend. You can ask Beta Thomas himself that there is nothing between the two of us other than a friendship that has been built for years. Please come back to me—don’t leave me like this!”
Friends? Since when do friends share a picture of her being kissed on the cheeks by someone else’s boyfriend in social media?
I have never heard my Alpha mate use that pleading voice to me, especially not in a voicemail. If this was in another situation, I could have smiled. But no, it just made the weight of our break-up more depressing.
I’ve been a fool for too long. Perhaps that’s what it does to one who’s so blindly in love.
I unpacked my things and began rubbing the dust off my bed. My room was worn. Nevertheless, I’m now back here—in a place I used to call home. This is the place where I’ll heal and be whole again.
I opened another voicemail, this time he seemed like crying on someone’s shoulder. I'll bet my soul that it was none other than Charm's. “Vesta, babe...”
Then there were just sobbing and inaudible words that were between his cries and begging. I don’t know if he’s really begging or just reminding me that I am nothing without him. Or maybe both.
Last night wasn’t the first night he stood me up. He always kept me waiting and waiting and waiting. Not to mention he always breaks his promises and then makes another promise—only to break that another promise.
“Sorry, babe. I’m working overtime. I know I promised you a movie date last night. I’ll just take you to my yacht and tell the pack’s private chef to cook for us. How about that?”
And yet, there was never a yacht date. That ‘overtime’ of his was revealed to be attending a concert with Charmaine. That yacht date ended up not happening too since Beta Thomas told me that it’s the anniversary of their friendship and it’s not to be missed knowing that they ‘only’ celebrate their anniversary once a year.
Yeah, right. As if you all only see each other once a year too.
I put down my phone and focused on my chores at hand.
I walked over to the closet where the paint was already fading and yanked it open. As soon as I opened one of my suitcases, my gaze found a lavish red box with gold ribbon on it.
Lucien bought it for me last week. An early anniversary gift, he says. It was a gradient of royal blue and tawny orange handbag, the exact shade of the ocean when dawn rises and the sky’s colors rippled on its surface. It was Alpha Lucien’s favorite color, and the exact time when we had our first kiss.
I shook my head and ignored the gift and tucked it away in the corner. I pulled another suitcase, quickly unpacking my clothes and belongings—like how I unpacked my feelings all these years of how my mate treated me.
It might have been a heartache to leave the penthouse, where most of our memories once came to life. Instead, I felt a great wave of relief washing through me as if I’d been finally hauled from the ocean where I constantly drown and ask for help but no one dares.
Hours later, I found myself now lying on my old bed. My eyes are red-rimmed again thanks to the tears that casually slipped from my eyes as I was unpacking. ‘I have left him for good now,’ I told myself. ‘There’s no turning back.’
As I lay, I finally dare to pick up my phone. And true, it was brimming with gossip.
Apparently, Charm has posted that I broke up with her ‘beloved friend’ Alpha Lucien. “She’s a heartless bitch,” she said in her post. “Everyone, be careful of your girlfriends and boyfriends being like her. She just used Alpha Lucien to make herself popular.”
Several messages of foul insults and heart-wrenching threats flooded my inbox.
Now, he’s just allowing her to act as if she was the one who had been his girlfriend for five years.
I’m no longer chasing him. I’m no longer allowing him to chase after me.
Not this time, because I finally saw the reason why I needed to stop Lucien’s heartless treatment: my Alpha had feelings for Charm and it was time I accepted that.
It’s no mystery at all no matter how many times Lucien lies or beats around the bush every time I ask him about Charm and their so-called friendship.
If he’s not going to stop his treatment of me, then I should—once and for all.
Well, perhaps they do fit each other. And I’m glad I’m now far from either of them.
Turning off my phone as I inhaled and exhaled, I began to indulge myself down that road of healing.
The Feast of the Rose Moon was one of my favorite pack gatherings. Not only because it marks the beginning of spring, but also because it’s a huge part of our pack traditions of giving thanks to the Moon Goddess and strengthening our relationship with one another as a pack.
It’s been a month since Alpha Lucien and I broke up. And though I’m crying less and less each night, I can definitely say that there is still an ember of my love for him that remains ignited in my heart.
The Feast of the Rose Moon was held at the Rose Moon Hotel itself. The celebration lasts for three days and all of the packmembers are given a free stay at the hotel. A fresh scent of roses found its way towards me, filling the air with its bold sweetness and soft aroma.
The concierge and I reached our room and it was the most expensive room I’ve ever seen—close to the grandiose of the penthouse that Lucien and I once shared.
“Thank you,” I said to the concierge and he gave me a soft smile before vanishing in the hallway.
