Page 84 of Generation Omega: Revealed
But that doesn’t make anything better—I just feel more isolated. It’s like I’ve been swept out to sea and no one noticed or cared. I’m flailing, and they’re all toobusy. I’m spiraling into memories, paintings, even sculptures—every assignment where I had to create a representation of my life. It was always an island, a tiny, barren place with no comfort.
Only one bridge ever connected my island to the rest of the world—Ethan’s. With smoke rising over that bridge, it’s no wonder I’m thrashing and gulping despair. The thing that makes it worse is that my island isn’t evenmyisland anymore. It’s suffering an alpha infestation. Without a way to reach Ethan and with squatters on my island, there’s really only one option. I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to embrace the undertow.
“Till, please look at me.”
Reluctantly, I meet his gaze. “You’ll never guess who my second alpha is.” My lighter tone is a lie, but I doubt Ethan will notice or push for the truth now.
One eyebrow raises, which seems to confuse his bruises. “It has to be someone who smelled your perfume, right?”
I nod.
“Tell me it’s not Kypsie’s brother, the dude at that gas station, or the bus driver.”
“No, none of them. Apparently, my fragrance travels, because alpha number two is the edgy professor.”
Ethan blurts a surprised laugh. “I’m sorry, but theprofessor?! Wow. So, it’s the professor in the penthouse with a…?” He’s attempting to take us back to our favorite board game when we were kids.
I play along. “Douchey attitude, mostly.”
“That’s a weapon, for sure. So, you’ve got an actor, a professor, and an assassin. Do you think you’ll get a hockey player or a used car salesman next?”
My façade is already chafing. “If I got to pick, I’d choose none of the above, but that’s not how this works. Whether I like it or not, two strangers will be joining this posse created to control me.”
Ethan stares at me for a long moment, his bewilderment looking more like an accusation. “Is that really what you think this is?”
“What else would it be?”
“Till, you believed in this and your belief was pure. What happened? Please, help me to understand.” His irritation at having to ask questions about things he always just knew, fuels more regret in me. If we’ve lost what we were, then why are we doing this to each other? Why should he risk his life to be near someone he used to know?
“We—the omegees—were intentionally brought together to get infected.” That’s all the justification I’ll give for my feelings, and even that borders on too much.
“Infected?”
I wish I couldn’t see his face and all the shades of his disappointment.
Is there one truth that can still connect us, a shared regret? Desperation makes me seek a dangerous answer. “I want to go back to yesterday—no, not even yesterday. I want to go back to my dorm when you first arrived. I wish we’d never come here. I wish all the things we said to each other at your Auntie Jem’s place were said in my crappy dorm room or in your old Bronco. If you didn’t love me so much and I never heard of the omegaverse, then we wouldn’t be like this.”
“Likethis—likewhat?” he pleads. “What have we lost? Tell me that.”
I swallow roughly, choking back tears and any sign of the pain he’s unintentionally inflicting. “It will never be just us ever again. It’ll always be thiscrowd.”
Ethan squints at me, studying my face like it will provide answers, as though I’m not explaining myself.
My stomach drops. “What did he do to you? Did he drug you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“What did he do? Why don’t you understand me? You’vealwaysunderstood me—why not now?”
“Tillie, no. I do understand. It’s just…”
“What?!” My words falter, but I push them out anyway. “You don’t want to go back to my dorm. You don’t wish this hadn’t happened. Why?” As reality crashes onto me, I realize how much hope I placed in that one shared regret that’s not shared at all.
Ethan looks entirely defeated now, which is really saying something for a man made of bruises. “That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it? Do you want to trade? You can be the omega and I’ll go back to my life, whatever’s left of it.”
He flinches like I struck him, and it’s my turn to be owned by confusion.What have we lost? The ability to understand each other. The omega legacy didn’t just steal my life, it’s now stolen my reason for living.
