Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 294: Chapter 294 - It was you?

”Man, Ravyn made the whole situation ten times worse. He said it was proof of what he’d always thought about you. That you were inconsistent and couldn’t be trusted. He claimed that was the reason he never really liked you in the first place.”

Voren’s expression stayed mostly the same but something in his eyes got a little colder when he mentioned it.

”I told myself you probably needed some space. That I was crowding you too much, and maybe if I just stepped back and gave you room to breathe, things would eventually find their way back to normal. So I left again. And this time I stayed gone for years.”

Seraphine stayed completely still on her back beside him on the bed, staring up at the ceiling right alongside him like they were both watching the same old movie playing out above them.

”When I came back,” Voren continued. ”It was even worse than before.”

He let that hang there for a second before he kept going with the story.

”It was your eighteenth birthday.” The corner of his mouth moved just a tiny bit.

”When we were kids, you always used to talk about becoming a doctor. Every single time someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, that was your answer every time. You never changed your mind about it.” He glanced over at her sideways.

”So while I was out there building the future I planned for us, I pulled strings to secure a spot for you in the college you attended, though, you still had to go through some procedures but I had great faith in your abilities. Everything was lined up perfectly.”

His voice got quieter almost without him realizing it.

”That’s what I’d come back to tell you. But you were standing on that hill.” Seraphine closed her eyes tight.

”And you were looking at Ravyn like he was the only person in the whole world who existed.” Voren’s voice didn’t break at all. It just went very, very flat. ”And you told him you loved him right there in front of everyone.”

The silence after that felt really heavy in the room.

”That broke me.” He said it simply, like someone who had already grieved it so completely that there was nothing left to act out.

”I left that day with no intention of ever coming back. Not to the centenary pack, not to any of it.” He kept staring at the ceiling. ”But I still found a way to send you that admission letter. I made it anonymous because I feared you would reject it if it came directly from me, just as you rejected my other gifts. I still wanted you to have that chance.”

Seraphine’s breath caught somewhere in the middle of her chest.

”It was you?” Her voice came out small and a little unsteady. Her eyes stung and she blinked fast, trying hard to hold everything back.

Seraphine had received that admission letter believing it was some kind of scholarship.

For years she had turned it over in her mind, feeling quietly grateful about it, and somewhere in a private corner of herself she had even wondered if Ravyn had arranged it as a surprise for her.

She had held onto that possibility like it meant something important about him. Like maybe he really saw her. Like maybe he’d been paying attention all along.

And it had been Voren the whole time.

”I remember that day,” she said, her voice a bit steadier now but her throat still feeling tight.

”I remember looking at you and thinking something was completely different about you. The long hair was gone, your face looked harder, you barely smiled at all. You kept looking at me in this way I couldn’t figure out and I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Seraphine swallowed hard. ”The difference between you and Ravyn was so obvious that day. Like you two had grown up in totally different directions. And then you were just gone. That was the last time I saw you until the day I signed those divorce papers.”

Voren turned his head to actually look at her for the first time since he’d started talking. ”I cut my hair because of what you said. About me trying to look like Ravyn... and you were right.”

”He used to make me dress up like him most of the time just so I could play with you whenever his parents told him to but then I began to enjoy it, doing so whenever I was at the centenary pack out of choice.”

He let out a deep sigh. ”It was pretty clear they’d always wanted you for him, ever since you were little.”

He studied her face, taking in how she was barely holding it together, the glassy look in her eyes, that little crease between her brows she always got when something was hurting her.

”I’m a year older than Ravyn,” Voren said quietly. ”And I’m six years older than you. Life out in the city... it’s not the same as how things are in the pack.”

”The pack has its own kind of tough times but out there it’s all mental stuff. It grinds you down in ways you don’t always see coming.”

Something hard to read moved through his expression. ”But I kept coming back to the centenary pack anyway. I just made sure you never saw me around.”

”It wasn’t hard to do — you were always at the hospital, always on the move, always so focused on what you were doing. That’s why I kept a room at the Centenary Pack. It made it easier to stay close without getting in your space.”

Seraphine turned her head to look at him now, her eyes searching his face. He said it all so matter-of-factly, like keeping a quiet watch over her life from a careful distance was just something that had made sense to him, something that hadn’t needed any big justification.

”Even when you were in school,” Voren continued, ”I kept watch over you from afar, glad you were away from Ravyn, and yet afraid that getting close would make you hate me even more. You had enough on your plate already.”

His expression warmed up just a little around the edges. ”I planned to try getting close again after your graduation, but the worse happened.”