It was almost sunset and the Brightheart Pack’s event coordinator said that the second night of the Feast’s dinner will be held on the seaside so now we’re free to do whatever we want.
I changed into my swimming attire, eager to dive into the hotel’s infinity pool on my first night of stay. I may not have a couple of friends here but I sure will enjoy the festivities.
The sun was just beginning its descent when I plunged myself into the pool’s cool waters. I made myself swim from one end to the other until I found myself needing a drink.
I sat on one of the chairs to the east of the pool when I felt someone standing behind me. I put down my glass of pomegranate juice and looked up.
“Vesta.” The two syllables of my name from the lips of my once-doting boyfriend were nothing more than a whisper.
“Leave me alone,” was all I mumbled and I leaned back on the chair.
Five years of living with him wasted away. Five years of a relationship built upon lies and broken promises and crying.
I regretted saying yes to him when he asked me if I’d be his girlfriend. Maybe I should never have loved him at all.
“Vesta,” he calledagain. This time it was louder as if ordering me to get up and face him.
“For the love of the Moon Goddess, walk away.” I didn’t lower my voice and I made sure the staff heard us.
“No.”
So he wants to play a game of who walks away first? Fine.
“What was the point, Lucien,” I shot to my feet and rested a hand on my waist, “of us living together when your attention and mind are so far from me?”
Alpha Lucien and I may have been physically close for the past five years but our hearts seemed to be minding their own business with each passing day.
“So you just broke up with me over jealousy?” He ran a hand through his hair, “I saw Charm’s post on my way to the restaurant. She asked for my help to secure a deal with a big company and it was a last-minute. Don’t you know how big of an impact it is for the Brightheart Pack? Charm needs me for that meeting.”
“And I don’t?” I retorted, “Just because it’s an anniversary dinner date, does it mean I don’t need you?”
He didn’t answer my question. He added instead, “Some sacrifices are to be made to strengthen our ties with other packs and—and stop being childish, Vesta! We’re adults now. Put aside your childish jealousy. Come home when you’ve calmed down and I’ll just tell everyone that we never broke up.”
“Childish?!” My eyes simmered with bright fury at that. “So now I am childish?” I snarled and didn’t bother to correct my posture like I was going to shift and pounce at him.
He’s an Alpha, yes. But he’s an asshole.
If Lucien’s goal is to piss me off on the first day of this Feast, then he successfully did.
“Stand down, Vesta. I have no intention of fighting you.”
“Oh, but you do,” I spat.
Shaking my head, I tried to brush away the anger that he stirred up with his words by inhaling the lulling scent of roses nearby. “As I said, leave me alone.”
He ignored my words, “Come have dinner with me. Their steak and lobster are delicious here.” He removed one hand from his pocket and offered it to me.
The word childish kept echoing in my mind, igniting that surge of anger and turning it into a fiery storm. Was I really that childish?
I scoffed, “I think you’re the one who’s childish, Alpha Lucien.”
Taking my words as my rejection of his offer, he simply pursed his lips and blandly said, “Enjoy your swim.”
And then he walked away.
***
I didn’t enjoy my swim that night. I sprinted straight to my room, locked my door and the windows, and relentlessly cried on my bed with pillows over my mouth to lower my sobs.
The next day, I spend half of the morning deciding what to wear for the formal dinner. I was in the lobby when a familiar scent hit me: the crisp scent of pine and the earthiness of cedarwood punched me in the gut.
There’s only one male who has that smell.
“Lucien.”
His cheerful voice almost made me vomit, “Hi, Ves!”
I didn’t know that our ‘lovely’ conversation last night made him joyful.
“Good thing you didn’t bring your obsessive fans.” Alpha Lucien might be an asshole but he’s drop-dead gorgeous. No wonder a lot of our pack fangirl over him.
He ran a look over my silk dress. It’s a kind of dress that changes colors depending on the light: subtle red when it’s bright and glittering black if it’s dark.
He smiled, “You looked as lovely as always, Vesta.”
I growled but he only laughed as if my constant shoving and brushing him off amuses him.
“I’ll drive you to the beach,” he extended an arm to me—the same way he did yesterday.
I rolled my eyes and walked past him.
True to what Lucien had said, I walked my way to the beach in this dress and heels. I look ridiculous but I don’t care as long as—
A car honked behind me. Lucien’s car. I could have continued walking when I saw what was behind it: a swarm of his obsessive fanatics were running after him.
“Hop in!” I saw the panic in his eyes.
When I opened the door, that sharp female scent tore through my senses that almost made me vomit.
My entire body froze when I realized it was Charmaine’s fucking scent that lingered and I was just about to plop down on the seat she sat on.
